The Case of Lady Sannox

The Case of Lady Sannox is a short story by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle that features an arrogant surgeon, Douglas Stone, who is in love with the married Lady Sannox, one of the most beautiful women in London. On his way to a rendezvous with her, the surgeon is asked by a Turkish man to operate on the latter's wife, who has cut her lip with a poison envenomed scimitar. The doctor is informed the woman will die if the poison is not cut out.

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• The case of lady sannox
• 04 the case of lady sannox tales of terror and mystery arthur conan doyle
• References

Because of his desire to meet his lover, his need for money, his professional arrogance, and the opinion of the Turk that any delay would kill his wife, the surgeon goes ahead with the operation on the heavily drugged wife, whose face is obscured by a veil. After he has performed the operation, Dr. Stone realizes his patient is Lady Sannox, and the Turk her husband, who believes the disfigurement will be morally good for his wife. The surgeon suffers a breakdown.

Medically, the case is interesting as the depiction of the Surgeon is one of extreme arrogance, something that was a feature of many surgeons at the time. 'his nerve, his judgement, his intuition, were things apart'. 'Again and again, his knife cut away death'. Although the story was written well after the introduction of anaesthesia and antiseptic surgery something of the surgeon in the heroic age of surgery sticks to Douglas Stone. He, we imagine, is something of the showman, and so assured is he that he must be in complete control of the operating theatre.

But he has flaws, he is impetuous, and in debt due to an extravagant life style.

By contrast Lord Sannox is not very impressive, although he had a period as an actor. But, it becomes clear that he knows his opponent and he plays on the weaknesses of his rival in love: his need for money, his need to do the operation quickly, which suits his belief in his own skills. To the reader it is clear he should take some care to find out if the patient really will die if she does not have an operation now, we have no real details of the poison, and it is clear that all the information we have is given by the husband. There are enough circumstances, the strange house, the need for speed, to urge caution.

He has not administered anaesthesia but the poison and opium have sedated her. There is a glimmer of intelligence in her eyes but Stone is easily persuaded that he needs to operate now before she becomes aware of the pain and before the poison spreads.

He takes the word of an unknown man and with 2 swift cuts he takes out her lip.

It is of course Lady Sannox, and the Turk is her husband. The most unlikely part of the story is the fact that the surgeon loses his reason as soon as he realises just what he has done.

Strangely, you are left with the feeling that the Surgeon is the villain and not the vengeful cuckolded husband.

The full text of the story is available, on line, here http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/CasLad.shtml

A review of the work can be found here: http://www.bakerstreetdozen.com/sannox.html