DOCTORS AND DOCTORING

Sydney Smith, who was fond of quacking his parishioners, and had a poor opinion of "professional and graduated homicides," observes that "the Sixth Commandment is suspended by one medical diploma from the North of England to the South." Personally, I have experienced the attentions of the Faculty north, south, east, and west, and I began in London. In my first appearance on this planet I was personally conducted by a smart gentleman, who came straight from a dinner-party, in a large white cravat and turquoise studs. Those studs still exist, and have descended, with the practice, to his grandson. May they beam on births more propitious than my own.

My knowledge of the first act of life's drama is necessarily traditional. But, as I approach the second, memory begins to operate. I seem to remember a black silhouette of a gentleman in an elbow-chair, with a pigtail and knee-breeches; and this icon was revered as the likeness of "old Doctor P——." This "old Dr. P.'s" son, "Tom P——," was a sturdy stripling of seventy odd, who had never used a stethoscope, and dismissed a rival practitioner who talked about heart-sounds as "an alarmist." To these succeeded a third generation of the same drug-stained dynasty, represented to me by a gentleman in shiny black, who produced a large gold watch when he felt one's pulse, and said "Hah!" when he looked at one's tongue. These three generations, for something more than a century, monopolized all the best practice of Loamshire, were immensely respected, and accumulated a great deal of money. Echoes of the dialogue between doctor and patient still haunt the ear of memory:—

Nervous and Dyspeptic Lady. "Do you know, Dr. P., I felt so very uncomfortable after luncheon—quite a sensation of sinking through the floor. Of course I had some brandy and water—about half and half—at once, but I feel that I ought to have a little champagne at dinner. Nothing helps me so much."

Dr. P. "Your ladyship is no inconsiderable physician. I was about to make the same suggestion. But pray be careful that it is a dry wine."

All this was very comfortable and friendly, and tended to promote the best relations between doctor and patient. I do not recollect that the doctor was supposed to effect cures; but his presence at a deathbed created the pleasant sense that all had been done which could be done, and that the patient was dying with the dignity proper to his station. It may be remarked, in passing, that the two elder generations did all their rounds, early and late, summer and winter, on horseback; while the third subsided into a brougham drawn by a pair of horses afflicted with stringhalt, and presumably bought cheap on account of that infirmity.

So much for the men. What was their method? To my infant palate the oils of castor and cod were as familiar as mother's milk. I dwelt in a land flowing with rhubarb and magnesia. The lively leech was a household pet. "Two nocturnes in blue and an arrangement in black," as the Æsthete said, were of frequent occurrence. But other parts of the system were more palatable. I seem to have drunk beer from my earliest infancy. A glass of port wine at eleven, with a teaspoonful of bark in it, was the recognized tonic, and brandy (which the doctor, who loved periphrasis, always called "the domestic stimulant") was administered whenever one looked squeamish, while mulled claret was "exhibited" as a soporific. The notion of pouring all this stuff down a child's throat sounds odd to a generation reared on Apollinaris and barley-water, but it had this one advantage—that when one grew up it was impossible to make one drunk.

From childhood we pass on to schooldays. Wild horses should not drag from me the name of the seminary where I was educated, for its medical arrangements left a good deal to be desired. There were three doctors in this place, and they shared the care of some six hundred boys. Dr. A. was certainly very old, and was reputed to be very good, insomuch that his admirers said that, if they were dying, they should wish to have Dr. A. with them, as he was better than any clergyman. If, however, they were so carnally-minded as to wish to recover, they sent for Dr. B., a bluff gentleman, who told his patients that they were not half as ill as they thought, and must pull themselves together—a prescription which, if there was nothing the matter, answered admirably. The third was a grievous gentleman, who took a dark view of life, and, sitting by my sick-bed, would inform me of the precarious condition of a schoolfellow, who, to use his own phrase, was "slipping through his fingers," and "had no more constitution than a fly." Regarding this triumvirate in the light of my subsequent experience, I cannot affect surprise that there were fifteen deaths among the boys during the five years that I was in the school.

From the anonymous school I proceeded to an anonymous university, where the medical world was dominated by the bland majesty of Sir Omicron Pie (the name is Trollope's, but it will serve). Who that ever saw them can forget that stately bearing, that Jove-like brow, that sublime air of omniscience and omnipotence? Who that ever heard it, that even flow of mellifluous eloquence and copious narrative? Who that ever experienced it, the underlying kindness of heart?

A nervous undergraduate is ushered into the consulting-room, and the great man advances with a paternal smile.

"Mr. Bumpstead? Ah! I think I was at school with your good father. No? Then it must have been your uncle. You are very like him. We ran a neck-and-neck race at the University. I won the Gold Medal, and he was proximÈ. In those days I little thought of settling down in Oxbridge. I had destined myself for a London practice; but Sir Thomas Watson—you have heard of 'Watson's style'? He was the Cicero of Medicine—well, Watson said, 'No, my dear Pie, it won't do. In ten years you will be at the head of the profession, and will have made £100,000. But, mark my words, the blade will wear out the scabbard. You are not justified in risking your life.' I was disappointed, of course. All young men like the idea of fame. But I saw that Watson was right, and I came here, and found my life's work. The Medical School was then in a very decayed condition, and I have made it what it is. Why am I telling you all this——?"

(Enter the butler.) "Please, Sir Omicron, you've an appointment at Battle-axe Castle at four o'clock, and the carriage is at the door."

Sir O. P. "Ah! well. I must tell you the rest another day. Let me see, what was the matter? Palpitation? Let me listen for a moment. It is as I thought—only a little functional irritability. Lead a sensible life; avoid excess; cultivate the philosophic temper. Take this prescription, and come again next week. Thank you, thank you."

Fortified by four years of Sir Omicron's care, I came up to London somewhere between 1870 and 1880. The practice of the West End was then divided between three men—Sir A. B., Sir C. D., and Sir E. F.

Sir A. B. was bluff and brutal, fashioned himself on the traditions of Abernethy, and ruled his patients by sheer terrorism. He had an immense influence over hysterical women and weak-minded men, and people who might otherwise have resented his ursine manner were reconciled to it by the knowledge that he officially inspected the most illustrious Tongue in the kingdom.

His principal rival was Sir C. D., who ruled by love. "Well, my dear sir, there is not much the matter. A day or two's hunting will set you right. You don't ride? Ah! well, it doesn't much matter. A fortnight at Monte Carlo will do just as well. All you want is change of scene and plenty of amusement."

"As to your ladyship's diet, it should be light and nutritious. I should recommend you to avoid beefsteaks and boiled mutton. A little turtle soup, some devilled whitebait, and a slice of a turkey truffe would be the sort of dinner to suit you. If the insomnia is at all urgent, I have found a light supper of pÂtÉ de foie gras work wonders."

Sir E. F. operated on a theological system. His discourse on the Relations between Natural and Revealed Religion profoundly impressed those who heard it for the first time, and his tractate on Medical Missions in India ran into a third edition. In his waiting-room one found, instead of last month's Punch or the Christmas number of Madame, devotional works inscribed "From his grateful patient, the author." In his consulting-room a sacred picture of large dimensions crowned the mantelpiece, and signed portraits of bishops whom he had delivered from dyspepsia adorned the walls. Ritualistic clergy frequented him in great numbers, and—what was better still—recommended their congregations to the "beloved physician." Ecclesiastically-minded laymen delighted in him, and came away with a comfortable conviction, syllogistically arranged, that (1) one's first duty is to maintain one's health; (2) whatever one likes is healthy; therefore (3) one's first duty is to like exactly as one likes.

A water-drinking adherent of Mr. Gladstone once saw that eminent man crowning a banquet of champagne with a glass of undeniable port. "Oh! Mr. Gladstone," he exclaimed in the bitterness of his soul, "what would Sir E. F. say if he could see you mixing your liquors?" The great man's defence was ready to his hand: "Sir E. F. assures me that, if I let fifteen minutes elapse between two kinds of wine, there is no mixture."

Somehow these lively oracles of Sir E. F.'s, with which I was always coming in contact, left on my mind a dim impression that he must have been related to the doctor who attended Little Nell and prescribed the remedies which the landlady had already applied: "Everybody said he was a very shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly well what people's constitutions were, which there appears some reason to suppose he did."