ALL up Dr. Leslie right away, Walter,” cried Kennedy making a quick decision, “then hurry down to the car. I am going to the laboratory.”
Señora Ruiz had been lifted to a couch and the rest remained at the Mexican cabaret while Craig and I made a quick dash to the laboratory. Not a moment was wasted. He jumped from the car almost before it had stopped and went directly to a cupboard in which was locked a large oblong case.
We were back again, almost before they fairly expected us. Señora Ruiz was still alive though breathing with difficulty.
Without an instant’s delay he had his coat off and was opening the case. We watched helplessly as he took from it a peculiar arrangement and laid it carefully on the table. It seemed to consist of innumerable little tubes, each about sixteen inches long, with S-turns that made it look like a miniature glass radiator.
“There is just one chance,” he said, working feverishly. “I wish Leslie would come—I need him.”
Altogether the apparatus could not have been much over a cubic foot in size, and it was enclosed in a glass cylinder through which we could see a hundred feet or more of the tubes, a perfectly closed tubular system.
“I have kept this absolutely sterile in a germicidal solution,” he went on, scrubbing away at his hands and nails now with an antiseptic solution. “Inside those tubes and surrounding them is a saline solution which is kept at a uniform temperature by means of a special heating-apparatus.”
The table had been drawn up alongside the couch and on it was placed the apparatus beside the unconscious Señora.
A noise outside announced the arrival of the coroner and a moment later he hurried into the room.
“What’s the matter?” he asked breathlessly, endeavoring to take in the situation but not understanding it.
“Just in time, Doctor,” exclaimed Kennedy visibly relieved at the presence of a medical man. “I need you.”
Briefly and in a low tone which we could not catch he proceeded to tell Leslie just enough of what had happened and what he proposed to attempt so that they could go ahead.
“Perhaps a little anesthetic—just enough to insure keeping her under—would make it easier,” commented Leslie reaching into his case for the paraphernalia.
He, too, seemed possessed by a germicidal mania, and after the quick but thorough ablution, gently administered just enough of a narcotic to stop the convulsive movements which might have interfered with their work.
We stood, scarcely speaking a word, in the far corner of the room while Kennedy and Leslie wasted no time. First they attached the end of one of the tubes, by means of a little silver ring or cannula to the carotid artery, and then a tube from the other end of the apparatus to the jugular vein in the Señora’s neck.
“Is it all right?” asked Leslie of Kennedy when he had finished the surgical work.
“Yes,” answered Craig with a thorough glance over what had been done, “yes—you can release it.”
As Dr. Leslie released the clamp which held the artery just above where it had been severed, the still wildly beating heart of Señora Ruiz seemed to spurt the arterial blood from the carotid into the tubes which held the normal salt solution now at blood heat.
It was astounding to see the human body working almost with the same precision as a machine. That arterial pressure, in turn, pumped the salt solution which filled the tubes, into the jugular vein. It required no more than the exercise of common sense to see that that was necessary, replacing the arterial blood that had been poured into the tubes from the other end, and thus maintaining the normal hydrostatic conditions in the body-circulation.
We stood rooted to the spot by the marvel of the thing. She was actually being kept alive although perhaps a third of her blood was outside of her body.
Our own interest could not, however, rival that of Kennedy and Leslie who, in the professional excitement of trying to save a lost life, were oblivious for the time to everything except their work and their patient. They were giving their undivided attention to the success of the operation, and it was only after some minutes of anxious observation that they even seemed to notice that the rest of the world existed.
SINCLAIR was the first to speak, for the rest of us were simply speechless with wonder. Kennedy and Leslie had at last straightened up and were regarding the automatic working of the machine before them with undisguised satisfaction.
“What is that, Kennedy?” ventured Sinclair.
“What I have here,” returned Kennedy slowly, not taking his eyes for a second off the thing, “is in reality an artificial kidney.”