the view of the uncharitableness of general society towards the erring, it is fit that the unfortunate should have some sanctuary to which to flee, in whose shade they may have undisturbed opportunity to reflect, and hiding forever their present unhappiness, nerve themselves to be wiser in the future. The true physician’s soul cannot be too broad and gentle.”
Of course, Wilbur Larch saw that the South End was mercilessly full of evidence of uncharitableness towards the erring and that he had become, in the view of the erring, the sanctuary to which to flee.
Instead, he fled. He went home to Maine. He applied to the Maine State board of medical examiners for a useful position in obstetrics. While they sought a position for him in some developing community, they liked his Harvard degree and made him a member of their board. Wilbur Larch awaited his new appointment in his old hometown of Portland, that safe harbor—the old mayor’s mansion where he had spent the half life of his childhood, the salty boardinghouse where he had caught his dose of life from Mrs. Eames.
He wondered if he would miss the South End: the palmist who had assured him he would live a long time and have many children (“Too many to count!”), which Larch understood as confirmation that, in seeking to become an obstetrician, he had made the right choice; the fortune teller who had told young Larch that he would never follow in his father’s footsteps, which was all right with Wilbur Larch, who had no knowledge of lathes, no fondness for drink, and was sure that his liver wouldn’t be the culprit of his final undoing; and the Chinese herb doctor who had told Larch that he could cure the clap by applying crushed green leaves and bread mold to his penis. The quack was almost right. The chlorophyll in the plants would destroy the bacteria that contributed to gangrene but it wouldn’t kill the dance couples in the pus cells, those lively gonococci; the penicillin, extracted from some bread molds, would. Years later, Larch would dream that if only Dr. Harold Ernst, Harvard Medical School’s bacteriologist and curve-ball pitcher, and the Chinese herb doctor from the South End had put their heads together . . . well, what wouldn’t they have cured?
“They would not have cured orphans,” wrote Dr. Larch when he woke from that dream.
And the orphans of the South End: Wilbur Larch remembered them from the branch hospitals of the Boston Lying-In. In 189_, less than half the mothers were married. In the institution’s charter it was written that no patient would be admitted “unless a married woman or one recently widowed, and known to be of good moral character.” The benevolent citizen groups who had first contributed thousands of dollars to provide for a lying-in hospital for the poor . . . they had insisted; but in truth almost everyone was admitted. There was an astonishing number of women claiming to be widows, or claiming marriage to sailors off to sea—gone with the Great Eastern, Wilbur Larch used to imagine.
In Portland, he wondered, why were there no orphans, no children or women in need? Wilbur Larch did not feel of much use in the tidy town of Portland; it is ironic to think that while he waited to be sent somewhere where he was needed, a prostitute’s letter—about abandoned women and orphans—was making its way to him from St. Cloud’s.
But before the letter arrived, Wilbur Larch had another invitation. The pleasure of his company was requested by a Mrs. Channing-Peabody of the Boston Channing-Peabodys, who spent every summer on their coastal property just east of Portland. The invitation suggested that perhaps young Larch missed the Boston society to which he’d doubtlessly become accustomed and would enjoy some tennis or croquet, or even some sailing, before a dinner with the Channing-Peabodys and friends. Larch had been accustomed to no Boston society. He associated the Channing-Peabodys with Cambridge, or with Beacon
Of course, Wilbur Larch saw that the South End was mercilessly full of evidence of uncharitableness towards the erring and that he had become, in the view of the erring, the sanctuary to which to flee.
Instead, he fled. He went home to Maine. He applied to the Maine State board of medical examiners for a useful position in obstetrics. While they sought a position for him in some developing community, they liked his Harvard degree and made him a member of their board. Wilbur Larch awaited his new appointment in his old hometown of Portland, that safe harbor—the old mayor’s mansion where he had spent the half life of his childhood, the salty boardinghouse where he had caught his dose of life from Mrs. Eames.
He wondered if he would miss the South End: the palmist who had assured him he would live a long time and have many children (“Too many to count!”), which Larch understood as confirmation that, in seeking to become an obstetrician, he had made the right choice; the fortune teller who had told young Larch that he would never follow in his father’s footsteps, which was all right with Wilbur Larch, who had no knowledge of lathes, no fondness for drink, and was sure that his liver wouldn’t be the culprit of his final undoing; and the Chinese herb doctor who had told Larch that he could cure the clap by applying crushed green leaves and bread mold to his penis. The quack was almost right. The chlorophyll in the plants would destroy the bacteria that contributed to gangrene but it wouldn’t kill the dance couples in the pus cells, those lively gonococci; the penicillin, extracted from some bread molds, would. Years later, Larch would dream that if only Dr. Harold Ernst, Harvard Medical School’s bacteriologist and curve-ball pitcher, and the Chinese herb doctor from the South End had put their heads together . . . well, what wouldn’t they have cured?
“They would not have cured orphans,” wrote Dr. Larch when he woke from that dream.
And the orphans of the South End: Wilbur Larch remembered them from the branch hospitals of the Boston Lying-In. In 189_, less than half the mothers were married. In the institution’s charter it was written that no patient would be admitted “unless a married woman or one recently widowed, and known to be of good moral character.” The benevolent citizen groups who had first contributed thousands of dollars to provide for a lying-in hospital for the poor . . . they had insisted; but in truth almost everyone was admitted. There was an astonishing number of women claiming to be widows, or claiming marriage to sailors off to sea—gone with the Great Eastern, Wilbur Larch used to imagine.
In Portland, he wondered, why were there no orphans, no children or women in need? Wilbur Larch did not feel of much use in the tidy town of Portland; it is ironic to think that while he waited to be sent somewhere where he was needed, a prostitute’s letter—about abandoned women and orphans—was making its way to him from St. Cloud’s.
But before the letter arrived, Wilbur Larch had another invitation. The pleasure of his company was requested by a Mrs. Channing-Peabody of the Boston Channing-Peabodys, who spent every summer on their coastal property just east of Portland. The invitation suggested that perhaps young Larch missed the Boston society to which he’d doubtlessly become accustomed and would enjoy some tennis or croquet, or even some sailing, before a dinner with the Channing-Peabodys and friends. Larch had been accustomed to no Boston society. He associated the Channing-Peabodys with Cambridge, or with Beacon