Larch, offering a toast. “Praise the Lord!” the conductor called. “You keep on saving those poor souls, Doc!”
“Danke schön!” the choir called after him. Of course they could not have been singing Mahler’s Songs on the Death of Children, but those were the songs Wilbur Larch had heard.
“In other parts of the world,” wrote Dr. Wilbur Larch upon his arrival in St. Cloud’s, “an ability to act before you think—but to act nonetheless correctly—is essential. Perhaps there will be more time to think, here in St. Cloud’s.”
In Boston, he meant, he was a hero; and he wouldn’t have lasted long—being a hero. He took the young girl and her mother to the South Branch. He instructed the house officer to write up the following:
“This is a thirteen-year-old girl. Her pelvis is only three and a half inches in diameter. Two previous, violent deliveries have lacerated her soft parts and left her with a mass of unyielding scar tissue. This is her third pregnancy as a result of incest—as a result of rape. If allowed to come to term, she can be delivered only by Caesarean section, which—given the child’s delicate state of health (she is a child), not to mention her state of mind—would be dangerous. Therefore, I’ve decided to give her an abortion.”
“You have?” the house officer asked.
“That’s right,” Wilbur Larch said—and to the nurse-anesthesiologist, he said, “We’ll do it immediately.”
The abortion took only twenty minutes; Larch’s light touch with ether was the envy of his colleagues. He used the set of dilators with the Douglass points and both a medium-sized and a small curette. There was, of course, no mass of unyielding scar tissue; there were no lacerated soft parts. This was a first, not a third pregnancy, and although she was a small girl, her pelvis was certainly greater than three and a half inches in diameter. These fictional details, which Wilbur Larch provided for the house officer, were intended to make the house officer’s report more convincing. No one at the Boston Lying-In ever questioned Larch’s decision to perform this abortion—no one ever mentioned it, but Dr. Larch could tell that something had changed.
He detected the dying of conversations upon his entering a room. He detected a general aloofness; although he was not exactly shunned, he was never invited. He dined alone at a nearby German restaurant; he ate pig knuckles and sauerkraut, and one night he drank a beer. It reminded him of his father; it was Wilbur Larch’s first and last beer.
At this time in his life Wilbur Larch seemed destined to a first-and-last existence; one sexual experience, one beer, one abortion. But he’d had more than one experience with ether, and the news, in the South End—that there was an alternative to Mrs. Santa Claus and the methods practiced “Off Harrison”—traveled fast. He was first approached while standing at a fruit-vendor’s cart, drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice; a tall, gaunt woman with a shopping bag and a laundry basket materialized beside him.
“I ain’t quick,” the woman whispered to Wilbur Larch. “What’s it cost? I ain’t quick, I swear.”
After her, they followed him everywhere. Sleepily, at the South Branch, he was always saying to one colleague or another, “It’s not my turn, is it?” And always the answer was the same: “She says you’re her doctor.”
A child of Maine, Wilbur Larch was used to looking into people’s faces and finding their eyes; now he looked down, or away; like a city person, he made their eyes hunt for his. In the same mail with his catalogue of surgical instruments from Fred Halsam & Co. he received a copy of Mrs. W. H. Maxwell’s A Female Physician to the Ladies of the United States. Until late in 187_, Mrs. Maxwell had operated a woman’s clinic in New York. “The authoress has not established her hospital simply for the benefit of lying-in women,” she wrote. “She believes that in
“Danke schön!” the choir called after him. Of course they could not have been singing Mahler’s Songs on the Death of Children, but those were the songs Wilbur Larch had heard.
“In other parts of the world,” wrote Dr. Wilbur Larch upon his arrival in St. Cloud’s, “an ability to act before you think—but to act nonetheless correctly—is essential. Perhaps there will be more time to think, here in St. Cloud’s.”
In Boston, he meant, he was a hero; and he wouldn’t have lasted long—being a hero. He took the young girl and her mother to the South Branch. He instructed the house officer to write up the following:
“This is a thirteen-year-old girl. Her pelvis is only three and a half inches in diameter. Two previous, violent deliveries have lacerated her soft parts and left her with a mass of unyielding scar tissue. This is her third pregnancy as a result of incest—as a result of rape. If allowed to come to term, she can be delivered only by Caesarean section, which—given the child’s delicate state of health (she is a child), not to mention her state of mind—would be dangerous. Therefore, I’ve decided to give her an abortion.”
“You have?” the house officer asked.
“That’s right,” Wilbur Larch said—and to the nurse-anesthesiologist, he said, “We’ll do it immediately.”
The abortion took only twenty minutes; Larch’s light touch with ether was the envy of his colleagues. He used the set of dilators with the Douglass points and both a medium-sized and a small curette. There was, of course, no mass of unyielding scar tissue; there were no lacerated soft parts. This was a first, not a third pregnancy, and although she was a small girl, her pelvis was certainly greater than three and a half inches in diameter. These fictional details, which Wilbur Larch provided for the house officer, were intended to make the house officer’s report more convincing. No one at the Boston Lying-In ever questioned Larch’s decision to perform this abortion—no one ever mentioned it, but Dr. Larch could tell that something had changed.
He detected the dying of conversations upon his entering a room. He detected a general aloofness; although he was not exactly shunned, he was never invited. He dined alone at a nearby German restaurant; he ate pig knuckles and sauerkraut, and one night he drank a beer. It reminded him of his father; it was Wilbur Larch’s first and last beer.
At this time in his life Wilbur Larch seemed destined to a first-and-last existence; one sexual experience, one beer, one abortion. But he’d had more than one experience with ether, and the news, in the South End—that there was an alternative to Mrs. Santa Claus and the methods practiced “Off Harrison”—traveled fast. He was first approached while standing at a fruit-vendor’s cart, drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice; a tall, gaunt woman with a shopping bag and a laundry basket materialized beside him.
“I ain’t quick,” the woman whispered to Wilbur Larch. “What’s it cost? I ain’t quick, I swear.”
After her, they followed him everywhere. Sleepily, at the South Branch, he was always saying to one colleague or another, “It’s not my turn, is it?” And always the answer was the same: “She says you’re her doctor.”
A child of Maine, Wilbur Larch was used to looking into people’s faces and finding their eyes; now he looked down, or away; like a city person, he made their eyes hunt for his. In the same mail with his catalogue of surgical instruments from Fred Halsam & Co. he received a copy of Mrs. W. H. Maxwell’s A Female Physician to the Ladies of the United States. Until late in 187_, Mrs. Maxwell had operated a woman’s clinic in New York. “The authoress has not established her hospital simply for the benefit of lying-in women,” she wrote. “She believes that in
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