The Stethoscope (short story)

   Once upon a time…

Do not all fairy tales begin with this phrase? I don’t know if I tell you a fairy tale, it is up to you to decide.

   Once upon a time I left the Fine Medical Instruments Workshop as a stethoscope. Although we were not a very rare breed there were fewer doctors those days than in the modern medical world of today.
I was fortunate to be bought by a very young doctor who just finished his medical study at the university. I did not know of course what the expectations of my duties were and this way we were able to grow together.

   I still remember the very first patient, it scared me to death. I was held against the chest of a man covered in thick black bushy hair and I was pushed in between it. I made a strange sound which worried the doctor who took me out of his ears, shook me and held me again to the heart of his patient. This time I was prepared and the doctor could listen to the heart which wasn't well even without my extra noise.

Fortunately the diagnosis was correct and the patient recovered with the right medication.

   My doctor was a very shy and humble man and started a practice in a small village in Devon.

He could have become a rich doctor in a city but preferred the village with hard working people who could not always afford tot pay their bills. But he did not mind. Curing diseases and comforting was his main goal.

   At first the villagers did not trust the new doctor but they did not have a choice; the former doctor died of old age, still doing his work.

The practice was old but apart from a new stethoscope, everything was still useful , including all the pots, bottles, ointments and liquids with their typical smell which I learned to love.

It did not take long before the new doctor was accepted and appreciated.

   He got used to the sturdy people and their beautiful but often very difficult to understand accent. We both learned to love it.

We also learned about the characters of the patients who came in various sorts and sizes. Let me name a few:

   The Librarian, a tall and very skinny spinster with a long and thin nose with on top a pince-nez, in my opinion held in place by a thick hair. I could not think of any other reason why she did not remove the hair... Through the glasses of her pince-nez she looked at the doctor as if he was a strange book from her library, wondering who put it there without her permission. My doctor always felt uncomfortable with her and we both dreaded the moment he had to listen to her lungs; she always suffered from some sort of cold. The skin of her back (and probably everywhere else) was extremely wrinkly and needed to be pushed aside to allow me to come as close as possible to her lungs. And what a relief if my job was done!

   The teacher, he was a very sad person; unattractive, always in a gloomy mood, never smiling, walking with a bowed back and never looking anyone in the eyes. Of course he was not married and lived in a small room in the house of his landlady.

He did not have any control over the children of the very fist classes and these children, often from very large families, took advantage of his humourless character. Without doubt the teacher was very unhappy. That is why he often visited the doctor feeling unwell and depressed.

   I thought that he had special feelings for my also unmarried doctor, in those days a criminal offence. His eyes were always fixed on the doctor's hands and he blushed very quickly. But my doctor showed no interest and the teacher left even more gloomy than he arrived. Poor man.

   He could have lived a better life because the daughter of one of the sheep farmers, and I never understood why but the doctor said that women are never to understand, was very much in love with the teacher and took great effort to attract his attention but to no avail.

And she was so disappointed the day he did not arrive at school and his landlady found him and his scarce luggage gone.

   The midwife.... oh did I like her! She was big, round, cheerful and had a bosom like a side table! A perfect place to hold the babies she delivered. But she also loved to embrace the doctor who got smothered in this voluptuous amount of female flesh and warm heartedness.

   Her voice was deep and loud. She was never interested in other peoples opinion about her, she was who she was and was a very good midwife too! Not at all jealous if the doctor delivered a baby. “I can't do th'm all on my own!” is what she said. With very difficult births, she worked side by side with the doctor and hugged everybody in the room when a new born villager started to scream at his very tired but happy mother.

   She spread a smell of babies and cakes, the latter she often took to the practice and they were delicious according my doctor. Although he never admitted, he was extremely fond of this lovely lady that cycled in fast speed from one baby to the other, waving and smiling at at least two generations she delivered.

   All these people have long been gone, like my doctor and many other villagers.
The young ones moved to the cities for jobs with less long hours and better payments. The elderly stayed here until they passed away. The new villagers who moved from the cities to the countryside, brought there own cars and preferred their own specialists in town.

   Soon there were no patients left for my doctor and he died as poor as a church mouse but without regrets. He lived his full life as he always attended to do and I admired him for that.

Photo: @__ephemeral_6090 (Instagram)

Because there was no other doctor needed in the village and no one knew of any next of kin, the practice was never sold and nothing ever changed.

   I still hang at the wall with the stethoscope of the doctor before mine.

The pots and bottles are still here but the smell of dust and decay overtook the smell of ointments and liquids. Silence overtook the sound of all different Devonshire voices, the typical accent is never to be heard again.

   We are a forgotten era in a new modern world.

Word of thanks:  the photo of @__ephemeral_6090 (Instagram) inspired me to write this story and I was given persmission to use the photo as an illustration for which I am very gratefull. Thank you!!

Note: the story is pure fiction! A figment of my imagination!

Helen