Alpha Omega M.D. – Episode #319
…As a direct result of leaving the care of A.O. Campbell, Audrie Franich infects, reacts to an antibiotic treatment from another doc and her frail body gives up the ghost…
Give up the Ghost by Vincent Xeus
“But…” Ifs and buts may as well be candy and nuts. The Franich girl is quickly becoming a victim of yet another misjudgment. First, she gets pregnant by her merchant marine husband, who goes out to sea and leaves her alone. Secondly, she goes to a white Jacksonville doctor, who makes a lame attempt at an illegal medical procedure; abortion without getting your hands dirty… plain lazy. Then, to correct the second misstep, Doc Campbell is compelled to restore a pre-pregnancy state for young Audrie, the lesser of the previous evils, but it now leads to the final wrong in an error-packed 5 months.
In the intervening month, Audrie Franich, the young mother of two children, dies. As a direct result of leaving the care of A.O. Campbell, she infects, reacts to an antibiotic treatment from another doc and her frail body gives up the ghost. Mother of Audrie, Mary Gray will be at the deathbed, convinced that her daughter is telling her that it is Doctor Alpha Omega Campbell who performed an abortion 
on her. Not a doctor in Jacksonville or another at Havana.
All this time, A.O. has been drawing unwanted attention to himself. Despite repeated warnings by his legal counsel, Campbell receives other young white women with different, yet similar conditions as Audrie Franich.
One such is seventeen and unmarried. Her future husband insists that she have an abortion. He will pay for it for now, and then they can marry. Are they getting things backwards? Yes of course, but in 1955, women do not have children out of wedlock, at least the respectable ones. The baby delivers anyway, but lives just two days.
Another woman, who cannot keep straight who she is married to and when, needs an abortion to align her life properly. She cannot have the child of the man she is divorcing, because her new husband would not approve. This picture is so convoluted that the doc is unable to separate out the facts from the fiction. What does he do? Yes of course, he tries to help, even though this patient ingested large doses of quinine in a “do-it-yourself” attempt.
Alpha Omega M.D.
Episode #319
page 299
