In the literary column of a recent Sunday news paper, I read of the famous Chilean writer by the name of Pablo Neruda, who won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1971. Pablo Neruda was his pen-name until he adopted it legally in the 1940s. He took his name, however, from Jan Neruda, the Czech writer of the second half of the 19th Century, whom he greatly admired.

The current issue of the British Medical Journal (BWJ) of August 9, 2008 carries an article that refers to Jan Neruda, who is remembered for his tales of Prague life, especially in a district known as ‘Little Quarter’. This was a small community full of interesting characters.

One of Neruda’s tales is about Dr. Heribert, who studied medicine, but never practised it - he had never so much laid a finger on a patient since his graduation. One day Dr. Heribert was out walking when the funeral procession of Mr. Schepeler, a wealthy local bureaucrat, passed him. One of the prominent among the mourners was Dr. Link, the physician of the deceased, who was known to have received 20 guilders for his unsuccessful ministrations to the man in his last illness. As luck would have, it the pall bearers dropped the coffin just as they were passing Dr. Heribert. The lid came off, and as the coffin was tilted to a side, the right hand of the deceased emerged. Dr. Heribert who was nearest to it, picked it up to return it to the coffin. But he held on to it for a moment, his fingers playing uneasily and his eyes peering into the dead man’s face. He then opened the dead man’s right eye. Then, one of the mourners, who stood to inherit 5000 guilders from the deceased, demanded to know what Dr. Heribert was doing.

The doctor cried out, "Wait! This man is not dead". Dr. Link was not pleased. "That’s ridiculous! " he shouted. "He’s insane". But, of course, Dr. Heribert was right. The body was taken to an inn, where it was revived, and Mr. Schepeler soon resumed his bureaucratic duties. The story does not relate Dr. Link’s feelings on Mr. Schepeler’s recovery, but probably they were mixed.

What doctor, then as now, has not felt the humiliation of having being proved wrong by a colleague or, for that matter, the joy of having proved a colleague, especially a prominent one, wrong?

Of course, always in the interest of the patient.