Letter to Beatrice Webb

[...]afterwards, only rather drunk, in which condition, when the anaesthetist had gone home to bed, & the surgeon had left the room to talk to my mother, I pretended to be delirious and raved all sorts of love to, the nurse, who was deeply affected.
The surgeon did not trouble himself in the least about my etherized philanderings, but kicked up a tremendous row about my health. He said I was killing myself. When he cut into the foot he not only found no blood—"only some wretched sort of ichor" he said—but the bone was necrosed. He swore it was tubercular caries; drew up a dietary of the most butcherly kind; and told me flatly that I had to choose between it & death.[...]".