When the wound was made, & the instrument was withdrawn, the pain seemed undiminished, for the air that suddenly rushed into those delicate parts felt like a mass of minute but sharp & forked poniards, that were tearing the edges of the wound-but when again I felt the instrument-describing a curve-cutting against the grain, if I may so say, while the flesh resisted in a manner so forcible as to oppose & tire the hand of the operator, who was forced to change from the right to the left-then, indeed, I thought I must have expired. I attempted no more to open my Eyes,-they felt as if hermettically shut, & so firmly closed, that the Eyelids seemed indented into the Cheeks. The instrument this second time withdrawn, I concluded the operation over-Oh no! presently the terrible cutting was renewed-& worse than ever, to separate the bottom, the foundation of this dreadful gland from the parts to which it adhered-Again all description would be baffled-yet again all was not over,-Dr Larry rested but his own hand, & -Oh Heaven! L- then felt the Knife [rack]ling against the breast bone-scraping it!-This performed, while I yet remained in utterly speechless torture, I heard the Voice of Mr. Larry,-(all others guarded a dead silence) in a tone nearly tragic, desire every one present to pronounce if any thing more remained to be done; The general voice was Yes,-but the finger of Mr. Dubois-which I literally felt elevated over the wound, though I saw nothing, & though he touched nothing, so indescribably sensitive was the spot-pointed to some furtherequisition-& again began the scraping!-and, after this, Dr. Moreau thought he discerned a peccant attom-and still, & still, M. Dubois demanded attom after attom-My dearest Esther, not for days, not for Weeks, but for Months I could not speak of this terrible business without nearly again going through it! I could not think of it with impunity! I was sick, I was disordered by a single question-even now, 9 months after it is over, I have a head ache from going on with the account!
Many writers have used the composing process as a means of coming to terms with the terror of their illnesses. Samuel Pepys’s canonization of his bout with the kidney stone in his Diary is probably the most famous example, and recent writers as diverse as Norman Cousins and Audre Lorde have made their private medical ordeals public by composing confessional narratives.’ Kidney stones seem especially to have inspired early writers to take up their pens. Along with Pepys, Cicero, Montaigne, Horace Walpole, David Garrick, and Benjamin Franklin were sufferers who turned their illnesses into prose. Montaigne justified his medical journalizing thus:
For lack of a natural memory I make one of paper, and as some new symptom occurs in my disease, I write it down. Whence it comes that at the present moment, when I have passed through virtually every sort of experience, if some grave stroke threatens me, by glancing through these little notes, disconnected like the Sibyl’s leaves, I never fail to find grounds for comfort in some favorable prognostic from my past experience. << BACK
