A Book about Doctors Part 36

Active in mind, he still possessed a vein of indolence, thoroughly appreciating the pleasure of dreaming the whole day long on a sunny chair in a garden, surrounded with bright flowers and breathing a perfumed air. In the hot season the country people used to watch their doctor traversing the country in his capacious phaeton. Alone, without a servant by his side, he held the reins in his hands, but in his reveries altogether forgot to use them. Sometimes he would fall asleep, and travel for miles in a state of unconsciousness, his great phlegmatic horse pounding the dust at the rate of five miles an hour.

The somni-driverous doctor never came to harm. His steed knew how to keep on the left-hand side of the road, under ordinary circ.u.mstances pa.s.sing all vehicles securely, but never thinking of overtaking any; and the country people, amongst whom the doctor spent his days, made his preservation from bodily harm an object of their especial care.

Often did a rustic wayfarer extricate the doctor's equipage from a perilous position, and then send it onwards without disturbing the gentleman by waking him. The same placid, equable man was Felix in society, that he was on these professional excursions--nothing alarming or exciting him. It was in his study that the livelier elements of his nature came into play. Those who, for the first time, conversed with him in private on his microscopic and chemical pursuits, his researches in history, or his labours in speculative or natural philosophy, caught fire from his fire and were inspired with his enthusiasm.

Felix belonged to a cla.s.s daily becoming more numerous; Miles was of a species that has already become rare--the army surgeon. The necessities of the long war caused the enrolment of numbers of young men in the ranks of the medical profession, whose learning was not their highest recommendation to respect. An old navy surgeon, of no small wit, and an infinite capacity for the consumption of strong liquors--wine, brandy, whisky, usquebaugh (anything, so long as it was strong)--gave a graphic description to this writer of his examination on things pertaining to surgery by the Navy Board.

"Well," said the narrator, putting down his empty gla.s.s and filling it again with Madeira--"I was shown into the examination-room. Large table, and half-a-dozen old gentlemen at it. 'Big-wigs, no doubt,'

thought I; 'and sure as my name is Symonds, they'll pluck me like a pigeon.'

"'Well, sir, what do you know about the science of your profession?'

asked the stout man in the chair.

"'More than he does of the practice, I'll be bound,' t.i.ttered a little wasp of a dandy--a West End ladies' doctor.

"I trembled in my shoes.

"'Well, sir,' continued the stout man, 'what would you do if a man was brought to you during action with his arms and legs shot off? Now, sir, don't keep the Board waiting! What would you do? Make haste!'

"'By Jove, sir!' I answered--a thought just striking me--'I should pitch him overboard, and go on to some one else I could be of more service to.'

"By -- --! every one present burst out laughing; and they pa.s.sed me directly, sir--pa.s.sed me directly!"

The examiners doubtless felt that a young man who could manifest such presence of mind on such an occasion, and so well reply to a terrorizing question, might be trusted to act wisely on other emergencies.

Many stories of a similar kind are very old acquaintances of most of our readers.

"What"--an examiner of the same Board is reported to have said to a candidate--"would you have recourse to if, after having ineffectually tried all the ordinary diaph.o.r.etics, you wanted to throw your patient, in as short a time as possible, into a profuse perspiration?"

"I should send him here, sir, to be examined," was the reply.

Not less happy was the audacity of the medical student to Abernethy.

"What would you do," bluntly inquired the surgeon, "if a man was brought to you with a broken leg?"

"Set it, sir," was the reply.

"Good--very good--you're a very pleasant, witty young man; and doubtless you can tell me what muscles of my body I should set in motion if I kicked you, as you deserve to be kicked, for your impertinence."

"You would set in motion," responded the youth, with perfect coolness, "the flexors and extensors of my right arm; for I should immediately knock you down."

If the gentlemen so sent forth to kill and cure were not overstocked with professional learning, they soon acquired a knowledge of their art in that best of all schools--experience. At the conclusion of the great war they were turned loose upon the country, and from their body came many of the best and most successful pract.i.tioners of every county of the kingdom. The race is fast dying out. A Waterloo banquet of medical officers, serving in our army at that memorable battle, would at the present time gather together only a small number of veterans. This writer can remember when they were plentiful; and, in company with two or three of the best of their cla.s.s, he spent many of the happiest days of his boyhood. An aroma of old camp life hung about them. They rode better horses, and more boldly, than the other doctors round about. However respectable they might have become with increased years and prosperity, they retained the military knack of making themselves especially comfortable under any untoward combination of external circ.u.mstances. To gallop over a bleak heath, through the cold fog of a moonless December night; to sit for hours in a stifling garret by a pauper's pallet; to go for ten days without sleeping on a bed, without undressing, and with the wear of sixteen hours out of every twenty-four spent on horseback--were only features of "duty,"

and therefore to be borne manfully, and with generous endurance, at the time--and, in the retrospect, to be talked of with positive contentment and hilarity. They loved the bottle, too--as it ought to be loved: on fit occasions drinking any given quant.i.ty, and, in return, giving any quant.i.ty to drink; treating claret and the thinner wines with a levity at times savouring of disdain; but having a deep and unvarying affection for good sound port, and, at the later hours, very hot and very strong whisky and water, _with_ a slice of lemon in each tumbler. How they would talk during their potations! What stories and songs! George the Fourth (even according to his own showing) had scarce more to do in bringing about the victory at Waterloo than they. Lord Anglesey's leg must have been amputated thrice; for this writer knew three surgeons who each--separately and by himself--performed the operation. But this sort of boasting was never indulged in before the --th tumbler.

May a word not be here said on the toping country doctor? Shame on these times! ten years hence one will not be able to find a bibulous apothecary, though search be made throughout the land from Dan to Beersheba! Sailors, amongst the many superst.i.tions to which they cling with tenacity, retain a decided preference for an inebrious to a sober surgeon. Not many years since, in a fishing village on the eastern coast, there flourished a doctor in great repute amongst the poor; and his influence over his humble patients literally depended on the fact that he was sure, once in the four-and-twenty hours, to be handsomely intoxicated. Charles d.i.c.kens has told the public how, when he bought the raven immortalised in "Barnaby Rudge," the vendor of that sagacious bird, after enumerating his various accomplishments and excellences, concluded, "But, sir, if you want him to come out very strong, you must show him a drunk man." The simple villagers of Flintbeach had a firm faith in the strengthening effects of looking at a tipsy doctor. They always postponed their visits to Dr. Mutchkin till evening, because then they had the benefit of the learned man in his highest intellectual condition. "Dorn't goo to he i' the mornin', er can't doctor noways to speak on tills er's had a gla.s.s," was the advice invariably given to a stranger not aware of the doctor's little peculiarities.

Mutchkin was unquestionably a shrewd fellow, although he did his best to darken the light with which nature had endowned him. One day, accompanied by his apprentice, he visited a small tenant farmer who had been thrown on his bed with a smart attack of bilious fever. After looking at his patient's tongue and feeling his pulse, he said somewhat sharply:--

"Ah! 'tis no use doing what's right for you, if you will be so imprudent."

"Goodness, doctor, what do you mean?" responded the sick man; "I have done nothing imprudent."

"What!--nothing imprudent? Why, bless me, man, you have had green peas for dinner."

"So I have, sir. But how did you find that out?"

"In your pulse--in your pulse. It was very foolish. Mind, you mayn't commit such an indiscretion again. It might cost you your life."

The patient, of course, was impressed with Mutchkin's acuteness, and so was the apprentice. When the lad and his master had retired, the former asked:--

"How did you know he had taken peas for dinner, sir? Of course it wasn't his pulse that told you."

"Why, boy," the instructor replied, "I saw the pea-sh.e.l.ls that had been thrown into the yard, and I drew my inference."

The hint was not thrown away on the youngster. A few days afterwards, being sent to call on the same case, he approached the sick man, and, looking very observant, felt the pulse.

"Ah!--um--by Jove!" exclaimed the lad, mimicking his master's manner, "this is very imprudent. It may cost you your life. Why, man, you've eaten a horse for your dinner."

The fever patient was so infuriated with what he naturally regarded as impertinence, that he sent a pathetic statement of the insult offered him to Mutchkin. On questioning his pupil as to what he meant by accusing a man, reduced with sickness, of having consumed so large and tough an animal, the doctor was answered--

"Why, sir, as I pa.s.sed through from the yard I saw the saddle hanging up in the kitchen."

This story is a very ancient one. It may possibly be found in one of the numerous editions of Joe Miller's faceti?. The writer has, however, never met with it in print, and the first time he heard it, Dr. Mutchkin, of Flintbeach, was made to figure in it in the matter above described.

The shrewdness of Mutchkin's apprentice puts us in mind of the sagacity of the hydropathic doctor, mentioned in the "Life of Mr a.s.sheton Smith." A gentleman devoted to fox-hunting and deep potations was induced, by the master of the Tedworth Hunt, to have recourse to the water cure, and see if it would not relieve him of chronic gout, and restore something of the freshness of youth. The invalid acted on the advice, and in obedience to the directions of a hydropathic physician, proceeded to swathe his body, upon going to his nightly rest, with wet bandages. The air was chill, and the water looked--very--cold. The patient shivered as his valet puddled the bandages about in the cold element. He paused, as a schoolboy does, before taking his first "header" for the year on a keen May morning; and during the pause much of his n.o.ble resolve oozed away.

"John," at last he said to his valet, "put into that d---- water half a dozen bottles of port wine, to warm it."

John having carried out the direction, the bandages, saturated with port wine and water, were placed round the corpulent trunk of the invalid. The next morning the doctor, on paying his visit and inspecting the linen swathes, instead of expressing astonishment at their discoloration with the juice of the grape, observed, with the utmost gravity:--

"Ah, the system is acting beautifully. See, the port wine is already beginning to leave you!"

A different man from Dr. Mutchkin was jovial Ambrose Harvey. Twenty years ago no doctor throughout his county was more successful--no man more beloved. By natural strength of character he gained leave from society to follow his own humours without let, hindrance, or censure.

Ladies did not think the less highly of his professional skill because he visited them in pink, and left their bedsides to ride across the country with Lord Cheveley's hounds. Six feet high, handsome, hearty, well-bred, Ambrose had a welcome wherever there was joy or sickness.

To his little wife he was devotedly attached and very considerate; and she in return was very fond, and--what with woman is the same thing--very jealous of him. He was liked, she well knew, by the country ladies, many of whom were so far her superiors in rank and beauty and accomplishments, that it was only natural in the good little soul to entertain now and then a suspicious curiosity about the movements of her husband. Was it nothing but the delicate health of Lady Ellin that took him so frequently to Hove Hall? How it came about, from what charitable whisperings on the part of kind friends, from what workings of original sin in her own gentle breast, it would be hard to say; but 'tis a fact that, when Hove Hall was mentioned, a quick pain seized the little wife's heart and colour left her cheek, to return again quickly, and in increased quant.i.ty. The time came when she discovered the groundlessness of her fears, and was deeply thankful that she had never, in any unguarded moment, by clouded brow, or foolish tears, or sharp reply, revealed the folly of her heart.

Just at the time that Mrs. Ambrose was in the midst of this trial of her affection, Ambrose obtained her permission to drive over to a town twelve miles distant, to attend the hunt dinner. The night of that dinner was a memorable one with the doctor's wife. Ambrose had promised to be home at eleven o'clock. But twelve had struck, and here he had not returned. One o'clock--two o'clock! No husband! The servants had been sent to bed four hours ago; and Mrs. Ambrose sate alone in her old wainscotted parlour, with a lamp by her side, sad, and pale, and feverish--as wakeful as the house-dog out of doors, that roamed round the house, barking out his dissatisfaction at the prolonged absence of his master.

At length, at half-past two, a sound of wheels was at the door, and in another minute Ambrose entered the hall, and greeted his little wife.

Ah, Mrs. Ellis, this writer will not pain you by entering into details in this part of his story. In defence of Ambrose, let it be said that it was the only time in all his married life that he paid too enthusiastic homage to the G.o.d of wine. Something he mumbled about being tired, and having a headache, and then he walked, not over-steadily, upstairs. Poor Mrs. Ambrose! It was not any good asking _him_, what had kept him out so late. Incensed, frightened, and jealous, the poor little lady could not rest. She must have one doubt resolved. Where had her husband been all this time? Had he been round by Hove Hall? Had she reflected, she would have seen his Bacchic drowsiness was the best possible evidence that he had not come from a lady's drawing-room. But jealousy is love's blindness. A thought seized the little woman's head; she heard the step of Ambrose's man in the kitchen, about to retire to rest. Ah, he could tell her. A word from him would put all things right. Quick as thought, without considering her own or her husband's dignity, the angry little wife hastened down-stairs, and entered the kitchen where John was paying his respects to some supper and mild ale that had been left out for him. As evil fortune would have it, the step she had taken to mend matters made them worse.

"Oh, John," said the lady, telling a harmless fib, "I have just come to see if cook left you out a good supper."

John--most civil and trustworthy of grooms--rose, and posing himself on his heels, made a respectful obeisance to his mistress, not a little surprised at her anxiety for his comfort. But, alas! the potations at the hunt-dinner had not been confined to the gentlemen of the hunt. John had, in strong ale, taken as deep draughts of gladness as Ambrose had in wine. At a glance his mistress saw the state of the case, and in her fright, losing all caution, put her question point-blank, and with imperious displeasure--"John, where have you and your master been?--tell me instantly."

An admirable servant--honest and well-intentioned at all times--just then confused and loquacious--John remembered him how often his master had impressed upon him that it was his duty not to gossip about the places he stopped at in his rounds, as professional secrecy was a virtue scarcely less necessary in a doctor's man-servant than in a doctor. Acting on a muddle-headed reminiscence of his instructions, John reeled towards his mistress, endeavouring to pacify her with a profusion of duteous bobbings of the head, and in a tone of piteous sympathy, and with much incoherence, made this memorable answer to her question: "I'm very sorry, mum, and I do hope, mum, you won't be angry. I allus wish to do you my best duty--that I do, mum--and you're a most good, affable missus, and I, and cook, and all on us are very grateful to you."

"Never mind that. Where have you and your master been? That's my question."

"Indeed, mum--I darnatellye, it would bes goodasmeplace wi' master. I dare not say where we ha' been. For master rekwested me patikler not to dewulge."

But thou hadst not wronged thy wife. It was not thine to hurt any living thing, dear friend. All who knew thee will bear witness that to thee, and such as thee, Crabbe pointed not his bitter lines:--