A Book about Doctors Part 35

"The greatest curse that hath a name Most certainly from woman came.

Two of the s.e.x the other night-- Well arm'd with talons, venom, spite,-- Pull'd caps, you say?--a great wonder!

By Jove, they pull'd the globe asunder!"

Dr. Jenner was very fond of scribbling _currente calamo_ such verses as these. The following specimens of his literary prowess have, we believe, never before been published.

HANNAH BALL.--A SONG.

"Farewell, ye dear la.s.ses of town and of city, Sweet ladies, adieu to you all!

Don't show a frown, though I tune up a ditty In praise of fair Hannah Ball.

"T'other eve, as I rambled her snug cottage by, Sly Cupid determined my fall, The rogue, 'stead of darts, shot the beams of her eye, The eye of my fair Hannah Ball.

"So sweetly she look'd, when attired so fine, In her Dunstable hat and her shawl, Enraptured I cried--''Tis a G.o.ddess divine.'

'No indeed'--she replied--'Hannah Ball.'

"The bosom of Delia, tho' whiter than snow, Is no more than black velvet pall-- Compared with my Hannah's--I'd have you to know-- The bosom of fair Hannah Ball.

"The honey the bee from her jessamine sips You'd swear was as bitter as gall, Could you taste but the sweets that exhale from the lips, From the lips of the fair Hannah Ball.

"What's rouge, or carmine, or the blush of the rose?

Why, dead as the lime on the wall, Compared with the delicate colour that glows On the cheek of my fair Hannah Ball.

"When David melodiously play'd to appease The troubled emotions of Saul, Were his sounds more enchanting--ah, tell me, than these?

'Hannah Ball, oh! the fair Hannah Ball.'

"Near yonder fair copse as I pensively rove In an eve, when the dews 'gin to fall; To my sighs how kind echo responds from the grove-- 'Hannah Ball, oh! the fair Hannah Ball.'

"With graces so winning see Rossi advance But what's all his grace?--Why a sprawl-- With my Hannah compared, as she skims through the dance-- The lovely, the fair Hannah Ball.

"The song of the Mara--tho' great is her skill, Believe me's no more than a squall, Compared with the rapturous magical trill Of my charming, my fair Hannah Ball.

"For oft in the meads at the close of the day, Near yon murmuring rivulet's fall, Have I heard the soft nightingale's soul-piercing lay, And thought 'twas my fair Hannah Ball.

"To her eyes in Love's language I've told a soft tale, But, alas! they replied not at all; Yet bashfulness oft will our pa.s.sions conceal; Oh! the modest, the fair Hannah Ball.

"Ye G.o.ds! would you make the dear creature my wife, With thanks would I bow to you all; How smoothly would then run the wheels of my life, With my charming, my fair Hannah Ball.

"But should my pet.i.tion be flung from the skies, I'll take the bare bodkin or awl; Yes! the cold seal of Death shall be fix'd on my eyes,-- What's Life without fair Hannah Ball."

This is a happy little satire on a vilage scandal. The Methodist parson and Roger were amongst the doctor's rustic neighbours.

On a quarrel between Butler, the Methodist parson of Frampton, and Roger his clerk. Butler accused the clerk of stealing his liquors, and the clerk accused Butler of stealing his bacon.

"Quoth good parson Butler to Rogers his clerk, 'How things come to light that are done in the dark!

My wine is all pilfer'd,--a sad piece of work,-- But a word with thee, Richard--I see thou'rt no Turk.'

"'What evil befall us!'--quoth d.i.c.k in reply, Whilst contempt methodistical glanced from his eye,-- 'My bacon's slipt off too--alas, sir! 'tis true, And the fact seems to whisper that--you are no Jew.'"

The most daring of Jenner's epigrams, out of the scores that we have perused, is the following--

ON READING ADAM SMITH.

"The priests may exclaim against cursing and swearing, And tell us such things are quite beyond bearing; But 'tis clear as the day their denouncing's a sham; For a thousand good things may be learnt from _Adam_."

Babbage, in his "Decline of Science in England," has remarked that "some of the most valuable names which adorn the history of English science have been connected with this (the medical) profession." Of those names many have belonged to country doctors; amongst which Jenner has a conspicuous place.[22]

[22] Medical readers will be amused with the following letter, written by Dr. Jenner, showing as it does the excess of caution with which he prepared his patients for the trifling operation of vaccination.

"Sir,

"I was absent from home when your obliging letter of the 24th November arrived; but I do not think this is likely to occur again for some time, and I shall therefore be very happy to take your little family under my care at the time you mention--the latter end of January. Our arrangements must be carefully made, as the children must be met here by proper subjects for transferring the Vaccine Lymph; for on the accuracy of this part of the process much depends. It may be necessary to observe also, that among the greatest impediments to vaccination (indeed the greatest) is an eruptive state of the skin on the child intended to receive the infection. On this subject I wrote a paper so long ago as the year 1804, and took much pains to circulate it; but I am sorry to say the attention that has been paid to it by the Faculty in general has been by no means equal to its importance. This is a rock on which vaccination has been often wreck'd; but there is no excuse, as it was so clearly laid down in the chart.

"I am, Sir, your obedient "and very humble servant, "EDWARD JENNER."

Jenner was a bright representative of that cla.s.s of medical pract.i.tioners--sagacious, well-instructed, courageous, and self-dependent in intellect--who, at the close of the last century, began to spring up in all parts of the country, and have rapidly increased in number; so that now the prejudiced, vulgar, pedantic doctors of Sterne's and Smollett's pages are extinct--no more to be found on the face of the earth than are the drunken squires who patronized and insulted them.

Of such a sort was Samuel Parr, the father of the famous cla.s.sic scholar and Whig politician of the same name. The elder Parr was a general pract.i.tioner at Harrow, "a man" (as his son described him) "of a very robust and vigorous intellect." Educated in his early years at Harrow School, Samuel Parr (the son) was taken from that splendid seminary at the age of fourteen years and apprenticed to his father.

For three or four years he applied himself to the mastery of the elements of surgical and medical knowledge--dispensing medicines, a.s.sisting at operations, and performing all the duties which a country doctor's pupil was expected to perform. But he had not nerve enough for the surgical department of the profession. "For a physician," he used to say, "I might have done well, but for a surgeon never." His father consequently sent him to Cambridge, and allowed him to turn his intellects to those pursuits in which Nature had best fitted him to excel. Dr. Parr's reminiscences of this period of medical instruction were nearly all pleasant--and some of them were exquisitely droll. At that early age his critical taste and faculty caused him to subject the prescriptions that came under his notice to a more exact scrutiny than the dog-Latin of physicians usually undergoes.

"Father," cried the boy, glancing his eye over a prescription, "here's another mistake in the grammar!"

"Sam," answered the irritable sire, "d---- the prescription, make up the medicine."

Laudanum was a preparation of opium just then coming into use. Mr.

Parr used it at first sparingly and cautiously. On one occasion he administered a small quant.i.ty to a patient, and the next day, pleased with the effects of the dose, expressed his intention (but hesitatingly) to repeat it.

"You may do that safely, sir," said the son.

"Don't be rash, boy. Beginners are always too bold. How should you know what is safe?" asked the father.

"Because, sir," was the answer, "when I made up the prescription yesterday, I doubled the dose."

"Doubled the dose! How dared you do that?" exclaimed the angry senior.

"Because, sir," answered little Sam, coolly, "_I saw you hesitate._"

The father who would not feel pride in such a son would not deserve to have him.

Though Parr made choice of another profession he always retained a deep respect for his father's calling and the pract.i.tioners of it; medical men forming a numerous and important portion of his acquaintance. In his years of ripest judgment he often declared that "he considered the medical professors as the most learned, enlightened, moral, and liberal cla.s.s of the community."

How many pleasant reminiscences this writer has of country surgeons--a cla.s.s of men interesting to an observer of manners, as they comprise more distinct types of character than any other professional body.

Hail to thee, Dr. Agricola! more yeoman than _savant_, bluff, hearty, and benevolent, hastening away from fanciful patients to thy farm, about which it is thy pleasure, early and late, to trudge, vigilant and canny, clad in velveteen jacket and leathern gaiters, armed with spud-stick or double-barrel gun, and looking as unlike Andrew Borde or Dr. Slop as it is possible to conceive mortal! What an eccentric, pious, tyrannical, most humane giant thou art! When thou wast mayor of thy borough, what lawless law didst thou maintain! With thine own arm and oaken stick didst thou fustigate the drunken poacher who beat his wife; and the little children, who made a noise in the market-square on a Sunday, thou didst incarcerate (for the sake of public morality) in "the goose-house" for two hours; but (for the sake of mercy) thou didst cause to be served out to each prisoner one large gingerbread bun--to soften the hardships of captivity. When the ague raged, and provisions were scarce in what the poor still refer to as "the bad year," what prescriptions didst thou, as parish doctor, shower down on the fever-ridden?--Mutton and gin, beef and wine--such were thy orders! The parsons said bravo! and clapt thee on the back; but the guardians of the poor and the relieving officers were up in arms, and summoned thee before a solemn tribunal at the union-house--"the board!" in fact. What an indignant oath and scream of ridicule didst thou give, when an attorney (Sir Oracle of "the board") endeavoured to instil into thy mind the first principles of supply and demand, and that grandest law of political economy--to wit, if there are too many poor people in a neighbourhood, they must be starved out of it into one where they will not be in the way; and if there are too many poor people in the entire world, they must be starved out of that also into another, where there'll be more room for them! And what was thy answer to the chairman's remark, "Doctor, if mutton and gin are the only medicines that will cure the sick poor, you must supply them yourself, in accordance with your contract"? What was thy answer? Why, a shower of butchers' and vintners' bills, pulled from the pockets of thy ancient gray coat--bills all receipted, and showing that, before asking the ratepayers for a doit, thou hadst expended every penny of thy salary of ?150 on mutton and gin, beef and wine--for the sick poor! What a n.o.ble answer to a petty taunt! The chairman blushed. The attorney hurried away, saying he had to be present at an auction. The great majority of "the board" came to a resolution, engaging to support you in your schemes for helping the poor through the bad year.

But the play was not yet at an end. Some rumours of what had occurred at the board reaching the ears of a few poor peasants, they made bold to thank thee for thy exertions in their behalf. How didst thou receive them?--With a violent harrangue against their incorrigible laziness and dishonesty--an a.s.surance that half their sufferings sprung from their own vices--and a vehement declaration that, far from speaking a good word for them to the guardians, thou didst counsel the sternest and cruellest of measures.

A man of another mould and temper was the writer's dear friend, Felix.

Gentle and ardent, tranquil as a summer evening, and unyielding as a rock, modest but brave, un.o.btrusive but fearless, he had a mind that poets only could rightly read. Delicate in frame, as he was refined in intellect, he could not endure rude exertion or vulgar pleasure.