266 10 9665 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant El Dorado United States Butler County Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sanborn Map Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1917 Description An account of the resource sheet number: 9 from a set of 12 sheets Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 sheet : color ; 64 x 56 cm. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context http://luna.ku.edu:8180/luna/servlet/detail/kuluna01kui~12~12~2232574~248726 ksrl.kc.sm_eldora_1917_009 Language A language of the resource English Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available New York, New York Sanborn Map Company Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource &lt;a href=&quot;http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/services/photo.shtml&quot;&gt;Acceptable Use Policy&lt;/a&gt; Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Subject The topic of the resource El Dorado, Kansas -- Maps Title A name given to the resource El Dorado, Kansas : 1917 Type The nature or genre of the resource maps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant El Dorado United States Butler County Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sanborn Map Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1917 Description An account of the resource sheet number: 10 from a set of 12 sheets Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 sheet : color ; 64 x 56 cm. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context http://luna.ku.edu:8180/luna/servlet/detail/kuluna01kui~12~12~2232588~248727 ksrl.kc.sm_eldora_1917_010 Language A language of the resource English Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available New York, New York Sanborn Map Company Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource &lt;a href=&quot;http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/services/photo.shtml&quot;&gt;Acceptable Use Policy&lt;/a&gt; Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Subject The topic of the resource El Dorado, Kansas -- Maps Title A name given to the resource El Dorado, Kansas : 1917 Type The nature or genre of the resource maps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant El Dorado United States Butler County Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sanborn Map Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1917 Description An account of the resource sheet number: 11 from a set of 12 sheets Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 sheet : color ; 64 x 56 cm. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context http://luna.ku.edu:8180/luna/servlet/detail/kuluna01kui~12~12~2232602~248728 ksrl.kc.sm_eldora_1917_011 Language A language of the resource English Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available New York, New York Sanborn Map Company Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource &lt;a href=&quot;http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/services/photo.shtml&quot;&gt;Acceptable Use Policy&lt;/a&gt; Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Subject The topic of the resource El Dorado, Kansas -- Maps Title A name given to the resource El Dorado, Kansas : 1917 Type The nature or genre of the resource maps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant El Dorado United States Butler County Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sanborn Map Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1917 Description An account of the resource sheet number: 12 from a set of 12 sheets Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 1 sheet : color ; 64 x 56 cm. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context http://luna.ku.edu:8180/luna/servlet/detail/kuluna01kui~12~12~2232616~248729 ksrl.kc.sm_eldora_1917_012 Language A language of the resource English Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available New York, New York Sanborn Map Company Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource &lt;a href=&quot;http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/services/photo.shtml&quot;&gt;Acceptable Use Policy&lt;/a&gt; Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Subject The topic of the resource El Dorado, Kansas -- Maps Title A name given to the resource El Dorado, Kansas : 1917 Type The nature or genre of the resource maps https://exhibits.lib.ku.edu/files/original/3abe92d4a494fee13d37bf52d5ef091f.jpg 10074019db78cff40ce0227b9886bb61 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 700 Height 418 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Frosted Windows Description An account of the resource Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource El&eacute;azar de Mauvillon ( 1712-1779). Histoire de Pierre I. surnomm&eacute; le grand, empereur de toutes les Russies. A Amsterdam et a Leipzig: chez Arkst&eacute;e et Merkus, 1742. 3 vols. C6408, v.1 Description An account of the resource All of 6-foot-6 in Stocking Feet... The following quotation is from the column, "Who am I? Test your biography I.Q.," in the pop-magazine Biography for Jan. 2002: One of the most controversial figures in Russian history, I brought many reforms to my country, while crushing those who objected. Convinced that Russia needed to modernize, I toured Western Europe and convinced many craftsmen and technical experts to come to our country; I also sent many citizens abroad to learn Western skills. Proclaimed emperor in 1721, my reign saw Russia's first navy, and my wars against the Ottoman Empire established our nation as a formidable military power. Biographers are in general agreement about Peter's character and intelligence. He was strong willed, energetic, purposeful, curious, with a strong work ethic. He was also hot-tempered and cruel and had his own son, Aleksei, put to death (1718). He was a statesman, military man, and the founding of Petersburg was a first step in carrying out major reforms aimed at overcoming Russia's backwardness relative to the West, and affected all aspects of Russian life. Diplomatic consulates were established abroad for the first time in Russian history; teams of scientists were sent out to survey and develop Russia's vast natural resources; the first Russian museum, the Kunstkammer, was established in 1719 and included a public library; the Petersburg Academy of Sciences, founded in 1725, included a Gymnasium and a university; peasants were mobilized for the new armies and for building towns, canals, fortresses. Mauvillon apparently was not a particular admirer of things Russian (we couldn't ascertain if he'd ever visited Russia, let alone Petersburg). He did spend time as a translator and French teacher in Germany, and served for a while as secretary to the king of Poland. One French biographer wrote that he was cold and opinionated and abusive to his wife and child (just like Peter). Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/using-the-library/library-use-and-policies">http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/using-the-library/library-use-and-policies</a> Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context C6408, vol. 1 https://exhibits.lib.ku.edu/files/original/3d37135f4c1d68264bca10848dd8f586.jpg 035cc420e64dba446112a2e47a31c13a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Land of Opportunity: Nineteenth Century Kansas Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eldridge House Description An account of the resource A black and grey image of the Eldridge House with horses and a carraige out front Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource n.d.&nbsp; Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image printed on paper Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RH PH 18 A:39 https://exhibits.lib.ku.edu/files/original/e2b0fc148ec78be39c11c4bf99fc516a.jpg 8364e0bdb65c546ab0dee0e8419a3b7f Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 945 Height 600 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Celebrating East Asian Studies Scholarship Description An account of the resource East Asian Studies Scholarship Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Electro-plating with a hand generator Description An account of the resource Electro-plating with a hand generator, owing to absence of mains current, at the Scientific Apparatus Supply Service factory, Chengdu, Sichuan, 1943. Used by permission. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Photo supplied by Joseph Needham Photographs – Wartime China, 1942-1946. (Needham Research Institute) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CTSAF_15_ed.tif East Asian https://exhibits.lib.ku.edu/files/original/7b79e37048d3ce616e0099611ae98e18.pdf daf2fb980400b66b672ead521dc041bd PDF Text Text ELEKERE AGWO. md lv E NJS. Reu, Enugu. t e P l k 3s . ��PRINTED BY O M A PRESS & BOOKSHOP OWERRI/ONITHSA ROAD, AWO-OMAMMA-ORLU, First Edition, July, 1964. All Right Reserved. ��ELEKERE AGWO: THE ,QUACK DOCTOR Bad manners and other incorrigible incivility shown to some patients by some doctors' assistants &iid some hospital staff ; the long waiting before a atient could see a doctor, the grossly inadequate medical acilities in some hospitals, all these, and more, conspired to push an honest but otherwise busy-bee Okondu into the hands of mercenary q u a c k s typified by Sunday, and into honorary ignorant quackery. P Okondu's oonfrontation with Dr. Jika's wife at the doctor's d o o r almost made the elstwhile law-abi3ing Okondu literally run amuck with injection-syringe and hypodern~ic needless, indiscretely administering cheap but highly poisonous arsenic-containing Acetylarsan injections lo his first wife and his only son, Bomboy. Okondu learnt the lesson of the disastrous consequences of illegal injection so well by heart that his first wife, the never very over-friendly Ola, who actually pushed Okondu into meddling with illicit drug deals, was so hard-hit by the poisoning effects of the injection on herself and her boy, that, despite her inveterate d i s 1 i k e of orthodox medicine and all it stands for, she was forced, by circumstances beyond her control, to add a belief in the doctors as one of her litany of other credoea. - - - �ELEICEKE .: ACWO: THE QUACK DOCTOR. ' . . Phaim), . D. NKEM AKUNEME, BSc. (B. Ph.c,, M. P. S., M. R. S . H. . etc. . .. , . ? - To Elizar, my ever dutiful and loving wife. COPYRIGHT. 1964. BY D. NKEM AKUNEME. .. FIRST; PUBLISHED . . D. IN EASTERN NIGERIA .. IN . . :. 1961 N. AKUNEMC AWO-OMAMMA. Printed in Nigeria by OMA PRINTING PRESS, AWO-OMAMMA MSTERN NIGERIA. �.. . ELEKERE -AGWO: THE . . ... . . -- QUACK DOCTOR. Kpoi ! kpoi ! kpoi ! tapped 0kondu at Dr. Jika's closed door with the bent end of his walking stick. "Who is that?" asked Mma, the doctor's wife from within; Kpoi l Kpoi ! Kpoi l , continued Okondu, paying little or no heed to the !who is that' posed Rom .within by the Dr's wife. 'Who is that, I say 7' repeated Mma from within, a bit angrily as she heaved herself up from the sofa, her big beefy, bullying body swaying lazily obliquely as .she got up making for the door. 'Who is that knocking at my door?' Okondu . continued with his kpoi, kpoi. kpoi. without uttering as much as a word in reply. The do& opended wide quite abruptly. hlma had expected to see a familiar figure who wanted to tease her deliberately by such irritating knocks at.hcr door; she had, at the very least, expected to see a country squire, the type whore regular but resourceful visits help to keep private medical practitioners going financially; she had hoped to confront a respectable but apparently prosporous lawyer in an evening suit with a top hat on his head and a brief-ease in the lift hand and an umbrella or a walking stick in the right hand. The human animal she saw at her door irritated her all the more because he put on a kharki knicker and a kharki shirt, with nothing on the head and feet. 'Did you hear me ask 'who is that' from wtthin' demanded Mma. Yes. I heard you fine, fine', replied Okondu. 'And why didn't you say a word ? 'If I told you who I war, which was what you asked for, you would not know. as I have neither been here before nor have we met anywhere. Moreover, unles you are one of those who are g n I tuitously afraid of their own shadows in broad day-l~ghf, do not see any reason why you should not have opened the door s~lently to find for yourself who it was that was knocking at the door. 'Don't talk to the doctor's wife like that, or else I turn . you out of this here place' soaped the doctor's wife. . . 5 �'Look here, 'Mrs doctor's wife' I haven't 'come here to be If you don't behave, i. 'il he p~infully ist&GiiX k fell rdii ttiii '& i I have two women in my house who can be said to be your betters in some way. If I set them after you, you will be forced to learn the one lesson you now seem to forget, namely, tbat the fact that you are a doctor's wife will not help you when it comes to a trial of streneth-between a man and a woman or between a w o m a n and two women. - Dr Njika'r beefy wlfe up-braldlng Mazl Okondu for hlr irrltatlng knocks at the Dr's door. 6 �Mma was so stung by the impudence and brazen audacious outspokenness of this 'all Kharki intruder' that she slammed the door against Okondu without. any t y p e of feelingness as. to what might.become of Okondu's indisposition which brought him to the doctor's house. .. .. Seeing he had been locked-out by a mare woman, a woman who called herself a medical OWcer's wife, a fat lump of thoughtless edible meat, Okondu went straight home; his serious toothache which brought him to the doctor seemed to have been effectively, if temporarily, drowned under the mental agony that now teok absolute posscssionof him; His appearance so altered with what he called "a disappointing sub-human deal' that his acquaintances would h a v e taken him for his fwenty years older double self. Okondu went directly intq his room. He banged the door behind him.. I t s terrific impact brought Ekcmma, the second wife, post-haste onto the 'spot., 'Ohu' sighed Eke. 'I thought the walls had fallen in. .I..don9t lmow you are in, dim (my hubby) ;What are you, doing in-doors at .. , this busy hour of the day ?' 'Leave me alone. leave h e alone, Ekes, said Okondu rather harshily. I don't want to see any one now; leave me alune, leave me alone'. For a time, Eke was a bit confused. She could not instantly account for this unusually abropt manner of her normally gentlc-behavcd husband. Ekemma knew that her husband was almost always in good company with wine and spirits as long as the wind-pipe is quite capable of draining them down. So, she hurried into the cellar. filled a wine glass with 'Our -Homo Made -stuff (illicit gin), OHMS, Akweteshi and as quickly hurried back to Okondu's room. - - 'Here' that's a drink for you' dim.' '. 'What drink is that? Whose is it? Where did you get i' t ? Okonju in the . most unco-operative undertpne. 'It, is the usual stuff; it is for you; I got it expla'ned Eke most affectionately. querried f f.o m the cellar' . �You womm" I am spitefully disgusted with your generation. M~ke sure you haven't finished the wine in the cellar under the pretext of doing me some kind service. You clever dangerously kind women. N o man ever knows where he exactly is with you I I don't want any drink from you, and make sure that tho bottles in the cellar were as full when I left them as they were after your unauthorised visit. Otherwise, you will tell me whether Iam marrylng you o r you are marrying me". Eke returned the wine from the g1as.s into the bottle. clrefully pouring i t in so as not t o drop any; in a way, thankful t o the urgency of the situation which made her fill the glass in the f i ~ instant without t tasting the contents. On the other hand, this painful experience provoked a series of conflicting reactions in her mind. Eke felt hurt by this shabby treatment from her husband who had grossly misunderstood her honest intention. A t the same time she 1neffe:tlvely tried t o blame herself for not finding out, first, what was actually wrong with her hubby before trying her hand at the unrealistic experimant of drowning one's sorrows in a pool o f alcohdic drink rather than l>>k t h e difficult situation squarely i n the face. Ultimately. the insecure and over-conscious Ekebeing ohly a second wife and childless sank into sad moodiness which always immediately follows painful expzriences of this kind in excitable permonalititles of Ekemma's type. Ola, the head-wife came In frsm the local market. A the bass of s Okondu's mannor, she Is also the s>le braln behind her hxband's successful trading. "Where is di-anyi (our husband) ? "asked Ola. *' He is in his room' replied Eke, the junior wife. "What is he doing there at this time of the eveninx?. -You go and find the answar your self'', snapped Eke. Ekemma's curt reply sent Ola hartenlng t o Okondu's room. The full six-foot of his slim figure was badly arrangzd on the bed. H e dldn't care, two- ence, how wide apart the legs were thrown, almost touching the dusty loor; the hands werespread side-ways. Okondu lay flat on his back with the limbs flung any-how side-ways as i f he were begging t o be nailed t o the cross. f �'.What Is the matter, what is the matter, dim'?" requested Ola. Okondu opened his eyes, closed his open mouth. and collected his legs and looked Ola straight in her colourless crystal clear irresistible eyes, stretching his arms like a child welcoming its mother home after a day's absence from the home. Ola slumped into his empty hairy breast, threw her arms around Okondu's neck and waist and lift ed him up, up, into her laps. "What is wrong with you ? Have you lost any thing ? Have you been fighting with any body? Tell me' Tell me* Has Eke given you a wee bit of her venomous tongue?askedOla without waiting for an answer. Okondu opened h i s mouth but could not speak for w a n t of words. His wits seemed t o have deserted him. "S~cakt o me darling. As your first wife. I have a right t o share o in your distress. I am bound more as a duty than as a help t do my best for you at ail times. Come on, dim, speak t o me" A t last. Okondu overcame the bz-witching mental distress and spoke: "Nwunyem. (my wife), I have seen my ears for the first time in my life without the aid of a mirror: that compact mass who calls herself Dr Jika's wife, had not only prevented me from seeing the doctor but had gone t o the unbearable extent o slamming their door f against my face, all because 1 refused t o say a word when she dewas knocking at manded from behind a clwed door t o know w h ~ her door." "is that all" asked Oia most serenely. "Leave it t o me to deal with the doctor's wife. But, don't you think that it is irreverent t o talk of a doctor's wife as a 'compact mass? What you males contemptuously refer t o as compact mass, is t o us, ladies, an evidence of good living, some thing t o be proud of. �By the way, have J not told youdozens of times befors, not to rush t~ tho doctors with the minutest physical - . discomf tux? Mrs. O k n d u N o l slumped herself helplessly Into husband's hairy breast and tried to lift him up from bed. her �. :.You waste.your. time; you exhaust ~o~r.patiende'b~.&:long.wait~ ing and .at- times end.up <withgetting noth~ngfor yoiu.piks:except i . . a heart ache and a. heavy bill. No trader. likes .burning hm. candle . . . from:both extremities.' . . . . .. .. ,;;,. . , . . . . . . ., 'Biit tha?i:'dbctors' .job: they make a living b y treating"pa3s and diseases' reported .Okondu. :'.,'..ST,.. . .: . '; . . "Yes, but tKey a & not, thd odj.:ones that do. this.' Do you remember that:time . .you injured :your.. leg:,by"b.icyclc accident? . . . . . . . . . . . ....... *Yes, quite .vividly" .. . . . 'What did 'you db;' . . . . .And 'so, what1 -. 'What did you, do, I asked? shouted Ola. .. . . . .. .. .. . .Oh yes, Ola, I weit to ~ro:~unda~;.who dress2 the wdutld and tendec! it until it .healed'. repl.ied <Okondu. . . . . . . - ~ , ' ' , 'Why. then, .didn't you gd.to.'Sunday with your. toothache? Don't you know that every hospital staff takes special delight at doctoring patients privately .for . small.cbarge and quicker:attention?' a .. .... .. . ... .... . . .. . . 'I' don'tiknow about that. Wise ,people do not use the same instrument for:the eye 'as they use f o r t h e ear:.physical.injury isnot the same thing as toothache. .Moreover, the hospital belongs to the . . . doctors, a n d I don't see how I can be bhmed for-gohg 'to-thedoctor .. , :;. .. . . . . . with my toothacW- .- .-'. . , . . .a *Yes. you .are wise;. you always :l$~ow. what.toG when you say find yourself in.a right corner. Yo,= ca.n go h a ~ k .to..Dr. 4ka's b o y s if.you likc, you'might 'come bact this time wtth a'pocker in your head. and make sure you:don't.wmplain aloud.pr .flop into your bed. like .and .an .empty.. bag' . admonished Ola, iron~cally, .. . . ... .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i . -. . ,,'Okay 1. Okay !:You, win 1. I.shall. go to;~.Sunday.after.. dinner. .' . Since Ok&du0s 'bic$Ae wo&d'lie&d"hi had hot i ~ & h t 'it fit to.see Sunday .to expresshis thanks, . I t wasatheshame .of.this typical ..... ...... ingratitude of many a Nigerian former pat!ent that actually drqve . . ............. him to the doctor's house. �A trader of Okondu's calibre. who needs every minute of his tlme. knows exactly what .waste of time it was t o attend t o hospital o r tti .doctor's private .surgery; Okondu knew this very well before he opted t o go to D r Jlka. He had now learned his lessons too well by heart. This time he was determined t o patch things up with Sunday. So, h e collected t w o fat. yams, one big Rode-Island .cock, a calabash 'of 'upper wine' and two bottles of Beck:$ Beer. and made basketful wit', the bally-lot which he tied securely with bambo-rope onto the back ,carriage of his ever-green Raleidh bicycle. H e , ran a shorr distance with. the bike still by his side; then, with the left foot on. the' pedal. he deftly took the right-leg over the basket, falling. bang on t o th:! ricketty seat of his ageing ever-green Ralelgh. Off he went t o Sunday's. .cycling through badly-kept r o a d r, with b u m p s a n d pot-ho!es here and there, now dodging loosr, unfettered goats, now dodging fowls, and then, confronting obstinate ducks and ducklings which refused t o give way, inspite of Okondu's frenzied bell ringing. .: .. A t the enteranci t o Bro-Sunday's houri. 'Oko"du rang' his cycle .:bell .rathe? more enthtisiastically.. . 'Hello stranger' sh&ted sunday, peeping out of his narrow un.dressed.window. *You are doubly welcome; come rlght in' .. , . . Sunday..who had seen the basketful of provisions on the bike, rushtd out t o help his guest lean the bike on the rough mud-wall of his weather.beaten,. grass-thatched..:shsnty which passed for a,dwelling house, almost crumbllng under.the heavy. regular, torrential rains. 'Sit. down.strang&, . said .Sunday, showing Okondu to an easychair without a cushion in it. 'Make yourself comfy'. .'The furniture in the bed-sitting room was rather minimal: a bambdb bed with very dirty aimy-mosquito net pitched on the bdmbob . . pillars; a dirty .Oclianla, the'niade-at-Onlbha type o f bush' lamp. rest. . . . .. , Ing on an equally dusiy wooden table; cushionless settee, an easy-chair, two'flre-sue chairs made:bf cheaieit:wood. There was evidence o f pennilessness and want littered all .over thedusty room. Yet, Sunday, . . an ebull1entSunda)5: Smarty 'Sunny- Boy, would not, for ali the world. . . ... . . .. admit chit gianbi& hdd 'pasied 'him by. �- His green Raleigh, his black su2, his sharppointed suede shoes and his setee, are symbols of up to date living which made Sunday feel and talk big in s o c i a 1 circles. As a stunch believar in out ward appearances, Sunday placed greatest premium in the stuff on him arguing within himself, that only very few ofthose society figures with whom he hob-nobbed, would ever care to come to his house. .To those who mct him. out doors, Sunday is the man, the perfectly dressed man, the typical modern man. But to those who knew him up to his shanty. Sunday was rock-bottom in the scale of pre-eminence, outward appearances notwithstanding. - - - 'Now, then, Mazi Okondu, what can I do for you?' said Sunday, patting his guest sharply on the back. 'I h o p you haven't come to ask me to escort you to a third father in-law? You men in the money are making women scarce. and brides priec prohibitive, for poor us, by amassing as mmy women as you can pay for' - - '*You have seen me for a very long distance, Sunny Boy; I already have a wife too many. You can have Ekemmb for the asking", replied Okondu. 'My purpose of coming to you is three-fold. dear Sunday. A lame dog hardly fwgets those who helped tt over the tiles. In the first place. I want to thank you, pract~cally, with this basket ful ef provisions lor the medicdl aids you have hitherto rendered to me and my family. Secondly may I thank you in advance for the services you may render. to us in future. And lastly, I have brought same complaints wh~chI hope you will be able to look into with your proverbial kind resourcefulness". - 'No mention' h1az.i Okondu. I am always at your service' replied Sunday, smilingly. Okondu presented the b a 5 k.e t of gifts. Sunday accepted them with utmost pleasure. It was nearing the end of the month when Civil servants of Sunday's grade find it extremely difficult to make both ends meet.. To Sunday, the unexpected present was a wondaful lift over the domestic hurdles. �*'I .have a.nasty nagging tooth-ache which seems to have cut deep into the nerve-root of my very existence The quickest relief is what I want; I don't mind the cost" said Okondu. 'Just a minute' replied SunnyBoy Sunday went out of the room into the compound; looked, carsfuly round, to make sure that no b?dy wzs whtching him; then hz dug out from the bosom of t h e.aa;th a rusty c i g 3 r e t t e cup Sunday, the Ward-Servant 'doctor' digging ont his injection-giving parapheruilia from the earth in the field neer his house. 14 �containing an all-glass injection syringe with a central nozzle, two hig5ly-tarnished hypodermic needles ,with blunt :tips, a bottle of 0.3 mega units of procaine penicillin and some water for injection. It was necessary t a hide these things somewhere outside Sunday's room. In the Hospital where Sunday was working as a ward-servant, drug pilfering was a popular pastime and houses of hospital workers were regularly searched by the police. To find such injection materials i n Sunday's flat could land him Into jail, or into considerable fine which he could not afford. Sunday shook off the dust from the cigarette tin and carried it hurriedly across the field into his room where Okondu was waiting anxiously to know what Sunny-Boy was up to over the field, for. Okondu observed Sunday, through the window, digging in the field like the nativc-doctor looking for the burial place of harmful jujuchlrms. or for drug roots for a decoction therapy. "Here, I will give you what we hossital men call 'short-gun' injxtion. It is the best in the market. Doctors will charge yo= a life's saving to prescribe it for you. Pharmacists will charge even for the container which you are sure to throw away after use. Yet yon will get it from nre for a mere 15 shillings: but because of the gifts yon brought me I can accept St-. "Never mind, Sunday. I will pay your bill in full; "health fistn Okondu put his hand into the inner breast-pocket of his kharki shirt and brought out a rumpled leather purse containing a bundle of miscellanious currency notes. He turned through tho notes, drawing out a ten-shilling one. , " Here, Sunday, I will give you the remaining 51- in a minute". Disging his fingers into the front pocket of his kharki knicker. he brought a handful of loose coins. of varied denominations, and placed them into his palm. selecting enough of the combination to make up 51- which he handed to Sunday. Sunday watched the cerernbny quite interestedly, wishing he had asked for more. �Okondu got a dab of clove oil on the aching tooth togcthsr with. nins packets of A. P. C. ons of w'Jich he was instructed to take thrice! daily. The toothache disappeared with quickness with which hung* vanishes after a good feed. F. "Tell me Sunny-by, where, how, and from whom you learned the art of injection-giving. I am very mxch interested. If I know how fp give injections, then I would not 10s: my appetite if the bally-lot qf: . . doctors and their money-thirsty aides went to blazes en-masse". 4. il "What you want to know, Mazi Okondu, is an easy mattar but a long story. Nothin2 is hidden under the sun to those who could use their e y s and brains properly. I learntd the art of healing b8 watching doctors and nurses in the wards through spending a great& plrt of my warking tims with the patisnts discussing their diseases and their treatment; part of my time is spent in the dispensary observing every move of the dispensary staff under tho pretexl of waiting to collect drugs for my ward. If you are serious a b m t becoming 'doctor' by being able t o give injections, Mazi Okondu, you m u s-t h w e to undergo a course of apprenticeship with me, after payins a l ! or part of a prescribed tuition fee, added Sunday. "Just t-ll m what your charge is, and leave the rest to me " : said Okondu. .. "My charge is fair and whst you can readily pay. I will take a m x e £15. I hope that isn't much ! The charge includes the cost of teaching you to be a 'doctor'; you will pet a syringe and two hgponeedles as part of bargain at the end of your pupilage. 'What is hypo-ncedle ?' asked Okondu. .. 'You wait and see: wz haven't started the course yet', advised Sunday. 'Here is £5. Sunday; when do we start' 'Well, well, Maai Okondu, I could see you mean b u s i n e s s �Do you know what? I have 'got a good number of patients in a bush village, eight miles from this town. In that village I a m known as 'the doctor'; in fact, the only doctor they know for miles around. I visit the patients every Saturday evening. It is a good 30 minutes leisurely cycling from here. You know. Mazi Okondu, those of us who assume the role of doctors must pretend to behave like doctors. We cannot rush our heads off cycling furiously to the village. We have to take it easy like gentlemen doctors. You want to conle with me this Saturday ?' - 'With all pleasure' replied Okondu. ' See you Saturday at 3 p.m. * 'Chcrio. Sunny-boy; see you Saturday, 3 o'clock'. Okondu rang his cycl? b-ll rather exuberantly as he approached his house. The house-hold rushed forth to welcome him. Also waiting for his arrival was Oka. his trading mate. ' You look quite transformed ', commented Ola, the first wife. 'Tell us all about it. Has Sunday pulled the magic Cord ? Come on dianyi, speak out '. ' You could have met mc half the way to Sunday's if you were all that anxious to know what happcned beforz ever you say welcome to your husband,' remonstrated Okondu. ' Oku! I am just interested in knowiog how you feel after seeing Sunday. At least 1 have a right to know, being solely instrumental to your going to Sunday.' ' Okay. I shall tell you all about it in a 'minute. Meanwhile. I shall better ses Mazi Oka; thereafter, the story of my eventful deals with Sunny-Boy shall be the fruit of our evening meal.' ' Hello Oka 1 what is the news? Come along to my sitting room How was today's marketing '. 'Oh, not so bad, Mazi Okondu ' replied Oka. ' I b to find out why you were not at the market this morn(. hear from your wives about your indisposition. �As:,, for the. market.news, soonest ,:after displaying. o u.r., wares, a bird whispered to me that the rice of Bicycle cigarettes had go* .up by half penny per packet o 20 at Oron 25 miles away. I acte@ quickly and made for Oron by lorry with 60 cartons of 144 .pack?qs which I disposed of within minutes of my arrival. The trip was repeated with tripple theabove quantity. I must admit, Mazi Okondu, that if we have another 'to-day' during the week. w shall not : .have much to eomplain about." f' - The fact of the case was that the cigarette price went up by a penny per packet, not half a penriy as Oks gave Okondu to understand, and that Oka went to Oror. v:th greater quantities of cigarette on each of the two trips. H+ .yas, one of tha many such servants who put up a bungabw of !heir own after serving you for less than two yearn because more i!i.!n half of the profits they make for you went into theid private pockets, in addition to the normal salaries and profit share bonus. - > '\li,Il d&e 'Oka''" remarkid 'Ok'hdi. half we celebrate the day's good takings ? " Okondu filleJ his glass with ' OHMS and another glass for Oka. ' ~ o o d.luck, comrade, 'said 0k;ndu. 'I wish you have said, 'good open' ; no sensible chap would wish his g o d , to 'lock' 'replied Oka in jpcular mood. -1: 'Oh; well. 'good open. Mazi Oka'.. 'Our customers, ''our customers' The two glasses knuokled .with crackling sound. W wish our customers property. long life and. increased needs ; for our services, don't we. Mazi Oka. May their hmds fill with ggld so, that the overflow may be ours to grasp for aye and a day. men'. Amen: - . The ~ibatidnwas poured by the arch-priest of the brief ceiemony Mazi Okondu. 6 1 Oka handed Okcndu the dry's takings nccordhg to his 0 1 account. He left without further ceremonies to conlinue the cerebration;'sdlo, at tlio'Blue Moon Bar from his lion share of the day's d, boon: N * .thaC'Oka had left, Okondu is free to' r:la:e his den13 with Sunday to his wives. �/ . .' . ' "Now, then. Ola. Sunday is the dootor that can treat both blind.ness and lameness. My toothache is now a question of 'was'. It had been charmed away by Sunday's short-gun injection and a dab o f yellowish brown highly centcd stuff. D3 you know, what? continued Okondu. '1 don't know 'what' replied Ola in a more receptive mood. 'I will tell you: I am going to learn to be a 'doctor'. I have fixed every thing with Sunday this coming Saturday. If I can give injections, no member of my family will have any needs to go the doctor' 'Unless hc or she is carried to the doctor uaconscious, you should have added' interrupted Eke, the second wife. 'Elekere Agwo aburo dibia. I will never. be your patient' What Eke was trying to say, in Ibo language, was that he who becomes a doctor by merely spying or understudying a quack doctor can never make a good doctor and that she could not care less abeut being treated by such an unhallowed quack like her husband is qualifying for. To Okondu. Saturday came rather draggingly as if tied, on the back of a mail. Okondu doned his kharki dress promptly at 2.45 p.m. and made away to Sunday's on his green Raleigh being propelled more by th extreme desire to learn lo give injections than by the smooth sail of his trust worthy machine. 'Hello sunday,' ejaculated bkondu as he jumped down his bike in front of Sunday's house. 'Hello Okondu,' riplied Sunday from within. 'You have arrived dead on time. Come right in. l will be ready in a jiffy'. . A s Okondu: .came in, Sunday observed something wrong with .. . ~kondu'sattire. �" I am sorry, Mxi O'mnJu, but you cma3t ,to w!ih me cn my medial :rip In t h u attire. Those o f us who prase hkc dcctcrs must try to Crtss and prttend t.a behave like them, You aLst have t o n puc on your 5 u n d a y &st if you wish t o accompany r c A~othcr reason far Crmsinp pwprriy is that vr?!l-dress=d men arc hardly har: rassed bf i h t *cx:!ipe~ni:.;' po1i:e a rhc conirol-porci. Well.drescd quack @'doct~rs" hard!y harrasrd by '*ca::h-permare ler '' t r a n t p&ce at control pests. - 20 �These police, you know, are yet t o be told that our present day soclety Is dotted here and ;here, robbers in evening suits. with trousered-swindlers and day-light It takes all sorts of people t o make thls world of curs" " I can see what you mean, Sunny-boy" - In next r o no t h e , Okondu was back, finely turned out In hiss - - black and beack with black suede and black felt h a t t o match "that Is It! you are now ready for the Journey." Their first succcrs(ul skip over the hlgh-way hurdle was an easy paraage over the p o k e control post. They were' passed wlth smart salute, so t o say. In fact those of us who suit-up t o the neck. European fashion, or put on the jaunty airs of an arronpmt M. P o r a . ministar in a n ovcr sized agbada, hardly experience t h e frequent discourtesies one comes in ever.lncreauing cmtact within Nlgerla today. When Sunday and Okondu were near half a mile from the vlHage, thsy were met by Jacob. Sundays l o d agent who-collects customer patients f m Sunday for a penny commission for every 21- lnJec:lon-patient he brought t o Sunday. "Duckie Sunday' I wan make I tell you some tln which don p s s from worse to bad' requosterr Jocob, hls deecicated h a n d s trembling: his ccco nut-like h e a d turned down t o disguisa the anxlety In hls fibrous oedrmatous eye-brows lndicatlng probable starvation anaemia. 'Promise, duckle Sunday, you no go let the news wch I wan tell you make you vex' entreated Jacob. 'Go on. J, k. and plpe-up; replled Sunday. 'I am 11 ears'. 1 ''Dan l a s t man wch you glvam Jaklshlon last Soklday. 1' don die." �"Good Lsrd ! y3u Soa'c rnean t o sny tha: J n ; h is d d ; " cx- c l a i n ~ d Sunday. " Yes,'john you see. don die p i o - pro: i f you se& now nihim spirit Every body for rawoon rink say rta de jaLis'.!on killam as nothin de doam before before. 71:e big boys for taweon wan go for repcrt for pclicc. Sunday's so-called ' Short-gun ' illegal injections have sent m n y poor and illiteral: rnortals.to earlier gnvy as exemplified by sorrowful .. sudden death of llvely John after quack injection. 22 �John him brodars want nothin but your head so that they no go renrember their dead brodar whenever de don see you alive with their eyes. N de old people for tawoon na de don save you finish. a Nothin go happen you now" explained Jacob without emotion. The fact of the matter was that after post-mortem deliberations lasting four hours. the villftge elders convinced the youths that it wss futile and a show of ignorance of natural laws, to presecute or prosecute a doctor for the death of any of his patients. The 'grey hairs* araued that mazy ~ a t i t n t cdie ever3 day al! over the world, civilised or not, inspitc of doctors' treatmcntr; many more recover without any treatments. Cousequently. thc dtath or recovery of any patient i s partly an act of the gods and not exclusively the responsibility of the doctors. The elders went so tar in their determination to save Sunday's head thereby preserving the age-long custom of the san-tity of the doctor's position in a society, that they ( theelders ) went to the painful extent o f catalouguing before the youths t h e numter of patients whe h a d b e e n saved by Sunday's short-gun injection. A big welcome awaited Sunday. The mere fact that he ever carre bark t o the village was enough t o convince t h e remaining doubtinpthomases that he meant well. since the wicked have known to :tart to run when no one was pursuing then. The tragic truth about John's sudden death was that John should not have been dead. were it not for the injection Sunday gave him. John, lively ebullient John, did not, in actual fact need any injection as he had, for years not shown any sign of illness. People even thought that John was so vivaciously mobile thet death would have a task over- taking him. �The injection was cheap at 21-. Sunday had promised that it could hake some one work physically hard f o r hours on end, prospects Which late John found irresistible indeed. The injection Sunday gave was a 3 gramme ampoule of multidose N.A.B. dissolved in heavily contaminated w a t e r containi ig debris, motile organisms, and abundant visible evidence of its unsui'tability as injection s o l u t i o n. The multi-dose ampoule Ha; meant for five to ten pa!ients. Yet Sunday gave it all to John out of sheer ignorance of right dossages of drugs. The water "red by Sunday in dissolving the N.A.B. could, in iiself, initiate local abscess'es, erysepelps, embdlism and even, as in this case, death. Added to t h above horrifying dangers, the NAB. was administered ignoran:ly into the muscle instead of through the usual intravenous route. Such a costly meddling i n t o what o n e hardly undektood h a d ,caus:d John his life. 'The pity of it. all -was that '.Sunday' lcarned nothing from his nmernary life destroying quackery; but resobed to cootinue giving injections a b long a s there are' some ignorant folks wound, willing to show the right upper 'quadrant of tteir dirty buttocks-for cheap 21- injections. . - . Had Sunday witnessed the beginnings o'i: his psticnt's post4njection agony. all Sunday could have done was to suggest that the injection was doing ils work ;The primitive folks were sure to ccmcur. With them no injzction was worth anything ilnlcss it gave some pains or any other side eKects which uould be interpreted as signs of good fight by the injection against intramuscular or intrasystemic disease. , . . , Had Sunday watched his patient's last moments, there was very little he couid do as he knew practically nothing about the appropriate anti-dotes to arsenic poisoning. �All ihe sick in the village turned out i n full force t o receive their 21- per Injection treatment. To every John dead, there were probably a thousand Jones and many more Margarettes willing t o testify t o the efficacy of Sunday's cheap injection. Some women reminded themsrlves and others that since one fatal motor accident never prevented traders from travelling, nor yet were women ever daunted in their hunt for children of their own by a fatal case of child ,delivery, so need none be deterred :from accepting injections from Sunday as a result of this single tragic injection episode. Three weekly rounds of such medical trips were all that Okondu needed t o qualify him t o be able t o give injections. The end of his apprenticeship w2s marked with his payment of the balance of Dokie Sunday's charge; the giving of an Everette ail-glass syringe, t w o hypo-needles; 4 ampoules c f 3cc Acetylarnn. 4 of penicillin powder by Sunday. (Okon d ~ ' smedical menrorj as the only authority needed as a signal for the student t o enter the drug-market as an injrction glver. N o lessons were given t o Okondu on the vital importance of the sterility o f the injectab!e material and injecting equipments. N o lessons on the signs and symptoms,of diseases. N o one mentioned the toxi- city o f drugs. In .three weeks what doctors Okondu had 'mastered' take the best part c f six years t o begin t o understand. T o Okondu it was hit-or-miss therapy; ace:yhrsan, and he had only been taught of penicillin, and streptomycin as if these were the only drugs in ex:stence. '' Dim ( my husband) I am going t o be your first patient" marked'ola, the'first wife. re- " W e can now have ar many injections ar we wish at little cost rather than fall a victim t o the mercenary instincts o f some orthodox Nigerian medical man. The wide - spread connercialisation of Nigerian medical practice hls taken out of it any vestige of kindness and syrrpatl~y. I haven'c .great deal of respect for any technically first-class doctor who lacks other qualitits of sympathy considera!ion for others, justice and moral rectitude. �"My hopeless headache and that- perennial'waist'pain would'certainly divappear after I shall have taken several dozens of injections .. on tho head and a t the back-side " , . '' Why in the head ? ", interrupted Okondu. '' Must the injcc, lion be given on the very site of the pains ? "'That :is the idea. " replied Ola. " The injection does better, perhaps, when given a chance.to 6ght the pains at close quarters". " What, if you have the pains in 'your eyes? Would 'you thin .requ:rt for the needle into your eye-ball?". . , ".. Life-deslroyina qua.k wife after two at work! Trad:r Okon?ugiving inbtion .to hh first w e c b pupdage undcl quackdunday. . .. 26 , �! No!, dim, rensible human beings don't allow sharp instru.. ments into their eyes . . . Okondu started his 'medical practice' on t w o members of his .. I'Oh . ". family: Ola :received 3cc of acetylarsan-penicillin injections daily for thirty injections. Bom-boy, Okondu's only son, got half as many. A t the end of the .course * Ola's sight ... . .- . .. .... started. t o fade. . . Okondu held that . th? la;tinjections were merely doing over-time and that blaineeded two 0r.a few'more injections t o get the effects home t o the bodya One ad4itional injection made Ola lose her sight 'almost- cotipletely. . . dzv:!oped .. Born b ; o rashes resembling skin leprosy. Okondu; who had hitherto lived long anong dinppdntments and hardships felt ths &cnt turn of evens wT.:more than he had act- ua!ly bargained .for. .. . . . Ola has t o be taken literally by hand t o Kano.for eye treatment. .> Bam-bby mustbe sent.to,the leper co!ony. The two cases needed equal . . w g w t act-nti-n. cure. hydciay only one Okondu. Tha ea-!ier :he trlatrnent i f lepr~sy.the quicker the pr&on& c h e durati0.n of trearment. . But. therc is He cduld not share himself into two t o cope with . the twti;qu~lly urgtnr !it"atlons. . A deciridn must be m d. a; are rather m w e preriousjandneedzd priority attention. Eyes Lepr~syhas an^ not beenll&own t o be a disease in a hurry. of i t s victims h a d : ,. lingerCdf& years kitho"t fatal consequincesi Eyes, on the o t h i r hand, . . ore not so!d : .: in the.shopr and shciutif . . .. be atten.dedto. .sodnest. . . .. ..'. .Eke was beqged t o take Bom-boy t o the lepw -colopy.but, she rep i n e d w m o v e d . .The pr.esent trouble was entirely of Okondu's,making. aided and abated. by Ola,, his first wife.. Bom-boy was .the. only irmocent victim. Okondu did not know. that by regularly civing acetyIm:n t o his wife 2nd son he was surely but slowly poisoniFg their systems. �Acetylarsan is a pentavalent organic asenical compound, cummulative in action, with symptoms of poisoning insidu~ousin onset, starting with weakness, loss of appetite, constipation, then, conjuntival congestion which may lead to the fading of vision and eventually to ultimate blindness if untreated. Arsenic dermatitis may takc different forms, viz-increased pigmentation, melanosis, may be obsewed especially on the neck, eye-lids, and nipples which may ba mistaken for a serious skin disease such as leprosy. OIa is being taken literally by hand to kano by her husband for eye treament after she had none blmd ar a r e d : of arsenic containing injections giving her by h:r quack doctor husband. - �Acetylarsan is normally prescribed to patients once or twice weekly for four to seven injections as a treatment regimen, depending on the nature and severity of the disease. May God forgive Okondu and his ilk for they know not what they are doing. Had Okondu known the poisonous nature of the injections, he wouldhave been the, last thi.~gon two legs to poison his loving Ola and his only male child. Assuming that Okondu and his ilk succeeded in getting the forgi~enessof the Almighty and that of knowledgeable victims, like Ola, could they ever hope to be forgiven by innocent Bom-boy and other unsuspecting but ignorant members of the public who fell ready victim to the dangerously dead-laden injection by unqualified mercenary quacks ? That is the question. T I I first lap of the journey to Kano was undertaken on an Eke~ Day, a rest day when relatives and well-wishers of 0kondu's family could conveniently take leave from their hand-to-mouth perennial farming to wave and wish the sojourners safe journey. The Gwomgworo (converted lorry-bus) sereetched to a noisy stop. Okondu and wife got in and off to a good start on their way' to Kano. The bus ran steadily on, as long as it alone o@ied the single-line tarred Owerri-Onitsha road; but soon as it ran off the tarred surface to make way for traffic from the opposite direction or to o v e t d e a slower moving vehicle in the same direction, the uneven road-side m ~ d e 'bus' jolt with horrible row of a noise as the made even short passengers lind themselves jamming their heads on the roof of the bu3. At Onitsha, the couple joined the Onitsha-Enugu bus, "Dim", called out Ola in an audible whisper. "What ?", asked Okondu in a way of an answer. "Do you think I shall ever see clearly again in life T ' �"Even if you don't, a visit to Kano will certainly prove helpful. m e streets of Kano are littered with blind and near-blind beggars on the street corners; destitutes, who have for decades remained unplaitiffly grateful to Allah for little mercies such as being alite and able to beg-which reminds one of the Hausa idiom which says that oneeyed man becomes grateful to God only when he comes across a totally blind man. However, if Kano fails us, my Ola, you will have none to blame but your religiouo distmst of doctors as a body of professioners". The easy journey on .the broad, well-surfaced Onitsha-Enugu road made the couple feel quite relaxed. They talked freely unrestrainedly. Every passenger on the bus seemed to betalking simultaneously in a typical viciferous Nigerian fashion which hardly make ahy distinction between conversation and shouting. The noisy situation suited the couple fine. They discussed their private affairs without the slightest fear of cvesdroppers. The rowdy chattering came to an abmpt end as if lightening flash has stmck every one dumb. Every passenger sat stiff on the seats. The Catholic amongst them made spontaneous signs of the Cross indicating a prayerful attitude at the imminence of unexpected danger. "We are now on the Eva Valley" whispered one passenger. "No, you are wrong, we are on the Millikin Hill", rejoined ' another promptly. "You cannot be on the valley, but in it." . �The driver was seriously and asiduously negotiating the sharp bends which snaked and snaked round and round until one felt like being spilled over into the deep ravine on the left. The raised trap gy rocky natural continuous kerb on the right made the deal look like driving betw:en the devil and the deep sea. The slightest swerve to left or right would definitely end disastrously. Fatal accidents had occurred 'on the Millikin Hill in the past. To prevent such accidents, drivers were given timely warnings in every conceivable phraseology, calculated to infuse a sense of greater care on the drivers. "Drive slowly". "change to low gear", "sharp bends, strictly no over-taking", "'better be late than the late", ."beware of land-slides' and such like warning sign-posts were posted at regular distance along the rdute as a guide to literate drivers who care to look-out. The appearance of "Enugu welcomes c3rzful drivers" sign board showed that the worst was over. Every passenger spat on theirchests as a sure physiological proof of total recovery from the fearful experience they had just passed through. "Dim! why don't they make the road straighter?" "Who are the they ?" replied Okondu. "Well, I mean those who built the road in the first instance" "A bridge over the valley will cost the whole annual revenue of a Nigerian Region. To lavel-down the hill will take some doing and may have to wait for the age of nuclear-atomic bull-dozers' replied Okondu. "Oh!, are we saving money or lives" . "Ojugo!, you are asking me!" �The PH-Kano train was late as usual. You never knew where you were with most Nigerian trains. No one, not even those officials paid to give correct infonnation about train movements could conscientiously swear to the accuracy of their infonnation. Some of them don't bother to find out. , 8. The train pulled up three hours behind schedule. The compartments were full up to the roof. It was a tug-0'-war. getting on to the train. Okondu jumped in and clambered hurriedly over badly packed luggages littered all over the place taking up every available space-gang -way, toilets and all. It was a toad-leap all the way. Okondu went into .the first, secobd, and third compartments without finding anything like a standing space. He became concerned about the wife still on the platform, thinking that the train might move off any minute withoutamoment's warning. He therefore, rushed to the nearest window in the 4th compartment, forced it open, peeped out and shouted' out to his wife and the. carriers to come along with the luggages. He put the first'luggage reached him on the pile lent by those already comfortably settled. As he l~urried to receive more of the luggages from thecarriers he first slipped from the pile and fell flat onto the face of a sleeping Hausa man fully stretched-out in a long seat. Audu got up, black with furry, and 'swore out: "You black infidel! You blind beggar1 Can't you distinguish a packing bench from a human body ?" "Have this-+ dirty s l a p f o r reminding me of blindness and all that? A very brief fight ensued. Some passengers around rushed forth and parted them. A bowling of 'Yi hankuri, mallam' (hold your peace mallam) pacified Audu very readily. . Peace was suddenly restored. This looked like the briefest fight in history; Okondu collected the rest of the luggages. The wife was pulled in through the window. �The carriers were paid off. It would seem as if the surest way to create spaces on a packed train would be by creating a scene. The diffident travellers learn thereby tocollect their stretched legs so as to allow the late-comas a sitting space. .. ~. u d " . shared his seat with the Okondu's. . . ."~amuri (Iboman) nguh (have) kola huts. 'Audu gave kola to Okondu. . . . 'Th&ks, .:we Ibos hardl9;'iefuse'. a kift &kbia .nuts even when . . . . ., . . . given by a confinned enem);. I'don't ' h o w you have aU, that amount of the '&lk of human kindness id your flat scrawny, unwashed chest." ''Ytj, you would have asked me to make 'charge' (metning 7.. . . chancej'fo; . you r&r than d;op your & & g e o n my head. . f t takes ,.. .. . L . . .:. a despkably d~s~erate'ibomait d o like you did" spoke ~ u d u ' i clas . t o. . . n sical ' ~ % ~ ~ a n o ' ; 8 " , I "Yes, i€, bkes'a watery.braid lfke not io real&, that theSe long . . seats aii meant tb. accommodate three -pi&6ngeri;. You can't simply . . foot frame. '&I t h e blnch ',when stretch ;tbe full~~~six, of your la* . . .. . . _ -. some other paying passkngen.: r e standing"" replied Okondu rather a . . ...,. .. .: ;.. . causti~lly;stillholding'ihe kola in his hand. . _ I . "Chikina (let us. make peace); gidi-gidi ba chau (fighting is no . . good), pleaded Audu. �okondu exchanging blows with an Hausa fellow-passenger in the over-crowded PH-Kano Limited Passenger train. Peace was made soon after over Kola nuts. 34 �Peace was made with breaking of t h e kola. "Dim", whispered Ola, "did we remember to send a telegram " to Ndah to await our arrival a t Kano 1 "Oh, yes, I gave 31- to Jona to do that; I didn't want us to be the 'unguided strangers who have eyes but could'nt see the town," replied Okondu. The train journey to Kanu was a mixed bag. The wobbling movement of the train pleased Okondu, though it made Ola dizzy and violently sick. The train,at topspeed, touched sixty miles per hour. The very frequent stops at the stations were a pain in the necks of those passengers who would like to get to the end of the journey with minimal delay. The single-track rail system made the journey by train tiresomely tedious as the so-called ExpreseTrain had had to stop, willy-nilly, at practically every station either to side track the on-coming train or to on-load and off-load. It took good two nights and days to wver the 589 miles journey. , Okondu and Ola arrived at Kano dog-tired. Their feet were slightly swollen with the long sedentary journey. Kano weather was dreadfully different and a bit too slow to make friends. The harmattan was in full swing. Okondu and wife got up in their first morning at Kano with hoarse voice and some feelings of a smoker's throat. Their lips were sore with the drought; OIa particularly, found it difficult to smile without first of all running the moist tongue over the lips. Laughing was completely led out as this was swe to be fellowed by serious bleeding from the cracked harmattandried lips. "Welcome to Sabon Gari Kano", said Ndah. "The Ibos here feel more at home than they do in their own hom+towns". "Don't say such a thing to any body's hearing", remonstrated Okondu. "No sane man ever admits in public that his father's trousers are torn at the Suttock regions. Moreover. 'East and West, home is the best' no matter however dirty the children make it". �. "AUow me to expla'in' myklf, Mazi Okondu" replied Ndall. "Cost of living is dog -cheap here in Kano. With a half penny piece you can fill your pockets with jada and rogo (pea-nuts and cassava), fura da nono (corrflour and sour milk). We get much more garri a t Kano than you could get in Aba market, from where much of the gami is imported. What i,s more you are so removed from innumerable cords of our traditional extedded family links that you begin to feel and think like the average Hausaman who cares very little about the typical,lboman's serious attachments to transient life and living, and-the frequent inconsiderate inconvenient demands for this or for that 'from relations, distant and near, from home and other places. I like Kano so much; you can be sure of a daily bread here w h e ther you are capable of workingor not as long as you are not asha'med to sit by the road ,side or tramp from house to house begging alms. Here is the only place in the whole of Nigeria where people consider it more blessed to give than to receive" "No wonder I ani not surprised ' Is, that the reason why you .@"e left home for more than ten years without bothering'to visit home or ask any question. about home 7 I am cock-sure you won't know the way to.your father's house if you travel home now un-accompanied." , ' "Tell me more about home" Mazi Okohdu. Don't misunderstand. me. I am faced with the same difficulties as .faced the l i r d which had 'a burning desire to squart but couldn't because, of obstrup tion caused b y its tail. In other words, if I have enough money today, infact, enough to pay my passage and buy presents for the string of r e lations, enough to start marrying with, the dogs shall bark me. welcome in the next moment in my father's house. Believe you me" .. . "I see!" mused Okondu. 'four home,has'cha$ed a lot over the ten years of your absence : The oldest women in the remotest part of the rural areas in .the villages wear shoes or water-proof sandals on the advice of health visitors who attribute rheumatic joint and other pains ,to walking bare-foot ,on swampy wet roads and pathways especially during the rainy seasons. My grannie cannot now make a complete lbo sentence without throwing in a word or two of English: Westernisation has actually come to town in the rural villages. The burning ambition of every home youth is to own a house solidly built with brick blocks and roofed with corrugated aluminium sheets. Such a house has its prestigegiving value as well as saving its owner the trouble of constantly changing the grasrthatch of native houses every rainy season. �No guest at home nowadays feels. well-treated unless you open several bottles of beer for him at a sitting, concluding the drinking treat with several shots of spirit such as whisky, brandy, schhap, or OHMS. These branded wines have driven our traditional palm wine into the corners. Only people in lower society ever talk of 'palm wine these.days," concluded Okondu. . . "Go on" Mazi ~ k o n d u ,"You have converted me; tell me more about home" said Ndah. will refuse to believe your eyes if you go home, I can assure you. Team-work and communal spirit are our greatest assets. The bad-men of the town and the."terrors of the nights" are now behind the bars .as a result of collective disciplinary efforts. People take night-watches in turn since the nearest police-post is twelve miles away. Stealing is practically extinct. Progress and prosperity have come to the town through her patdotic children, bhildren who make it a duty tovisit home at least on& in 24 months to see for themselves how their town compares with others in the neighbourhood". "YOU "You speak of the'town as if people in it do not have any cares in the world" replied Ndah. "Oh yes, Ndah, they do have their headaches and heartaches. Civilisation had not yet produced sufficient &re to the ever rocketting high brides price. Liligations are ever in the inc%se. So, Mazi Ndah, what the home people gain from the absence of thieves in the town they lose to litigations and high brides prices. We must hive to do something about these two giant drains on people's savings. Many otherwise sensible men had gone to bsd supperless to afford enough to pay for a wife or to see that the other man did notget the better lawyer in a land dispute. What do you think'we 'can do ' to let our home people curtail these two money-wasting traits T �"Let me see", replied Ndahmefully. "I have my own ideas on the problems of high brides price andlitigations. I am all in favour of high brides price. In a country like ours, where polygamy is not illegal, many thoughtless men (and there are many afloat these days) would be changing women as they changetheircoats if we remove the restraining influences of high brides price. Easy come, easy go what we get cheaply we throw away as we throw pebbles without much concerns. Surely, family life, the very cradle of society, would be jeopardised if children become involved in the last-in-first-out type of cheap marriages. But if we pay heavily for a wife, the odds are that before we save enough to think of getting another wife, the children of the first marriage shall have grown up enough to be as heavy a drain on our savings as marrying a second wife, thereby helping to keep the first marriage in tact. a good thing for society and family. Don't forget, Mazi Okondu, that the English man who pays nothing for a wife has a law against bigamy or poligamy. It takes him about £300 to initiate a divorce case or has got to wait for 3 years before he can proceed with a divorce case, paying alimony all along as he waits. As for litigations, why worry 7 when people spend all their big savings on litigations, those peace-loving ones with little savings shall supercede them. I consider it illogical and silly sense of economy to spend hundreds of borrowed pounds (sterling) in court for a piece of land costing less than £20. Any more home news 7" asked Ndah, brightening up with genuine interest. "I would like to change the topic, if you don't niind, Ndah" said Okondu. "First things first; my wife here with me had not been seeing very well since a fortnight ago. We have come to see what help we can get from Kano Eye Hospital which we have heard so much about. My wife and I hope you will make time tomorrow to see us to the Hospital". "I will gladly do that for you two:' replied Ndah. "The earlier we set off in the morning the better. The hospital adheres strictly to the policy of first-come-first-served irrespective of political preferences or social status. Patients are numbered as soon as they arrive at the hospital: The first in the queue becomes number one, the second, number two, and so on and that is the strict order by which the doctor is consulted. Jumping of the queue by those highly placed is completely out of the question." �The morning came rather earlier. thaq :mu@., 5 a.m. it was By bright day-light. The light.chiuy .harmattan windJhrew particles 'of dust indiscriminately in non-directive directions. . Okondu woke up . with the appetiteof a; cart-load df t h e w fruit-eating~fric~n monkeys. Xi. Ola, had no stomach for any . h & .She felt likeah el&enth hour student on an examinatioh moriiini; .Her bowels. were freer .than usualand sbe.visited the toilet as frequently as if she took a purand & . ga!i"e andldiuretic. Her wholt Gind was on her,cy-uble . . . . . questionabk .fate awaiting her .at the Clinic: ' ~ d a h . a 1.u p :befmc. w . . ad, of them. ~ h i.all',git'off . : earlier; .. .. y .. . . . ' 2, I '- , "Sabo Pasha?" (New patienti) asked Musa. Dogo, the sedous. looking, spot-faced, .blast-iuAce, A m a n . . Hi; .'&gii&-~&sa was quite intelligible to Ndah who replied promptly in the for . .. . . , all concerned. &ative "Bi hanu hago (go directly left-ward)" instructed Dogo in an unmistakable 'no-nonsense' attitude. The grey-ha'iied .nurse who was receiving the new pHtien& . seem to see clearly even through hk pait of 1 0 0 ~ ~ f i t t i n ~ . ' b i c ~ ~ & ~ ~ lenses. He dipped his pen, miles outside' .the ink-pot ,. a d &owed a habitual involuntary tendency of d j p t i n g his glasses &ch looked at any body pr a t any thing, such .as a e+rd., ?;he .ryes ' . drooped. promhently. The dimples around the eyesmade then, apcrr as if t k y had, been.shadding tears frequently, . . I :.. . .. , && ' ' . ~ " ' f ; ~ .oftOla wen a couple registering their small-boy who sUi & stained an eye injury while playing .on tfie fields with his play-maies.' . . . . i/ I "Mr., what is the name df your child .?'' asked the aged. .nuke, .. . . .. . , .. so slowly hesita'& as 'if he had .all .,.. time there is .to ask .that the ../ . . single question, adjusting his glasses. as he attempted to .. . . at the . couple through his shady .$asses. ,4 59 I . �"Leonard", replied the 'MI'. "Male or female" continued the nurse. "His name is Leonard, nurse" replied 'MI'. "Yes, I have heard that; now I want to know his sex" thundered the aged nurse a little angrily. "Be sensible, old man; Leonard has always been the name of a male human being" replied Mr. "Look here, Mr. it will pay you, whilst you are here, to answer all questions without much.argumentation. We don't, as a rule, entertain argument from patients. or their relations. This is a busy hospital. All we want is a stralght answer to a simple question, no more, no less and I suppose that the sex of your child is simple enough for your understanding" lectured the nurse. "Thank you boss", :mats', retorted 'Mr.' "Next patient", commanded the old nurse. " "Name 1 "Mrs Olamma Okondu" "Age" "Mother of four children," Sir. " "Sex 1 "Mrs, Sir" "Then, Mrs, take this card, go straight on to the waiting room and join others in the pre-cli'nical morning prayer. The Rev. Doctor will see you after prayers." The waiting-prayer room, air-conditioned and scrupulously clean seemed to be an appropriate introduction to the hospital, a different wodd to patients of Ola's ilk who came from the areas where cleanliness of the surroundings is no serious concern to the avenge housewife, whose endemic indifference to neighbourhood with cob-websdusty walls, scruffy ceilings, and dusty floors iscommon-knowledge. The walls were tastefully decorated with an artist's impressions of the Holy Trinity, the angels, and as many of the saints as the fertile imagination of the artist could accommodate. Ola felt like being spiritually up-lifted. A miracle seemed to be working already: She can, at least, see a host of ideas and winged thoughts in her mind's eyes. 40 �The weird wiry middle-aged European doctor breezed into his surgery in a jaunty mood characteristic of a hard honorary worker who isreaping very rich spiritual harvest of his.unstinted aon-mercenary industry, his billiard-ball-like bald. fore-head shining lustrously like the highly polished floors of aprivate ward ofa "European" hospital. "Let's have the first patient" scowled the doctor in heavy Yankee accent. "What is the matter with you, lady 7" asked +e doctor to Mrs. Okondu, looking down into his ponderous smoktng-pipc..which he lighted with more concentration tban he had concontration to spare to his new patient. "Docta, I am suffering from eye-sight", replied Mn Okondu, a trifle nervously. "If that is your only trouble, then, good madonna, you have no 'trouble at. all. It is a blessing for any one to 'suffer' from eye.sight" continued the doctor. "No docta, but I can hardly see with my eyes; it is. worse in thetwilight", protested Ola. "Right', let's hear all about it" "Docta, it just came without warning" "Were any of your parents blind? "No, docta" "Have you any blind person in your family ?" "None that I know of, docta" *'Have you been taking any thing lately+rugs, injection, native medicines, before your sight started to fail" ? > . "No docta" "Sure ?' "Y*, docta" "What caused it ? Do vou know ?" '"No docta" "Well! well! well!, go behind the screen, lie down on the bed, relax absolutely; I am going to give you a thorough examination. �Doctor's examination disclosed some eye inflammation much akin to effects of poisoning by arseninc. He could not be definite about this since the patient had told him that she had not been 'taking drugs of any kind lately. Not knowing what to d6, the doctor took a chance and prescribed penicillin injections, steptomycin eyedrops, and prayers for seven days as an in-patient on ward 2. One week's treatment yielded no ostensible results. The doctor was worried about this. The patient wasequally worried. She was gettingfed up with penicillin and prayer course of treatment which didn't seem to do her any obvious good. She thought of the children left at home, more especially, of Bom-Boy, whose skin condition and near-paralytic left arm constituted another source of great concern to her over-burdened mind, causing her insomnia, anorexia, (loss of appetite) and restlessness. Her conscience has started to sit her on thorns for not telling the doctor the truth about the real cause of her eye trouble which she knew very well. Ola knew as much as Okondu knew that the repeated penicillin-in-Acetylatsan given her, illegally, by her illiterate trader-husband originated her eyetrouble and Bom-Boy's arm and skin conditions. Ola hadn't the courage totell this to the doctor for fear of implicating her husband who was already kneedeep in hot trouble. Now, her conscience is giving her a timely prompting that it would be in her. best interest to tell the tmth. She would either tell the truth or remain in the hospital for an indefinite period of possibly, an unsuccessful course of treatment. An accurately diagnosed disease is far more easier to cure than pining hope on chance. A week. of tie-in-bed had already plunged, the otherwise loquacious Ola into a gloomy and demoralising idleness. Such kind of Hospital routine is rather alien to her very active nature. The unmitigated rudeness of some of the Nigerian trained nurses, joined forces with the prosaic atmosphereof the regemented hospital ward-life to have a nostalgic effect on her. ''It is now or never*' soliloquised Ola. "I must tell the docta the truth. The truth had often made many free." �With this tho.ight in her mind sh: fell asleep to dream of no.thing but her full:. rcstorzd sight, a matting Eom-Boy, an3 peaceful home. "How do yoc feel this morning, madam" inquired the doctc-r mrch more in a carcfree tone of fed-upness. "Not a) bid, docta" ?" "That's better, any c h a n ~ e "Yes d Jcta, more a change of heart than of my physical condi ion" "Good:.-goody, let's hcar about it" . The weird, uiry, j:unty, midde-acd European doctor, who has a habit of wearing is Stelhescope always and every where, is seen giving Ola a thorough medical examiuation. 43 �"Docta, the eye trouble started like this: My husband called on a certain dffitor on one occasion. For an.obvious elementary misunderstanding, the doctor's wife turned him out without second thoughts and thus prevented him from seeing the doctor when he badly needed urgent medical attention. My husband decided, in consequence, to learn to give injections. This took him three weeks at a cost of E15. In this part of the world, dacta, every intelligent human who can manipulate a syringe and needle assumes the title of a 'docta'. For miles around he would have no real doctor to compete with him. Personally,. surgical operations apart, any one can practise medicine after a few weeks' training. Doctoring is not a difficult thing: Some one tells you he h s pneumonia; you look up a text book of medicine and lind that penicillin is'good for pneumonia and prescribe it. Just that.--.-." "Stop I madam, you have wandered miles away from the topic. What has all that amusing nonsense got to do with your eyetrouble" interrupted the doctor. "Sorry docta; when my husband learned to give injection. I offered to be his first patient. I needed some course of injections to tide me over the rainy season which annually afnicts me with illness. My husband gave me penicillin dissolved in 3cc acetylarsan solution to pepup or activate the normally painless indolent procaine penicillin. People here don't, 'as a rule, appreciate any injections unless they felt some smarting pains or rigorous after-effects during or after its administration. Thus, acetylarsan solution in procaine penicillin, gingers things up like red pepper in a dull soup. As I was saying my husband gave me the above mentioned combination of injection daily for as long as I can remember. At one time, during the course of the injections, my sight started to fail me. I complained to my husband. He simply councelled that the injection was working according to plan and that all I needed was a few more injections to round things up. My sight rounded-up before I could complete the second round of injections. �"By Jove I i t sounds absolutely incredible, alround." "Believe it or not, docto'r, that is a .true story. It did happen. I am very sorry for not telling you this before now. Promise, docta. that you won't put me and my husband into any further trouble by this revelation. My husband and I had had more trouble already than we had bargained for." "Madam, in th8 states, a doctor is bound to treat all patient, who come to him or face court action for negligence. The doctor's wife ought to know this. Why then didn't you sue. the doctor and his wife in the courts ? You could havr b1gge3 thousands of dollars as court-awards." "No doctor,' we dare not; my husband and I are nonentities compared with the doctor.. With money and professional prestige you can get away with any thing-justice, injustice, anything, in this country" replied Ola quite confidently. "Again, madam, I must warn you sternly not to play with drugs as if they are harmless lolies. They are two-edged swords: They help doctors to save lives, I must admit, but the ways by which they do so are not always free from dangers, some of which may 'provc dissastrous in consequence. Don't use drugs unless prescirbed by doctors. If you are ever in doubts about the potential dangers of any drug consult your local Pharmacist. I think I know now what is wrong The eyeinflammation might have been caused by arsenic poisoning." .The doctor prescribed a course of anti-arsxic poison injections. The altered treatment worked exceedindy well. In less than a space of ten days her sight returnedsteadily. An Optician was brought in. He gave a five guineas pair of glasses to correct the slight irreparable defect already initiated by the arsenical d a m ~ g e the optic nerves to �By. this, time the,.doctor had devdoped some .: genuine interest in the patient. Ola, who was then relaxed and obviously delighted with k r , r e p n t improvements,, wppcrated fully -w i t.h the doctor. She had :.no,more; inhihitionscin aqswering or asking quesrions. .The doctor liked this sudden c h a a g e $hd.hardly missed the slightest oppr!unity to chat, with the extrovert a n d hard --hitling ,a n 6 pleasantly-rude OIa. . . . . . . . . . . -".Madam.?. asks the doctor in a low but reacsurinp.tone: " tell mt, why on earth you agreed co.accept .inj:ctions from your illi:erale trader-husbmd when s o u know that it takes the best part of 7 years to. pruduce a medicaid:&tor. and nearlv. as longto t&in a gradaatc pharmacist, the only two group of professionals w h n x e .authoristd to handle all groups of drugs and poisons exp-rtly? Do you think that .your husband's illitrate. brains wcre of .'s:.ch high:qualities that he~.could.masterin three wtrks ,whit took daxors nticiut six years of hard studies to- bigin to. grasp??. . . . . . . . '. "That's a very fine questidn dam. But do you w a n t me to . .. . reply yo* in 'full and with undiluted frqnkncss? " ". . ..... .. . . .... . . "'Yes: 'midam., Loti ari so &, as E .under lock'.6nd' key. ' b r f *hat.+ . excitingrcvclationi you .might care t o makc " . ,.. ..,,. .. . . . . .I . . . '.. . . . . . . . . . "~fi'. l l , dozta, l&t,mb.say' quite: f r a M 3,,.that. your. tidipit81 a i d w . . . ... . . . . . _',_ : , m a n y 6tkr:Mirsion -1ospitak . a n veritbble exczptions'.to. the fail.hospital serviccs 4.n this ing standards..i.n-~~o~~.~ourt:o3s.:honor~ry .. :~... ~. . l a i . . '~lii. . , c'oimtry. . .In . a h y:i' . ' ~.c n.e r.a~ o ~ ~ .i..t i tl takts . . patients' io.'&c. . . . . b u r s of waiting to see the doctor. and.exactly '.that-amount-6f. ...". . . . . . . . . . . . . tinie 'L.. i o bi'.told.by .'iomD cifvi~~irvaiti iioctor<fb cbme t6 see me privrte~ . .. ly in my hcuse if you want better treatment". When you opt to be treated privately. you arc sent back to the time.wasting dispensary queue with the private pr:scription for a course of. spy, three five shillings 'free' injxtions after' you shall have paid from three i o five guineas private consultation fees to the Civil Servant doctor who by thc'way, i s well paid by t h t gov:rnmcint for his services td patients. - �- "Getting the 'frel'pr&criptiorir dispeilid is another hard matter. :,-unlessyou..are the .hard boiled, type .who could jump- the queues ,without>mindingthe rudeshdrp. tongues and probably. stiff first cuffs.from those .-whose tights you have -.usurped. by queuejumping just :to be told that the drugs prescribed for you arc either out -of stock-ot not -:stocked at'all" .".. . .. , . . .:. * . "If the patient 'is so unlucky .to be~idmittedan in patient with, say, starvation anaemia caused by deficient home diet, the in-patient -is allowed to continue on the diet. brought from home at the same tim: as tho .drug.treatm:nt of the starvation.anamia proceeds. Tell .m:. docta. 'the s m e , economy, and the justice in paying heavily t o . g:t i fiv: shillings free injxtion prescribed for you when you can l get th3 s a m e inj:ctioa for less than five shillings elsewhere with minium waste of time ? " - -, - "Go on, madam, there is still .room in. my ears to hear mote of yam rev:lations" replied the doctor. . . "The way and mtnner you are.rccrivcd at t h e doctor's flat drpsnds entirely on th; typ: of atleadant the doctor has. a n d on tb: fl1::ulting 'wtathertock' m o o d of the doctor's mistress. At tim:s. you are treated very unkindly by the mistress as if you have c.irried a p h m o u s m:ss 'to the do:tor's house b y . your presence. So, docta, senzible patients prefer to get treated in the market placer. and at rh: ' l i d chemist shops rather than w a s t e one's precious, time and money by going to the hospital. I hate snobbishness i n . any shape or form, whctt.cr. it ccmes from. bas$& staff or from any one else" . . " By Sores you seem to have. m a d e a strong case for t h e profissitn to snsuer, if all you sald were correct'' " Ask ev:ry body you kcit, docta, if yoo doubt nie *' 47 �"No need, madam, I haven't got the lime to go a-Gallup-polling on the issue. I have more precious things to do. Suffice it to say that patients are seen on appointment in the States. They have to pay, sometimes heavily, either to the medical doctor in private practice or to the hospitals as the case may be. Whatever the case, patients are made to feel that they are getting quick and efficient services for their money. In the State, pali:nts have the last words nearly always on many issues unless professional principles are involved. But. tell me, madam, do you still wish to go back to the quacks just to save time and money when you have practically lost your eye-sight to the quacks? Don't you think that it is better to wait for your turn to get scientific professional treatment f r o m a qualified doctor, at all costs. rather than rush to the market and to the quacks for quicker, though unprofessionally unethical services with concomitrant dangers?" I can only die once, docta, so, why worry' I suppose that doctors are human beings as patients are follow human beings. I " don't see any fundsmentd ditTerence betwed t'hem. The docta merely has more genenlised knowledge in a vast field of study in l~hich the patient appears not to be so well versed: the patient pays the docta, directly or indirectly. for his services, as he would pay to any other class of workers who serves him." "Doctas will, definitely fast or take other odd jobs if patients were scarce or unwilling to pay. It, therefore, behoves sensible doctors to treat kindly any one from whom they get their means of livelihood." " Thank you, very little, for your irreverent slander on overworked Nigerian doctors. The trouble with many Nigerian patients is that most of them are potential neurotics, jumpy. impltient. inconsiderate, and unreasonably hasty." �They don't seem t o reslise char a doctor in Nigeria is assigned t o a larger proportion of patient3 ( one doctor t o about a hundred thousand prospective patients) than he could ever hope t o cope with, even if he allocated a fraction of a second t o each of his propective 100.000 patients. Surprising enough. each patient would like a doctor t o give the best part of halfan hour listening t o his unconnected. some times incomprehensible vague accounts of the symptoms of his illness, when, -at the same time. he shows unmistakable resentment and feels his time i s being wasted when the doctor gives half that amount of attention t o the patient next before him. Madam. the profession is intolerant o f competition with illiterate quacks in the market places. The profess~oncan accomrnedate Pharmacisrs in certain cases. especially in conof ditions of. acute ~hortaze medical doctors, but definitely we doctors have no intention of competing with traders. -teachers, ex-service men and other injection-giving wayfarers on two irgs". " " Doctor; I want t o tell',you wh3t you don't' know about this country. We. in this country, pet the best 'dxtoring' on the rad!o, I n the pages : of the dailies and through other advertising axencies. I there anything wrong in any intelligent literate individual. who, on seeing that some"nne has a boil. looks up the 'Family doctor' sees penicillin i s good for boil and. starts TO use it or p ~ r c r i b e sit t o some one. who has a boil? Aker all,' isn't it wSat maly doctors do? What can be better than A ~ p r o the tremnrnt of hedache and pains!" in . .. .No. no, no, madam there is more t o medical education and pract- .ice than the lsyma~can ever hope t o know. Oherwise it wouldn't I have been in t h e practice of medicine for tht bast part of my life. Yet I don't seem to take seven yearsto prcduce a medical doctor. find its studies and prazcice as easy ,as you have Just made it. W e .doctors are always up against rha dificulties of differential diagnosis:even your so-called headxhe i s r clmmon sign t o many maladies; we ..have got t o know through knowleJge of specific symptons of specific . diseases of which headache Is a common sign, the actual disease that ;gave rise t o the. headache. �I must admit, madam, that a doctor may, at time, give wrong diagnosis as a result of human factors, such as inadequate knowledge, personal upsets. dislike of patient, and others. When all is said and done, it will pay you to seek for an expert attention in all things, more so, in health matters" The doctor was prepared not to let his elcrquent p3tient have a the last word or have s ~ c h gloomy picture of the medical profession but bzfore he could finish the next sentence he was summoncd away hurriedly to attend to'an emergency case just rushed into the hospital. Shortly afterwards, th:re were yellings and cries of lementation all over the place. Ola was rather at a big loss to know what it was all about. She longed anxiously to get some one to let her into the know of the cause o f ths hustle a n d bustle. The noise and wailings grew a n d grew so much that Ola decided t o fine out for hcrself if t h e wholc hospital is in mutiny or what. She h a d barely gone half the way down the steps before she nc~icedthe doctor coming up in her direc:ion. wearing a n expression suggestive o f an Army General returning from a cease-fire truce-meeting following a mmth-old drawn-out decimating battle. "Madam. I have come back to finish up our conversation". 'Do you know why I was summoned out?', "No. docta. I am anxious to hear all abcut it" "I will tell you in 'a second. A yourg man nearly 21 years old, had a bottle-wound on the upper lid of the right eye whilst quarrelling. t h c prevous night. with an erratic night-club hostess o v e r settlement of old bills. At about nine. ante meridian. the following morning he was given an A.T.S. injection in the market place. I was told. Soon nfter the injcction, the man dropped, flop, almost dead. shouting that he could not see. hear or stand errect. His fellow traders gave him a bowl of milk followed with coco-nut water as a quasi-kind of native anti-dote. to n avail. They tried to force him : , t o swallow a battle-full o f cditrle p a l m oil. This didn't help. �They tanitd i while to sce 'if the toxic symptoms of the A.T.S. injection would be short-lived but the viclim sank lower and lower. He had to be rushed to my hospital as a last resort. I tried my best to rcvivc him but he had gone beyond redempticn. .Madam, It must have beea an extreme case of hypersensi~ivityto Anti-Tetanus Serum injection, one of the fala1 dangers confronting all those who accept injections from unqualified quacks and other injection pedlars of all sons". ' " You ..are telling. me, docta' w e are taking chances each time . < we accept dmgs from any~one;. . doctor. Pharmacist, o r ~ t h e so-called . il;aeran: quacks.. We taka charter also when we accept to'undergo a surgical operation; some patients for operation had even dropped stone,d:ad qt the first sniff of chloroform, anaesthetics war before the s & c o n bird .doned bis long gown. I.feel alrnost'cirkn docto; that the A.T.S. patient could have died all the same had he g i t the injection on the order ofthe hospital doctor. as it weuld have taken twice as much time to summon the Gmeral Hospital doctor to his bed-side a s i t had taken to rush : him.. to your hospital from . . the.ma~krt ~ i a c e. The general hospital iiuracsare powcrleif to 'do . any ;hiag . in such matters not even show obvious sympathy, until . . . ,. . the doctor had made his a-minute-too late arriGa1.' Half the ho& tal deaths shrll have beon alive to-day had the doctors and nurses shown half as much concern to -the living in-katient's a; they show . to those' between 1 i f e and. dea~h.. A; far as I am concerned; t h t .. .: general haspital beds shall nevcr'see my back unless, perhaps, as the very last resort. possibly. for a post-mortem, if some doctors care . . . . . . about. it." ' , .. '' Madam, you are agreeably very pungent to members of my profession and their worthy allies,. the nurses' I am' sure you are now well-enough to h e . such a convincing force. I shall send you home tomorrow if nothing dsamatic happens over the night. You deserve a satisfactory discharge." . �O h get up very early inspite, of a heavy sedation to make her sleep H t r frock of the palest green with precise pleats tlattcnd her figure so much chat the doetor had ,a job making her out at first sight. . . . " b hospiml uniform musi be doing untold 'injustice' to the Tc attractive figures of good-looking female patients'' commented t h e doctor most sincerely. "Madam, you oan regard yourself as a free woman: you are now free to g o home. I wish you good hcalth. good occasional luck ,at the pools, and enough ef dollars to boast your ego up. Wherever you go a d whatever you do. remember that your lost sight was restored o y o u by a qualified doctor. n o t by a quack." *'Thanks for nothing,docta; without my co-operatioti you couldn't do much for my eye trouble in the first week. I h a v e paid t h e . hospital bill and. truatmeot charges and I frcl like owing nothing to, any m e ; ... i . . ?.Bye -bye, my learned intractable patient " .. .. "&',.?'Bye, .my understanding. good-natured. end consrientious d o c k IF all doxors were like you and all hospitals were like yours' things wbpld wcar a diflerenc look for poor over-exploited patients. Pity, you:are just one out of to many. a tiny drop 'in the ocean of corrupt mercenary modicd practices, a grain in the desert sand-dunrs insignificant. incoosequential. and bnrecongnissble". - "I shall not oecd money to advertise you and your hcspital. Aa things stand. and until there i s , n drastic change in the ways hospital patient3 aro being treated in m a n y General hospitdls, majority of patients weuld continue to regard hospitals as place where go to die rather than .where they go to learn to live wcll. A the best. U my good docta ", ' Ola boarded the Kano- P. H. Limited Train at 12 noon. Ndah had already despatched a telegram to Okondu, intimating h i m l o "await wife arriving Aba Friday Noon train". Wednesday trains are not, as a rule, always as over-pocked a1 Monday and 'Friday trains. Ola had, in effect, three seater bench exclusively to hcrsolf throughomt the 48 hours 640 miles trains journey to Aba. . �The wobbling movement of the fast-moving limited train coupled with the apparmt !.satisfactory physical conditicn in which ,madam Okondu found herself. helpd to rock her quk)cly to sleep: She was just on the threshold of some pleasant dreams about. her Bomboy when a very sharp jadded noise made by a deliberate tang with a pair-of mechanical pmers-like .device got hcr'up on her legs. *.Tickets, all tiekets ready" shouted the scrawny 10okinqT.T.C (Train Ticket Collector) his 'lanky frame being shzken interm~ttently by paroxysms of tobacco c o u ~ h s betwten the tickets '; 'ill tickets ready0 skoutr. r Madam Okondu searched her breait. her hand-bag. her headgear. and her hold-all for the ticket. She remembered receiving the ticket from Ndah. She knew shetocksome areat care to preserve it: hutwhere she put it; she just coulln't recollect. Shi h'ud been S 0 over-carcful with the ticket that she herself could not fr.d where she . . kept it. 8 ' "If you can't find your ticket. woman, come with me; you must have to pay double the cost of a ticket or face court action for entering Her Majesty's Train without a ticket" threatened the T.'T. C. in all seriousness. It never occurred to the T.T. C. to ask for the passenger's weigh-bill wherein the number of the ticket was definitely entered. Mrs. Okondu, quite over-confident that she bcupht a ticket, feeling satisfied that it war tucked away some whcre on her person. was so busv searching for it to rake any notice of the threat? of 'double payment or court action' cmanatir.~ frern the 'dark devil' the embarrassing T. T . C. who planted himself imtr.ovably, starring at Ola like an imagecarved out of mzrble and stone. .. . "Give me time to find it" pleaded Old. '' 1.can.t waste the whole. time waiting for you to find your bloody ticket". swore the T.T.C. I have other 500 tkkcts t o see". ."Go .on, then, and see other tickets: I will'bring n~ine you to as soon as I find it. Alternately you can cbme back for it after y 0 u have seen other passengers' tickets", requested OIa. �. . . . ' am not moving an inch "ntil I have your ticket or have you' I 'You must have to carry !me on your dirty lousy .head, if you must go with me' lashed-out Ola: 'will you.stop.harrassing me?, , , .' . :.. The T.T.C. stood for a good khile: staring at Ola with' furrowed brows. Every one around anticipated a scene, but to their pleasant surprise, the T.T.C.. as if bitten suddenly by a bug of good judge. ment, moved unceremoniously 'away, shouting 't i c k t r , ~ , all ticrets ready' as he swayed left and nght. in a big wsy. insp:cting tick-ts .. and luggages on both sides of th2 co~upirtmcntpassage. , . ' ' . .The ticket rang a bell. in Ola's brain. She now remembered she tied 'it in the waixt-end of her wrap-round-the-waist skirt-like loin cloth. . 'H&O 'is -the ticket. Mr. T.T.C. ;I 'have fouhd it at last; I know 1 h3d it: If you thought I s!ole into your train, then. your .imagination had misfired' : T h.s T.T.C. . snatchedthe ticket from her, 10,oked at it closely > . for a time on one hide. then" turned ;he other side .and ihspected .this much more clorrly. ~ a turned the first kde and inspected it with ' as much scrutiny. He was in the process of turning to the second . . . side a second tim: when Ola 1ish:d out with ber neverfailing veno.... _ .mous tongue: . . . .. .. . . . 'Give in5 my ticket. you diity swine. You look at i( as if you are seeing a train ticket for the first time 'in life'. : .: ' yo-~rself how : 'Min'd ticket and putyou talk to me. t hIfeyou don? behave. I'shall . next station. without a seize your you down in ticket. then you should have to wait for 48 hours before' you ' c a n get anothx tram to board. assuming that you l?ave enough.money for . . . . . . a frcsh ticket. ". 'You no fit d u a d broke in Ola in 'broken ~irglis'b'; *try it and .see. what igo.happin to :bou.: you kharki trousered tyrant'. - !., . ..'The 'kvam;. 'levam' please from the nearby: passengtrs made .the .T.T.C give UD the imincnt show-down, whilst he, unresrrvedly . . . 'continued on his 'tickets.. all tichts' harange, .. , �. looked om o f . the. window tb . skk for herself those' scenes and landscapes she could not see on their jo& soro ney. to, $ado. . saq.muQ hut? $dad", ..,, ] like grp"ndiLpt . .. : pyramids scattered on both sides of the rail with littlest .efforts at orderliness.; she saw dirty looking children and equally badly dressed . I -adults. who fprmed a kind ,of infosmal .guard of hodour fqr the passinp. train, mnking sonorous jubilant hoi$es that defied ad9 i6. , . .. tell~gent !nterpretation ;. she'saw rock, hills with ;tony pcak;'and ruggqd sides that could give sanctuary to all sorts of innumerable .. ,)y,iJc livcs; bhc \liqu&sed iush corn field$..a ,rh$ exhila&ng site to .a, Farmer's ward 2 cattle, counttles hard of cattle, exceedingly big, with drbo'ping tummies and lcose flesh' vqry. fat metron who had lately lost half her wsigbt to slimming gills; Ola saw frail-look' ing ~ulmi"herdsmen, lookinithe wor!d in the face as if they have no ..... 'care: 'iiola'ted 'datino' trees towermi in the vcsta of giass or desert land, miled 'from any where. Ola' wondeied why ;ailire had made Nigeri&i $iysicnl f~aturesi o ;tttiactivc? She fht ' convinced that un- ' 'crowdes trdin jburney' frdm' gas; to. ~ort'h;kpecially if m a d e in . good he& kith eno@h' monei,' is thb' mdsi 'relixing and refreshing recreatioi any one cobld ho$ to hive any whbre.' t * i s 0larmlleoted~-herself.. 111 i I., : like's . I I .b ' .. . : , ., . ?#.. Ola arrived at her destination to find that no one was waiting for her,, except the blood sucker truck-pushers and the ra!lway port6rs who readily rchdek'd paid sthicis to any dfiaccompan~ed passengers who uskcd lor them. She :trekked to the motor -park. trailing far behitld her lugeages which the truck -pusher pushed on at a much faster phco than she could.cope with. .At long last, after a breath raking marathon to keep - u p with the truck -pusher, whose integrity, experience has taught her to doubt, Ola,got a t the. motor station,ybere, s11,e. hoard4 a [orry to her home. a good 45 miles drive at 66 M. P. H. from th- motor park. - - �Her feelings were mixed: T o her, it was painful that none waited ,far h:r at railway station despite the telegram sent from Kano 49 hours earlier; she was nonetheless happy to be going home to familiar surroundings where her words had alway8 been law; happy to be g h g horn:, in su:h a satisfying condition of restored sight. . Ola learnt, on arrival hm:, that h:r telegram had taken 53 hours to fail to arrive. With the P. & T. in matters of telegaph deliveries. it has always been quicker to send a horseman, or, if money is not your trouble, to publish yoar movemtnts in the dailies, rather than to send telegrams. In any case, had the telegram jrrived earlier, the odds were that no body would have come to meet her. since Okondu, her evx-loyal husblnd, h3d taken Born-Boy to the Lep:r Settl<ment a week ago, where he decided to stay with Bom-Boy until some willing, but God-sent soul would be forrhtoming, from ~ o d n c s s knows where. to take th2: twos with hi:n. O:m.~dln x r exp:c:ed thnt Ola would be wdl so soan. As fcr Ekemma, Okondu's second wife. it was all Okondu's and Ola's business. They both, according to her. saw trouble coming and cxtendcd b3th arms to en'xa:: it. They s h x ~ l d l v ~ h nons to blame but themselves. Eke would nor l s e her appctite on the so-. called misfortunes, knowing as she knew that those of them who . accepted traatmsnt from unqualified charlattans, eithcr be-suse of its cheapness, or b:cau>e of quicker s-rviocs, ought to bs prepared t o learn silently by heart. the lessons one often learns from cheap and easy acquisitions. As far as Ekemma is concerned, life is so precious .. . that. no secriEce, not even of time or money, cculd be considered too : great in order t a get tho hsalth back whm life is threatened through the warning notice which death often gives to mortals via illness. Ola received a heroiness welcome from every one at home in. cluding Eke. Okondu und om-BOY w x e more conspicuous by their absence. �. .':Where Jsmy Bom-Boy; wliere. i s Rilanyi[ q k e d .Ola with visibly palpitating heart beat. ,, . . . . "I can only tell you where Dl-anyi said he was going when h e left home a week ago" replied. Eke carefreeiy; 'He .sai& he was taking I C . Bom-Boy,ro the Bintu ~e&-~ettlemenr and we have not. heard of o r from him ever since". a , . .I# I . Ekcmma. who had no living .irsues hcrself- she Iost'two" 'm a I e chil6ren t o Indian Flu of 1958 -had little o r no soft feelings left f o r ,. .. , . , , . , ,. . , . . other woman's children. . The !nmates of !he Bintu Leper Settlement welcoming Born-Boy with express. pity and d~sl~gured hmbh faces and b p y gaits. ions of 57 �OIa knew and understood her attitude very well and mad: as much allowance as she could for il. OIa was resolute on seeing her Bom-Boy and her hubby Okondu without delay. The other children pleaded in vain for their mum to tarry awhile with them before setting off again if she must. She promised them bigger bundles of swezts and other 'market things' and, then, took-off directly for Bintu Lepx Settlement. She budgeted conservatively for a maximaurn of 3 hours' travelling to got t o Bintu, 60 miles a-ay. Much depends on how soon t t e passenger-trucks could get there. People who are used to road-travels by lorries hardly expect much fro= them as these passenger lorries are never compulsorilly serviced until they develop engine or t y n troubles. The practice in other countries of compulsory servicing for every 1033 miles covered has not yet arrived in Nigeria. Travellers must have to buy a lot of patience if they have none already, t o survive journeys by passenger-lorries. Every body on the lorry, care-freely. gets on every body else's nerves. You are not always sure of getting to your destination safely and on scheduled time. , OIa didn't seem to have reckoned with avoidable delays of the above mentioned type in her rough estimation of the duration of her journey to Bintu. At mile 35 on the Olaku-Eintu road, the passcnzer-lorry in which she was travelling. took a sharp right turn instead of keeping on a straight course. Every passenger wondered where, on earth, the ' m ~ d drivtr was heading to. Some pastengcrs ' protested in very unmistakable terms indicative of deep annoyance. The driver drove steadily on and on and on, off-course, and t h e n came to a d:ad stop in a living compound about 4 miles off-route. " ~ l lm3n, down" chmandod t h e driver, arching himself like a swanky peacock, as if to say that he drives the whole country, ministers and all as, and whcre he likes. - . A bamge .of abuses descended o n him from the irrate passengers who felt grossly offended by 'the time -wasting, and unbargained-for off-course journey. 58 I �'Fancy your brazen'lmpudence to: 'kike uizso'hi& . 'y ' . . .Worn . the main roadi swore one passenger. . .. 'You must be a mad doe t o do that' swore another. " .. . ' "" . . . _ :.,... -:. . >.,' 'You no go see bettar for your 'llfe-:-for taking.:us b+.rtkis far place' added the third. 'Every body, down' shouted the driver; 'the more..you sit-tight in my lorry, the mare you detain )ovrsalves. In your' own interests you better come down,so that I may unpack the plankson the floor . .. of the lorry'. pleaded the driver.' .' ri,.,.' ' ~ e ' a r e ldnger in i h u r r i ; lot none come down eammatd$ . ,. . had self-appointed.ihimscll the' leader . >.' , ,.' . . .. . b . r d one of the'passen.qers, who ' .. . of the bassengers. ' w e shali stay here until.the.d&er trkes uk back t o ,,.. .. the main road. We ainc going to allow him to, unpack his planks. ,. . .. ,. .. It I s high time the drlvars began t e riipect th6feIings ofnthr..people .. .< . , ., .! <:;:<;:; who p&ide the m w y by which their salarie; are paid. Wepassen- . gers, could afford t o be serious for once In our lives with these jmpru* dent, irreverent, l;reprehenrible, . . , . ..: . > ,..< imesponiible:drivers:. :Does i t m e a n i s ni0re.=&~cerii.,t6' td&'driv&s .@an . . that the delivery of the the safe and timely arrival o f their . t o theiri-respective journey's end?' , . *I .wonder' echoed o n e o f.. the. passengers: . . ... .*.' 1 . ' . ~ No passenKer' moved ss much as a - m u s t k P T h e-dilver- e v F t cd from comma'ndinz .them to.pleadlng for understanding;. ..kcwas too late. In the end hi? l u m ~ e d onto the wheel and'rcsumed-thejourney without deliverlnp th6 planks.. A t mile 40;'thd'ldriy broke+own; o r so the driver told every one. .'' Those paesagers In hurry d e c Id e d - t o .jotn anbthcr 1'0 r i y. 59 �The driver of the presumedly faulty lorry refused t o refund pan or all of the money already paid by Ola and the rest. Ola transferred t o another lorry. A t Mile 60 she came down. 'Where Is the m t o Blntu Leper Settlement' asked Ola t o a mlddle -aged lad w i t flabby llps lndicatlng that she had ' spent the best part o f her h e talking gllbly on many thlngs -the gossiping type who never stopped ulklng until they fell asleep at nights. i 'Are you golng to the Leper Settlement' querrled the woman. *Yes, but not as a patlent. I am merely a visitor' .:'You- must be a stranger ; you won't be allowed In at rhls tlme of theday u visitlng hour is from 2 p.m. t o 4 p.m. dally save Sunday-when you can stay .on until 6 p.m if you have the guts to stay that long among the lepers. If I were you. I would seek shelter for the nlght t o v l ~ l ty a l n t m o r r o w at the proper tlme'. ' ... Thank you for nothlng, &dam, you are givlng me'mare informations than I requested for. Perhaps people this way have tongues having no brakes.' All I asked for Is the road t o Blntu Settlement. N o more, no less.' ' 'Woman' is that another name for gratitude In your village? Sooner o r later you would come to reallse that my Informations are the best you can have under the circumstances. Good luck and may God grant you peace and patlence, the two quallties much needed t o get o n w d l with people.' Blntu Settlement, u the name suggested, Is a mln!ature village. The patients llve, one t o a room flat, o r t w o t o a room-and-parlour if a couple o r close rehtlons came as patlents together. Younger patlents who can't normally cater for themselves are adoxed by the older ones u wards. The flats are built around the clrcumfcrence of a. big circle. f The body o the clrcle is used as common ncreatlonal field for all the occu ants o f the same quarter. One advantage of such a pattern o f butt ing IS that one sandlng in front o f one f l a t can see other fellows golng In o r coming out from any other flat so that the movements of any of the inmates of one cubicle can be easlly watched by the 'rubber k n d who care to do so. 8 - �.... The psr&t:of aiver.y'young 'patknt ' i;ncouiagid i o stay .for. i some time until'the patierit getk used t o the older patient who would adopt. him. The big iron-entrance gate made the village look'like' a' private extensive home. A large bell hung at a conspicuious. place at. the gat6 so that any literate new-comer'co'uld easily .see the 'ring the bell for'attention' notice. The in-patients who. had 1ale:passes. out could also ring this bell'to.be4et in byGab, the "iron&eartcd' keeper of the iron-gate. Gab. the unsmiling gate-man was also a veteran of two wars and an en-patient of the rtttlerntnt. ' . : ' . . ........ . Ola rang the beil rathe; tAo &huriastically.' ~ h ; gateman Same. ...... .... bait-haste, thihkidg' the Director of the ~ettlknint was it'tik gate as . . . '..I no visitor was expected at'that t h e of ihe &iig. To cab' utter s disappointment, hesaw a not-too-bad l&king.'though equally unsmiling lady, fair-complexioned. and wrapped fashionably. capa-pk-. in Akwette cloths. , . . . . . . . ..,. . . * . .. , . ... "Na wstin' >o".want*' quenied Gab fither authoritatively: ' ... . "'I '$el. my sdyand my' mant admitted here a wcek ag6 .to .the .... . .. , . . . . . . . . . . .. . minute;....... . ._;. . . . "Big . . . . . . &b. no go save you natin" interrupt&d. ... ~ e f o r c could say. a word, ihe gate 'had closed with such ? she . %tic bang that .rould only indicate the. disgust the . . . gate-man fclt at . . . . ,. . 'visit& k h o chose to &it hours 'outo'ide the visiting ' b e . The ve. . . . one." teran . kdew nd. preferences;. not even effemiiate . . He'had never been ckivalrokin his life: To him the niatter is as closed GO^'; decision, against which there is .no appeal'. . ,. . . . .. . ,. . . Ola is apt the type to take 'No' for 8n answer. She rang the bell so e h t ~ c a l l ythat- somt inmates of the SsttlemenPwbb'tgmC near the gateat the h e ' took message t o 'Okondu of tho . 'nice-lookin? .lady at the gate for him':.' Okondu made for the gate.. 1: ': . . ' ,I.. 1 .+ .. : , ' �He was so pleased with the sight of his wife that he opened the gate without much 'thoughis as to.the. consequences: No patient or hisrelation is a I I o w e d to towh the gate. Only Gab. can do. it. Breach of regulations is often seriously frowned at by authorities. .It might lead Po an instant discharge of the culprit-patient without completing his treatment. Okondu swept Okhigh into his hosom,crying; "014 1 Ola'l.. wife; is .it. you that I am seeing or your double?'.' . , . . . . 'How ,are you. n w' o? 'I am absolutely alright, Dim,' replicd OIa. Thank goodness , .. ... f&jpartial'm'&ci:s. .Our joy shall know no i;ounds whcn our .Born. . _ . . : Boy is' co&pfetely recovered. How .is he.. . . . . . . . . . . . 'Shall .we oo.in? Our-5at is a good five minutes stroll:from.~tl?o ... gate. Our Boy. is fast asleep'. I As Okondu and wife tried to move in the direction of the vill. age, Gab. landed on the scene as i f from nowhere. .. :. , ...... . ,. 'Go hack, womsn. . .I. no .go let y0.u in ,even ityou be .the best. . . . .. . eat womm for dis warld; g3 back. I sly' commanded Gab. , Okondu and Ola pleaded and pleaded to no avail. It suddenly occured to Ola that where words of mouth fail to achieve expected . .- . . rcsulis. . . . . . o f some. kind . has . worked miracles. You don't :have * bribery . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . .. to go,,far in .. country. to meet .ungincipled indkdualb who .sell the . .. thFir con;cicacc for a few shillings. up backed up with empty prp. & s .that ace nevi? fulfilled :once .the. objective, is attained. . 'Here, h d p me spent"d&', . 0h 'gave Ggb' five 'shilling 'tip'. ............... g& odaoed;.''Gab: wa& O h with' a royal salute. His furrow<d,brows brightened. up as if an inward.gracc had coursed his Veirid. The golden, key<.hasopcqed the bolted gate, .as.B e saying.gocs. he: ia �"Na dem make the law, but na me de kipam. Ifi I no hopen 'the gate, no one go henter. Madam, make it stay so-tay iGya ; no body igo. make palaba ifi Ino. report you" . - Okondu-Bom Boy's 'mud hut with aluminiun sheet rwfing was, comparatively passable for human habitation. OIa entered the hut unceremoniously, picked-up Bom Boy and examined the body t o see if the skin patches had shown any signs of clearing. Her facial expression dropped suddenly as if stung by the usual unexpected rudeness from a junior Nigerian subordinate. The patches were s t i l l there i n extenio. "Tell me. Dim, what has been done to. it so far. Did you tell docta the whole truth about it?'' "How can I ? How can any onet The doctor could hand me over t o the police if I confessed to him that my illegal injections t o Bom-Boy caused the skin patches" replied Okondu rather nervously. **Well l am goi"g t o tell the Dr. how the patches came about first thing tomorrow morning". "You must be crazy t3 want t s implicate me. Ola. You can't; you mustn't; you dare n x do that, my Ola", pleaded Okondu, this time more firmly than he had ever been before. Leave it t o me Dim; you won't be t o any trouble. before, I might, as wtll, do it again this time. I can never put you into any harm deliberately' it I have done D m ' t worry. Dim. **Listen t o me Ola: Ihave let you have your way in almost all things hitherto. I have already had enough of my own share of the average difficulties of life. My cup is quite full with vinegar and gall. I don't want any more trouble. If you i n s i s t on telling the doctor the whole truth, then. I will be gone before you have the chance t o do it, and only goodness knows where I shall be gone to." �"Dim. be reasonable. We are here. miles from home. to see Bom-Boy well. There are no two ways about seeing him cured except by telling the doctor the root cause of the trouble. May I repeat, for the purpose of reassuring you, that you won't be implicated. The docta won't be told that you knew what happened. Otherwise, he would naturally querry why you didn't tell him from the start. There is no need to meet trouble half the way: wise men either eo all out for the trouble or wait till it comes. Bom-Boy must be cured. I can almost swear to it that you won't be implicated. Dim." With this assunnn the topic became as good as closed. The idea of a Leper Settlement is to make it approximate a real home as much as possible. The essence of a home is privacy. This is ensured by allocating a room-flat 10 a patient, or two room-flat to two related-patients Each patient owns his own toilet, a plot of land for cultivating food crops as well as cash crops. His old surroundings are transplanted as much as possible to his new situations.. Trade is taught in the settlement. Faid employments are given to the able patients such as road making, general labour, hospital work in patients' wards, and farming. Schools are organised for patients of school age. Adult education classes seemed popular. A rich woman patient had been known to be so thrilled with her ability to write her name through adult education classes that she orderzd for an eigth guineas Parker fountain pm. - Okondu had been spoken to previouslv by the doctor in-charge about school arrangements for Born-Boy. The doctor had undertsken to see the welfare Officer for it. The idea gave Okondu some anxious moments as he felt that the question of school arrangements should not have arisen at all if the doctor had not been certain that Bom-Boy's stay in the Settlement would be long. - �The doctor came 'to work earlier than usual. The two nursing sisters who normally accompany bim on the hut-rounds had not yet arrived. So, the doctor (aught it fit to pop in. informally, to see the little new patient about his rchoool arrangements before resuming the dry's work in.the usual 'Big Three' way. 'Can I come in. asked the doctor 8s he entered the tlat door obliquely to accommodate his hefty stumpish figure, with his loose fitting jaw-flesh almost tauching the colar-bone. 'Come in doctor. Meet my wife just arrived to see her son. We call her Ola' 'Children are almost always safer in the hands of their mothen and grannies; why hasn't she been here fro= tho start to look lnrr htr son?' asked the doctor with as much indifference as could carilly srrggcst that he didn't want an answer?. 'Oh, doctor. she hasn't bien well herself. She had just retuned from Kano w h e r e her eye-trouble had b e e n sucoerrfuUy trutcd. Eh.... m eh' ......, 'Stop. Dim. I can speak for myself. I haven't lost my tongue yet, yoti know' interrupted Ola ' 'Docta, I don't mind sta ing on to take care of my boy, if you don't mind provided I know ow long the teatment is likely to last. h "You don't have to stay mth the boy once a suitablo patient could be found to take care of him. As for tho duration of treament, I am arraid, it will take some good while to diagnose, with absolute certainty, the species of Bacillus Lcprae that caused the &inpatches. Our 6 n t smear test didn't reem to .sive any clue to the species of tho cauutive organism. f i e one week*$ pre-treatment diagnoses didnot kern to . have made any noticeable impression an the nasty patch. ' �Our smear tests are done fortnightly and .your boy must -have to wait till another week -end for another test.,I am afraid. By then. I hope we shall be able t o get to grips with the root cause of the trouble. It is most. likely that your boy had been infected with an unusual species of Bacillus Lepsae that .does not readily respoad to routin2 symptomatic tests. Any thing can happen these days. We are n e w surprise6 at new discoveries.' In the inte&ning period between now and the -hext siniar-te$t,we shall make bure t1:at your boy's body does not harbour any physiological defects. such as low haenloglobin count, . . . .. -. ... . . . . worms in the guts, liver troubles, ere. that nhy likely ,b& complication in the courss of the treatment.' ., ., . . -. . .., . . .. . . . 'Well, docta. I h a m , something very iniprotantly relcvsnl to tell you* said Ola in.-all:seriousness. ' . . .- ... ..,,!2 'Madam, you better hold on, s m not in yet for the formal rounds. I shall be back soon with the sisters. who; I hope, shall be very glad to shsre your informations with me, unless they are con. . fidential' i .. 4 The two sisters heights five and one quaker feet, symmetrical in dimensions, looked in appearances, as if they were blood relations to the hefly hI. 0.But for th:ir white uniforms. and smiling faces, one could easily. mistake them for moving bags of garri tied in the middle with white. ribbon bands. They were. hurrying to join the doctor i whom, they thought, ha3 gone i hut or two ahead of them ,on [he hut rounds. The two over weight Nursing sisters the nuisance-sister' ( as they are nicknamed by some of their, staff-nurses). moved so hsavily over the grass-field as if their lower extremities needed oiling. - 'NOW, .. - then, madam! what is it you want to tell or ark me. Be brief and to the pdint. . ~ l l ' o t h e r patients &e'kaiting' .. 'Doctor'. Bom-Boy's skin- patches started like thi$:- A m3n came along one day with some bottles of injectable materials which he claimed could make children grow fister and stronger.. Adult4 the drug-pedlar said; could hadrdly fall ill after taking such injections. �Bom-Boy had been too small and tooweak for his age. Such injeotions suited him quite handsomely. An injection that encourages rapid growth and promoter good health, should bc expected to cost guineas if given by the doctors. But the itinerant ex-service man 'doctor' charged me only three shillings, all told, for each injection. I paid six shillings for me and Bom-Boy each time he visited. At first, the injection seemed to be doing us a world of good. I started to feel my former self again. Bom-Boy became more agile and started t o eat well. The injection's apparent harmless efficacy coupled with its obvious cheapness made me ask for it for self and son each time the 'doctor' called. Our regular patronage made the 'doc's calls more frequent, some timescalling as many as thrice weekly. The after-effects of such injections were my recent loss of eye sight, and the present .. Bom-Boy's skin conditions, doctat - - - 'Do you know what the injection was called ? asked the doctor in a calculated professional self cont:ol.' 'What injection was it ?' 'Penicillinpowder, dissolved with 3cc acetylarsan injection solution' 'I see' did your husbind know about this? . Okoridu's hair and eye-brows stood on edge. He was almost prepared t o jump the window but for the prompt and timely reply from Ola: . . . 'No, docta' 'You said ,your eye trouble .got treated at Kano?' .. . 'Yes docta' 'Did you tell theKano doctor what happened before he started your eye treatment' 'No, docta, not until after a week's fruitle treatment' 'Why did you have to wait for a week before telling him?' 'Because. I went to Kano to b a t the fading eye-sight and not to treat its cause. I did'nt think such revelation rcvelant at fiat.' �'What did the Kano.doctor tell you when'he knew the cause of your eye trouble ?' 'e advised me very strongly against accepting medicines &om H tiny one other .than doctors or pharmacists' . . Are you, then, converted ? No, docta ? What ? "Decidedly, no, Docta" . . . . Why not ? Docta' if every patient went to the hospital or to doctors with their com?laints in a country like ours with so few doctors and much fewer pharmacists, a country where nearly every third.man is a pro:spective patient of one disease or the other malaria, jaundice colic and headiche we shall 'have inore deaths in the hospitals than we d o have at present; because .our ,hospitals shall be so over-crowded with patients that many of them shall have been-dead before ever theJ have an inch of a chance of seeing any doctor. But for the Chemists, the death rolls in our community would have been more alarmingly higher. As for those trader-drug pedlars and the like, docta, I think they do help'. - Will you stop the trash, lady. What do you know about drugs and their toxicity as to psntificate as to who should and who shouldn't handle them?. Once bitten, twice shy -but you don't seem to have learned anything from your part experiences in the hands of the quacks.' �'Okey, doaa. I shall be your slave, once - &om-Boy geu better through your treatments. .If that I s any help,, I want to say before you, doaa. that I believe i n three d's viz.: drugs, dollars. and doctors in that order Just as my husband and my husband's second wlfe do." Okondu, Ola, and Bom-Boy Wave hearty good Settlement Medical o r Area Superintendent. THE END. . bye t o the Leper �HEALTH FIRST BOOKS D NKEM AKUNEME . ELEKERE AGWO: T H E Q U A C K DOCTOR A NOVEL ON 'THE DANGERS OF ILLEGAL - INJECTIONS AND SELF-MEDICATIONS (2) Poisoas and Poisoning By t h e same author. Over 5,000: people die every year, of poisoning, over 20,000 people are treated annually of.poisoning symptoms, more than .half of these are innocent children. .,. ' To be on the safe side, Read "Poisons & Poisoning. Price only 2/- �P R O F I L E , Mr. Akuneme has spent 15 years of his student life as a scholarship student. In the secondary school, he was an Orlu N. A. scholar for 4 years from 1940 to 1943 He spent 4 years in the school of pharmacy Yaba as a Nigerian Government Scholarship Student from 1944 to 1948. As Eastern Nigeria Government Scholar, he spent 7 years in U. K. :-5 years in Leeds University, studying academic pharmacy and special studies pharmacology. and the rest in Leicester Colleze of Technology and Wakefield Clayton Haspital working and gaining invaluable experieoce. In U. K. Mr. Akwneme lectured widely to Rotary Clubs, Church organisations, Youth Clubs, University Union Societies, International Centres, and Pax Rornana World Congress, on such topics as Colour Prejudice, Nigzria, African Pharmacology, the place of women in African Society etc. His best known contributions while in U. K. were:- As presideat of Leeds Branch ot Nigeria Union, he organised a Landladies' Day Party (now an annual event). Where landladies and landlords. University Vice chancellors, HOS: pita1 matrons, College principals, and others who had shown obvious interests and kindness to Nige. rians in IJ. K. were treated gene- r rously, to Nigerian foods, c u h a l display, and Nigerian film shows, an event very widely publicised by D. N.Akunernz British and World Press . - . and British . information Service, as "the best practical demonstration of inter -- ratial harmony'' - - - ~ - �Akuneme played a leading part in founding the Leeds University Afro Asiaa society which provided needed forum for Afro-Asian students' meetings He has written numerous "Health First? series of articles on such topics as:"Occupations and their influence on the health of a nation". Mental ~ & l t h Nigerian U. K. students. of Psychology of studying. Poisons and poisoning. Pharmacy in a: new Nigeria. 'Face to face with Bribery and. Corruption etc. ,i H style..of writing hi3 been : acclaimed by leading British and. Nigerian journalists as "pleasantly informal", "irres.istibly interesting", and "doubtlessly educative". - . . M ~ k t i n e m ehas worked as ~ o i ~ i t a l ; . pharmacist in Lagos,.Bukuru, Barakin Ladi, Kaduna, Bernin Kebbi, Jos, Wakefield (England), Liverpool, Enugu, Onitsha and P.H.: He studied in Awo-Omamma (his home town), at Kano (in Northern Nigeria), and in Lagos - a true citizen of a .Federal Nigeria, ~ k u n e m e married to Elizabeth Njoku, a U. K. is trained Staff nurse of the Nightingale Calibre, and is a proud father of four lovable children Cynthia, Terrence, Ikwukaku Edmond, and Charles Ndubueze. - ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Onitsha Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Elekere Agwo : the quack doctor Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Akuneme, D. Nkem. Type The nature or genre of the resource Onitsha market literature Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Awo-omamma, Eastern Nigeria : Oma Printing Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource c. 1964 Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Nigerian literature (English) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ksrl.c3545 Description An account of the resource This long pamphlet is described as "<em>a novel on the dangers of illegal injections and self-medications,</em>" (pg.70). Neither an advice guide nor how-to pamphlet, this fictional account joins others by Akuneme that cover issues related to mental health, pharmacy and poisons as part of a series called "Health First". The story follows a "law-abiding" yet disgruntled trader named Okondu who joins up with a dubious character named Sunday to administer illegal injections for profit. Okondu's first wife, Ola, and son, Bom-Boy, receive poisonous injections containing arsenic from Okondu to "cure" their ailments. Rather than promoting growth, strength and healing, the injections bring disaster to Okondu's family.<br /><br />Characters in this tale learn lessons about their experiences "in the hands of quacks," (pg.68). One strong message within the story is that drugs "are two-edged swords," (pg.45). In the end, education conquers ignorance and Okondu is forgiven for his attempt to substitute three quick weeks of "quack" apprenticeship for six years of rigorous professional medical training. Akuneme writes, "May God Forgive Okondu and his ilk for they know not what they are doing," (pg.29). Some Of the challenges facing Nigeria's medical profession and its ailing citizens, as well as the country's transportation network, are revealed in this entertaining story. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. However, for this Item, either (a) no rights-holder(s) have been identified or (b) one or more rights-holder(s) have been identified but none have been located. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0/</a> https://exhibits.lib.ku.edu/files/original/0713d2e35f0982f978cee725eafc3acb.jpg d17658fe7034b5dfe68f5915da78dcf3 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 2765 Height 1556 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Celebrating East Asian Studies Scholarship Description An account of the resource East Asian Studies Scholarship Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Elementary school Description An account of the resource Professor Kennedy with elementary school children in Ningxia 2011. East Asian https://exhibits.lib.ku.edu/files/original/f70caba9acdb73feb5cbb84b598f60da.JPG 66e1839cea2f30e01d4829c6eef7b4f0 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. 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Width 1061 Height 707 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Celebrating East Asian Studies Scholarship Description An account of the resource East Asian Studies Scholarship Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Elementary school in Shaanxi Subject The topic of the resource basic Chinese reading and math forms Description An account of the resource Image 1&2: These are picture of 4th grade elementary school boys in Shaanxi province filling out basic Chinese reading and math forms. We use these basic learning forms to evaluate how nutritional standards can influence academic performance. Image 3: The research team (college students from Northwest University, Xian) measured students’ height and weight for the baseline survey in 2009 and again for the evaluation survey in 2010. Image 4: Author’s Survey 2009 (Baseline survey conducted in 2009) and World Health Organization Standard Height to Age measure East Asian