Chapter 26: Examination

“We only care about getting the kid out of here alive enough for someone else to put on the fine touches. We work fast and we’re not dainty, because a lot of these kids who can stand two hours on the table just can’t stand one second more. We try to play par surgery on this course. Par is a live patient.”

— Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce (as portrayed by Alan Alda), MASH, Season 1, Episode 1: “Pilot.” Originally aired September 17, 1972, on CBS. Teleplay by Larry Gelbart, based on the 1970 film MASH, directed by Gene Reynolds. Series developed by Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds, adapted from the novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker (pseudonym of H. Richard Hornberger). Produced by 20th Century Fox Television for CBS. © 1972 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

The rain had not ceased for three days. But with it being New England, this was to be expected.

It came down in slow, endless curtains beyond the tall windows of Dean Ashcombe’s private office. The storm had turned the grounds of Dreibruch University into fields of black mud and silver puddles. Horses would have a hard days work ahead of them while men of affluence would likely find themselves on a golf course in such weather somehow.

Inside the school, there was warmth and no sign of hard labor or sport.

A log fire crackled softly in the hearth while the smell of bourbon and medicinal, sterilizing alcohol lingered heavily through the chamber.

Theophilus Ashcombe sat in a lounge chair in front of his broad walnut desk with sleeves rolled past the wrists. He was looking over his own notes while surrounded by scattered journals and anatomical diagrams filled with hurried notes written in several different hands.

Some pages bore sketches of musculature and severed limbs. Others held observations regarding pulse rates, appetite, blood pressure, and clotting time. Still more contained increasingly frantic hypotheses attempting to explain the impossible through respectable scientific language. He almost laughed as that was entirely impossible; of that, he was absolutely certain.

Across from him sat Dr. Wilhelm Kaufman.

The older physician held a glass of bourbon in one hand while reading through one of the reports with growing concentration.

At length, Kaufman exhaled.

“Nearly one hundred patients,” he muttered. “And not a single fatality directly linked to administration.”

Ashcombe leaned back slightly in his chair. “No confirmed fatalities,” he corrected.

Kaufman glanced upward.

“Is the distinction necessary?”

The Dean removed his spectacles and rubbed tiredly at his eyes.

“Three patients died after treatment, but all were already beyond intervention. Massive internal injuries. Organ failure. Infection too advanced for any restorative effect.” He paused carefully. “The compound did not save them, but neither did it appear to kill them. It was simply too late.”

Kaufman grunted faintly. “Medicine has always had limits.”

“Yes,” Ashcombe said quietly. “Sadly, it does.”

“What was done with their bodies? Were they autopsied?”

Ashcombe shook his head. “They were burned very soon after death. We do not know the limitations of the compound. I want to take no chances with the living or the dead until we know more. For all we know, the dead could become contagious by some unknown disease linked to the blood.”

Kaufman nodded his ascent at the idea. “Nevertheless, the progress seems to be moving apace.”

“I agree. Our medical limitations appear to be shifting.”

Silence settled briefly between them while rain whispered against the windows.

Upon the desk rested several categorized reports arranged with obsessive precision.

Words in capital letters said: BONE TRAUMA, SEVERE LACERATION, BLOOD LOSS., and SURGICAL RECOVERY.

Ashcombe reached for one of the journals and opened it.

“Compound administration consistently accelerates tissue restoration,” he said. “Bone fractures mend within days instead of weeks. Deep wounds close cleanly without significant infection, if at all. Blood loss stabilizes rapidly provided the patient survives initial trauma.”

Kaufman nodded once.

“What of the amputations? Were they all like the first?”

Ashcombe’s expression became more thoughtful as he recalled that first debacle.

“On that score, recoveries are more complicated.”

He turned several pages.

“The compound cannot regenerate entirely absent limbs.” His fingers tapped lightly against the paper as if to prove his point. “However, if the limb remains attached—even minimally—the restoration appears remarkably effective.”