lifted his marker and wrote
Napoléon
below the bee, and
Saint-Jacques
and
Pilgrims
below the scallop shell. Then he turned to Nicole again. ‘So the shell and the bee are both what?’
‘Symbols,’ she said simply.
‘Exactly. So, if those two are symbols, it would be reasonable to assume that the other items are also symbols, or at least symbolic of something, rather than being important in their own right.’
‘I see what you mean.’ She stared at the board where he had written
Old Medicine
next to the antique stethoscope. ‘So the stethoscope doesn’t have any meaning in itself. It’s symbolic of something like early medicine.’ She frowned. ‘When was the stethoscope invented?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Well, let’s see if we can find out.’
Enzo picked his way back across the room to stand behind her as she put Google to work. She entered
Antique Stethoscopes
into the search window and hit the return key. The search brought up one hundred and four results, the first one of which was a site called ANTIQUE MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS . Nicole selected it and brought up a website headed, ALEX PECK—MEDICAL ANTIQUES . She scrolled quickly down the page to find the first mention of
antique stethoscopes
, but it was just a list of early types and manufacturers. She scrolled further down to the second mention, and here found a link to two specific types of stethoscope. She clicked on the first, and up came a page on the Laennec stethoscope. She read out the entry. ‘Ac. 1820s Laennec monaural stethoscope turned in three parts from cedar. Blah, blah….’ She skimmed through the rest, then, ‘René Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec—1781 to 1826—invented the stethoscope around 1816.’ She paused. ‘Just what I’ve always wanted to know. It doesn’t really tell us much, though.’
‘It’s a date,’ Enzo said. ‘1816.’ And he went to mark it up on the board beside the stethoscope. He heard Nicole tapping away at the keyboard behind him. And then an exclamation.
‘Oh, my God!’
Enzo turned, alarmed. ‘What is it?’
Her face was flushed with excitement. ‘I put Laennec’s full name into the search engine, and the first of about a thousand links that came up was for the Catholic Encyclopaedia. You’re not going to believe this. The entry for Laennec says that while studying in Paris he became a pupil of a Doctor Corvisart, who is described here as Napoléon’s great physician.’ She looked up, eyes shining. ‘Napoléon!’
Enzo grinned. ‘Clever girl.’ He immediately turned and, in the centre of the whiteboard, wrote in bold letters,
Napoléon’s Doctor
. Underneath it, the name
Corvisart
. He drew a circle around the names and pointed arrows to the circle from both the stethoscope and the bee.
‘What about the thigh bone?’ Nicole said. ‘If it’s really a piece from an anatomical skeleton, then that’s a medical allusion, too, isn’t it?’
‘You’re right,’ Enzo said, and he drew another arrow from the femur to the circle in the centre of the board. So there were now three arrows pointing to it. ‘It’s working,’ he said. ‘This is what’s supposed to happen.’
And then they hit a dead end.
Nicole spent the next hour chasing down dozens of websites about the physician. In the space of that hour they learned nearly everything about the man there was to know, but nothing that brought enlightenment. Napoléon was quoted as saying of him: “I do not believe in medicine, but I believe in Corvisart.”
‘I think I remember reading somewhere that Napoléon had an ulcer, and suffered terribly from piles,’ Enzo said.
Nicole made a face. ‘Monsieur Macleod! Too much information!’
Enzo retired to his recliner and stared at the whiteboard, listening to the clackety-clack of Nicole’s keyboard tapping away the seconds of his life. What possible relevance could Napoléon’s doctor have? He let his eyes wander to the Ordre de la Libération. Perhaps it had a website. He
Napoléon
below the bee, and
Saint-Jacques
and
Pilgrims
below the scallop shell. Then he turned to Nicole again. ‘So the shell and the bee are both what?’
‘Symbols,’ she said simply.
‘Exactly. So, if those two are symbols, it would be reasonable to assume that the other items are also symbols, or at least symbolic of something, rather than being important in their own right.’
‘I see what you mean.’ She stared at the board where he had written
Old Medicine
next to the antique stethoscope. ‘So the stethoscope doesn’t have any meaning in itself. It’s symbolic of something like early medicine.’ She frowned. ‘When was the stethoscope invented?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Well, let’s see if we can find out.’
Enzo picked his way back across the room to stand behind her as she put Google to work. She entered
Antique Stethoscopes
into the search window and hit the return key. The search brought up one hundred and four results, the first one of which was a site called ANTIQUE MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS . Nicole selected it and brought up a website headed, ALEX PECK—MEDICAL ANTIQUES . She scrolled quickly down the page to find the first mention of
antique stethoscopes
, but it was just a list of early types and manufacturers. She scrolled further down to the second mention, and here found a link to two specific types of stethoscope. She clicked on the first, and up came a page on the Laennec stethoscope. She read out the entry. ‘Ac. 1820s Laennec monaural stethoscope turned in three parts from cedar. Blah, blah….’ She skimmed through the rest, then, ‘René Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec—1781 to 1826—invented the stethoscope around 1816.’ She paused. ‘Just what I’ve always wanted to know. It doesn’t really tell us much, though.’
‘It’s a date,’ Enzo said. ‘1816.’ And he went to mark it up on the board beside the stethoscope. He heard Nicole tapping away at the keyboard behind him. And then an exclamation.
‘Oh, my God!’
Enzo turned, alarmed. ‘What is it?’
Her face was flushed with excitement. ‘I put Laennec’s full name into the search engine, and the first of about a thousand links that came up was for the Catholic Encyclopaedia. You’re not going to believe this. The entry for Laennec says that while studying in Paris he became a pupil of a Doctor Corvisart, who is described here as Napoléon’s great physician.’ She looked up, eyes shining. ‘Napoléon!’
Enzo grinned. ‘Clever girl.’ He immediately turned and, in the centre of the whiteboard, wrote in bold letters,
Napoléon’s Doctor
. Underneath it, the name
Corvisart
. He drew a circle around the names and pointed arrows to the circle from both the stethoscope and the bee.
‘What about the thigh bone?’ Nicole said. ‘If it’s really a piece from an anatomical skeleton, then that’s a medical allusion, too, isn’t it?’
‘You’re right,’ Enzo said, and he drew another arrow from the femur to the circle in the centre of the board. So there were now three arrows pointing to it. ‘It’s working,’ he said. ‘This is what’s supposed to happen.’
And then they hit a dead end.
Nicole spent the next hour chasing down dozens of websites about the physician. In the space of that hour they learned nearly everything about the man there was to know, but nothing that brought enlightenment. Napoléon was quoted as saying of him: “I do not believe in medicine, but I believe in Corvisart.”
‘I think I remember reading somewhere that Napoléon had an ulcer, and suffered terribly from piles,’ Enzo said.
Nicole made a face. ‘Monsieur Macleod! Too much information!’
Enzo retired to his recliner and stared at the whiteboard, listening to the clackety-clack of Nicole’s keyboard tapping away the seconds of his life. What possible relevance could Napoléon’s doctor have? He let his eyes wander to the Ordre de la Libération. Perhaps it had a website. He
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