by LAURIE NEIDERGAARDEN, Alternate Reality News Service Medical Writer
While one never wants to condone projectile vomiting, one has to admit that at least the red, white and blue discharge is patriotic. Moreover, one can take a special joy in the spectacle safe in the knowledge that one does not have to clean it up.
This impromptu art show took place at the Douglas Sanatorium and Sleep Emporium in Lower East Upper Manhattan, New York. It was the latest scientific salvo against disease; unfortunately, in terms of success, it was at best a faint glowing.
Doctor B. A. Banksy of the aforementioned medical institution and part-time dance hall instructor has been attempting to smallen Mister Babbage's analytical engines. How smallened? To the point where many of them can be accumulated in a single capsule and consumed by a patient.
To what end, this effort? Well, sir, Doctor Banksy hopes to eradicate whooping crane cough, dropsy and the syphilis in our lifetimes! You heard me correct, sir. Freedom from some of the world's worst diseases (and one of its most annoying).
How does Doctor Banksy's miniature miracles accomplish this task? When they are ingested, they make their way through the stomach lining into the patient's bloodstream, like thousands of tiny Trojan horses infiltrating the fabled city. Once so ensconced, they proceed to analyse the blood for traces of disease; if they find it, they are designed to counteract it.
"Gadzooks, but this is brilliance personified," Doctor Banksy enthused, although I am less than convinced by his evocation of personhood. "Once the Banksy Method has been perfected, public health should be greatly improved!"
Aye, but there's the rub, isn't it? The problem with the Banksy Method is that the best material to make the small calculating machines with is wood. Unfortunately, wood has a tendency to splinter as it makes its way down a patient's oesophagus (throat to a layman), causing all manner of side-effect such as the one so colourfully described in the opening paragraph of this report.
"I wouldn't worry about it," Doctor Banksy insisted that I inform the public. "The test subjects were members of inferior races – mostly Irish, with some negroes and even a Jew or too. They were taken from debtors prisoners and asyli for the incurably romantic – I can assure you that their loss of speech, digestion or even life is inconsequential compared to the potential gains to be made…by science!"
The Banksy Method is not without its detractors. "What would happen if Banksy actually found the cure that he was looking for, eh Angkor Whot?" asked renowned scientist and part-time lamppost David Curie-Vindaloo. "What then? Eh? Eh? Eh? What could possibly transpire then?"
Quickly growing impatient, I asked Lamppost Curie-Vindaloo what he believed would happen if the Banksy Method proved feasible. "Well!" he harrumphed…in a way that sounded like he had uttered the word "well." "You would have all of these little wooden machines crawling around inside of you, wouldn't you? Then, Banksy would have to send in a mechanical spider to eat the tiny wooden machines. Then, he would have to send a clockwork cat in to take care of the spider that had eaten the small wooden machines. And, a machine dog to look after the clockwork cat that took care of the mechanical spider that had eaten the small wooden machines. And, you know where that would lead?"
When I assured Lamppost Curie-Vindaloo that I most certainly did not, he smiled and stated: "Have you ever heard the expression, 'Cor, but I's so 'ungry I could eat an 'orse?' Well, it would stop being metaphorical!"
"Bejabbers, but I am taken with the colourful nature of my colloquial patois!" Doctor Banksy responded to the criticism. Poorly. And, with an incoherence that would have done Lord Mowbry proud!
When he was through saying words like "egads" and "tintinnabulation," Doctor Banksy made his way back to the subject at hand: "We are currently experimenting with certain resins taken from the exotic Baobab tree of central Scotland," he explained. "In a perfect world, they would keep the miniature analytical engine from splintering in the patient's oesophagus (that's throat to a layman)."
If that were to prove true, wouldn't the machine miniatures be destroyed on contact with the acids in the patients' stomachs?
"One problem at a time," Doctor Banksy testily – how appropriate for a scientist! – responded. "I would be delighted to find cures mental defect, shingles and Mercator's Baggy Bottom, but science can only deal with one problem at a time!"