This excerpt from A.J. Cronin's novel The Citadel portrays a young doctor's moment of professional triumph and the difference between textbook medicine and real practice. Andrew Manson, newly qualified and working as an assistant in the Welsh mining town of Blaenelly, is called late at night to attend Susan Morgan, who after nearly twenty years of marriage is expecting her first child. Returning disheartened from a difficult evening with Christine, the girl he loves, Andrew is met by the anxious husband Joe Morgan. Brooding over the failed marriages of people he knows, Andrew waits through the long night with the patient's old mother and the midwife. After a hard struggle, the child is born apparently lifeless, and Susan herself is in a desperate, almost pulseless state. Torn between saving mother and child, Andrew instinctively first revives the collapsed mother with an injection, then turns to the stillborn-looking baby. Recalling a method he once saw, he frantically plunges the child alternately between basins of hot and cold water and works to restore breathing. After half an hour of seemingly hopeless effort, the baby's chest gives a convulsive heave, then breathes, turns pink and finally cries. Overwhelmed, Andrew tells Joe that both are all right, and walks home at dawn thinking, in effect, that he has at last done something real. The piece celebrates perseverance, presence of mind, dedication, and the profound human value of a doctor's work.
Birth
Characters & key ideas
AAndrew Mansonthe young, newly qualified doctor who revives the stillborn child.
SSusan Morganthe mother, expecting her first child after nearly twenty years of marriage.
JJoe Morganthe anxious husband waiting outside through the night.
AAsphyxia / resuscitationthe lack of oxygen in the baby and Andrew's effort to revive it.
HHot and cold water methodthe technique Andrew uses to restore the child's breathing.
PPerseveranceAndrew's refusal to give up that finally brings the child to life.
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