The Cure for Smallpox

Abstract

The Cure for Smallpox Florence MacDonald (bio) Jenner—that's his name, Eric decides. It feels as if he's been trying to remember for days, and now he's got it, he's quite pleased with himself. But he can't remember what Jenner did; it has something to do with smallpox, that much he knows. Smallpox has been around for thousands of years, he remembers that too. But is it gone now, completely? He wishes he had time to look that up, but there's another contagion to confront now, travelling at the speed of hundreds of miles per hour, if it happens to catch a jet plane. Whereas the plague, he reminds himself as he straightens his tie and charges down the hospital corridor, travelled at twelve miles per day. On foot. He woke up this morning feeling muzzy, that was his mother's word for it. Trying to find his sea legs, his father would say. The last time he felt surrounded by disturbing and dangerous facts he was a senior resident, in his final year at a teaching hospital. He was on call, and without sleep of any restorative value for forty-two hours. He remembers being called to the ER where a young woman has just arrived by ambulance. Joyriding with her boyfriend, they hit a concrete abutment at one hundred kilometres an hour. Her boyfriend, perhaps mercifully, died instantly, but she has arrived with both femurs telescoped into her hips—not having worn her seat belt—the skin and bone of her cranium peeled back like the lid on a can of sardines, her skull open to expose her brain. It was Eric's job to medically stabilize this woman, this girl, and prepare her for the OR. But in his sleep-deprived state, he watched as the room turned a sparkly pink and the young woman sang like Joni Mitchell, a song about quitting this crazy scene. He joined her with his deep baritone—he had to—as the ER staff escorted her on a stretcher towards the OR. He's not entirely sure this happened, so he's never told a soul. Eric stops in the hall to have a conversation with a medical colleague whose name he can't remember. This man wants to be the next chief of staff for internal medicine. Eric too is applying for the position. His adversary is competitive in ways Eric cannot contend with: he jollies the nurses, makes them feel warm and cozy. Eric must remain on his toes. Sparkly. It's his turn to present at grand rounds this week but he doesn't have his [End Page 114] presentation ready. He plans to present a patient with adult Still's disease, a patient whose high, undulating fevers were being treated as malaria, so his swanning in with the correct diagnosis was something of a coup. But he hasn't got his slides ready for the presentation. Slides? How many times has Ronnie reminded him that he uses power point now? Why can he not remember? He shakes his head and a band of pain arcs from ear to ear like a headset playing horrible music. Were he and Ronnie supposed to go out to dinner tonight? That will have to be cancelled. Or was it last night? The last time they ate out was months ago, what with this virus swarming. Its mutations use Greek names like a pedigree, spreading themselves around like warm butter. He is swamped with work. He's in a swamp, sweating profusely. The air conditioning in this ancient wing of the hospital—slated to be torn down for a towering initiative involving space age technology—is about as effective as a thimble in a sinking boat. His colleague-slash-competitor is back: Eric proceeds to impress him with facts about the history of contagion. "Leprosy. Infecting the world for millennia." He talks about his time at the leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana. "An antebellum property, separated from the Mississippi River by wide, grassy levees. The last leprosarium in the world. It's gone now." He fails to make an impression. He should have followed Ronnie's suggestion...