Review of Something the Lord Made (2004) by Edith N — 28 Feb 2007

Do not touch. That, for quite a long time after surgery had become relatively safe, was the law the medical profession applied to the heart. For some time, of course, the rule applied in no small part because germ theory either didn't exist or wasn't actually understood--or believed. Any surgery in the chest was pretty much signing a death sentence.

Then, of course, there's the fact that the heart moves as you work on it. If you stop it, you only have a very short time before the patient dies. If you don't stop it, you can make the problem worse as you try to work, even if you can manage it at all.

When I was in college, I had a roommate who had had heart surgery when she was young, perhaps two. I did not know then, and I don't know if she knows now (Becca, where are you?) that she owed her life in part to a man without a college education who was hired initially as a janitor. I think she would have been as delighted as I to find that out.

I must admit that I don't entirely understand the medical details. Not my field, you know. (Though I have known two Johns Hopkins students--one that I know for a fact to have graduated--in my time.) Still, I can quite vouch for the authenticity of the portrayal of segregation in it. Johns Hopkins is in Maryland, after all. It's quite accurate that poor Vivien Thomas would be made to enter by the back door, regardless of what he did, and that various doctors would expect him to get coffee and doughnuts. (I quite doubt there were any black doctors there yet!).

Alan Rickman is delightful in this; I wish he'd given more time and attention to his accent. When it's there, it's good. However, it isn't there for a fair amount of time. It kind of slides in and out. Still, every other aspect of his performance is excellent.

I am struck with admiration for the work. I'm also quite glad that HBO did not feel the need to give us a black couple striving to get the illustrious doctor to operate on their child. They didn't even feel that much of a need to harp on the implicit racism Blalock had as a man of his culture. It's there. It is what it is. Isn't saving lives more important?