Free Death by Lotto by Abigail Keam Page B

came in and Suzy pulled up from the counter. The confidential gabfest was over.
    “Do you still have Sunday’s paper?” I asked.
    “No dearie, we don’t keep unsold papers.”
    “Thank you very much.” I started out the door.
    “Don’t you want Ethel’s ticket for this week?”
    “How stupid of me. Yes. How much?”
    We finished our transaction, and then I hurried to the Avanti where I gave Walter a brief rundown.
    “We need a library or a computer,” he spat out.
    “We’ll have to go to Danville now. It’s closer.”
    “Didn’t we just come through Harrodsburg?”
    “Yes, but now Danville is closer. We’ve driven into the country several miles since Harrodsburg.”
    “Which way?”
    “Turn onto Route 150. Danville is a college town.”
    “Ohh, I like college towns. They have lots of pretty girls.”
    “Pig!”
    “Oink. Oink.”

12
    Danville, with its picture perfect main street, is home to Centre College, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. It is also called the “city of firsts,” for it housed the first courthouse in Kentucky, the first post office west of the Allegheny Mountains, first state-supported school for the deaf, and home to the first doctor, Ephraim McDowell, to successfully remove an ovarian tumor.
    Ephraim McDowell was one of those doctors at the time that espoused cleanliness was next to godliness. In his outline for operations, he wrote that everything had to be “scrupulous clean.” That was quite a novel thought at a time when doctors didn’t even bother to wash their hands after seeing patients, let alone take a bath now and then.
    Jane Todd Crawford, riding on horseback for sixty miles, came to see the good doctor. She had a serious medical problem. Her baby refused to be born and all seemed lost until she heard about this radical doctor in Danville.
    Dr. McDowell confirmed that it was not a baby, but an ovarian tumor. He told the poor woman that she would die if not treated, but then again she would probably die when treated because he proposed to do something daring – cut into her body and remove the tumor. It was her decision.
    Being a woman of grit, Mrs. Crawford agreed to the operation. On Christmas morning in 1809, without benefit of anesthetic or antisepsis, Ephraim McDowell cut into the pink flesh of Mrs. Crawford.
    It is quite probable that she might have had a swig of whiskey before biting down on a leather strap to ease the pain. Nothing else was available.
    The operation took an agonizing twenty-five minutes to remove a twenty-two pound tumor, but Mrs. Crawford survived to live another thirty years.
    When Ephraim McDowell released his paper on the operation and his techniques, he was ridiculed by the medical profession.
    It wasn’t until he had an impressive list of surviving patients that other doctors started thinking that they too might have more surviving patients if they embraced the notion of cleanliness.
    What a novel breakthrough!
    Neff spotted the college’s library and pulled the Avanti over. While Neff waited with the car, which was causing some excitement among students passing by, I ventured into the library. Seeing the front desk, I hurried over.
    “Excuse me. Can you direct me to last week’s Sunday paper?” I asked a young clerk.
    “You can look on the computer if you have a card, but we don’t keep the actual papers after a time. Are you a student here or live in the county?” she asked, smiling.
    “No.”
    “Then I’m sorry. I can’t give you a loaner’s card.”
    “Are you sure you don’t have the actual paper lying around somewhere?”
    “Hold on for just a moment, please.” She called someone on the phone and had a lengthy talk. “The building manager still has a copy in his office. He’s bringing it right up for you.”
    “Thank you very much. That’s very kind.”
    “My pleasure,” responded the young clerk. “You can wait over there if you like,” she suggested, pointing to a group of