Mercier

Desire Cardinal Mercier is 74 years old. He is Archbishop of Malines and Primate of Belgium. He likes to be active and there is always work to be found, if it is only the restoration of the library at Louvain University or a general critique of metaphysics. And unless one can eat a plenty, keep well nourished, one cannot keep active for long at a time.

Cardinal Mercier had persistent dyspepsia. There was a lesion of the stomach which a little surgical treatment would put quite to rights. But the doctors feared a 74-year-old heart might not take kindly to chloroform or ether. Without ado the Cardinal bade them anaesthetize him locally. Last week he lay on a table calmly watching a scalpel open his torso, calmly discussing with his surgeon such aspects of the human interior as he recalled from the studies made in his youth under famed Dr. Charcot in Pariss.

Late bulletins reported the Cardinal's condition as normal.