Of human bandage

I was the worst medical student in the world. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago, when, on a plane from Osaka to London, I was asked to look at a passenger who had collapsed and was lying unconscious in the rear cabin. Having issued the required warning that I was not a real doctor, that my knowledge of medicine was rusty and my knowledge of medical practice non-existent, I agreed to help because there wasn't another doctor on the plane. I found the man sprawled across two seats, out to the world. His pulse was strong and regular, so no coronary. I tried to find out if he was a diabetic but nobody knew him. When I smelled his breath, it was very beery. I noticed that he was very warmly dressed, prepared for the English winter with a heavy tweed suit, a thick sweater and, peeping out from the bottom of his trousers, long woolly underwear. I advised the crew to put him somewhere cool and let him sleep it off. When I returned to my seat, I began to worry. What if he was a case of Kreutzer–Sonata syndrome and that, even now, he was slowly turning green and his fingers were falling off, one by one? Perhaps I should have found a penknife and with the help of the attractive blonde attendant, performed a craniotomy — or was it a craniectomy? Later, when I was told by the attendants that my patient had recovered completely, I was most relieved that my original diagnosis of over-indulgence had been correct. Even later, it occurred to me that he might have been a very clever malingerer who had feigned the attack to acquire a first-class seat and escape from some boring companions. I need to explain now how I became a medical student. I entered medical studies in the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1942, because that was the only subject close to science for which bursaries were available. When, at the end of the second year, it was discovered that I would be too young to qualify as a doctor at the end of the course, I diverted to a medical science degree in anatomy and physiology. Then I stayed on for a further two years doing research in cytology and cytogenetics while, on the side, actively pursing my interests in palaeontology and …