Thursday, October 02, 2008

My Favorite Kind of Patient

... one with a great sense of humor.

Today, as would have it, the cases were backed up in the lab. My ever-clever patient brought a book with him and wanted to show an exerpt describing what he was sure was a distant relative of mine. The exerpt came from David Lindley's paperback entitled "Degrees Kelvin: The Tales of a Genius, Invention and Tragedy" (John Henry Press, 2004):
"One man in particular became a crucial and outspoken booster (to the liquid-filled nautical compass). John Arbuthnor Fisher, born 1841 in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), became a midshipman in the Royal Navy at the age of 13, having passed the entrance examination that consisted, his biographer reported, of "writing out the Lord's Prayer, and jumping over a chair, naked, in the presence of the doctor; after which he was given a glass of sherry as evidence of his having become a naval officer."
Yep. Sounds like a relative to me.

-Wes

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