The Glass-Fibre Gastroscope

A small examination room of a university hospital in Michigan on a snowy February morning, on a steel trolley spread with white linen a slender flexible gastroscope just under one metre long in a wide loose loop, its thin tube sheathed in fine silver- grey braid, at one end a short chromed tip with ring grooves glowing with a tiny point of light, at the other a cylindrical chrome eyepiece head with two knurled knobs and a dark blue-black eye cup with a green inner rim, a hand in a white coat sleeve lifting the eyepiece, a lamp box with a black cable, a dish of slender glass rods, frosted window light.