Halo-istic Medicine
by Alasdair McPherson
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Swearwords: None.
Description: A dark tale on a bright subject!
_____________________________________________________________________
I was brought up in a little half-highland village where the pillars of the community were the doctor, the minister and the head teacher of the primary school. My dad was a gamekeeper outside their magic circle but strongly influenced by them. He also came under the influence of the Scottish toffs who came to shoot the grouse he carefully reared. The English toffs had trouble distinguishing him from a tree or other inanimate object – especially when the time came to give him a tip!
He could have taken either path, my Dad, under the competing pulls of wealth and education. He quietly assessed the people he met and decided that the doctor and the others were leading happier, more fulfilled, lives than the wealthy sportsmen. He kept me at my books always stressing the importance of a good education.
The road out of the village follows the line of the Highland Boundary Fault so we were, technically, in the highlands even although you could be in Glasgow in an hour and a half if you picked the right ferry. In earlier times this proximity had attracted millionaires to settle amongst us. Having polluted the city with their manufactories they were keen to enjoy our fresh air. By the time I was growing up they had been supplanted by tree-huggers.
I was what used to be called ‘a lad of parts’. I was clever and the nervous tension that froze my classmates when it came to exam time acted like a stimulant for me: my mind was not only clearer but seemed to work twice as fast as normal when I was faced with an exam paper. In practically every other way I was a total bumpkin – what they call a ‘nerd’ nowadays. Everyone agreed that I was going to university but the only subjects I knew were taught there were divinity, medicine and education.
The head teacher was a lovely lady but utterly pedantic; there was only one way to do anything, in her opinion. Innovation was no longer necessary since all the important discoveries had already been made. Suggesting an alternative was treated either as a joke or as a punishable offence. I did consider divinity for a while but when I attended bible study classes I shocked the minister by suggesting that being thrown out of Eden was the best thing that ever happened to humanity.
“Do you think you are cleverer than the divines who through the ages have devoted their lives to the study of the bible?”
“No, but…. I only meant that being thrown out of Eden forced us to be inventive when we no longer had everything handed to us on a plate.”
“Humility is even more important than intelligence in young men!”
That left me with medicine as the final option for a career. Fortunately our village doctor was an enthusiast for human endeavour.
“I will not see it, perhaps even you will not see it, but the day will dawn when we can treat cancer as readily as we treat the common cold.”
He warned me that most medical students were from homes where one or both of the parents were doctors. He was at pains to show how difficult a profession it was but he could not disguise his own enthusiasm for treating the sick undiminished by the years of general practice stretching back to his graduation.
I knew, of course, that medicine was practiced in hospitals and research laboratories but I assumed that such elevated positions would be beyond my reach so I expected to become a GP like my mentor. Then I won a medal for my work in the physiology class and suddenly it seemed that everyone expected me to become a researcher working on the boundaries of knowledge.
Every once in a while a person is born who does not have to struggle against impossible odds to achieve success. It may make me a less interesting person but I sailed through all the reefs and shoals that lie in the path of tyro doctors without even scratching a fender. Without a single setback I became, at thirty, a consultant neuro-surgeon.
My Dad never could get my Mum to understand that changing from ‘Doctor’ to ‘Mister’ was a major advance! I suppose I must have been getting a bit conceited at that time for he sat me down and gave me a stern lecture on the responsibilities that were placed on me by my gift. In particular he warned me to treat the patients as real people and not simply as objects hosting an interesting medical problem for me to solve.
I make sure I have as much contact as possible with the folk who come to consult me. I collect them from the waiting room and take them to my office; I take down their routine particulars; I measure their blood pressure. It certainly helps me and, I hope, it also helps them.
My old mentor used to say the he could diagnose ninety per cent of his patients as they walked from the door to his desk. I was not convinced but there was, however, enough truth in it to make my extra time with my patients well worth the small additional effort. I thought that he could probably eliminate a great many possible ailments and might well formulate some of the key questions to put to them but I did not believe in his ambulatory diagnosis.
Then I met Ruth.
Her mother had been in an infant class at the village school when I was in my final year there. She was from a family with decidedly odd views on life and, if I had been less of a nerd, I could have been a candidate for Ruth’s father since mum was notoriously free with her favours. When her eldest child developed blinding headaches she insisted that Ruth be referred to my clinic.
The child was twelve years old and had been suffering for rather longer than I thought proper while the commune in which they lived subjected her to its repertoire of ‘natural’ remedies. She was very bright with that sort of superficial sophistication you often find in children who spend much of their time in adult company.
On her first visit I authorised an MRI scan. This was a few years ago when the technology was still fairly new so she had to travel to the nearest teaching hospital for the examination. As soon as I got the results I arranged for her to come in to an already crowded clinic. I warned her Mum that there was likely to be a considerable delay in seeing them.
When I went to collect Ruth and her Mum from the waiting room there was only one other patient left. I stopped to apologise for keeping him waiting. He had been improving on medication for some time and this was to be his final visit.
“I’m glad you got us out of there,” Ruth said as we walked side by side to my consulting room. I started to apologise for the time she had waited but she stopped me.
“No, silly! I didn’t mind waiting but that man’s halo is all nasty and ugly.”
“That’s enough, Ruth! Just ignore her, Edward. She has an overactive imagination at times.”
“I do not have a what-did-you-call-it! Everyone has a halo and that man’s was frightening: it was awful.”
Her Mum gave a rather forced laugh and I was smiling indulgently when we got into the office and sat down. I gave them the results of the scan and detailed the treatment Ruth would need then I sent them off and went to fetch my final patient of the day whose ‘halo’ had disturbed Ruth.
The progress he had been making was reversed and he was now very sick indeed. I had been reluctant to operate because of the location of his problem but now I arranged for his immediate admission to the surgical ward. I talked at length to him and his wife then went home to study his case notes in detail. The following morning I operated on him with moderate success.
I thought no more about his ugly halo until, some weeks later, he again shared my waiting room with Ruth and her Mother. This time it was Ruth who was waiting to be discharged so she was left sitting after all the other patients had gone.
“His halo is quite pretty now,” were Ruth’s first words. “Did you do something really clever, Doctor Eddie? It is mostly bright with a few dull patches sort of like freckles.”
“Do I have a halo?”
“Of course you do. Your halo is very bright but the colours are quite dark. Mum says that’s because you are so clever.”
My secretary is an epileptic taking medication that is keeping her condition under control. I called her in to pick up some medical notes lying on my desk.
“Yes, Mr Hyde?” she asked when she came in. I kept her talking for a few minutes then sent her off with the case notes.
“Does she have a halo?”
“Yes, but it is twisted – bigger on one side than the other.”
“Don’t pay any attention, Edward, she is just looking for attention.”
I did not believe that Ruth was trying to rouse my interest: I think that she was telling the truth as she saw it. Whether I liked it or not, the twelve year old girl sitting at my desk playing with my Newton’s cradle saw something around the heads of other people. As a sceptical scientist I was in a difficult situation. Could Ruth really see things that were not visible to the rest of us? I found myself flushing and starting to sweat: was I faced with magic, or second sight, or something equally unscientific?
I went home and looked up all my medical texts to see if there was any mention of haloes. I read until my eyes were closing and my mind was totally numb without coming across even a hint of what Ruth took for granted.
The next morning I woke up with an answer clear in my mind. I felt relief wash over me because there could, I thought, be a scientific explanation. The eye collects visible light on rods and cones then transmits the electrical impulses to the brain for sorting. Suppose that in some people the range of vision extends into the infra-red. Heat generated by the body could be detected by such people.
The human brain works best when it is cool and this is achieved by blood vessels passing through the skull into the scalp where the blood cools in the air before being returned to the brain. I would have thought that the heat dissipated by this means would be too small to detect but it was an avenue that had to be explored.
I arranged to spend a weekend with my long-time collaborator, Doctor Henry Jekyll, and together we set up an experiment to measure the infra-red signatures round the heads of about twenty volunteers. As so often in research work the results were inconclusive. We could certainly detect an infra-red signature but it could not be differentiated. The bright and dull colours described by Ruth did not show up on our equipment. Everyone we tested had the same, barely discernible, infra-red aura.
We had a signal too weak and too diffuse to be of any value but, on the other hand, there was Ruth who could obviously detect something beyond the range of our instruments. I had seen for myself that she could detect abnormalities in the brain just from looking at the halo. We tried to improve on our results without any real success.
By the time I faced facts and went to talk the matter over with Ruth she was fourteen and trying hard to fit in with her classmates. When I asked her to tell me exactly what she experienced when she saw haloes she denied everything.
“Normal people don’t see lights around other peoples’ heads, Doctor Eddie. You should know that!”
She skipped away to her friends to talk, no doubt, about boys and make-up leaving medicine to continue without what appears to be a wonderful diagnostic tool. I tried to press her and her Mum until the leaders of the commune warned me to stay away. Then the thought struck me that Ruth was still telling the truth: perhaps the ability to see a halo was lost in the hormonal storm that is puberty.
Henry Jekyll disagrees with me. He is pressing ahead with improving detection of infra-red and he is developing computer programs to help the analysis. Without some proof that will convince a sceptical world, he is having to fund the research himself. It is going to take decades to find an answer if he ever does find one.
I believe that it is too important a discovery to be left on the shelf. I am searching for another child who has the power that Ruth once had. A handful of people came forward in reply to my advertisements but none of the volunteers proved to be able to see haloes. I remember Ruth’s mother trying to stop her telling me of her daughter’s gift. I have also considered her upbringing in a commune.
Recently I have been targeting such groups looking for protective parents of pre-pubescent children but they quickly become wary when I explain what I want. Now I have found a ten year old boy who seems to me to have great potential. His family has threatened me if I do not leave him alone but I have a greater duty to science than to the petty rights of parenthood. If I am right and this boy has the gift of seeing Haloes then I owe it to medicine to develop his ability as a diagnostic tool.
In the nineteenth century they castrated boys simply so they could continue to sing alto parts. Surely it is not too much to demand the same of this boy if doing so saves the lives of countless patients?
Swearwords: None.
Description: A dark tale on a bright subject!
_____________________________________________________________________
I was brought up in a little half-highland village where the pillars of the community were the doctor, the minister and the head teacher of the primary school. My dad was a gamekeeper outside their magic circle but strongly influenced by them. He also came under the influence of the Scottish toffs who came to shoot the grouse he carefully reared. The English toffs had trouble distinguishing him from a tree or other inanimate object – especially when the time came to give him a tip!
He could have taken either path, my Dad, under the competing pulls of wealth and education. He quietly assessed the people he met and decided that the doctor and the others were leading happier, more fulfilled, lives than the wealthy sportsmen. He kept me at my books always stressing the importance of a good education.
The road out of the village follows the line of the Highland Boundary Fault so we were, technically, in the highlands even although you could be in Glasgow in an hour and a half if you picked the right ferry. In earlier times this proximity had attracted millionaires to settle amongst us. Having polluted the city with their manufactories they were keen to enjoy our fresh air. By the time I was growing up they had been supplanted by tree-huggers.
I was what used to be called ‘a lad of parts’. I was clever and the nervous tension that froze my classmates when it came to exam time acted like a stimulant for me: my mind was not only clearer but seemed to work twice as fast as normal when I was faced with an exam paper. In practically every other way I was a total bumpkin – what they call a ‘nerd’ nowadays. Everyone agreed that I was going to university but the only subjects I knew were taught there were divinity, medicine and education.
The head teacher was a lovely lady but utterly pedantic; there was only one way to do anything, in her opinion. Innovation was no longer necessary since all the important discoveries had already been made. Suggesting an alternative was treated either as a joke or as a punishable offence. I did consider divinity for a while but when I attended bible study classes I shocked the minister by suggesting that being thrown out of Eden was the best thing that ever happened to humanity.
“Do you think you are cleverer than the divines who through the ages have devoted their lives to the study of the bible?”
“No, but…. I only meant that being thrown out of Eden forced us to be inventive when we no longer had everything handed to us on a plate.”
“Humility is even more important than intelligence in young men!”
That left me with medicine as the final option for a career. Fortunately our village doctor was an enthusiast for human endeavour.
“I will not see it, perhaps even you will not see it, but the day will dawn when we can treat cancer as readily as we treat the common cold.”
He warned me that most medical students were from homes where one or both of the parents were doctors. He was at pains to show how difficult a profession it was but he could not disguise his own enthusiasm for treating the sick undiminished by the years of general practice stretching back to his graduation.
I knew, of course, that medicine was practiced in hospitals and research laboratories but I assumed that such elevated positions would be beyond my reach so I expected to become a GP like my mentor. Then I won a medal for my work in the physiology class and suddenly it seemed that everyone expected me to become a researcher working on the boundaries of knowledge.
Every once in a while a person is born who does not have to struggle against impossible odds to achieve success. It may make me a less interesting person but I sailed through all the reefs and shoals that lie in the path of tyro doctors without even scratching a fender. Without a single setback I became, at thirty, a consultant neuro-surgeon.
My Dad never could get my Mum to understand that changing from ‘Doctor’ to ‘Mister’ was a major advance! I suppose I must have been getting a bit conceited at that time for he sat me down and gave me a stern lecture on the responsibilities that were placed on me by my gift. In particular he warned me to treat the patients as real people and not simply as objects hosting an interesting medical problem for me to solve.
I make sure I have as much contact as possible with the folk who come to consult me. I collect them from the waiting room and take them to my office; I take down their routine particulars; I measure their blood pressure. It certainly helps me and, I hope, it also helps them.
My old mentor used to say the he could diagnose ninety per cent of his patients as they walked from the door to his desk. I was not convinced but there was, however, enough truth in it to make my extra time with my patients well worth the small additional effort. I thought that he could probably eliminate a great many possible ailments and might well formulate some of the key questions to put to them but I did not believe in his ambulatory diagnosis.
Then I met Ruth.
Her mother had been in an infant class at the village school when I was in my final year there. She was from a family with decidedly odd views on life and, if I had been less of a nerd, I could have been a candidate for Ruth’s father since mum was notoriously free with her favours. When her eldest child developed blinding headaches she insisted that Ruth be referred to my clinic.
The child was twelve years old and had been suffering for rather longer than I thought proper while the commune in which they lived subjected her to its repertoire of ‘natural’ remedies. She was very bright with that sort of superficial sophistication you often find in children who spend much of their time in adult company.
On her first visit I authorised an MRI scan. This was a few years ago when the technology was still fairly new so she had to travel to the nearest teaching hospital for the examination. As soon as I got the results I arranged for her to come in to an already crowded clinic. I warned her Mum that there was likely to be a considerable delay in seeing them.
When I went to collect Ruth and her Mum from the waiting room there was only one other patient left. I stopped to apologise for keeping him waiting. He had been improving on medication for some time and this was to be his final visit.
“I’m glad you got us out of there,” Ruth said as we walked side by side to my consulting room. I started to apologise for the time she had waited but she stopped me.
“No, silly! I didn’t mind waiting but that man’s halo is all nasty and ugly.”
“That’s enough, Ruth! Just ignore her, Edward. She has an overactive imagination at times.”
“I do not have a what-did-you-call-it! Everyone has a halo and that man’s was frightening: it was awful.”
Her Mum gave a rather forced laugh and I was smiling indulgently when we got into the office and sat down. I gave them the results of the scan and detailed the treatment Ruth would need then I sent them off and went to fetch my final patient of the day whose ‘halo’ had disturbed Ruth.
The progress he had been making was reversed and he was now very sick indeed. I had been reluctant to operate because of the location of his problem but now I arranged for his immediate admission to the surgical ward. I talked at length to him and his wife then went home to study his case notes in detail. The following morning I operated on him with moderate success.
I thought no more about his ugly halo until, some weeks later, he again shared my waiting room with Ruth and her Mother. This time it was Ruth who was waiting to be discharged so she was left sitting after all the other patients had gone.
“His halo is quite pretty now,” were Ruth’s first words. “Did you do something really clever, Doctor Eddie? It is mostly bright with a few dull patches sort of like freckles.”
“Do I have a halo?”
“Of course you do. Your halo is very bright but the colours are quite dark. Mum says that’s because you are so clever.”
My secretary is an epileptic taking medication that is keeping her condition under control. I called her in to pick up some medical notes lying on my desk.
“Yes, Mr Hyde?” she asked when she came in. I kept her talking for a few minutes then sent her off with the case notes.
“Does she have a halo?”
“Yes, but it is twisted – bigger on one side than the other.”
“Don’t pay any attention, Edward, she is just looking for attention.”
I did not believe that Ruth was trying to rouse my interest: I think that she was telling the truth as she saw it. Whether I liked it or not, the twelve year old girl sitting at my desk playing with my Newton’s cradle saw something around the heads of other people. As a sceptical scientist I was in a difficult situation. Could Ruth really see things that were not visible to the rest of us? I found myself flushing and starting to sweat: was I faced with magic, or second sight, or something equally unscientific?
I went home and looked up all my medical texts to see if there was any mention of haloes. I read until my eyes were closing and my mind was totally numb without coming across even a hint of what Ruth took for granted.
The next morning I woke up with an answer clear in my mind. I felt relief wash over me because there could, I thought, be a scientific explanation. The eye collects visible light on rods and cones then transmits the electrical impulses to the brain for sorting. Suppose that in some people the range of vision extends into the infra-red. Heat generated by the body could be detected by such people.
The human brain works best when it is cool and this is achieved by blood vessels passing through the skull into the scalp where the blood cools in the air before being returned to the brain. I would have thought that the heat dissipated by this means would be too small to detect but it was an avenue that had to be explored.
I arranged to spend a weekend with my long-time collaborator, Doctor Henry Jekyll, and together we set up an experiment to measure the infra-red signatures round the heads of about twenty volunteers. As so often in research work the results were inconclusive. We could certainly detect an infra-red signature but it could not be differentiated. The bright and dull colours described by Ruth did not show up on our equipment. Everyone we tested had the same, barely discernible, infra-red aura.
We had a signal too weak and too diffuse to be of any value but, on the other hand, there was Ruth who could obviously detect something beyond the range of our instruments. I had seen for myself that she could detect abnormalities in the brain just from looking at the halo. We tried to improve on our results without any real success.
By the time I faced facts and went to talk the matter over with Ruth she was fourteen and trying hard to fit in with her classmates. When I asked her to tell me exactly what she experienced when she saw haloes she denied everything.
“Normal people don’t see lights around other peoples’ heads, Doctor Eddie. You should know that!”
She skipped away to her friends to talk, no doubt, about boys and make-up leaving medicine to continue without what appears to be a wonderful diagnostic tool. I tried to press her and her Mum until the leaders of the commune warned me to stay away. Then the thought struck me that Ruth was still telling the truth: perhaps the ability to see a halo was lost in the hormonal storm that is puberty.
Henry Jekyll disagrees with me. He is pressing ahead with improving detection of infra-red and he is developing computer programs to help the analysis. Without some proof that will convince a sceptical world, he is having to fund the research himself. It is going to take decades to find an answer if he ever does find one.
I believe that it is too important a discovery to be left on the shelf. I am searching for another child who has the power that Ruth once had. A handful of people came forward in reply to my advertisements but none of the volunteers proved to be able to see haloes. I remember Ruth’s mother trying to stop her telling me of her daughter’s gift. I have also considered her upbringing in a commune.
Recently I have been targeting such groups looking for protective parents of pre-pubescent children but they quickly become wary when I explain what I want. Now I have found a ten year old boy who seems to me to have great potential. His family has threatened me if I do not leave him alone but I have a greater duty to science than to the petty rights of parenthood. If I am right and this boy has the gift of seeing Haloes then I owe it to medicine to develop his ability as a diagnostic tool.
In the nineteenth century they castrated boys simply so they could continue to sing alto parts. Surely it is not too much to demand the same of this boy if doing so saves the lives of countless patients?
About the Author
Originally from Dalmuir, Alasdair McPherson is now retired and living in exile in Lincolnshire.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned five novels and many short stories. His two latest novels, The Island and Pilgrimage of Grace, are McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned five novels and many short stories. His two latest novels, The Island and Pilgrimage of Grace, are McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.