The poem The Lung Wash is a work which addresses themes of medical advancements, reprobate treatments and a sentiment of reminiscence and regret as a culmination of these factors. In this poem, the procedure which the speaker undergoes has an explicitly adverse effect on their health, and therefore this work opens up questions regarding both the doctor’s morality and rationality, explored through this stanzaic, temporal continuation. This poem does not seem to follow any regular metrical pattern, which could perhaps be representative of the treatment’s unscrupulous and illogical nature.
One prominent theme which is presented in The Lung Wash is a fear of scientific and medical advancements through the disturbing treatment which the speaker undergoes. The medical treatment which is described in this work is certainly of an unsavoury and harrowing nature, and the way in which this is developed in the poem also adopts a similar menacing tone. Each stanza begins with a temporal phrase, such as ‘the first day’ and ‘by Wednesday’. By introducing each stanza in such a manner this edges the poem further on in its progression, urging it to its distressing ending and hurrying its besetting progression. This chronological, day-by-day structure to the poem creates a sense of heightened tension and anticipation in this work, as it could be contended that the reader is also following along, or even undertaking, this same procedure in enduring its daily afflictions. Another example of the alarming qualities of this specialised medical treatment is present in the third stanza. In the lines ‘the elegant office / with its dark red leather chairs’, the use of the adjectives ‘dark red’ builds a more mysterious and clandestine component to this office, with the rich colour perhaps being related to the idea of blood, adding another layer of sordid iniquity to this wrongful procedure.
The treatment itself presented in The Lung Wash also follows both a similarly gradual and contemptible progression. From the outset, it appears that this form of medicine is natural and humble, with echoes of freshness and cleansing. The first stanza states that the patient coughs up ‘warm saline laced with vitamins and herbs’. The use of the nouns ‘vitamins’ and ‘herbs’ suggests that this specialised doctor is adopting a medical method which involves the use of more natural and earthly substances. Therefore, it would be apt to consider this treatment to be harmless and innocuous. In addition, the verb ‘laced’ may be representative of delicacy and intricacy, which may imply that the doctor has spent time pondering about and thinking through this complicated procedure. Therefore, from the immediate outset this medical treatment appears to be pragmatic. However, by the concluding stanza of the poem, the frenetic complexity of the treatment has grown and unveiled an ominous constituent. An example of the deceptive depiction of this particular treatment is with reference to the sea. The third and fourth lines of the poem are as follows: ‘Your lungs mistake healing for drowning / they fetch up what tastes like the sea’. The idea that the patient’s lungs are ‘mistake[n]’ perhaps sheds light on the fact that the speaker truly believed that this procedure would cure them of their predicament, when in reality this is not the case. This perhaps creates an element of secrecy or trickery in this poem, undertaken by the brooding figure of the doctor. Another example of this mendacious procedure is suggested in the line ‘your lungs mistake baptism for torture’. If we take into account the fact that references to ‘baptism’ and the ‘sea’ invoke images of cleansing and regeneration, alongside the word ‘wash’ included in the title of The Lung Wash, it would perhaps initially suggest that this medical strategy is going to cleanse and rid the patient of their illness. Despite this, we learn by the end of the work that the opposite has in fact ensued.
The authoritative medical figure in The Lung Wash remains nameless in the poem, solely being referred to as ‘him’. This anonymity which surrounds this figure generates a threatening and intimidating presentiment as a result of this uncertainty. This draws parallels with the baleful qualities of the procedure at hand in this literary work. The poet additionally uses italicised text in order to place particular weight on the dialogue in this transaction. Phrases such as ‘‘breathe in Sir, now breathe out’’ and ‘‘No no too much too much’’ in this italicised font stand out from the rest of work, and it could be argued that this is a reflection of the most prominent elements of this procedure which stick out in the speaker’s memories, the flashbacks adopting an almost nightmarish manner. Regarding the inclusion of flashbacks and recollections, it appears that in this poem there are a number of evocations which are threaded into this narrative. For example, the lines ‘with bonfires of your childhood’, ‘coloured by the scent of home, and cigarettes’ and ‘long forgotten perfumes’ all supplicate images of nostalgia. The inclusion of ‘home’ suggests a yearning for something which the speaker can no longer truly access, and the phrase ‘bonfires of your childhood’ demonstrates that there is a long-lost and distant fragment of the patient who is still alive and thriving inside of him, despite the rest of his person being gravely affected by this procedure.
There is similarly an element of warning and prevention which the speaker presents in The Lung Wash. It could be argued that the use of the pronoun ‘you’ in the present tense not only adds to a sense of immediacy and urgency in the work, but could potentially be a method of warning the assumed reader about this particular doctor and his questionable methods in a more directive and instructive manner. It could further be contested that some aspects of this work are displays of a self-referential act of blame. An example of this is the final lines of the first stanza, which commence with ‘you sought him out, like countless others’. The phrase ‘like countless others’ implies that the speaker is simply another body in a long chain of people who have fallen prey to this doctor’s work, and the verb ‘sought’ suggests that this was a conscious search on the patient’s behalf, perhaps making him implicit in his own misery as he blames himself for his suffering. Moreover, at the end of the penultimate stanza the doctor is referred to as ‘il dottore’. This harks back to the medieval Italian ‘commedia dell’arte’, meaning ‘comedy of the professional actors’. The Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory comments on how the characters in this art form were ‘stock types’ who performed ‘clownish buffoonery’. Therefore, in relation to the doctor presented in The Lung Wash, it could be argued that this doctoral figure considers his treatment a comedy act and simply an act of mockery. With this layer added to the already existing preternatural image of the doctor, this further illuminates his macabre qualities.
The penultimate stanza of The Lung Wash pulls the poem into the supernormal. The fact that the patient now ‘dream[s] about a pulmonary specialist’ further elucidates how this medical procedure is overshadowing not only his waking existence but also his subconscious being. Similarly, the plan of the dream doctor to fix his ‘crumbling […] city with a thousand / human Venices, their lungs full / of the Grand Canal’ resonates strongly with the frightening medical professional present in his waking life.
The final stanza of The Lung Wash sees the condition in which the patient survives as deplorable. The declarative phrase ‘your chest is skinned and raw’ conjures up images of hunted and skinned animals, and it could be asserted that the speaker has been ‘poached’, thus reducing him to possessing merely animalistic qualities. The speaker states that the last phase of the treatment leaves the patient merely ‘rais[ing] vowel sounds, / back to the first stirrings of your voice’. Compared to the earlier stanzas in which speech is included through the italicised text, there is a stark contrast between the start of the procedure and the present inability to form words in their entirety – once again demonstrating the adverse and detrimental effects of these medical actions. The speaker’s voice is reduced to being ‘plucked from nowhere’, which implies that he is now incapable of stringing together coherent sentences as a result of the succour.
To conclude, the poem The Lung Wash is a work which interweaves poetry and medicine through a number of intriguingly nefarious themes. Presenting the reader with a disturbing medical treatment which seems to reverse the effects of any healing process, we are invited on a journey of seemingly discreditable and injurious medical advancements. Moreover, this work is imbued with elements of reminiscence and warning, all overshadowed by the portrayal of a menacing and frightening medical figure.