Message #318335

[franksolich]

In recalling the day of the operation, I forget some of the details.  I remember however, that the donor was in one room of the bridal suite, and the host in a second room.  The monkey got loose again, and again bit the doctor.  The nurse captured him and lashed him by means of strips of surgical gauze to a rack shaped like a miniature sawbuck.  The monkey was chattering with rage, possibly sensing the loss of his keepsakes.

In the next room, Mr. Bacon had been placed on an examination table.  The Hetman stood at his head, offering words of encouragement.  The three doctor friends of the editor sat in chairs ten feet away.  They almost went out of their minds when a staff photographer took their picture.

At this time I was in the room where the doctor was putting an ether cone over the monkey's face.  The little fellow suddenly passed out, not only for the time being, but for all time.  He was as dead as Charles Darwin.  The doctor quickly removed the monkey's glands.  He popped them into a bichloride of mercury solution, then went to the next room to prepare Mr. Bacon's area of reception.

Mr. Bacon had been given a local anesthetic.  But he paled and began to prespire.  Mr. Watson applied a cold compress to the scholar's brow.  I was taking round-by-round notes.  The doctor decided that one gland was enough to suture to the vas deferens of the host.  Mr. Bacon fainted.  He was removed from the table and put in a bed above which there hung a picture of Catherine the Great reviewing her troops.

The Hetman ordered an eight-column, first-page headline for this story.  To the consternation of the three doctor-spectators Mr. Watson had their pictures printed on an inside page, as well as a statement by each.  All three were subsequently suspended by the County Medical Association.

For a week I was assigned to stay at the hotel to record the expected miracle of rejuvenation.  I lived very well indeed, that week in the bridal suite.  The room-service tab was enormous. 

Mr. Bacon suffered an infection.  The other newspapers got wind of this mishap.  We moved out of the hotel one evening, and went to Long Beach to hide there until the patient recovered.  Our staff photographer took a picture of Bacon to show that he "was in the pink," and enjoying a vacation at a "seashore place somewhere in Maine."  We stayed the week on Long Island while Mr. Bacon got rid of the infection.

After his "rejuvenation," Mr. Bacon looked ten years older than when he had first come to the American with his idea of calendar reform.  One result of the operation was the complete riddance of his carnal thoughts.  He had retired to a monastery, did a great deal of translation for the brothers, and finally died there while reading a Latin version of The Temptations of St. Anthony.