The Reluctant Doctor

By: Roger Vesperman

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

One Sunday morning in July 1867 in St. Louis, Missouri, young Ethan overslept at the boarding house. He was starving, and breakfast had long since ended. He decided to go to the café down the street for an early lunch. On the way back to the boarding house, he passed the saloon. He paused as he heard a man calling for help from the alley. Ethan cautiously investigated. A man was on the ground, bleeding badly.
“Help me,” he groaned, holding his stomach. “I’ve been stabbed.”
“Stay as still as you can, and I’ll check your wound. Ethan took his pocketknife and carefully cut his clothing away from the bloody area. He gently probed the injury.
“Am I going to bleed out?”
This event occurs at a time when medical knowledge was mostly passed down from person to person. He and his adoptive father, a trained physician, provided medical services on the front lines during the Civil War. During this conflict, Ethan was taught surgery and healing in the midst of horrific conditions.
After the war, Ethan did not want to continue in medicine. He had seen enough misery, and he did not believe he had adequate knowledge to be a doctor. But wherever he went, he found himself called upon to render urgent medical aid.