2110-7-11-3

[J.B. or mother? or Alice?]

I was very seedy indeed on the Saguenay trip last week, and when I got back Susie took matters into her own hand and got the Professor of Mediciine at Montreal, Professor Meakins (one of the greatest doctors on the American Continent) to come here. Last Thursday evening he carried me off to Montreal to the hospital, and for four days I went through the most elaborate examination a man could have. I was X-rayed at least forty times in every conceivable attitude, and I can tell you it is no light task to defy the laws of gravity and take a bismuth meal standing on one's head! I was stomach-pumped, and suffered every other kind of contraption. At first, they were rather puzzled. Both the new opening made by my old operation, and the old duodenum were working quite well. But my stomach was in a condition of violent irritation, and there was a part at the top of it of which they could get no photograph, since it would not expand. About this they were very suspicious, and for the first two days I was beginning to make up my mind to a very serious operation indeed. However, they managed to artificially extend it, by a horrible process of inflating through a stomach-pump, and got a complete photograph, which revealed that the trouble came from a thickening of the mucus membrane - functional and not an organic mischief, and therefore quite harmless.

They now know everything about my interior to the last decimal, and are completely satisfied. Dr. Meakins came back with me last night to satisfy Susie. I have got a regime from which I must never depart - but a very easy and tolerable regime - quite a large limit of diet. What is quite obligatory is rest after meals on

2.

my left side. They were enormously pleased with everything about me; all the rest of my digestive apparatus is perfect. And they were eulogistic about my heart, lungs, circulation, blood pressure, etc.