Chapter 30 - The fruit

A pregnant woman from Sepphoris came to me complaining of pain and blood loss. I examined her, questioned her, listened to the heart, felt her abdomen and understood that the child was in an incorrect position, outside the uterus. I had encountered something like this before and knew the woman could die. It was amazing that the fetus had drifted and continued to grow. The woman could only be saved by getting rid of it, and as soon as possible.

She said she had secretly left her home because her husband did not want her to go to me, dreaming of a son and heir as he did, and the local physicians from the ranks the Orthodox Jews advised her only to pray diligently for a successful delivery and to drink as much goat's milk as possible in the morning. The pain intensified. The wise woman had chosen the moment when her husband, master of a stonemason's workshop, was off to Caesarea on business, and had come to me.

I explained what awaited her and suggested she get rid of the fruit. She agreed without hesitation. It was at the sunny noon hour and I gave her an hour of preparation: she had to relieve her bowels and her bladder, shave off the hair on her venus mound and wash her lower body. I had to be ready before dusk; candles and lamps did not provide enough light for the operation.

I had Judas make a fire in the stove, and myself I prepared a sponge soaked with the milk white juice of the Sun Crown, and a copper pessary with a sharp incisor at the end. Simon lies above the tripod smelling aromatic resins with soothing herbs added.

The woman lay on the table, with her feet toward the window, toward the light. She was wild with fear. I gave her wine to drink, with the juice of the myrtle bush and pounded seeds of Bilze herb, so that the pain would be easier to bear. The perfect remedy for oblivion, of course, was a pair of Egyptian Lilies, eaten with stalk and all, but they did not turn green near Chorazin.

Andrew, Simon, Philip and Matthew Hilde the woman by arms and legs.

Judas held the pelvic spreader with both hands. I looked into the woman's abdomen, tried to pinpoint the location of the organs and of the child, as I remembered them from the drawings in a Greek Hans that Surgeon Aprim had shown me. I had to work in the blind, and at the same time quickly and carefully. The woman began to cry loudly, and Andreas caressed her belly with his hand, like a small child. She clenched her teeth and remained silent.

Using a long thin dan I inserted the sponge soaked with the poisonous juice of the Sun's Crown into her womb, at that the flight would change lies and was better to grasp with the pessary.

We had to wait a few minutes.

I heated the pessary in the fireplace and let it cool.

Then I brought out the sponge.

I was taking a risk. The woman could die, and then I would be accused of murder. Probably I would have managed to escape, as long as no one had heard of what had happened... But refusing the woman my help I will not. Galilee was teeming with healers who could pull a molar or haunt a fracture, but this complicated operation I could do alone. It was my close, written in fiery letters on the pet tables of my heart.

I had my pupils hold her as firmly as possible, dream in with the still warm pessary, grabbed the flight by the head and pulled it toward me. The woman began to scream. Matthew, who was holding her right leg, pulled away white and almost stroked the pennant.

"Hold on tight, old sucker!" I shouted, and that made him hum again. For a moment I considered what I would do: try to remove the flight all at once in its entirety, or in bits and pieces. The first method was preferable, but more complicated, the risk of bleeding greater. I decided to take my chances. While doing my best not to squeeze the handles of the pessary too hard, I pulled the fetus out, feeling how it barely resisted doing so perceptibly.

It was amazing that such a little girl could cling to life, when in fact it was dragging herself and the woman to death. No, there was no infant who would be able to sacrifice himself for his mother. Like the wild animal, only its own life counted, it had no other purpose, no pity or compassion, no guilt. And the recalcitrant shudder of his body was akin to the shudder of deliberate hatred, for the purpose of the one as well as the other was, the infliction of senseless evil.

I paid no attention to the woman's screams, but she was doing her best to get up from the table and I was bothered by her movements.

'Lie still!" I shouted. 'Death is waiting in this room until I make a wrong move with my hand! You are hindering me!'

She found within herself the strength to lie quietly, but did begin to scream even louder. By the way, I knew she could not be in too much pain. She screamed more from fear, from the awareness that her body was a plaything in the hands of six men, one of whom had taken on the role of doctor, without himself knowing who or what he really was.

I did not succeed in taking out the flight in its entirety, apparently due to the imperfect shape of the pessary, and I forcefully squeezed the handles together. The head detached itself, I pulled it out and tossed it into the month standing next to me, and then I neatly extracted the entire rest, cutting the flesh into pieces and happily admitting that the woman did not lose as much blood as she could have. The blood loss and the impossibility of stopping it, that was the most dangerous thing about such operations. I also feared a subsequent infection, but the woman was in perfect health and iron strength and would survive.

When the entire fruit was removed by my calculation, I took another look in her womb. This one was clean.

I knew the sweat from my brow. The whole world had changed a tiny bit in that moment, from the course with which it was flying toward the abyss.

The woman cried as she understood that she had been reborn. I was proud of the work I had done. She had not bled very much, so the important organs had not suffered, and if desired, the woman could conceive again, although I would not start that in her place.

I had come to terms with death and a miraculous rescue had occurred, of life for life's sake.

For two days the woman regained her strength, lay in the room of our good hostesses who cared for her as if she were their third sister.

She didn't even have a fever.

She offered me money, but I refused.

Then she made her way home, informing her husband and stonemason that the heir's appearance had been postponed.

On parting, she kissed my hands.

I strictly forbade my students to tell about the operation carried out, so as not to confuse the community of Chorazin and stick around a little longer in this colorful town on the hill where we had another big house. I had no desire to move again after a fish barn.

Publius Ovidius Naso takes that there is a cure for love, and he even advances ingenious prescriptions, but saving someone from the fruit of love cannot be done by one poet, here the hard hand of the physician is needed. And perhaps my saving this woman was not the only argument in favor of this operation, for even a man like Aristotle, as wise as a prophet, said that when husbands had children against the odds this flight should be expelled. He argued that the germ of a human being was identical to the germ of a plant, and what does it cost us to pull out a piece of weed?

There are other methods: you can make a woman carry heavy things, you can give her herbs that make her vomit or make sprinkles, but for now there was nothing better than the metal forceps, invented by the medics of Rome.