SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: AN OUNCE OF CURE & MY FRIEND BOBBY

 "An Ounce of Cure" bby Alan E. Nourse (first published in Imaginative Tales. November 1955; included in Nourse's collections The Counterfeit Man:  More Science Fiction Stories [1963], Short Science Fiction Collection 08 [2008], 12 Worlds of Alan E. Nourse: Tales from the Golden Age of Science Fiction [2010], Alan E. Nourse Resurrected:  The Works of Alan E. Nourse [2011], Anthology of Sci-Fi:  The Pulp Writers:  Alan E. Nourse [2013], The 17th Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack [2015], and Alan E. Nourse Superpack [2016])

"My Friend Bobby" by Alan E. Nourse (first published in Orbit, No. 3, July-August 1954; included in Nourse's Collections The Counterfeit Man:  More Science Fiction Stories [1963], Short Science Fiction Collection 08 [2008], 12 Worlds of Alan E. Nourse:  Tales from the Golden Age of Science Fiction [2010], Alan E. Nourse Resurrected:  The Works of Alan E. Nourse [2011], Anthology of Sci-Fi:  The Pulp Writers:  Alan E. Nourse [2013], The 17th Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack [2015], and Alan E. Nourse Superpack [2016])

Alan E. Nourse (1928-1992) was a medical doctor whose science fiction stories were always capable and readable, but who never made it into the top tier of science fiction writers.  As such he could be classed with many other such authors of the Fifties and Sixties as Kris Neville, Oliver Saari, Mark Clifton, William Morrison, Margaret St. Clair, Bryce Walton, and Roger Dee, among many others.  He began writing science fiction to help pay for his medical education and ended up writing fourteen novels for both juveniles and adults (with all but two of them science fiction) and some fifty short stories, some of which were included in the four collections he published in his lifetime.  He also published a number of non-fiction titles, including the best-selling Intern, as by "Doctor X".  His other non-fiction included The Body (in the Life Science Library), several books on astronomy, So You Want to Be a Doctor, So You Want to be a Nurse, So You Want to be a Lawyer, and young adult books on medical subjects (viruses, hormones, herpes, AIDs, sexually transmitted diseases, and a guide to safe sex).  He had a regular medical column in Good Housekeeping, which he continued after retiring from medicine, which earned him the nickname the "Family Doctor."  Critic John Clute wrote that a "sense of fundamental decency permeates Nourse's fiction"

"An Ounce of Cure" is a reductio ad absurdum which takes place in the medical "wonderland" of 1973.  James Wheatley has gone to a doctor for the first time in ten years because of an occasional pain in his right little toe.  During those ten years, however, medical science has become increasingly specialized.  The doctor he goes to wonders if the problem could be inflammatory, or perhaps vascular, or even the rsult of a tumor; the doctor, however, could not even take Wheatley's blood pressure because that is the purview of the Hypertensive man at the diagnostic clinic.  Although an x-ray of his toe is the purview of an Orthopedic Radiologist, Wheatly ends up with a Gastro-Intestinal man (upper; the lower gastrointestine is the purview of a different doctor.  Soon, various docotrs schedule him for orthodiagram, and EKG, and a fluoroaortagram.  Add a few more doctors to the mix and one suspects it is cardiomegaly and Wheatley is sent to a Left Ventircal man. and then to a Mitro Valve Clinic.   (He goes to an Aortic Valve Clinic by mistake, but ends up being seen by both Mitral and Sortic Valve men, as well as the Gret Arteries men and the Peripherl Capillary Bed man.)  A therapeutic man was out of town at a convention and the Rheumatologist was on vacation, so Wheatley was sent to a Funcional Clinic instead.  Then a Psychoneuroticist had to srudy his sex life and the Psychoscoiologist examined his cocial mileau.  Perhaps (ot is suggested) that Wheatly see a Pituitary Osmoreceptorologist and a Tubular Function man, or a Pituitry Osmoreceptorlogist.  The problem could also lie in his kidneys, or it could be peripheral vascular spasticity, or a problem with his filtration fraction...and so on and so on... 

In "My Friend Bobby," Jimmy is five years old and his friend Bobby is the same age, although Bobby is really much older because Bobby is a dog.  Mommy is afraid of Jimmy and Mommy doesn't like Bobby.  Jimmy can tell becuse he can read Mommy's thoughts.  Bobby is not very smart but he lets Jimmy play with him anyway.  Doctor Grant says that Jimmy's fontanelles hadn't closed yet and that's why Jimmy's hair looks the way it does -- it's a bit unusual but really nothing to be concerned about because Jimmy seems to be normal and intelligent.  Jimmy and Bobby the dog like to play with Bobby the Panda, but grown-ups can't see Bobby the Panda.  One day Mommy got very upset at Jimmy and Bobby the dog snapped at her.  Mommy tried to get Bobby the dog to eat some food that would make him sick or kill him,  Mommy is afraid that Jimmy and Bobby will kill her and Daddy.  Jimmy and Bobby lock themnselves in the bathroom and Daddy, who's very angry kicks the door in.  That's when Daddy starts to read Jimmy's thoughts.  He takes Mommy and drives off, leaving Jimmy and Bobby all alone, but that's all right.  Bobby can take care of Jimmy and can understand Jimmy's thjink-talk even though Bobby isn't very smart.  Bobby says he'll take care of Jimmy because he's Jimmy's friend.  And now Jimmy and Bobby are all alone and it's getting cold and Jimmy is very hungry...

Two different stories.  Two different approaches.  Nourse may have been a minor light in the science fiction constellation, but he was always and effective and entertaining one.