Окончательный диагноз / The final diagnosis

УДК 
372.8
ББК 
81.2 Англ-93
 
Х35
Хейли, Артур. 
Х35  
Окончательный диагноз : книга для чтения на английском языке / А. Хейли. — Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 
2024. — 384 с. — (Modern Prose).
ISBN 978-5-9925-0459-0.
Артур Хейли — один из известнейших авторов, пишущих 
в авантюрно-детективном жанре. Его неординарные книги неизменно становились бестселлерами. «Окончательный диагноз» — это роман о больнице, в которой кипит жизнь, где спасают жизни больных и в то же время просто живут.
Неадаптированный текст романа снабжен подробными 
комментариями и словарем. 
УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ-93
Хейли Артур
The Final Diagnosis
Окончательный диагноз
Комментарии и словарь К. Ю. Михно
Ответственный редактор О. П. Панайотти 
Технический редактор Е. К. Лебедева 
Корректор Е. Г. Тигонен 
Иллюстрация на обложке О. В. Маркиной
Издательство КАРО, ЛР № 065644 
197101, Санкт-Петербург, ул. Чапаева, д. 15, лит. А. 
Тел.: 8 (812) 332-36-62
www.karo.spb.ru
Регистрационный номер декларации о соответствии: 
ЕАЭС N RU Д-RU.HA78.B.06066/19
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© КАРО, 2024
ISBN 978-5-9925-0459-0

One
At midmorning of a broiling summer day the life of Three 
Counties Hospital ebbed and flowed like tide currents around an 
offshore island. Outside the hospital the citizens of Burlington, 
Pennsylvania, perspired under a ninety-degree 
1 shade temperature with 78 per cent humidity. Down by the steel mills and the 
rail yards, where there was little shade and no thermometers, the 
reading — if anyone had bothered to take it — would have been 
a good deal higher. Within the hospital it was cooler than outside, but not much. Among patients and staff only the fortunate 
or influential escaped the worst of the heat in air-conditioned 
rooms.
There was no air conditioning in the Admitting department 
on the main floor, and Madge Reynolds, reaching into her desk 
for her fifteenth Kleenex that morning, dabbed her face and decided it was time she slipped out to make another application 
of deodorant. Miss Reynolds, at thirty-eight, was chief clerk in 
Admitting and also an assiduous reader of feminine-hygiene advertising. As a result she had acquired a horror of being less than 
completely sanitary and in hot weather maintained a shuttle 
service between her desk and the women’s toilet down the corridor. First, though, she decided, she must locate four patients 
for admission that afternoon.
A few minutes earlier the day’s discharge slips had come 
down from the wards, showing that twenty-six patients were 
being sent home instead of the twenty-four Miss Reynolds had 
expected. That, added to two deaths which had occurred during the night, meant that four new names could be plucked 
1   ninety-degree — 30°С
3

from the hospital’s long waiting list for immediate admission. 
Somewhere, in four homes in and around Burlington, a quartet 
of patients who had been waiting for this call either hopefully 
or in fear would now pack a few essential belongings and put 
their trust in medicine as practiced at Three Counties. Holding 
now her sixteenth Kleenex, Miss Reynolds opened a file folder, 
picked up the telephone on her desk, and began to dial.
More fortunate than the Admitting clerks in the heat were 
The Final Diagnosis
those awaiting treatment in the outpatient clinics, now in full 
session over in the opposite wing of the main floor. They at least 
would enjoy air conditioning when their turn came to enter one 
of the six offices leading off the general waiting-room. Within 
the offices six specialists were making their exclusive talents 
available free to those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, afford the 
private-patient 
1 fees charged on the specialists’ home ground in 
the Medical Arts Building downtown.
Old Rudy Hermant, who worked periodically at laboring 
when his family bullied him into it, sat back and relaxed in cool 
comfort as Dr. McEwan, the ear, nose, and throat specialist, 
probed in search of the cause of Rudy’s growing deafness. Actually Rudy didn’t mind the deafness too much; at times, when 
foremen wanted him to do something else or work faster, he 
found it an advantage. But Rudy’s eldest son had decided the 
old man should get his ears looked at, and here he was.
Dr. McEwan fretted irritably as he withdrew the otoscope 
from old Rudy’s ear. “It might help a little if you washed some of 
the dirt out,” he remarked acidly.
Such ill humor was unusual in McEwan. This morning, however, his wife had carried to the breakfast table a running fight 
about household expenses which they had started the night 
1   private patient — частный пациент, который платит за лечение у врача или в больнице, т. е. не получает его через Государственную службу здравоохранения
4

-
before, causing him, afterward, to back his new Olds 
1 out of 
One
the garage in such a temper that he had crumpled the right rear 
-
fender.
Now Rudy looked up blandly. “What was that?” he inquired.
“I said it might help… oh, never mind.” McEwan was debating whether the old man’s condition might be due to senility or 
a small tumor. It was an intriguing case, and already his professional interest was outweighing his irritability.
“I didn’t hear you,” the old man was saying again.
McEwan raised his voice. “It was nothing! I said forget it!” 
At this moment he was glad of old Rudy’s deafness and slightly 
ashamed of his own outburst.
In the general medical clinic fat Dr. Toynbee, an internist, 
lighting a fresh cigarette from the stub of the last, looked over 
at the patient on the other side of his desk. As he considered the 
case he felt a slight biliousness and decided he’d have to lay off 
Chinese food for a week or two; anyway, with two dinner parties 
coming off this week, and the Gourmet’s Club next Tuesday, it 
shouldn’t be too hard to endure. Deciding his diagnosis, he fixed 
his eye on the patient and said sternly, “You’re overweight and I’m 
going to put you on a diet. You’d better cut out smoking too.”
A hundred yards or so from where the specialists held court 
Miss Mildred, senior records clerk at Three Counties, perspired 
profusely as she hurried along a busy main-floor corridor. But, 
ignoring the discomfort, she moved even faster after a quarry 
she had just seen disappear around the next corner.
“Dr. Pearson! Dr. Pearson!”
As she caught up with him the hospital’s elderly staff pathologist paused. He moved the big cigar he was smoking over 
to the corner of his mouth. Then he said irritably, “What is it? 
What is it?”
1   Olds = Oldsmobile — модель легкового автомобиля
5

Little Miss Mildred, fifty-two, spinsterish, and five foot 
nothing in her highest heels, quailed before Dr. Pearson’s scowl. 
But records, forms, files were her life. She summoned up courage. “These autopsy protocols have to be signed, Dr. Pearson. 
The Health Board has asked for extra copies.”
“Some other time. I’m in a hurry.” Joe Pearson was at his 
imperious worst 
1.
Miss Mildred stood her ground. “Please, Doctor. It’ll only 
take a moment. I’ve been trying to get you for three days.”
The Final Diagnosis
Grudgingly Pearson gave in. Taking the forms and the ballpoint pen Miss Mildred offered him, he moved over to a desk, 
grumbling as he scribbled signatures. “I don’t know what I’m 
signing. What is it?”
“It’s the Howden case, Dr. Pearson.”
Pearson was fretting still. “There are so many cases. I don’t 
remember.”
Patiently Miss Mildred reminded him. “It’s the workman 
who was killed when he fell from a high catwalk. If you remember, the employers said the fall must have been caused by a heart 
attack because otherwise their safety precautions would have 
prevented it.”
Pearson grunted. “Yeah.”
As he went on signing Miss Mildred continued her summation. When she started something she liked to finish it and 
leave it tidy. “The autopsy, however, showed that the man had a 
healthy heart and no other physical condition which might have 
caused him to fall.”
“I know all that.” Pearson cut her short.
“I’m sorry, Doctor. I thought…”
“It was an accident. They’ll have to give the widow a pension.” Pearson tossed out the observation, then adjusted his ci1  was at his imperious worst — был в самом скверном расположении духа
6

One
gar and scrawled another signature, half shredding the paper. He 
has rather more egg than usual on his tie, Miss Mildred thought, 
and she wondered how many days it was since the pathologist 
had brushed his gray, unruly hair. Joe Pearson’s personal appearance verged somewhere between a joke and a scandal at 
Three Counties Hospital. Since his wife had died some ten years 
earlier and he had begun to live alone, his dress had got progressively worse. Now, at sixty-six, his appearance sometimes suggested a vagrant rather than the head of a major hospital department. Under the white lab coat Miss Mildred could see a knitted 
woolen vest with frayed buttonholes and two other holes which 
were probably acid burns. And gray, uncreased slacks drooped 
over scuffed shoes that sadly needed shining.
Joe Pearson signed the last paper and thrust the batch, almost savagely, at little Miss Mildred. “Maybe I can get on with 
some real work now, eh?” His cigar bobbed up and down, discharging ash partly on himself, partly on the polished linoleum 
floor. Pearson had been at Three Counties long enough to get 
away with rudeness that would never be tolerated in a younger 
man and also to ignore the “No Smoking” signs posted conspicuously at intervals in the hospital corridors.
“Thank you, Doctor. Thank you very much.”
He nodded curtly, then made for the main lobby, intending 
to take an elevator to the basement. But both elevators were 
on floors above. With an exclamation of annoyance he ducked 
down the stairway which led to his own department.
On the surgical floor three stories above the atmosphere was 
more relaxed. With temperature and humidity carefully controlled throughout the whole operating section, staff surgeons, 
interns, and nurses, stripped down to their underwear beneath 
green scrub suits 
1, could work in comfort. Some of the surgeons 
1  scrub suit — (амер.) стерильная одежда, которую носят хирурги и другой медицинский персонал во время операции 
7

had completed their first cases of the morning and were drifting into the staff room for coffee before going on to subsequent 
ones. From the operating-rooms which lined the corridor, aseptically sealed off from the rest of the hospital, nurses were beginning to wheel patients still under anesthesia into one of the 
two recovery-rooms 
1. There the patients would remain under 
observation until well enough to go back to their assigned hospital beds.
Between sips of scalding coffee Lucy Grainger, an orthoThe Final Diagnosis
pedic surgeon, was defending the purchase of a Volkswagen she 
had made the day before.
“I’m sorry, Lucy,” Dr. Bartlett was saying. “I’m afraid I may 
have stepped on it in the parking lot.”
“Never mind, Gil,” she told him. “You need the exercise you 
get just walking around that Detroit monster of yours.”
Gil Bartlett, one of the hospital’s general surgeons, was noted 
for possession of a cream Cadillac which was seldom seen other 
than in gleaming spotlessness. It reflected, in fact, the dapperness of its owner, invariably one of the best dressed among the 
Three Counties attending physicians. Bartlett was also the only 
member of staff to sport a beard — a Van Dyke 
2, always neatly 
trimmed — which bobbed up and down when he talked, a process Lucy found fascinating to watch.
Kent O’Donnell strolled over to join them. O’Donnell was 
chief of surgery and also president of the hospital’s medical 
board. Bartlett hailed him.
“Kent, I’ve been looking for you. I’m lecturing the nurses 
next week on adult tonsillectomies 
3. Do you have some Kodachromes showing aspiration tracheitis and pneumonia?”
O’Donnell ran his mind over some of the color photographs 
in his teaching collection. He knew what Bartlett was referring 
1   recovery room — послеоперационная палата
2   a Van Dyke — а-ля Ван Дейк, как у Ван Дейка
3   adult tonsillectomies — удаление миндалин у взрослых
8

One
to — it was one of the lesser known effects which sometimes 
followed removal of tonsils from an adult. Like most surgeons, 
O’Donnell was aware that even with extreme operative care a 
tiny portion of tonsil sometimes escaped the surgeon’s forceps 
and was drawn into the lung where it formed an abscess. Now he 
recalled a group of pictures he had of the trachea and lung, portraying this condition; they had been taken during an autopsy. 
He told Bartlett, “I think so. I’ll look them out tonight.”
Lucy Grainger said, “If you don’t have one of the trachea, 
give him the rectum. He’ll never know the difference.” A laugh 
ran round the surgeons’ room.
O’Donnell smiled too. He and Lucy were old friends; in 
fact, he sometimes wondered if, given more time and opportunity, they might not become something more. He liked her for 
many things, not least the way she could hold her own in what 
was sometimes thought of as a man’s world. 
1 At the same time, 
though, she never lost her essential femininity. The scrub suit 
she was wearing now made her shapeless, almost anonymous, 
like the rest of them. But he knew that beneath was a trim, slim 
figure, usually dressed conservatively but in fashion.
His thoughts were interrupted by a nurse who had knocked, 
then entered discreetly.
“Dr. O’Donnell, your patient’s family are outside.”
“Tell them I’ll be right out.” He moved into the locker-room 
and began to slip out of his scrub suit. With only one operation 
scheduled for the day he was through with surgery now. When 
he had reassured the family outside — he had just operated successfully for removal of gallstones — his next call would be in 
the administrator’s office.
1  He liked her for many things, not least the way she could 
hold her own in what was sometimes thought of as a man’s 
world. — Ему многое в ней нравилось, особенно то, как она держалась в сфере, которую принято считать сугубо мужской.
9

One floor above surgical, in private patient’s room 48, 
The Final Diagnosis
George Andrew Dunton had lost the capacity to be affected by 
heat or coolness and was fifteen seconds away from death. As 
Dr. MacMahon held his patient’s wrist, waiting for the pulse to 
stop, Nurse Penfield turned the window fan to “high” because 
the presence of the family had made the room uncomfortably 
stuffy. This was a good family, she reflected — the wife, grown 
son, and younger daughter. The wife was crying softly, the 
daughter silent but with tears coursing down her cheeks. The 
son had turned away but his shoulders were shaking. When 
I die, Elaine Penfield thought, I hope someone has tears for me; 
it’s the best obituary there is.
Now Dr. MacMahon lowered the wrist and looked across at 
the others. No words were needed, and methodically Nurse Penfield noted the time of death as 10:52 a.m.
Along the corridor in the other wards and private patients’ 
rooms this was one of the quieter times of day. Morning medications had been given; rounds were over, and there was a lull until 
lunch time would bring the cycle of activity to a peak once more. 
Some of the nurses had slipped down to the cafeteria for coffee; 
others who remained were writing their case notes. “Complains 
of continued abdominal pains,” Nurse Wilding had written on a 
woman patient’s chart and was about to add another line when 
she paused.
For the second time that morning Wilding, gray-haired 
and at fifty-six one of the older nurses on staff, reached into 
her uniform and took out the letter she had read twice already 
since it had been delivered to her desk along with the patients’ 
mail. A snapshot of a young naval lieutenant, j. g. 
1, with a pretty 
girl on his arm, fell out as she opened it, and for a moment she 
gazed down at the picture before reading the letter again. “Dear 
1 j. g. — сокр. от  junior grade — младший
10