Part 2

The younger man smiled a very pleasant and winning smile. “You go fast,” said he. “And as in all fast motion, you create a current in your direction. Certainly, if I’m to consider your remarkable plan I’d best see the whole family. But there’s one probable and perhaps insurmountable obstacle. Who is your physician?”

“Haven’t such a thing in the house, at present,” said Mr. Clyde lightly. Then, in a graver tone, “Our old family physician died six months ago. He knew us all inside and out as a man knows a familiar book.”

“A difficult loss to replace. Knowledge of your patient is half the battle in medicine. You’ve had no one since?”

“Yes. Six weeks ago, my third boy, Charley, showed signs of fever and we called a distant cousin of mine who has a large practice. He felt quite sure from the first that it was diphtheria; but he so managed matters that we had no trouble with the officials. In fact, he didn’t report it at all, though I believe it was a very light case of the disease.”

Dr. Strong’s eyes narrowed. “At the outset, I’ll give you two bits of advice, gratis, Mr. Clyde. First, don’t ever call your doctor-cousin again. He’s an anarchist.”

“Just what do you mean by that?”

“It’s plain enough, isn’t it? Anarchist, I said: a man who doesn’t believe in law when it contravenes his convenience.”

Mr. Clyde rubbed his chin again. “Hum,” he remarked. “Well! the second gift of advice?”

“That you either respect the law yourself or resign the presidency of the Public Health League.” A distinct spot of red appeared on each of the elder man’s smooth cheeks. “Are you trying to provoke me to a quarrel?” he asked brusquely.

Then his expression mollified. “Or are you testing me?”

“Neither. I’m giving you my best and most honest advice. If you expect me to do as your substitute physician did, to guard your household in violation of the law which tries to protect the whole public equally, you’ve got the wrong man, and your boasted judgment has gone askew,” was the steady reply.

Mr. Clyde turned and left the room. When he returned his hand was outstretched.

“I’ve taken three swallows of cold air, and sent for a cab,” he said. “Shake hands. I think you and I will be friends. Only—train me a little gently at the outset. You’ll come with me?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Strong, and the two men shook hands.

During the drive Mr. Clyde expounded the virtues and characteristics of his native city to his new acquaintance, who was an excellent listener. Long afterward he found Dr. Strong acting on remembered and shrewdly analyzed information given in that first long talk. When they reached the big, rambling, many-windowed house which afforded the growing Clyde family opportunity to grow, the head of the household took his guest to an apartment in one of the wings.

“These two rooms are yours,” he said. “I hope you’ll be like Coleridge who came to visit with one satchel and stayed five years.”

“That remains to be seen to-morrow,” said Dr. Strong. “By the way, as I usually read myself to sleep, you might leave me some of your local health reports. Thus I can be looking the ground over.”

“All I’ve got you’ll find on the shelf over the desk. Good-night!”

Being of that type of man who does his thinking before and not after a decision, Mr. Thomas Clyde arose in the morning with an untroubled mind as to his new venture in household economics. Voices from the library attracted him thither, as he came downstairs, and, entering, he beheld his guest hedged in a corner by the grandmother of the Clyde household.

“Don’t tell me, young man,” the old lady was saying, in her clear, determined voice. “You’ve not slept well for ages! I know that kind of an eye.”

“Mrs. Sharpless has been diagnosing my case, Mr. Clyde,” called the guest, with a rather wry smile.

“You stay here for a while,” said she vigorously, “and I’ll cocker you up. I don’t believe you even eat properly. Do you?”

“Maybe not,” admitted the young man. “We doctors are sometimes less wise for ourselves than for others.”

“Oh! So you’re a doctor?” asked the grandmother with a shrewd, estimating glance.

“Dr. Strong is, I hope, going to stay with us awhile,” explained her son-in-law.

“Good!” said Mrs. Sharpless. “And I’ll take care of him.”

“It’s a strong inducement,” said Dr. Strong gracefully. “But I want a little more material on which to base a decision.”

“Between us Grandma and I ought to be able to answer any questions,” said Mr. Clyde.

“About sickness, then, in the family. I’ve already introduced myself to Mrs. Clyde and questioned her; but her information isn’t definite.”

“Myra seldom is,” observed Mr. Clyde. “It’s part of her charm. But Grandma Sharpless has been keeping a daybook for years. Everything that’s ever happened, from the cat’s fits to the dressmaker’s misfits, is in that series. I’ve always thought it might come in handy sometime.”

“Just the thing!” said Dr. Strong heartily. “Will you bring it, Mrs. Sharpless? I hope you’ve included your comment on events as well as the events themselves.”

“My opinions are generally pronounced enough so that I can remember ‘em, young man,” returned Mrs. Sharpless, as she departed for the desired volumes.

“That last remark of yours sounded a little like making fun of Grandma,” suggested Mr. Clyde, as the door closed after her.

“Far from it,” retorted Dr. Strong quickly. “Can’t you see that she’s a born diagnostician? She’s got the sixth sense sticking out all over her. Women more often have it than men. When a doctor has it, and sometimes when he’s only able to counterfeit it, he becomes great and famous.”

“Now that you speak of it, I remember my wife’s saying that when she was a girl and lived in the country, her mother was always being sent for in cases of illness.”

Dr. Strong nodded. “Heretical though it is to say so, I would rather have the diagnosis of such a woman, in an obscure case, than of many a doctor. She learns in the school of experience.”

Here, Mrs. Sharpless returned, carrying several diaries.

“These go five years back,” said she. “You’ll find ‘em pretty complete. We’ve had our fair share of trouble; measles, whooping-cough,—I thought Betsy was going to bark her poor little head off,—mumps, and chicken-pox. I nursed ‘em through, myself.”

“All of them?”

“All of ‘em didn’t have all the things because Tom Clyde sent the rest away when one of ‘em came down. All nonsense, I say. Better let ‘em get it while they’re young, and have done with it.”

“One of the worst of the old superstitions,” said Dr. Strong quietly.

“Don’t tell me, young man! Doctor or no doctor, you can’t teach me about children’s diseases. There isn’t any of those measly and mumpy ones that I’m afraid of. Bobs _did_ scare me, though, with that queer attack of his.”

“Bobs,” explained Mr. Clyde, “is Robin, one of the eight-year-old twins.”

“Tell me about the attack.”

“When _was_ it?” said the grandmother, running over the leaves of a selected diary. “Oh, here it is. Last March. It was short and sharp. Only lasted three days; but the child had a dreadful fever and pretty bad cramps.”

“Anything else?”

“Why, yes; though that idiot of a cousin of Tom’s snubbed me when I told him about it. The boy seemed kind of numb and slow with his hands for some time after.”

“And now?” So sharp came the question that Mr. Clyde glanced at the speaker, not without apprehension.

“Nothing left of it that I can see.”

“What had you in mind?” asked Mr. Clyde of the doctor, curiously.

“Speaking technically, anterior poliomyelitis.” Grandma Sharpless laughed comfortably. “I’ve noticed that a very long name like that usually means a sore toe or a pimple behind your ear. It’s the short names that bring the undertaker.”

“Shrewdly said, but exception noted,” said Dr. Strong.

“As for Bobs, I remember two cases I saw at Clinton years ago, like that attack of his. One of ‘em never walked afterward, and the other has a shriveled hand to this day.”

Dr. Strong nodded. “To come down nearer to English, that’s infantile paralysis, one of the mysteries of medicine. I’ll tell you some things about it some day. Your Bobs had a narrow escape.”

“You’re sure it is an escape?” asked the father anxiously.

“If Mrs. Sharpless is satisfied that there’s no trace left, I am.”

“Come in to breakfast,” said Mrs. Clyde, entering the room with a child attached to either hand. She was a tall, fair woman with the charm of fresh coloring and regular features, large, intelligent eyes, and a somewhat restless vigor and vitality. That her husband and children adored her was obvious. One had to look twice to perceive that she was over thirty; and even a careful estimate did not suggest her real age of thirty-seven.

During the introductory meal, Dr. Strong talked mostly to her, but he kept watching the children. And when it was over, he went to his study and made an inventory, in the order of age.

GRANDMA SHARPLESS; _Probably 70; sound and firm as a good apple; ought to live to be 90. Medical demands, none._

MR. CLYDE; _45; sturdy, restrained, active, phlegmatic: Tends to over-concentration; his own best physician._

MRS. CLYDE; _35; possibly more. Quick-witted, nervously active; eager, perhaps a little greedy of enjoyment. Somewhat intemperate; probably in eating, possibly in the use of tea or candy. An invariably loving mother; not invariably a wise one._

MAYNARD, _otherwise_ “MANNY” CLYDE; _14 years old; rangy, good-tempered, intelligent boy with a good physical equipment._ (_Note: watch his eyes._)

ROBIN, _alias_ BOBS _and_ JULIA (_mysteriously_) JUNKUM; _8-year old twins; Bobs, quick and flashing like his mother; Julia, demure, thoughtful, a little lethargic, and with much of her father s winning quality of friendliness._ (_Note: test Bobs for reflexes. Watch Julia's habits of play._)

CHARLES; _Aged 7; strong rough-and-tumble urchin, the particular pet of his grandmother._ (_Note: watch his hand motions._)

BETTINA, _alias variously_ BETSY, TOOTS, TWINKLES, _and the_ CHERUB; _4 years old; a Duck_ [here the human side of the doctor broke through], _though a little spoiled by her father._ (_Note: a mouth-breather; the first case to be considered._)

ADDENDUM; _Various servants, not yet identified or studied; but none the less members of our household community._

This catalogue Dr. Strong put away, with Grandma Sharpless’s day books, for further notation and amplification. Then he made three visits: one to the Health Bureau, one to the Water Department, and one to the City Engineer’s office, where he spent much time over sundry maps. It was close upon dinner-time when he returned, and immediately looked up Mr. Clyde.

“Well?” said that gentleman.

“Assuming that I accept your offer it should be understood that I’m only a guardian, not, a physician.”

“Meaning—”

“That I shall expect, in emergency, to call in such physicians or others as I consider best equipped for the particular task.”

“Very well. But why that phrase ‘or others’?”

“I’ve suggested before that I am a heretic. In certain instances I might want an osteopath, or, if I were dealing with a sick soul causing a sick body, I might even send for a Christian Scientist.”

“You have a refreshingly catholic breadth of view.”

“I’m trying to map out for you, a rich man, as good treatment as a very poor man would have in a hospital—that is, the best technical advice for every hygienic emergency that may arise—plus some few extensions of my own. Now we come to what is likely to prove the stumbling-block.”

“Set it up.”

“If I’m to take this job, I must be the autocrat, in so far as my own department is concerned. As you know, a city health official’s powers are arbitrary. He can burn your house down; he can imprison you; he can establish a military régime; he can override or undo the laws which control the ordinary procedure of life. Hygienic law, like martial law, supersedes rights in crises. You are asking me to act as health officer of your house. If I’m to do my work, I must have full sway, and I shall expect you to see that every member of your household obeys my orders—except,” he added, with a twinkle, “Grandma Sharpless. I expect she’s too old to take orders from any one. Diplomacy must be my agent with her.”

Mr. Clyde pondered. “That’s a pretty wide authority you’re asking.”

“Yes, but I shall use it only in extreme cases. I shall deal extensively in advice and suggestion, which you may take or leave as you choose. But an order will mean a life or death matter.”

“Agreed. Now, as to terms—”

“Let the terms go, until we see how much I can save you. Meantime, don’t overestimate what I undertake to do. Suppose you just run through the roster of what you consider the danger points, and I’ll tell you how far I can promise anything.”

“First, then, tuberculosis, of course.”

“Practical immunity from that, as long as you maintain your present standards of life.”

“Typhoid fever. As I told you, we’ve had one visitation.”

“There’s no reason why you should ever have another if the children will take ordinary precautions.”

“Diphtheria?”

“We can’t guarantee the youngsters against getting it, though we can do something to protect them. And if they do get it, we can be pretty certain of pulling them through.”

“Scarlet fever and measles?”

“Why not add whooping-cough and influenza? The former kills as many people as either scarlet fever or measles, and the latter twice as many. They’re all in the same category; medical science is pretty near helpless against their onset. You and your family may be as rigidly careful as they will; if the family next door, or a family at the farthermost end of the town, is careless, we’re as likely as not to suffer for their sins. All that I can promise, then, is hope against the occurrence of these diseases, and the constant watchfulness, when they come, which they call for but don’t always get.”

“Cancer?”

“Eternal vigilance, again; so that, if it does come, we may discover it in time.”

“Let me see,” mused Mr. Clyde; “what else is there? Oh—nervous and functional disorders.”

“Functional disorders mean, usually, either a bad start, or the heritage of some disease like scarlet fever or grippe, or excess or carelessness in living. I think your household is free from them; and it should remain free. As for nervous ailments, they commonly mean lack of self-discipline. It may be overindulgence in work”—he glanced down at his right hand—“or it may be overindulgence in play.” His glance wandered significantly to the doorway, through which the voice of Mrs. Clyde could be heard. “By the way, you’ve left out the greatest destroyer of all—perhaps because you’re beyond the danger point.”

“Tuberculosis is the greatest destroyer, isn’t it?”

“Not numerically. It is beaten out by the death record of intestinal poisoning in the very young. Your flock has run the gamut and come through with undiminished vitality. Two of them, however, are running life’s race under a handicap”—the father’s eyelids went up—“which I’ll take up shortly, when I’ve fully determined the causes. They can be repaired, one readily, the other in time. Finally, I hope to be able to teach them the gospel of the sound, clean mind in the sound, clean body. In a desert I might guarantee immunity from most of the ills that flesh is heir to. Amid the complexities of our civilization, disease and death are largely social; there is no telling from what friend the poison may come. No man can safeguard his house. The most he can hope for is a measure of protection. I can offer you nothing more than that, under our compact.”

“That is enough,” returned Mr. Clyde. He took from his inner pocket a folded paper, which he handed over to the young man. “There’s the contract, duly signed. Come in, Grandma.”

Mrs. Sharpless, entering the door, stopped on seeing the two men.

“Business, Tom?” she asked.

“Business that you’re interested in,” said her son-in-law, and briefly outlined his plan.

Grandma Sharpless shook a wise gray head. “I’m glad you’re going to stay, young man,” said she. “You need looking after. But as for the scheme, I don’t hold much with these new-fangled notions.”

“Perhaps it isn’t as new-fangled as you suppose,” returned the head of the household. “I’ve just given Dr. Strong a contract, and where do you suppose I got it?”

“That lawyer man of yours, probably,” said Mrs. Sharpless.

“Well, he looked it over and made sure it was sound in American law. But essentially it’s a copy of a medical contract in force before Hippocrates ever rolled a pill. It’s the old logical Chinese form, whereby the doctor’s duty is prescribed as warding off sickness, not curing it. Is that old-fashioned enough for you, grandma?”

“Chinese! My land!” said the old lady. “What do they know about sickness?”

“They know the one most important fact in all medical practice, ma’am,” said Dr. Strong, “that the time for locking the stable door is before the horse is stolen, and that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

II. IN TIME OF PEACE

“How is the Chinese plan working?” asked Mr. Thomas Clyde, stretching himself on the lounge in Dr. Strong’s study.

One week before, the doctor had been officially installed, on the Oriental principle of guarding the Clyde household against intruding sickness. In that time he had asked few questions. But Mr. Clyde, himself a close observer, noted the newcomer’s quietly keen observation of the children, and sometimes of Mrs. Clyde, as they met at mealtime. He had remarked, too, that the nervous tension of the man was relaxing; and guessed that he had found, in his new and unique employment, something of that panacea of the troubled soul, congenial work. Now, having come to Dr. Strong’s wing of the house by request, he smilingly put his question, and was as smilingly answered.

“Your Chinese physician has been making what the Chinese call a ‘go-look-see.’ In other but less English terms, a reconnaissance.”

“In what department?”

“Earth, air, and water.” The other waved an inclusive hand.

“Any results?”

“Oh, all kinds. Preliminary report now ready. I’d like to make it a sort of family conference.”

“Good idea! I’ll send for Mrs. Clyde and Grandma Sharpless.”

“Children out of town?” inquired Dr. Strong suggestively.

“Of course not. Oh, I see. You want us all. Servants, too?”

“The cook certainly. She should be very important to our council of war. Perhaps we might leave the rest till later.”

They gathered in the spacious study; and Grandma Sharpless glanced round approvingly.

“It’s like family prayers,” she commented.

“Concerted effort _is_ a sort of prayer, if it’s honest,” said Dr. Strong gravely. “I’ve never had much of an opinion of the man who gets up in meeting to beg the Lord for sound health for himself and family and then goes home and sleeps with all his windows closed.”

“There are no closed windows in this house,” said Grandma Sharpless emphatically. “I see to that, having been brought up on fresh air myself.”

“You show it,” returned the doctor pleasantly.

“And I’ve noticed that this house breathes deep at night, through plenty of open windows. So I can save my own breath on that topic. Just now I want to talk milk.”

“All our milk comes from my farm,” said the head of the family. “Cows are my hobby. You ought to see the place, Strong; it’s only ten miles out.”

“I have seen the place.”

“What do you think of it?”

“I think you’d better get your milk somewhere else for a while.”

“Why, Dr. Strong!” protested Mrs. Clyde. “There isn’t a woman among my friends who doesn’t envy me our cream. And the milk keeps sweet—oh, for days, doesn’t it, Katie?”

“Yes’m,” replied the cook. “Three days, or even four, in the ice-box.”

“Doesn’t that show it’s pure?” asked Mrs. Clyde triumphantly.

Dr. Strong shook his head. “Hardly proof,” he said. “Really clean milk will keep much longer. I have drunk milk from the Rochester municipal supply that was thirteen days old, and as sweet as possible. And that was in a hot August.”

“Thirteen days old! I’d be ashamed to tell it!” declared Grandma Sharpless, with so much asperity that there was a general laugh, in which the doctor joined.

“I shouldn’t care to try it with your milk. It is rich, but it isn’t by any means pure. Eternal vigilance is the price of good milk. I don’t suppose you inspect your farm once a month, do you, Mr. Clyde?”

“No; I leave that to the farmer. He’s an intelligent fellow. What’s wrong?”

“Scientifically speaking, from 300,000 to 500,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter.”

“Do we drink all those things when we have a glass of milk, Dr. Strong?” inquired “Manny” Clyde, the oldest boy.

“Four or five times that many for every teaspoonful,” said the doctor. “But it isn’t as bad as it sounds, Manny. One hundred thousand is considered a fairly safe allowance, though _very_ good milk—the kind I drank when it was thirteen days old—may contain only two or three thousand. When the count runs up to half a million or so, it shows that some kind of impurity is getting in. The bacteria in your milk may not be disease germs at all; they may all be quite harmless varieties. But sooner or later, if dirt gets into milk, dangerous germs will get in with it. The high count is a good danger signal.”

“If Bliss, the farmer, has been allowing dirt to get into the milk, he’ll find himself out of a place,” said Mr. Clyde decisively.

“Don’t be too hard on him,” advised the doctor. “His principal fault is that he’s getting the milk dirty trying to keep it clean. He is washing his cans with water from an open well near the barnyard. The water in the well is badly contaminated from surface drainage. That would account for the high number of bacteria; that and careless milking.”

“And on that account you advise me to give up the milk?” asked Mr. Clyde.

“Only temporarily. There are other more immediate considerations. For one thing, there are both diphtheria and typhoid near by, and the people on the farm are in contact with them. That’s dangerous. You see, milk under favorable conditions is one of the best cultures for germs that is known. They flourish and multiply in it past belief. The merest touch of contamination may spread through a whole supply, like fire through flax. One more thing: one of your cows, I fear, is tuberculous.”

“We might pasteurize, I suppose,” suggested Mrs. Clyde anxiously.

Dr. Strong returned a decisive negative. “Pasteurized milk is better than poisoned milk,” he said; “but it’s a lot worse than good raw milk. Pasteurizing simply means the semi-cooking of all the varieties of germs, good and bad. In the process of cooking, some of the nutritive quality is lost. To be sure, it kills the bad germs, but it also kills the good ones.”

“Do you mean that some of the germs are actually useful?” asked Mrs. Clyde.

“Very useful, in certain rôles. For example, the lactic acid bacteria would be unpopular with you, Mrs. Clyde, because they are responsible for the souring of milk. But they also perform a protective work. They do their best to destroy any bacilli of disease which may invade their liquid home. Now, when you pasteurize, you kill all these millions of defenders; and any hostile germs that come along afterward and get into the milk, through dust or other mediums, can take possession and multiply without hindrance. Therefore pasteurized milk ought to be guarded with extra care after the process, which it seldom is. I once visited a large pasteurizing plant which made great boasts of its purity of product, and saw flies coming in from garbage pail and manure heap to contaminate the milk in the vats; milk helpless to protect itself, because all its army of defense had been boiled to death.”

“If we are allowed neither to use our farm milk raw nor to pasteurize it, what shall we do with it?” inquired Mr. Clyde.