On the Day After

Two years ago a young French doctor, Henri Vadon, was assisting at an operation. An inadvertent movement of the patient drove deep into his hand the point of a syringe known to contain deadly bacilli. Immediate treatment would probably have saved him, but he chose to finish the operation without attending to himself. As a result his arm became infected and had to be amputated last week. "For his devotion to duty under exceptional circumstances" the French Government caused Dr. Vadon to be decorated with the cordon of the Legion of Honor, on the day after his arm was amputated.