The Cry in the Night

"It was the human, the personal side of medicine that left upon me its lasting impressions."

Charles S Norburn (1890-1990), a surgeon and general practitioner who founded his own hospital, vividly retells his most memorable experiences from a long career in The Cry in the Night. 

These works tell the story of medicine in the first half of the 20th century. It was an era without many specializations and a surgeon did all surgeries from minor setting of broken limbs, to brain surgery. A doctor's relationship with his patients was very different and more personal than it is today,

Norburn shares his patients joys and their heartbreaks as well as his own philosophy in this captivating book. These dramas range in their themes and details, but don't shy away from the sometimes gruesome, sometimes gratifying true life of a doctor. The plots vary: a young sailor who drowned in WWI, the doctor's embarrassment with mistaken identity, essays on the wonders of life from a doctor's view, the gruesome death of a young man his first day working on a railroad, dramas of revenge, patients who have been caught in the vicissitudes of fate, and many others.

In addition, a fictional story in the style of Poe, The Girl with the Yellow Hair, he wrote on finishing medical school addresses attitudes toward death in that era. He did not think they belonged with the other works but this wonderful story has been included by the editor to complete his works.