Crisis (7 page)

Bannerman did his best to respond to the joke but
it was laboured and Drysdale sensed it. ‘How about
two-thirty?’ he asked.

‘That suits me fine,’ said Bannerman. ‘Your place or mine?’

‘Come up,’ replied Drysdale.

For Bannerman to arrange a meeting with a psy
chiatrist it had been very much a case of the
singer not the song because he had little time for psychiatry. On the other hand, he had great respect for David Drysdale whom he had known and liked
for five years. Drysdale knew and freely admitted the shortcomings of his speciality. He never hid
behind meaningless jargon as Bannerman suspected
so many of his psychiatric colleagues of doing.
When he heard Drysdale describe electro-convulsive
therapy as ‘wiring the patients up to the mains to see
what would happen’ he knew that he had found a
psychiatrist he would like. As he got to know him
better, he discovered that the man had a genuine
and sincere concern for the welfare of the mentally ill. It was his regret that so little could be done to
help in so many cases.

Drysdale’s office was two floors above the pathol
ogy department. The walls were decorated with
examples of schizophrenic art and a small print of
Edvard Munch’s,
The Scream.
Drysdale, a sallow-
skinned man with dark hair and heavy-rimmed spec
tacles, which made him look like an East European
student, invited Bannerman to sit. ‘What can I do
for you Ian?’ he asked.

‘
I think I may need help,’ said Bannerman awk
wardly.

Drysdale considered making some comment about
‘not thinking he would see the day’ but thought
better of it, seeing the troubled look on Bannerman’s
face. Tell me about it,’ he said.

Bannerman told him about his experience with
the emergency section. ‘My hands were actually
shaking,’ he said. ‘And then I had a nightmare
about it last night.’

Drysdale nodded and said, Tell me.’

Bannerman related all that he could remember
about the dream and then asked, ‘Do you mind if
I smoke?’

Drysdale made a sign with his hands that indicated
resignation but not approval. ‘You should give it up,’
he said.

Bannerman ignored the comment.

‘What else should I know?’ asked Drysdale.

‘Sometimes I’m sick after doing post-mortems.’

Drysdale nodded. He had started making notes. ‘How old are you Ian?’

‘I’ll be thirty-eight next birthday.’

‘How do you feel about that?’

‘Rotten.’

‘Me too,’ said Drysdale. ‘I’ll be thirty-nine. Any
other problems?’

‘Insomnia.’

‘You waken up at three in the morning and
feel wide awake. You can’t get back to sleep for
about an hour. This happens every second night
on average?’

‘How did you know that?’

‘Sheer bloody brilliance,’ said Drysdale. ‘But apart
from that, I recognized the symptoms. They’re text
book. It’s depression not insomnia.’

‘So you think I’m clinically depressed,’ said
Bannerman.

‘A little,’ replied Drysdale, ‘but the main problem
is stress.’

‘Stella thinks it’s a mid-life crisis,’ said Bannerman.

‘She’s right,’ said Drysdale, ‘but there’s another
factor involved and I’m not quite sure what it is. I’ll
have to have a think about it.’

‘What do I do about it in the meantime?’ asked
Bannerman.

‘
I can suggest pills but you know as well as
I do they’ll just dull your senses so you won’t
feel so stressed. That’s probably not such a good
idea in our line of work. How about booze in the evening?’

‘I think I’ve used up that option,’ said Bannerman.

‘Me too,’ said Drysdale. ‘How about a break? A
holiday might be just what you need.’

‘Stella suggested that. I’m considering going climb
ing in Scotland.’

‘In January!’ exclaimed Drysdale. ‘You’re sicker
than I thought!’

To each his own, Doctor,’ said Bannerman with
a smile. He got up to go.

‘
I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,’ said
Drysdale, ‘but keep in touch. I don’t think it’s
anything serious and Stella’s probably right about
it being fear of forty but if you should begin to feel
worse give me a call, any time, day or night.’

Bannerman thanked Drysdale and promised to
buy him a drink in the near future. He returned
to the Pathology Department where Olive had left a package on his desk. It was marked ‘On Her
Majesty’s Service’ and had come from the Medical Research Council by special delivery. He opened it
and found three microscope slides and a covering letter. The letter was from the coordinator of the
MRC’s Survey on Degenerative Brain Disease, Dr
Hugh Milne. It asked if he would mind examining
them and reporting his findings as quickly as poss
ible. There was also a message to say that Stella had
phoned; it was nothing important but he was to be
reminded that he couldn’t call her back because she
would be in theatre all afternoon.

Bannerman took the slides to his personal micro
scope and removed the dust cover. He clipped the
first to the stage and adjusted the tungsten light
before focusing on the stained section of the brain. There had been a marked lack of details with the
package and no indication about the source of the
material, save for the fact that they were brain
sections. There was an air of anticipation about him
as he scanned around to find the clearest fields. It
didn’t take long to find what he was looking for -
unequivocal evidence of degenerative disease.

It was so obvious that Bannerman was puzzled to
the point of feeling mildly annoyed that he had been
asked for his opinion on something so clear-cut. He
had rarely seen spongioform areas so well marked.
This was the kind of slide that could be used for
illustrating text books. The second and third slides
were almost identical to the first. ‘What on earth are
they playing at?’ he muttered as he removed the last slide and turned off the lamp. He asked Olive to get
him the MRC coordinator on the phone.

‘Dr Bannerman? Good of you to call,’ said Milne
after a short wait. ‘I take it you received the slides?’

‘I’ve just had a look,’ said Bannerman.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think I’ve just looked at three perfectly prepared
brain sections from the same patient. He or she
would be in their mid to late seventies and has just died of Creutzfeld Jakob Disease.’

‘You’d be wrong,’ said the coordinator.

‘What?’ exclaimed Bannerman.

‘What would you say if I told you that each of the
slides came from a different patient, all were under
thirty and none had been ill for longer than three
weeks?’

‘I’d say there had been a mix-up in the slides,’ said Bannerman.

‘We are assured that there has been no mix-
up.’

‘
I find that incredible,’ said Bannerman.

‘Suppose I was to add that the three dead patients
worked with infected sheep?’

‘What?’ exclaimed Bannerman. ‘You’re not suggesting that they died of
Scrapie
by any chance?’

‘I wish I wasn’t. Can we meet to discuss this
further?’

‘When?’ asked Bannerman.

‘I think it had better be as soon as possible,’ said the coordinator.

‘Why me?’ ventured Bannerman.

‘Your reputation, Doctor. Your work on degen
erative brain disease is second to none and right
now we need the best we’ve got. I’ll explain more when I see you. Would tomorrow at eleven be a
possibility?’

Bannerman checked his diary before saying that
it would.

‘Did you see about taking time off?’ asked Stella
when Bannerman saw her later.

Bannerman brushed the question aside and told
her about the call from the MRC. ‘I saw the slides
Stella! They were classic Creutzfeld Jakob but Milne
said they came from three men who had been
working with
Scrapie
infected sheep!’

‘You mean the men died of
Scrapie
not Creutzfeld
Jakob?’ exclaimed Stella.

‘That’s what Milne seemed to be saying.’

‘But that can’t happen surely?
Scrapie
is a dis
ease of sheep. It can’t pass to man. There’s a
what-do-you-call-it?’

‘A species barrier,’ said Bannerman. ‘Last year
cows, this year people …’

‘What was that?’ asked Stella.

‘
I was just thinking that last year
Scrapie
was
shown to have passed from sheep to cows through
the food chain

‘You’re not seriously suggesting that it could do
the same to humans?’

‘Up until today I would have said that there was
no chance of that at all,’ replied Bannerman.

‘Then what do you think is going on?’

‘My initial reaction is to think that some kind of mistake has been made, some kind of mix-up in the
path lab, but the chap I spoke to said not.’

‘Maybe I should think twice about having lamb for
Sunday dinner?’

‘It’s a bit early for that,’ smiled Bannerman. ‘I’ll
know more when I see the MRC people tomorrow.’

THREE

It was raining heavily when Bannerman’s taxi pulled up outside the headquarters of the Medical Research
Council in Park Crescent. It turned to hail and battered deafeningly on the roof of the cab as he
paid the driver before getting out and making a run
for the entrance.

‘What a day,’ smiled the woman behind the desk.
‘Rain, sleet, hail, whatever next?’

Bannerman brushed at his shoulders and said who
he was, adding, ‘Dr Milne is expecting me.’

‘Take a seat Doctor,’ replied the woman, indicat
ing with one hand while picking up the telephone with her other. A few minutes later a young man
appeared in the hall and said, ‘Dr Milne asks if you
wouldn’t mind waiting in the library until everyone is here?’

‘Of course not,’ replied Bannerman automatically,
but wondering about the word, ‘everyone’. He was under the impression that this was to be a meeting
between himself and Milne. He followed the young
man up to the library where he was invited to sit
beside a small table that was bedecked with magazines. He picked up one with two smiling Africans
on the front and flicked through the pages without
taking in too much. The magazine was comprised of
a series of reports on successful projects undertaken
to improve health care in the Third World.

There was a young clerk in the room. She was replacing books on the shelves but was aware of
Bannerman’s presence. She saw the magazine he
was looking at and said, ‘It’s wonderful what they’re
doing in Africa isn’t it?’

Bannerman looked at the innocent smile on her
face and smiled back. ‘Yes it is,’ he replied but
inside his head he was thinking what a load of
twaddle the magazine was. It was exactly the kind
of rubbish the West wanted to read about Africa.
Comfortable, optimistic nonsense about success in
the field without any reference to the enormous scale of the problems of pestilence and famine. Yet, would
it really help if they did understand? he wondered.
Would it encourage people to give more if they
understood the true scale of the problem? or would
it put them off altogether?