In H.P. Lovecraft's on line LETTERS I find support for my own hesitation to submit to a not un-risky gall bladder operation . Read between my brackets

But to return to chronological order—in October, not long after my aunt's departure for Providence, the indifferent health of my wife cul¬ minated in a double breakdown, nervous and gastric. Being without servants in the apartment,[ my wife did not wish to eke along with any home treatment—especially since an operation for removal of the gall¬ bladder was threatened—so she took up her quarters on the fourth floor of the Brooklyn Hospital, in a sunny room whose windows opened on a spacious balcony and overlooked both the verdant hills of Fort Greene Park and the picturesque steeples of eastern Brooklyn. Expert medical advice from three leaders of the profession—Dr. Westbrook, a general practitioner descended in direct line from my architect-hero Sir Chris¬ topher Wren, Dr. Kingman, a nerve specialist, and Dr. Crane, a nasal specialist who thought some of the nerve trouble came from a misplaced septum—did much to mitigate the acuteness of the trouble; and after three weeks of dieting and reclining the patient was discharged with in¬ structions to rest at least six weeks in the country.[ Westbrook wanted to operate on the gall-bladder, but layman that I am, I urged my spouse not to let him without the concurrent opinion of several first-rate physi¬ cians. Such an operation was the immediate cause of my mother's death, and I had heard of other methods of dealing with obstinate liver complaints. Later I was very glad I thus held out—for a subsequent physician, a woman graduate of the Sorbonne with a high Paris reputa¬ tion, has done wonders with milder dietetic methods, and advises]

  Ron