A Study In Scarlet

A Study in Scarlet es una novela de detectives del británico Arthur Conan Doyle. Fue escrita en 1886 y marca la primera aparición de Sherlock Holmes y el doctor Watson, que se convertirían en los más famosos personajes de ficción. A Study In Scarlet fue el primer trabajo de ficción en introducir la lupa como herramienta investigativa.

En los párrafos de abajo (en inglés) el autor cuenta su experiencia en el ejército del Imperio Británico en India y Afganistán, donde es herido. Para recuperarse es devuelto a Londres donde encuentra que empieza aquedarse sin fondos y debe adaptarse…

En vocabulario encontramos grazed, Ghazis, rallied, bask, kith nor kin, y cesspool

Al final aclaramos el término medical orderly y también patient care assistant y Certified Nursing Assistant

 

… IN the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.

Holmes with magnifying glass

The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

Pashtun fighters with their jezails

 

Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship “Orontes,” and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air—or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile… (Paragraphs from A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle)

Vocabulario

Graze: to break the surface of the skin by rubbing against something rough:

He fell down and grazed his knee.

Ghazi: A ghazi was an individual who participated in ghazw, meaning military expeditions or raiding.

Rallied: to return to a better condition:

The nurse said my mother had rallied after a poor night.

Bask: to lie or sit enjoying the warmth especially of the sun.

Kith and kin: people you are connected with, especially by family relationships.

Cesspool: a large underground hole or container that is used for collecting and storing solid waste, urine, and dirty water.

Para saber

Medical orderly (ward assistant o nurse assistant) es un trabajador de hospital cuyo trabajo consiste en asistir a médicos y enfermeras con variadas intervenciones. Sus obligaciones van desde asistir a detener a pacientes combativos hasta afeitarlos.

En los Estados Unidos los orderlies han sido eliminados de los hospitales y sus funciones reemplazadas por los patient care assistant y Certified Nursing Assistant.

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