the antiseptic American

"One day the umbilical cord between me and my antiseptic mother snapped with a twang that would have delighted Philip Wylie. I was sitting quietly in my own compound drinking boiled water when I was bitten by a rabid dog. The dog was the pet of American neighbors and had had all his rabies shots, but he died in two days and when they opened up his head the proof was there. Bangkok was full of the most unfortunate, scrofulous, mangy, starving dogs I have ever seen. They run around freely because it is against Buddhist principle to kill them. Many of them become rabid.

Everyday, for fourteen days, I went down to the local Pasteur Institute and sat in a large room amid twenty or thirty Siamese in various stages of dog bite. The first awful day I watched with misgiving as the Thai doctor lifted a needle from a rusty white hospital dish which sat faintly bubbling over an aged Bunsen burner. He plunged the needle into my upper abdomen while the Siamese hissed in compassion. Thirteen days and thirteen shots later my previous philosophy of sanitation had been completely junked."


Carol Hollinger: Mai pen rai means never mind
Asia Books Co., Bangkok -1993
pagg. 67-68

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