Now for your pleasure we bring you an original play, titled, “The Medical Board”
The curtain rises (blanket pulled away) to group of doctors sitting at a table playing cards and drinking brandy. Presently an inquiry is made as to how such good liquor is obtained in these hard times.
The immediate answer is, “Oh, this is some that was sent down from Augusta County for the sick soldiers, but since the poor devils can’t need it, so we’ll drink it.”
Then a courier comes in with the message that a badly wounded soldier is outside. “Bring him in! Bring him in! says the chief surgeon.”
After a casual examination, the patient is told that his arms must be amputated. He inquires if he can have a furlough after the operation.
“Oh no,” replies the surgeon, who shortly announces that the leg must come off.
“Then can I have a furlough?” asks the soldier.
“By no means, “answers the doctor, “for you can drive an ambulance when you get well.”
The surgeons now go into consultation and decide the wounded man’s head must be amputated.
“Then I know I can have a furlough, observes the patient.
“No indeed,” says the chief surgeon. “We are so scarce of men that your body will have to be set up in the breastworks to fool the enemy.”
J.O Casler Jackson’s Corps.
