Evidently I was different from other men in so far as
purity of blood was concerned.
Nakata, the cabin-boy, while ironing one day, mistook the calf of
his leg for the ironing-block and accumulated a burn three inches in
length and half an inch wide. He, too, smiled the superior smile
when I offered him corrosive sublimate and reminded him of my own
cruel experience. I was given to understand, with all due suavity
and courtesy, that no matter what was the matter with my blood, his
number-one, Japanese, Port-Arthur blood was all right and scornful
of the festive microbe.
Wada, the cook, took part in a disastrous landing of the launch,
when he had to leap overboard and fend the launch off the beach in a
smashing surf. By means of shells and coral he cut his legs and
feet up beautifully. I offered him the corrosive sublimate bottle.
Once again I suffered the superior smile and was given to understand
that his blood was the same blood that had licked Russia and was
going to lick the United States some day, and that if his blood
wasn't able to cure a few trifling cuts, he'd commit hari-kari in
sheer disgrace.
From all of which I concluded that an amateur M.D. is without honour
on his own vessel, even if he has cured himself. The rest of the
crew had begun to look upon me as a sort of mild mono-maniac on the
question of sores and sublimate. Just because my blood was impure
was no reason that I should think everybody else's was. I made no
more overtures. Time and microbes were with me, and all I had to do
was wait.
"I think there's some dirt in these cuts," Martin said tentatively,
after several days. "I'll wash them out and then they'll be all
right," he added, after I had refused to rise to the bait.
Two more days passed, but the cuts did not pass, and I caught Martin
soaking his feet and legs in a pail of hot water.
"Nothing like hot water," he proclaimed enthusiastically. "It beats
all the dope the doctors ever put up. These sores will be all right
in the morning."
But in the morning he wore a troubled look, and I knew that the hour
of my triumph approached.
"I think I WILL try some of that medicine," he announced later on in
the day. "Not that I think it'll do much good," he qualified, "but
I'll just give it a try anyway."
Next came the proud blood of Japan to beg medicine for its
illustrious sores, while I heaped coals of fire on all their houses
by explaining in minute and sympathetic detail the treatment that
should be given. Nakata followed instructions implicitly, and day
by day his sores grew smaller. Wada was apathetic, and cured less
readily. But Martin still doubted, and because he did not cure
immediately, he developed the theory that while doctor's dope was
all right, it did not follow that the same kind of dope was
efficacious with everybody. As for himself, corrosive sublimate had
no effect. Besides, how did I know that it was the right stuff? I
had had no experience. Just because I happened to get well while
using it was not proof that it had played any part in the cure.
There were such things as coincidences. Without doubt there was a
dope that would cure the sores, and when he ran across a real doctor
he would find what that dope was and get some of it.
About this time we arrived in the Solomon Islands. No physician
would ever recommend the group for invalids or sanitoriums. I spent
but little time there ere I really and for the first time in my life
comprehended how frail and unstable is human tissue. Our first
anchorage was Port Mary, on the island of Santa Anna. The one lone
white man, a trader, came alongside. Tom Butler was his name, and
he was a beautiful example of what the Solomons can do to a strong
man. He lay in his whale-boat with the helplessness of a dying man.
No smile and little intelligence illumined his face. He was a
sombre death's-head, too far gone to grin. He, too, had yaws, big
ones. We were compelled to drag him over the rail of the Snark. He
said that his health was good, that he had not had the fever for
some time, and that with the exception of his arm he was all right
and trim. His arm appeared to be paralysed. Paralysis he rejected
with scorn. He had had it before, and recovered. It was a common
native disease on Santa Anna, he said, as he was helped down the
companion ladder, his dead arm dropping, bump-bump, from step to
step. He was certainly the ghastliest guest we ever entertained,
and we've had not a few lepers and elephantiasis victims on board.
Martin inquired about yaws, for here was a man who ought to know.
He certainly did know, if we could judge by his scarred arms and
legs and by the live ulcers that corroded in the midst of the scars.
Oh, one got used to yaws, quoth Tom Butler. They were never really
serious until they had eaten deep into the flesh. Then they
attacked the walls of the arteries, the arteries burst, and there
was a funeral. Several of the natives had recently died that way
ashore. But what did it matter? If it wasn't yaws, it was
something else in the Solomons.
I noticed that from this moment Martin displayed a swiftly
increasing interest in his own yaws. Dosings with corrosive
sublimate were more frequent, while, in conversation, he began to
revert with growing enthusiasm to the clean climate of Kansas and
all other things Kansan.
