Two Philadelphia museums are scrambling to raise $68 million, enough money to keep a local art treasure from slipping away. If they fail to reach their goal by a Dec. 26 deadline, "The Gross Clinic," Thomas Eakins' 1875 masterpiece, will be sold to museums in Washington, D.C., and Arkansas.

The painting depicts doctors performing surgery on a boy's leg -- an unusual subject for art at the time. Dr. Samuel Gross, a world-famous Philadelphia surgeon, stands, lecturing to students, scalpel in his bloody, gloveless, right hand. There's more blood on his assistants and, of course, the patient.