MILDEW ON THE LITTLE BLACK BAG

Abstract

Tradition has associated the physician with a little black bag. His mode of dress, his walk, his horse and buggy, or his automobile does not always notify the neighbors that the doctor is making a house call, but a man carrying a little black bag is the universal signal that here comes, or there goes, the doctor. The bag may be delapidated, stamped with the marks of age, and overworked, but it is equally stamped with the symbol of medicine. No one, not the patient or even the physician, knows exactly what the bag contains. It seems almost a trick of magic, the number and assortment of instruments, medicines, and needles that the doctor can extract one by one, from the bag's interior. The physician and his black bag are a team. Friends, inseparable. A house call without the bag is a disappointment to the patient, the family, and the