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child of sorrow, Petruccio, the helpless idiot, was
spared by the inscrutable will of God Almighty.
The whole Impasse Rousselle became infected,
there was diphtheria in every house and not a
family without several small children. Both the
hospitals for children were over-crowded. Even
had there been a vacant bed the chances of
getting admission for these foreign children
would have been next to none. So they had to
be attended by Arcangelo Fusco and myself, and
those we had no time to see, and they were many,
had to live or die as best they could. No doctor
who has gone through the ordeal of fighting
single-handed an epidemic of diphtheria amongst the
very poor with no means of disinfection either
for others or for himself, can think of such an
experience without a shudder, however callous
he may be. I had to sit there for hours, painting
and scraping the throat of one child after another,
there was not much more to be done in those
days. And then when it was no longer possible
to detach the poisonous membranes obstructing
the air passages, when the child became livid and
on the point of suffocation and the urgent
indication for tracheotomy presented itself, with
lightning rapidity! Must I operate at once,
with not even a table to put the child on, on this
low bed or on its mother’s lap, by the light of this
wretched oil-lamp and no other assistant than a
street-sweeper! Can’t I wait till to-morrow and
try to get hold of somebody who is more of a
surgeon than I am? Can I wait, dare I wait?
Alas! I have waited till to-morrow when it was
too late and seen the child die before my eyes.
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