name: Daniel Akill
41: THE 'X' CLUB or The Miracle of The 15 Murderers
26 November, 2007
The ‘X’ Club or the Miracle of the Fifteen Murderers
There is always an aura of mystery to the conclaves of medical persons. One may wonder whether the secrecy with which the fraternity surrounds its gatherings is designed to keep the lay-person from discovering how much they know, or how much they do not know.
Among the most mysterious of medical get-togethers in medical history were those held in New York City by a group of eminent doctors calling themselves members of The ‘X’ Club, which, by the way, is short for The ‘X-marks-the-spot' Club. Every three months for more than twenty years, that little band of astounding healers met at the Walton Hotel behind locked doors and engaged in unknown emprise till dawn.
The last dramatic meeting of The ‘X’ Club was held on a dismal, cold, and rainy night. Despite the hostile weather, all fourteen members attended for there was an added lure to that particular gathering. A new member, the fifteenth, was to be inducted into the group.
Dr. Samuel Warner was unusually young for a medical genius; that is, a recognized one, and he had never received a fuller recognition of his medical wizardry than his nomination, or election, as a member of The X Club; for the fourteen older members who had invited him to be one of them were leaders and masters in their various fields.
Indeed, the Club included half of Dr. Warner's then living heroes!
Having exchanged greetings with the eminent members, Dr. Warner sat in a corner and quietly accepted a highball – a cocktail with a slug of brandy. His face was tense, and he sat with his athletic body straight in the chair as if he were poised for a sprint rather than for a meeting.
At 8.00pm sharp, the venerable diagnostician, Dr. William Tick, who was the oldest member of The X Club, declared the meeting in session.
“Dr. Warner;” he began, “welcome. As you've been informed, The X Club has a single purpose. The members come together every three months to confess to a murder or some murders any of us may have committed since our last assembly. I am referring, of course, to medical murder; committed unwittingly, unknowingly, and un-intentionally; although it would be a relief to hear any one of us confess to a murder committed out of passion or anger rather than stupidity and/or clumsiness. We are concerned with those cases in which the doctor, by a wrong diagnosis or by demonstrably wrong treatment, medication, or operative procedure, killed a patient who would otherwise have continued to live.”
“I thank all of you for the honour and I appreciate that this is my first meeting,” the new member said impatiently, then raised his voice, “but I've got something very important to say!”
“A murder;” Old Tick remarked.
“Yes,” said the new member.
The old professor nodded and said, “Very good, and we shall be glad to hear about it, but we've got two murderers in the docket ahead of you, so I'm afraid you'll have to await your turn.”
It was at this point that the other members noticed there was something more than stage fright in the young surgeon's demeanor and tension. Certainty filled the room that Dr. Warner had come to his first session or meeting of The X Club with something boiling within him; something mysterious yet violent.
Dr. Philip Kurtiff, the eminent neurologist, put his hand gently on Dr. Warner's arm and said, quietly, “We've all done worse; whatever it is you've done.”
“If you want to hold Sam's hand, Philip, please do so in silence.” Old Tick remarked, “This is not a sanatorium for doctors with guilt complexes; it is a clinic for error. Our purpose is solely and purely scientific; period. The first case for tonight will be presented by Dr. Wendell Davis.”
There was total silence as the stomach specialist stood up. “I was called this summer – a couple of months ago – to the house of a steam fitter named Horowitz.” He said. “Senator Bell had given a picnic party for some of his poorer constituents and, as a result of the event, the three Horowitz children had food poisoning. The Senator felt responsible and I went to the Horowitz home at his earnest solicitation. I found two of the children, ages 11 and 9, vomiting considerably. I gave them a good dose of castor oil. The third child, age 7, was not quite as ill as the others. He looked pale, had a slight fever, and felt some nausea, but was not vomiting. It seemed that he, too, had been poisoned, but to a lesser degree. To be on the safe side, I prescribed an equal dose of castor oil for him as well.”
He paused, took a goodly sip from his glass, put it on the side table, and continued. “In the middle of the night the father called; alarmed over the condition of the youngest – the other two had much improved. I told him not to worry and that the child had been a little late in developing food poisoning but would unquestionably be better by morning. After I'd hung up, I felt quite pleased with myself for having prescribed castor oil as a prophylactic, but when I called again the next day to check on them I found the two older children had practically recovered. The seven-year-old, however, appeared to be very ill indeed. The child had a hundred and five-degree temperature. He was dehydrated, his eyes were sunken and circled, his expression pinched, his nostrils dilated, his lips cyanotic, and his skin cold and clammy.” He sat down all of a sudden and picked up his glass.
Dr. Milton Morris, the renowned lung specialist, spoke, “he died within a few hours?”
Dr. Wendell Davis nodded.
“Well,” Dr. Morris said quietly, “the child was probably suffering from acute appendicitis when you first saw him. The castor oil ruptured the appendix and, by the time you looked at him again, peritonitis had set in.”
“Yes,” Dr. Davis said slowly, “that was exactly what happened.”
“Murder by castor oil;” Old Tick cackled. “Dr. Kenneth Wood now has the floor.”
The noted surgeon stood up. “Well,” he turned to look at his hospital colleague, the new member, “you know how it is with these acute gall-bladders, Sam. The patient was brought in late at night with extreme pain in the right upper quadrant of her abdomen. It radiated to her back and right shoulder; completely characteristic of gall-bladder. I gave her medication for the pain, but by morning it was so severe that it seemed certain the gall-bladder had perforated. I operated, but there was nothing wrong with her damn gall-bladder. She died an hour later.”
“What did the autopsy show?” Dr. Sweeny asked.
“Wait a minute; you are supposed to figure that out!” Wood answered.
“Did you take her history?” Dr. Kurtiff asked.
“No; it was an emergency.” Dr. Wood replied.
“Aha!” Old Tick snorted. “There you have it! Blind man's buff again! Dr. Wood murdered a woman because he misunderstood the source of her pain. What, besides gall-bladder, can produce the sort of pain our eminent surgeon has just described?”
“Heart;” Dr. Morris answered quickly.
“You are getting warm;” said Dr. Wood, “the autopsy showed an infarction in the descending branch of the right coronary artery.”
“Murder by a sophomore;” Old Tick pronounced wrathfully. “Gentlemen, we have learnt nothing from these infantile crimes other than the fact that science and stupidity often, if not always, go hand in hand. However, we have with us tonight a young but extremely talented wielder of the medical saws; and I can assure you that, if he has committed a murder, it is bound to be what some of my female students call 'a honey' since he's been sitting there in the corner, fidgeting like a true criminal, and sweating with guilt and the desire to tell all. Gentlemen, I give you our new and youngest member, Dr. Samuel Warner.”
Dr. Warner stood up and mopped his neck with his wet handkerchief. “The patient was young, only seventeen, and amazingly talented." Warner said. “He wrote poetry. He'd been ill for two weeks when he called me. I had him moved into a hospital at once, when I saw how ill he was. The illness began with a severe pain in the left side of his abdomen. He was going to call me but the pain subsided after three days and after he'd taken some analgesics, so he thought he was well. However, it came back again two days later, more acute than before, and he began running a temperature. By the time he called, he'd developed diarrhea and there was pus and blood, but no amoeba or pathogenic bacteria. After reading the pathology reports, I made a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis. The symptoms did not seem to add up to appendicitis. I put him on Azulfadine and clear liquids. Despite the treatment, he got worse. He developed severe generalized abdominal tenderness and, after two weeks of careful treatment, died.”
“Did the autopsy report show you'd been wrong?” Dr. Wood asked him.
“There was no autopsy. His parents had complete faith in me and they believed I had done everything possible to save his life.”
“Then how do you know you were wrong?” Dr. Hume asked.
“By the simple fact that the patient died instead of being cured; I killed him by a faulty diagnosis and treatment!” Dr. Warner retorted, irritably.
“A logical conclusion,” said Dr. Sweeney.
“Yes, but not quite what it should have been.” Old Tick cackled again from where he sat. “Well, gentlemen; our young and talented new member obviously polished off a great poet. Indictments of his diagnosis and treatment are now in order.”
No one spoke for quite some time. The surgeon's tension and anxiety convinced them there was something missing in the case of the dead poet, so they approached the problem cautiously.
Dr. Rosson finally asked. “How long ago did the patient die?”
Dr, Warner replied. “Last Wednesday. Why?”
“You say his parents had complete faith in you,” Dr. Kurtiff said, “and yet you seem curiously worried about something; has there been an inquiry by the police?”
“No. I committed the perfect murder. Even you gentlemen may not be able to disprove my diagnosis and treatment.” Warner said; looking at them all, anxiously.
This brash challenge irritated a goodly number of the members.
“There is a catch to it.” Wood said slowly; his eyes boring into Warner's.
“The only catch, my good sirs,” Warner said quickly, “is the complexity of the case. You gentlemen evidently prefer the more simple type of crime; such as I have listened to so far, tonight.”
Sweeney said, softly, “Dr. Warner's case is a good example, or should I say a bad example, of a poorly researched, if not clumsily researched, diagnosis that led to the wrong conclusion followed by the wrong treatment.”
Warner flushed. “Would you mind backing up your accusations – and insults, too, to boot – with a bit of science?”
“You mentioned a general tenderness in the abdomen as one of the last symptoms;” Sweeny retorted, “that clearly indicates, or points to, peritonitis.”
“And to a perforation other than ulcer,” added Davis.
Warner mopped his face again with his now completely wet handkerchief, “I never thought of an object perforation…I mean; it never occurred to me.”
Kurtiff smiled and said, sarcastically, “Well, you should have, and it should have.”
“Come, come;” Old Tick interrupted, “let's not wander or bicker. What caused the perforation?”
“He was 17, and too old to be swallowing pins.” Kurtiff remarked.
“Well, the chances are, it wasn't a chicken bone.” Wood said, “It couldn't have been, because a chicken bone would have gotten stuck in the esophagus and never gotten through and down into the stomach.”
“There you are, Warner;” Old Tick said, “we've narrowed it down. The spreading of the tenderness meant a spreading infection. The course taken by the disease most probably indicated a perforation other than ulcerous, and that type of perforation meant an object swallowed. We have ruled out pins and chicken bones; which leaves us with only one other obvious and logical guess or choice.”
“A fish bone,” Sweeney said.
“Exactly,” Old Tick exclaimed, joyously!
All this time Warner had stood listening, tensely and intensely, to them affirming the diagnosis. Finally, Old Tick delivered the verdict. “I think, and believe, that Dr. Warner, our new and esteemed member and colleague, murdered his patient by treating him for ulcerative colitis when an operation for the removal of an abscessed fish-bone would have saved his life.”
Warner moved fast across the room to the closet where he had hung his hat and coat.
Wood called after him. “Where are you going? We've only just begun the meeting.”
Warner had put on his hat, and was putting on his coat; grinning like a school-boy who had just done something clever, or told a clever lie. “I haven't got much time.” He said. “You were right about there being a catch to the case. The catch, my good sirs, is that my patient is still alive, albeit barely. I've been treating him for ulcerative colitis, futilely, for two weeks, and I realized this afternoon that I had wrongly diagnosed his case, and that he would die within 24 hours unless I could find out what was really the matter with him. Thank you for your diagnosis; it will enable me to save my patient's life.”
By the time he'd finished what he was saying, he was out through the door.
Old Tick yelled after him, “Oh no, you don't! We're all coming with you!”
Two hours and a half later, after Dr. Samuel Warner had made some calls and the necessary arrangements from his office, all the distinguished members of The X Club stood in the main operating theatre of Saint Michael's Hospital; quietly watching as Dr. Warner operated. No one spoke, and the minutes passed by, slowly. The nurses quietly handed instruments and other items to the surgeon. Blood splattered their gloved-hands. The tension was so thick you could hold it between your thumb and fore-finger.
Fourteen great and eminent medical men – all good doctors as well as surgeons; and masters in their various fields – stared anxiously, hopefully, and expectantly at the tired and pinched face of the unconscious boy who had swallowed a fish-bone. No President, or King, or Pope – or Emperor, for that matter – ever lay in travail with more medical geniuses holding their collective breaths around him!
Suddenly, the perspiring surgeon slowly raised something aloft in his gloved fingers.
“Wash this off and show it to the gentlemen.” He said gently to the head nurse; then he took off his mask and walked slowly towards the wash-room.
Moments later, Old Tick stepped forward and took the object from the nurse's hand.
“A fish-bone;” he said, solemnly.
The X Club Members gathered around that small fish-bone; each of them taking it in turns and examining it as if it were a diamond the size of an ostrich's egg. They could, and would, have stood there for hours, or days; taking it in turns, and examining it; but it was Old Tick, again, who jolted them back to reality.
“Come, come, gentlemen; enough of this; give me the fish-bone! Nurse! Put this in a saline solution in a jar and have it sent to The X Club Mess Hall at the Walton Hotel. We'll add it to our other trophies collection.”
Dr. Warner had finished washing up and changing from surgical gown to his clothes. He walked up to them and said. “Gentlemen; this calls for a celebration; champagne and caviar; followed by the best meal the chefs at the Walton Hotel have ever prepared, with the best wine they've got in their cellar. Let's all go back to the meeting. Only this time, it'll be a meeting-cum-celebration.”
Three weeks later, the patient's recovery was complete.
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Excellent work gentlemen, I call you gentlemen because of the work you doAlways remember that that the battle is not won out on the front,but by all of your expertt work & Gods' Love for his healing man.nancy Smith@msnhotmail.com.
Nancy Smith | 01/12/2007, 19:37 [ Reply ]