Pushkin

On the 21st of August 1974, Elaine Oswald made a visit to the doctor's office

in a small town, not far from Manchester in the north of England.

Oswald had a slight pain in her side, but she was hoping to go into work late that day.

Oswald had never met this particular doctor before, and he was only a few years older than she was, but she was only 25.

He had spectacles and the kind of big brown beard that was fashionable at the time.

The doctor couldn't have been friendlier or more accommodating.

He sat beside her, not over on the other side of a big desk, and he told her she might have kidney stones.

He prescribed some strong painkillers, and suggested she go home and rest.

Leave your door unlocked, he said.

I'll come round after my morning clinic has finished and do a blood test.

Later that day he stopped by.

His wife and son were in the car outside, he said, just a quick jab with a needle to draw the blood and hid beyond his way.

The needle slid into her arm.

The next thing Elaine Oswald remembers was waking up on the floor, with a doctor in two paramedics trying to revive her.

She was rushed to hospital, where the staff she recalled treated her like the scum of the earth.

They assumed she had overdosed on those painkillers.

The young doctor was much kinder.

She must have had an allergic reaction, he said, thank goodness he'd been there to administer the kiss of life.

He promised to write up the case for a medical journal.

She was grateful of course, who wouldn't be?

When she was discharged from hospital, the kind doctor even invited her and her husband for dinner.

...