The poor historian
==================

* Jack Coulehan

The indigents were placed in open wards,  
</br> thirty-two beds, beneath a maze of rods  
</br> and drapes that slid, if they weren’t ignored,  
</br> to make private spaces, or the façade  
</br> of them. Men on the first floor; women above.  
</br> Their heads at the wall, their feet adjacent  
</br> to the aisle. An umbrous gallery of  
</br> portraits on the walls. The complaisant  
</br> noblesse oblige of it all. During rounds,  
</br> the chief in charge, the doctors said ‘ma’am’  
</br> and ‘sir,’ while scavenging beneath brown  
</br> skin for carrion. An objective exam,  
</br> nothing personal. The patient is a poor  
</br> *historian*, they groaned. This lacked a cure.  
</br>  

![Figure1](http://www.cmaj.ca/https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/182/10/E480/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.cmaj.ca/content/182/10/E480/F1)

Image courtesy of ©2010 Jupiterimages Corp.


## Footnotes

*   Dr. Coulehan’s most recent collection of poems is *Medicine Stone* (Fithian Press; 2002).
    
    Previously published at [www.cmaj.ca](http://www.cmaj.ca)