Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch by Eva Shaw McLaren
page 35 of 118 (29%)
the same fortune! Eventually, when the need for professional skill came,
she was attended by the two latter doctors she had seen, for the case
proved to be a difficult one. Requiring the aid of greater
experience--for they were juniors--they sent for Dr. Inglis, with whose
help the lives of mother and child were saved. Thus the patient was
attended in the end by all the three women physicians whose advice she
had scorned. The child was the first boy in the large family, and the
mother's gratitude and delight after her recovery knew no bounds. It
found, however, Scotch expression, shall we say? in her tribute, "Weel,
I've had the hale three o' ye efter a', and ye canna say I hae'na likit
ye--_at the hinder en' at ony rate_!" "That woman kept us busy with
patients for many a day," writes one of the three. The bulky
mother-in-law of one patient expressed her admiration of the doctor and
her lack of faith in the justice of things by saying: "It's no fair Dr.
Inglis is a woman; if she'd been a man, she'd ha' been a millionaire!"
The doctor in whose memory these incidents live says of her friend: "No
item was too trivial, no trouble too great to take, if she could help a
human being, or if she could push forward or help a younger doctor."

If Elsie Inglis's intrepidity, determination, and invincible optimism
were well known to the public, the circle of her friends was warmed by
the truly loving heart with which they came in contact.

The following incident may show in some degree what a tender heart it
was. A friend whose brother died, after an operation, in a nursing home
in Edinburgh was staying at Dr. Inglis's house when the death occurred.
The body had to be taken to the Highland home in the North. The sister
writes: "My younger brother called for me in the early morning, as we
had to leave by the 3 a.m. train to accompany the body to Inverness.
When Dr. Inglis had said good-bye to us and we drove away in the cab, my
DigitalOcean Referral Badge