A Stich in Time, or "Thanks for the Mammaries"

Henry   ---   Working the emergency room at Memphis as an intern sometimes required the use of unorthodox methods on obstreperous drunks.  When an unruly drunk with razor cuts came in, however, the problem was to hold them down  in order to sew them up.  The old Memphis policeman assigned to the emergency room would come to he aid of the needle wielder with a technique he had devised.  With the patient lying on his side, the policeman would jam his elbow into the drunk’s ear so that if the patient struggled he just bore down forcefully and they usually quit moving as any motion made for more pain.  The patient could then be sewn up.  The policeman called this ‘elbow anesthesia’.

             The sewing technique that was taught was to use interrupted stitches.  This meant that each stitch had to be individually made, then tied and cut.  This takes a bit of time.  It was not unusual for a razor fight to result in dozens of long slashes. It was also not unusual to have several victims of the fights come in at the same time.  In order to save time one had to take a short cut and use a running suture, looping the needle and suture along the cut without stopping to tie off each stitch.  The result was not always cosmetically pleasing, but it got the job done.

              Saturday nights were the busiest with sometimes rather severe injuries from the fights.  One woman came in with multiple puncture wounds all over her chest.  When I questioned her she said she had been in a fight with another woman who wielded an icepick.  “  But you just wait, doctor “, she said. “ When they bring that ice pick woman in you’ll see what I did to her.  I bit her titty off.”  And Saturday night was only getting started.    I think this type of scene would demonstrate the difference between the Memphis charity hospital from the elitist Chicago suburb hospital that your Dad interned at where each patient had a personal private physician.    But I got paid more – a dollar a day, and John got nothing.       Will Meriwether