"H. L. Gold - Fog" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gold H. L)

FOG
A story of medico-science
by C. C. Campbell

THE SUBJECT was staring up into the lights above him, shuddering, while the two doctors scrubbed
themselves thoroughly with green soap and donned sterile clothing, masks and rubber gloves. "You will
please attend to the anaesthesia, Dr. Rollins," Dr. Cobb said, switching on the great operating lights. The
seven bulbs were suspended so that no matter where the surgeon held his hand, there was no shadow
cast.
Rollins placed the ether cone over the patient's face. There was a hiss of ether, oxygen and nitrous
oxide mixing in a slight rush. The rubberized-leather bellows inflated and deflated rapidly, as the subject
breathed powerfully. Six seconds later he was completely anaesthetized, and lay breathing deeply and
evenly.
Immediately Cobb put on his thick glasses. With his weak old eyes close to the head of the patient,
he cut through the skin of the scalp, just above the orbital ridge, back above the ears, and stopped at a
point three inches apart just over the base of the skull. He flapped the scalp back to bare the bone. At
each temple and the sides back of the ears he bored a hole. Then, from each hole he cut through the
intervening bone until he connected the four holes, sawing regularly with a small blade attached to the
frame of a surgical jig saw.
When there was danger of touching the brain, he drew out the saw and inserted his fingers in the two
holes at the temples and jerked up sharply. The bone snapped at the sides and back; he used a bone
clipper to cut the hanging edges. Rapidly, his old hands acting automatically, he spread bone wax over
the cut surfaces of the skull, both on the head and on the part he held in his hand, to prevent excess
bleeding from the bone, which would prevent rapid mending.
Now the pulsating, gray brain was exposed to his cold gaze. Beneath the colorless, gelatinlike
covering, purple veins and bright-crimson arteries pulsed in time with the brain and heart.
He cut through the quivering, gelatin-like covering, consisting of three membranesтАФthe dura mater,
or outer membrane; the araelmoid, middle; and the pia nutter, innermost layer.
As he cut, he waited for the spinal fluid that filled the spaces between the membranes, protecting the
delicate brain from injury, to drain off. The three membranes he flapped back as he had flapped back the
scalp.
The dull-gray brain continued to pulse steadily, in time with the heart. Its two hemispheres and eight
of the lobes were clearly visible, the four other lobes hidden by the remainder of the skull.
His keen scalpel poised just over the two frontal lobes, near the fissure Sylvius.
With a deep groan, muffled by the ether cone, the subject tossed uneasily, as if some instinct had
warned him to move. Rollins jumped away from the ether tank to pin him down. He was too late.
Before Cobb could pull his terrified hand away, the patient's head rearing in dumb agony, had hit the
scalpel. Dr. Cobb jerked his hand awayтАФtoo late.
They stared in horror at the severed lobes as the knife sheared through them and they dropped to the
table. Cobb tore his eyes away from the terrible sight, gazed vacantly at Rollins for a moment, and
watched the bellows in fascination. It deflated rapidlyтАФfilled againтАФslowlyтАФ
His hands flashed as he picked up a hypodermic of adrenaline and plunged it into the heart. For
hours it seemed they stared in fear, until respiration gradually resumed its normal rate. Only then did they
breathe naturally again andтАФ
Rollins saw the old man's hands shaking tremulously. When he looked down, his own, which he
could not feel, were shaking as badly. His heart beat wildly at a tremendous rate.
"He's done for, isn't he?" he asked softly, dreading the answer.
"Yes," Cobb nodded quietly. "Too bad, because I expected a lot from this experiment. But no man
ever lived with his frontal lobes cut off."
"But he's breathing normally," Rollins pointed out.