The Funny Side of Physic Part 3

The requisites essential to success are amusingly described by a writer of the former time, as follows:--

_First._ A decent black suit, and (if your credit will stretch so far), a plush jacket, not a pin the worse if threadbare as a tailor's cloak--it shows the more reverend antiquity.

_Second._ You must carry a caduceus, or cane, like Mercury, capped with a civet-box (or snuff-box like Sir Richard's), and must walk with becoming gravity, as if in deep contemplation upon an arbitrament between life and death.

_Third._ You must hire convenient lodgings in a respectable neighborhood, with a hatch[1] at the door; have your reception-room hung with pictures of some celebrated physicians, ancient historical scenes, and anatomical plates, and the floor belittered with gallipots and half-empty bottles.

Any s.e.xton will furnish your window with a skull, in hope of your custom.

_Fourth._ Let your desk never be without some old musty Greek and Arabic authors, and on your table some work on anatomy, open at a picture page, to amuse, if not astonish spectators, and carelessly thrown on the same a few gilt shillings, to represent so many guineas received that morning as fees.

_Fifth._ Fail not to patronize neighboring alehouses, which may, in turn, recommend you to inquirers; and hold correspondence with all the nurses and midwives whose address you may obtain, to applaud your skill at gossiping.

_Sixth._ Be not over modest in airy pretensions, not forgetting that loquaciousness and impudence are essentials to gaining a fool's confidence. In case you are naturally backward in language, or have an impediment of speech, you are recommended to persevere in a habit of mysterious and profound silence before patients, rendered impressive by grave nods and ahems.

EARLY FRENCH PHYSICIANS.

From what meagre biographies we have of French doctors of the past, we are led to believe that, as at the present time, the humbugs outnumbered the honest medical pract.i.tioners. In the days of Clovis and the great Charlemagne, before the power of Rome was broken, before Russia was a nation, and when England was subject to the caprices of many masters, there were many surgeons employed in the armies of these kings, but the priests and wizards were the physicians to the great public. The surgeons possessed all the knowledge there was to be attained at that distant day; yet they made the heart, not the brain, the centre of thought, and "the palace of the soul," knew little of anatomy, and nothing of the circulation of the blood.

The physicians of later periods held court positions by flattery, not by merit. This was particularly true up to and inclusive of the reign of "LOUIS LE GRAND." Those who attended as physicians upon the court of this remarkable monarch of France for seventy-two years, received no stipend whatever, except the honor of holding so exalted a position as court physician to such a mighty ruler; and, notwithstanding the outside practice that this elevated station necessarily brought them, but few physicians could long bear the enormous expense attending that position.

Louis resided at a distance from his capital. His changes of residence were continual, and not without a design, and chiefly made for the purpose of creating and maintaining a number of artificial distinctions. By these he kept the court in a state of constant anxiety, expense, and expectation. When the next proposed change was announced, he had made it the fashion for courtiers to accompany him,--to Versailles, to St.

Germain, or Marly,--and to occupy apartments near him, and the extravagance and magnificence in which he made it inc.u.mbent upon his followers to appear, with the frequent prescribed changes, rendered it too expensive a position for a man to sustain, unless possessed of a previous ample fortune. The surgeons of the armies were paid for their services.

Both Drs. O'Meara and Antommarchi have testified to Napoleon's scepticism in medicine and distrust of physicians. But "surgeons are G.o.dlike," he is represented as saying, and upon all worthy he bestowed the "Legion of Honor."

At St. Helena, Dr. Antommarchi was endeavoring to persuade the emperor to take a simple remedy which he had prepared for him.

"Bah!" exclaimed Napoleon, "I cannot; it is beyond my power to take medicine."

"I pray your majesty to try," entreated the doctor.

"The aversion I have for the slightest preparation is inconceivable. I have exposed myself to the dangers of the battle-field with indifference; I have seen death without betraying emotion; but to take medicine, I cannot," was his reply.

Madame Bertrand, who was present, tried also to persuade the emperor to take the physician's prescription.

"How do you manage to take all those abominable pills and drugs, Madame Bertrand, which the doctor is continually prescribing for you?" asked the emperor.

"O, I take them without stopping to think about it," was her reply; "and I beg your majesty will do the same."

Still the dying man shook his head, and appealed to General Montholon, who gave a similar answer.

"Do you think it will relieve me from this oppression, doctor?" he finally asked of Dr. Antommarchi.

"I do, my dear sire; and I entreat your majesty to drink it."

"What is it?" asked Napoleon, eying the gla.s.s suspiciously.

"Merely some orange water," was the reply.

"Give it me, then;" and the emperor seized the cup and drank the contents at one draught.

"The emperor has no faith in medicine, and never takes any," said Las Cases, in his memoirs.

About the year 1723, a man sprang into notice in Paris, styling himself Dr. Villars. He claimed relationship to the Duke Louis Hector Villars, and the Abbe Pons is represented as saying that "Dr. Villars is superior to the great marshal, Louis Hector. The duke kills men,--the doctor prolongs their existence."

Villars declared that his uncle, who had been killed at the age of one hundred years, and who might, but for his accidental death, have lived another half century, had confided to him the secret of his longevity.

It consisted of a medicine, which, if taken according to directions accompanying each bottle, would prolong the life of the fortunate possessor _ad infinitum_.

Villars employed several a.s.sistants to stand on the corners of the streets, and who, when a funeral was seen pa.s.sing, would exclaim,--

"Ah! if the unfortunate deceased had but taken Dr. Villars' nostrum, he might now be riding in his own carriage, instead of in a hea.r.s.e."

"Of course," says our authority, "the rabble believed the testimony of such respectable and _disinterested_ appearing witnesses, and made haste to obtain the doctor's nostrum--and instructions." And here is where the laugh comes in.

The patient received positive instructions to live temperately, to eat moderately, bathe daily, to avoid all excesses, to take steady and moderate exercise, to rise early, and, in fact, to obey all the laws of nature. Of course those who persevered in these instructions were greatly benefited thereby, and the dupes, attributing their recovery to the use of the nostrum, lauded the doctor.

The medicine, put up in a small bottle, carefully labelled, and sold for the modest sum of five francs, consisted of water from the River Seine, tinctured with a quant.i.ty of spirits of nitre. A few were wise enough to see the trick, but most people believed in the efficacy of the nostrum.

Unfortunately for Villars, he intrusted his secret to another, the humbug leaked out, and Oth.e.l.lo's occupation was gone; but not, however, until Villars had ama.s.sed a large fortune from the credulity of the public.

This brings to mind a story, the truth of which can be vouched for, respecting a New England doctor. His labels contained the following instructions:--

"The doctor charges you to take care of the health G.o.d has given you. In eating and exercise be moderate. Avoid bad habits and excesses that sap the life from you. Use no salt pork, newly-baked fine bread, vinegar, coffee, strong tea, or spirits while taking this medicine. 'Tis not in the power of man to restore you to health unless you regard these directions."

"What do you think of this?" asked the editor of a journal of Dr. P., former professor of H---- College, presenting a vial of the high dilution, as the medicine was, labelled as above.

"All very well," the doctor replied, after having read the label; "for if the vial contains nothing but water, with just sufficient alcohol to keep it, a strict observance of these directions might restore you to health."

"You have treated my case for a long time, doctor, and have never given me such instructions. Pray why don't _you_ get up something similar?"

"Well, what was his reply?" I asked, as the editor hesitated.

"O, he has not yet informed me."

AMERICAN HUMBUGS.

Humbug is not necessarily synonymous with ignorance. So far from it, that doubtless a very perfect and successful man in the art of humbugging must be educated to his business.

The following true statement is a case in point: A physician of New York, now in excellent standing, who "rolls in riches," and whose own carriage is drawn by a span of horses that Bonner once might have envied, was but a few years ago as poor as a church mouse, and as unknown as Scripture. He had graduated with honors in Transylvania University, opened an office in a country town, where his knowledge and talents were unappreciated, and which place he abandoned after a twelve months' patient waiting for a practice which did not come. He had become poorer every month, and but for the kind a.s.sistance of early friends, must have perished of want.

"Either it is distressingly healthy here, or the good people are afraid to trust their lives and healths in the hands of an inexperienced physician,"

he remarked to a friend to whom he applied for means for a new start elsewhere.

"And where will you try your luck next?" inquired his friend.

"In New York city."