Doctor Curmudgeon® An Appearance from the Eminent Victorian Physician Dr. Cranky

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By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP Doctor Eisman, is in Family Practice in Aventura, Florida with her partner, Dr. Eugene Eisman, an internist/cardiologist

Long time readers of the thoughts, rants and mutterings of Doctor Curmudgeon have followed me since the Neolithic Age when I first began scrawling on clay tablets.

But for those readers who are more recent, I will reintroduce my Great-Great-Great Grandmother, Dr. Cranky Wangshaw-Vesalius-Steinberger. She was one of the rare women to be a physician in the Victorian Era. She was in practice with her husband, the very, very famous Dr. Yevgeny Vesalius-Steinberger.

Grandmother Doctor Cranky was a half-sister to Dr. John H. Watson and her husband, Dr. Yevgeny was in service as a Royal Army Surgeon with Dr. Watson. And as we all know, Dr. Watson was a friend, confidante, sounding-board and physician to the brilliant Sherlock Holmes.

When Dr. Watson was away, my great grandparents felt honored to step in and care for his most famous patient, Sherlock Holmes.

I had always believed that Dr. Cranky was merely a family myth…until I found myself in possession of her diary, which also had her case notes.

On first opening her diary, I was enveloped by a whiff of lavender over an undercurrent of vanilla. And ever since I turned the first page, dear Grandmother, Dr. Cranky began to appear periodically, to comfort me and sometimes to chastise me.

And so, this morning, in the pre-dawn hours, I felt her gentle hand soothing my brow, heard the rustle of her skirt and that delicious scent.

Removing my teddy bear and seating herself in the armchair near my bed, she began, “And now what is it? You have been screeching so loudly that you have made yourself quite a disturbance!”

“They don’t listen to me!”

“Of course not, Dear. Why should they listen to you when you use that irritating whining voice!!”

“Hmmph,” I responded, feeling slightly insulted.

“And, if I may deign to inquire…who are ‘they’ that do not listen to you?” she asked.

Attempting to speak in her well-modulated voice with its faint British accent, I explained that I was having difficulty getting my patients to get vaccinations. Any vaccinations. Influenza. Pneumonia. Shingles Tetanus/diphtheria. And I was concerned about convincing them to be vaccinated against COVID-19 when it would be available.

“This is unbelievable, my dear and easily irritated grandchild! We had an anti-vaccination movement in my day. To some extent, I could understand it as so many people who called themselves doctor were really quacks as you would say. And most of them promulgated the theory that it was bad air, miasma, which caused illnesses.”

Smoothing her skirt, she continued, “And doctors were distrusted.”

I was not surprised by that statement as it was happening today.

“We had anti vaxxers. Even though small pox was a savage disease and Doctor Jenner had created a vaccine almost one hundred years before my time, people still refused it”, said my grandmother.

“There were pamphlets disbursed saying vaccination was a curse.

“And, I had far too many patients tell me that they refused to put something foreign into their body.”

“They tell me the same thing,” I commented.

Replacing my teddy bear on the armchair, Great-Great-Great grandmother rose to leave.

Turning back to me, she said, “My dear curmudgeon. I do believe that I, a least have a response when you have spent a great deal of time explaining all the reasons the vaccination is important…and a patient tells you that he or she refuses to put something unhealthy and unnatural into their bodies…..

“Just say ‘What about that hot dog you ate? Or the fried bacon? Chicken nuggets? Deep fried onion rings in three day old fat? Sodas loaded with sugar? Nachos with cream and cheese and meat? That’s natural and healthy?”

Doctor Curmudgeon® is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.

SERMO www.sermo.com “talk real world medicine”

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