A Tale of Finnish Jurisprudence

Preface

By Omar Nabil Metwally, M.D.

As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, before clinical practice had a chance to teach me what a relative value unit was, I spent a summer doing biotechnology research at the Finnish Forest Research Institute, known as Metla. I went for the science. I came home with a lifelong respect for Finnish culture and a love of sauna that has outlasted most of what I learned in organic chemistry.

I am now reading a book on the history of sauna. For centuries, it says, the sauna was where Finns gave birth, stored food, compounded remedies, and saw patients. Delivery room, pantry, pharmacy, clinic. One room, one stove, no billing department.

This reminded me of a public bath in Vienna, where I once tried to leave the sauna at the peak of the Aufguss. The sauna master blocked the door and yelled “Nein!!!!” while vigorously swirling a towel, his penis and his considerable abdomen passing within striking distance of my face. The Aufguss continued.

My former cabin mate and sauna buddy, Oskar Rausch, insists the Viennese did not invent this, and that the historical record supports him. I have not checked. What follows is his account.

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by Oskar Rausch

This is a work of satire and fiction.

I. The Refill

In the winter of 1387, in a parish whose name survives only as a smudge, a farmer named Perttu walked naked into the village sauna and asked for a refill of his lisinopril.

The sauna was the parish’s hospital, pharmacy, maternity ward, and smokehouse. Perttu had been born on the lower bench. Several hams were currently recovering in the rafters.

The pharmacist, also naked, consulted the formulary. It had three entries: Sauna. Liquor. Tar. Below that, in the same hand: If these do not help, the disease is fatal.

“We don’t carry lisinopril,” he said. “It won’t be derived from Brazilian snake venom for another six hundred years. I can offer you tar.”

“Is tar effective?”

“Nobody has ever come back to complain.”

This was true. The follow-up period in medieval Finland was about thirty-five years, and the adverse event reporting system was a hole in the ice.

“Fine. Tar.”

“Do you have a prescription?”

II. The Prescriber

“So,” said a voice from the bench above. “You need a prescription.”

The doctor had been up there since Tuesday. In a sauna, bench height is seniority, and he had not come down for a patient in years.

He performed the exam without moving. “Alert. Oriented. Red.” He considered the differential. The patient was in a sauna, so the redness was inconclusive. Blood pressure could not be measured, the cuff being five centuries away, which meant that by the standards of the day Perttu did not have hypertension and never would.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” the doctor said. “I’m prescribing more sauna.”

“I’m in the sauna.”

“Then it’s working.”

Perttu said this was incompetence, and that he would sue them both.

III. Counsel

The word “sue” had not finished echoing when a lawyer emerged from the steam in the corner. He had been there the whole time. He billed by the ladle.

“Has anyone in this sauna been injured by tar?”

His practice faced immediate obstacles. He had no business cards and nowhere to keep them, so he carved his name into a birch whisk and handed it over. Discovery was completed in four seconds, as no party was concealing anything. And he disclosed a conflict of interest: he was the doctor’s patient, the pharmacist’s customer, and had been born in this room.

In the far corner the cupper, mid-procedure with a cow horn on a man’s back, asked who was going to pay for the horn. Nobody answered him. Nobody ever does.

IV. Public Order

The bailiff arrived to restore order. He had no badge, no uniform, and no pockets. He established authority the only way available, by sitting on the top bench without flinching.

Frisking was complete on arrival. The irons had been hanging by the stove and were now the temperature of the stove, so applying them would have been a second offense. He informed all parties of their right to remain silent, which, being Finnish, they had been exercising since birth.

Then the judge appeared through the steam. He had no robe, only the ladle, which he banged twice on the bucket. The jury was twelve farmers who were already sitting there. Several believed they were still just having a sauna. One was.

V. The Ruling

The expert witness was the proverb. Sauna, liquor, tar. The doctor had prescribed sauna. The pharmacist had offered tar. Nobody had offered the liquor, which the court noted with concern and corrected immediately.

The judge ruled from the bench, the upper one:

• The doctor was found competent, on the evidence that the patient was still alive.
• The pharmacist was fined one barrel of tar, payable to himself.
• The lawyer was awarded his fee in birch whisks and was whipped with it.
• The cupper got his horn back.
• The plaintiff was sentenced to more sauna.

Perttu stood up to leave in protest.

The bailiff rose, blocked the door, took up a towel, and began to swirl it with great vigor, his authority and his abdomen passing within striking distance of the plaintiff’s face.

“EI!!!!”

Perttu sat back down. The löyly continued.

Historians of the Viennese Aufguss date their tradition to the twentieth century. They are off by six hundred years and one bailiff.

VI. The Itemized Statement

Because this was 1387, the bill arrived the same day, fit on one page, and could be paid in tar.

S00.LÖYLY	Sauna, therapeutic, unlimited	No charge
T14.TAR	Tar: topical, oral, spiritual	1 ladle
Y90.VIINA	Liquor, court-ordered	On the house
Z02.RED	Physical exam, from upper bench	1 fish
Z65.LAW	Legal counsel, per ladle (×40)	40 birch whisks
W55.HORN	Cupping horn, interrupted	Disputed
Z99.EI	Attempted exit during löyly	1 towel, to the face
	TOTAL DUE	1 barrel of tar, whenever

At the bottom, in small print: No late fees. No collections. Balances unpaid after thirty-five years are forgiven, along with the patient.

Perttu paid in full. His blood pressure was never measured. He lived, by all records, exactly as long as everyone else.

FIN

— Oskar Rausch, written from the top bench