The varieties of your past, as well as the personal requisites for your future destination, are of such a pantomimic and party-coloured complexion, that I cannot proceed to a recital so truly risible, without first offering you, in the lines of Woty, a predominant trait in my own character,

Thus happily disposed to those brilliant sallies of mirth, that almost renovate life, and set melancholy at defiance, you will be the less liable to surprise, that I shall descend to the very minutiÆ of your necessary qualifications, for the support of so arduous and complicated a character as you are now going to perform upon the theatre of life.

It is very natural to conclude you have, during the tedious years of initiation as an apprentice, and your more mature services as a journeyman, (politely ycleped assistant) whether in the metropolis, or the country, gone through every degree of drudgery, and feelingly experienced every indignity, that insolent pride could bestow, or patient merit receive. Not an inferior trust (of the inferior part of the faculty) but you have carried into execution, from the injection of an enema in a garret, to the separation of an emplastrum vesicatorium in a workhouse. These are offices of humanity and service to your fellow creatures, that do you immortal honour; they are retrospectives that form an epoch in the mind of every practitioner, and afford him the powerful consolation of sacred truth, “He that humbleth himself,” &c. by which rule, and the force of a fertile imagination, any apothecary may conceive himself a physician, even in the administration of a glyster. In this hospitable execution (taken metaphorically) there cannot be supposed the least indignity; for it is universally known the greatest and most prudent generals are in the rear during the heat of battle; and we are again taught seriously to believe “the last shall be first,” &c. so that you have every way, (by both faith and services) insured a religious and prophetic hope of preferment.

Having for many years encountered the worst, you are now prepared for the best; and bidding adieu to the rigid rules of austere masters, embark upon your own foundation, qualified for every medical consultation, from the bedchamber of a duchess dowager to the subterraneous residence of her chairman. You have, at this period, not only shaken off the shackles of servitude, but the very recollection of your long standing culinary connections. In your various changes of residence, tedious peregrinations, and medical observations, it is natural to conclude, you have acquired by care, study, and attention, a competent knowledge of almost every tint in the picture of life; which, with embellishments, derived from a few courses under some of the metropolitan lecturers, and hospital attendance, to qualify you for the complication of country practice, there is no doubt but you come from the forge properly formed, to make wrong appear right, and right wrong, in the face of every old woman in the county where you are going to reside.

Exclusive of these qualifications, and the many instructions already introduced under the two preceding heads (to which you may occasionally refer) there are a great variety that must be advanced for your particular use, and to those you will, no doubt, pay every proper attention, if you indulge the least desire to become a popular member of the faculty. In respect to personal appearance, former distinctions and peculiarities are in some degree levelled, the world is very much relaxed in its severities, and the apothecary mixes with the general herd of mankind, without those distinguishing exteriors that were his professional characteristics. The gilt-headed cane and enormous tassel are no longer in use; the full-bottom wig, that so universally ornamented the os frontis of the faculty in general, is now almost laid aside with inferior classes, and engrossed by the college. The apothecary (particularly in the country) is in every respect free from the illiberal censure of former times, and treading close upon the heels of the parson and the lawyer, enjoys, without restraint, the chace, the gun, the bottle, and bona-roba. These, if you are of a volatile disposition and amorous constitution, afford (at seasonable opportunities) a happy and high relished relaxation from the many severities of medical practice.

Having fixed upon your intended spot for embarkation, let every thought be employed to display an attracting uniformity in the disposition of your apparatus, for the claptrap of public approbation; and though that great investigator of human nature has beautifully portrayed “a beggarly account of empty boxes,” yet they become immediately necessary to your present purpose; it not being his business to explain the folly and extravagance of your placing any thing of consequence there, before you was experimentally convinced you should have occasion for its use. Let there be a profusion of appearance; the shell of a shop is not very expensive, and druggists are so numerous, that you may be expeditiously supplied whenever circumstances require it.—The bottles (being transparent) become more immediately in need of something in each, particularly a few of those articles (as hartshorn, lavender, &c.) that are in common request. The lower drawers (within reach) may be labelled with obsolete titles, and in each placed various paper parcels of bran or saw-dust, to avoid a chance of the sarcasm upon the faculty by a countryman, who happened to be left alone some time in the shop of an apothecary, and whose curiosity being excited by the great number of drawers, was powerfully prompted to open one labelled “Thus,” which finding empty, he was induced to try a second, still the same; a third, the same also.—Oh! oh! says he, “I see plain enough how it is, they are all Thus.” Your shop being at length finished in a stile modern and striking, let a green silk curtain (with brass rods and rings) be affixed to your window; it is an excellent method of conveying an idea of internal mystery, and inspiring proportionate external curiosity. Let no paltry diffidence appear in the board over your door, announcing your name and qualifications; there are great numbers that can’t distinguish small letters at a distance, to avoid which inconvenience, let the capitals be as conspicuous as the canvas figures at a country puppet-shew.

“Thus far before the wind;” and being (as it is natural to conclude) not greatly engaged, it becomes your immediate attention to wait personally upon the different overseers of the surrounding parishes, and give them most forcibly to understand, they have been for many years the subjects of imposition; but you having more honesty than the whole body of the faculty, will undertake to farm the medical superintendance of the poor, at half the annual sum it has ever cost the inhabitants before. This political stroke will excellently answer both your purposes, for overseers in general care not how little they pay; and you being professionally callous to the tears of poverty and distress, care not how little you give for their money.

Tartar emetic—Pulv. contray. c.—Pulv. nitri, and Pulv. jalapii—are medicines admirably calculated for the constitutions of the poor; and thirty or forty shillings a year in those articles, will be sufficient for the consumption of five or six parishes; with the additional advantage of rendering vials unnecessary, a consideration of some consequence, when it is remembered they are now double their former price. These parochial connections will be productive of advantage in more ways than one, for as the unhappy paupers will be constantly seen at your door, it will afford all the appearance of sudden popularity.

Ostentatious parade, and personal consequence, must be your leading traits, and never lost sight of; a couple of horses will contribute largely to these objects; not that you are expected to degrade the dignity of your profession, by riding, like Hughes or Astley, two at a time, but their appearance will constitute an admirable shew of business in being rode alternately; and as most young men who have not been long their own masters, are fond of displaying their persons on the outside of a horse, you may exultingly not only “feed fat” the propensity, but the general run of your mechanical neighbours (who see no farther than the tips of their noses, and are ever caught by appearances) will erroneously suppose you are visiting some of the first characters in the county. As it will be now highly derogatory for you to stain your hands with any menial services, procure speedily a journeyman (alias assistant) to enhance your own weight; if there is at present nothing for him to do, the curtain, before recommended, will obscure his indolence from the prying eye of public curiosity.

No part of the faculty having ever been remarkable for the regularity or fervency of their devotions, your presence at church will consequently not be expected (particularly after the impressions you have made of being perpetually engaged) unless you politically appear there at two or three different times, merely for the convenience of being called out by your own direction, at the still and most awful part of the service; a circumstance that will tell much to your advantage with every superannuated old woman in the parish. Take particular care that your horse is constantly brought to your door on the sabbath day, just as the neighbours are passing to church, and there paraded some time previous to your appearance, which to every weak mind will have its effects; and be equally careful to measure the steps of your horse, by the hands of your watch, so that whether your journey is accidentally long, or intentionally short, you return just at the moment of their dismission from the religious conventicle. In passing the whole body of inhabitants, be strictly careful of your self consequence—a bow of significant respect to two or three of the superiors, may be applicable and consistent—but no familiarity with, or knowledge of, the multitude; the greater your ostentation and indifference, the more servile will be their admiration and respect.

By no means form any hasty or inconsiderate matrimonial connection; you will derive many advantages at first from a life of celibacy; there are always a variety of juvenile females in the country (as well as the metropolis) who considering themselves every way qualified to constitute doctor’s ladies, will most industriously throw themselves in your way upon every occasion, that their personal attractions may not escape your observation. To families where there are daughters, nieces, or cousins, who conceive themselves ripe for the gordian knot, you may assure yourself of being called in a short time; for as you are such “a charming man” in your appearance, (and so admirably fitting for a husband) there can’t be the least reason to doubt your professional qualifications.

You may perhaps start some doubts, (or conscientious qualms may arise) how these appearances are to be supported in the infancy of business, without any great personal property to sanction or justify the attempt; in such diffidence you perfectly display, not only your pusillanimity, but want of knowledge and experience; for certainly out of the above description of females, who will constantly pay court to your consequence, and by a thousand modes solicit your attention, surely some one of the best possessions may be obtained, whose fortune, and advantage of family connection, may answer your most sanguine expectations: but should fate conspire against you in both business and marriage, you will have the consolation of having made a bold push, and failing in the attempt, you only become a fashionable adventurer, and gratefully pay your creditors nothing in the pound.

Having gone through a chain of circumstances and instructions, necessary for the support of your public appearance, it will be naturally expected I shall revert to the modes of behaviour that are to constitute your private character, in the professional transactions that you conclude will daily occur. First, let it be your constant observance to be equally reserved and difficult of access—whenever your opinion is required, even in your own shop, appear there with tedious reluctance, as if privacies of the utmost consequence prevented your earlier attendance; this will not only add to your medical weight, but raise your reputation for good breeding and intercourse with the polite world; for it is universally known, none but the inferior orders are introduced to each other without ceremony; it would be therefore highly ridiculous in you to practise a mode of behaviour in use only with the lowest classes of mankind.

Never leave home without letting your horse be held long enough at the door to be observed by the surrounding neighbours; the most trifling indication of business is a point in your favour, and ought by no means to be omitted. By the invariable good effect of which rule, no messenger whatever should arrive from the country for medicines, but he must be detained as long as possible; his preparations should never be ready when called for; on the contrary, his horse should be hung or held at the door for half an hour at least; a double advantage is derived from this necessary caution—the horse at the door will prove a striking object to the public, and the messenger will assure the family you attend, that, nothing but your great hurry occasioned the delay in his return.

It will be strictly proper for you, upon all occasions, to preserve the most inflexible serenity of countenance, even to extreme gravity; and this injunction becomes the more immediately necessary, as there are a vast variety of unexpected causes for laughter, to which you will be open, in the frequent applications of unpolished rustics, for your great opinion and assistance. One class will “beg the favour of you to subscribe for their complaints;” another “hopes you won’t be offended, but he is come to insult you upon his case;” these instances are so exceedingly common, that you will often meet with them, where they are least expected. There now lives an alderman, in a very capital town and place of royal residence, who, a few years since, labouring under an epidemic complaint, was told that symptoms were alarming, and a glyster was unavoidably necessary; to which representation he expostulated, begging the apothecary “to lay aside his intention, and give him any thing to take inwardly, but for God’s sake, to have no cutting and slaying.”—Another of the same learned body corporate (for they have both kissed the K—g’s hand) said “he bore the severity of his complaint with more patience, now he was manured to it.”

To prove the frequency of these accidental slips, it is impossible to resist the present temptation of introducing a few more, that occur to memory in the present recital. A lad upon the borders of Northamptonshire, being sent in the night to a medical practitioner at Banbury, and calling him out of bed, told him, “he must come immediately to his mistress, for she had got a Vistula!”——“Where? In ano?” “No, Zir, in the next parish to’t.”

In an excursion to Surrey, I was solicited in a parish near Chertsey, to give my advice to a master carpenter there, who had been a long time indisposed; but my prescription having had the desired effect, and the poor man getting abroad, he very gratefully declared to all his friends, “I was the best musician that ever came into the country.”—In the county of Berks, an elderly woman came to consult me upon the bad state of her daughter’s health; and after animadverting upon symptoms, told me in a whisper, “that her daughter was to have been married to a young man some time since; but something happening to break it off, she really believed ’twas nature turned inward in her.”

Paying a visit, in my earlier days, to the lady of a good old country alderman of a borough in Hertfordshire, she, after many aukward apologies for the indelicacy of the subject, tremblingly told me, “she had been very uneasy for some days, with a violent heat in her firmament.”—By way of suppressing those risible emotions in my disposition I have before described, I, for a moment, changed the subject, by enquiring the health of her husband; to which she replied, with thanks, “he was exceedingly well, but gone to make an exerescence into the country;” plunged deeper in difficulty, and nearer the laugh than before, which was now become hard to suppress, I applied myself to her snuff-box, then on the table, and passing a few encomiums on its neatness, she said, it was very much admired, being a gypsey’s pimple set in pinch-gut.

You will, no doubt, be now prepared for such unexpected misapplication of words, such sublimity of expression, and regulate the rigidity of your frontal muscles accordingly; when called to a patient, let your personal address and behaviour be modelled entirely by the state of his property; if he is your superior in rank and condition, every action of yours must denote it most strikingly;—you approach with respect—you dictate with submission—your mildness and affected penetration must be perceptible in all your enquiries, making the most scrupulous observations how far you seem to gain upon the credulity and good opinion of your subject, taking leave with all those attracting expressions of tenderness and sympathy, (highly tinctured with respect) that may give your patient a favourable idea of the integrity, it can never be your interest to possess.

On the contrary, when your advice and assistance is required to a patient, whose feelings are equally wounded by bodily affliction and the barbed arrow of adversity, you may safely reverse the whole mode of behaviour, and put into practice your personal pride, even to perfect impudence. This will be in many respects a consistency of conduct; it will be convincing them, as you have nothing to hope from their affluence, you have certainly nothing to fear from their poverty.

Let what will be the condition of your patient, you are not to act as some few conscientious practitioners do, explaining what you conceive to be the nature of the case, original cause of complaint, or from what operation you expect expeditious relief; this may be the best practice with those unfashionable formal old fellows, who received their medical instructions near half a century since, and pique themselves upon what they call their integrity; but it will be perfectly illiberal in you, who have received a more modern, and polished education. Ambiguity, and true medical mystery, will be your best guide upon every occasion; by not naming the case, or cause of complaint, you can never be accused of having mistaken it; and by letting the property of the medicine you administer remain a matter of secrecy with all but yourself, you reserve the incontrovertible power of saying, “it has had the very effect you intended,” whether it operates by vomit, stool, urine, perspiration, or sleep: these are precautions a wise man always takes, a fool never, and may be deemed something similar to the conduct of Bayes’s troops in the Rehearsal, who, the warlike messenger said, “were stealing a march in stilts.”

During the indisposition of your patient, ’tis your duty to think much more of the emolument that will arise from the protraction of his case, than the expedience of his cure. You must have it ever in mind, that he has paid you the the greatest compliment one man can possibly pay another on earth; he has placed an implicit confidence, and entrusted you with the care of his constitution and the key of his cash; in fact, he has put both his life and property into your hands; and the respect you owe to self-preservation renders it necessary you make the most of both. Let your attachment to his health and interest be demonstrated by the frequency of your attendance; it will be impossible for you to give a greater proof of your disinterested friendship, than by your large and constant supplies of different medicines; too great a quantity, too great a variety cannot be introduced; they all tend to a promotion of your emolument, and the sum total of your bill will be considered a striking proof of your merit and assiduity.

If you find the family and friends not perfectly satisfied with your conduct, that there is the least coolness and discontent perceptible, or symptoms of present or approaching danger, strongly recommend the presence of a better opinion in the form of a physician; this will prove an exertion of the soundest policy—double the quantity of medicines will be thrown into his prescription for the promotion of your interest, an act that the present danger will amply justify, and should the unhappy victim be doomed

You have nobly and skilfully slipped your neck out of the collar, and left all the credit of killing (as you really ought to do) to your superior, whose diploma entitles him to the preference; and, vice versa, should you perceive the patient and family become dupes to your affected sincerity, and that you are daily raising yourself in their estimation, erect a structure of professional applause upon the basis of their credulity; insinuate every possible degree of self praise, and set the advice of a physician in the most contemptible point of view.—Affect unlimited attachment to the interest of your patient, and say, “you would recommend much better advice than your own, if you could do it with a conscientious consistency; but it had ever been an opinion of yours (which was still unaltered) if the apothecary could not plunder a family sufficiently, the better method would be to adopt a consultation, when it might be done to a certainty.”

This open manner of dealing instantly enhances you in the estimation of patient and friends, and you will consequently stand so high in opinion that you may proceed deliberately in your spoils without interruption, for where there are no daily fees (swallowed up in the vortex of the college) your more trifling depredations will not be considered as matters of medical magnitude or imposition.

In all kinds of inferior practice render every look, every thought and action, subservient to your general intent of personal rank and pecuniary consequence; it must be your particular study to inculcate every idea in the lower class, of your great penetration and abilities; by your minute investigations, cross-examinations, and applicable nods of significance (implying the most extensive knowledge) you will discover remote symptoms, that once explained to the complaining patient, will give them reason to believe (which they very readily do) you are a supernatural agent; and one fool of this denomination, who firmly believes you know the state of his health by the wrinkles in his forehead, or the cloud in his urine, will soon infect a whole county with the certainty of your infallible qualifications. This opinion once founded, the effect is absolutely incredible, an instance of which may be found in various parts of England, but more particularly in a very large and populous town, not forty miles west of the metropolis, where fools from every part of the county are constantly driving (their pockets laden with chamber-lye) to a famous inspector of urinals, vulgarly denominated a piss-pot doctor, who, to magnify the report of his incredible skill and penetration, has adopted a certain method to impose upon the minds of the multitude, and prey upon the little pecuniary collections they can make, to become the dupes of his villainy and their own infatuation.

The mode of imposition, I shall explain in a fact as communicated by one of his most intimate friends, and leave the story itself to applaud his ingenuity:—He has (in a very respectable habitation) a small private room, to which every patient or messenger is conducted (upon a plea that the doctor is not at home, or is particularly engaged) here an emissary (as if casually) asking certain questions, hears the whole story, examines the urine, and descends to particulars—the doctor is in the adjoining apartment (calculated by a thin partition and certain openings, invisible to the unsuspecting visitor) where he minutely hears the entire conversation; the necessary secrets being obtained, he makes his appearance with the most commanding aspect; at this awful ceremony, the fascinated patient almost feels the effect of ANIMAL MAGNETISM; the approach of so much wisdom deprives him for a moment of speech, and the poor devil undergoes a kind of temporary annihilation. An instance of this occurred not long since, when a country fellow having journeyed twelve miles to the doctor with a bottle of his wife’s chrystal stream, communicated the necessary particulars to the agent, when the doctor, in possession of the secret, made his appearance.—“Well, friend!”—“I have brought your honour my wife’s water, she could not rest any longer without your device.”—“Your wife’s water—very well—let me see!—aye, I perceive she has bruised her shoulder.”—“Yes, Sir, she has indeed.”—“By this water (it is perfectly clear) she has fallen down stairs.”—“Yes, your honour!”—“She is not injured in any other part by the fall?”—“Only complains a little at the bottom of her belly, your honour.”—“Well, she fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom, I see?”—“No, your honour, she had gone down two steps before she fell.”—“Indeed! why then you have not brought me all her water.”—“No, your honour, there was a little the bottle would not hold.”—“Why then, sirrah, the two stairs are left behind.“——This circumstance, (of a thousand that might be quoted) is sufficient to demonstrate the ridiculous credulity of the multitude in all matters of quackery, and leaves us to lament, that the ignorance of one class, should become so wretched a prey to the deliberate villainy of another.

The long experience you have had, in charging and posting your accompts, under different masters of equal judgment and experience, leaves little room for instruction under that head; it may however not prove inapplicable to remind you, it is no matter how incoherent or unintelligible the writing is, provided your figures are bold and conspicuous; so long as you can convince them how much they have to pay, it is a total matter of indifference to you, how much they have received.

There is one caution however exceedingly necessary to be advanced, to prevent your becoming subject to a reproof given by the celebrated Dean Swift to his apothecary, for presuming to be handsomely paid for the confidence of putting himself upon an equality with his superiors. This is the impropriety of letting the word ”visits“ constitute a part of your charge, instead of the more modest term of ”journeys,“ or ”attendance.“

The Dean having been afflicted with a long and severe fit of illness, requested, soon after recovery, the apothecary’s bill; which having perused, and finding a sum total very much beyond his expectation, he proceeded to dissection, and perceiving almost every third article to announce the honour of a ”visit,” at five shillings each, he satirically adopted the following plan to punish Mr. Emetic, for what the Dean considered a piece of consummate assurance.—Having required his attendance to receive his demand, he paid down a certain sum of money, which the mortified apothecary continued to tell over, and repeatedly compare with the figures denoting the sum total; but still continuing to tell and compare, without seeming to get at all nearer the point of satisfaction, the Dean, in compassion to the confusion he visibly laboured under, observed, as he did not seem to be perfectly clear in his arrangement of the accompt, he would set him right.—If he would but deduct the amount of the “visits” from the sum total of his bill, he would find it exactly right; for being now pretty well recovered, he intended paying him his “visits” again one at a time.

You will now naturally conclude every instruction that can be possibly necessary, has been submitted to your consideration, for the promotion of your prosperous and profitable career through the medical journey of life; it is not so; for although we have gone through the usual forms of sickness, to either recovery or death, there is still one remark necessary, to the completion of consistency, in your professional character. It is a few observations, in derision of that truly contemptible burlesque upon propriety, in following the corps of your patient to the grave; a folly originating in ignorance, and established by custom; a circumstance so truly ridiculous and farcical, that it did not escape the penetration and sarcastic wit of our Aristophanes of the present century, who attacked it with the full force of his satire, in the description given by a taylor, in one of his celebrated comedies, who says, “as he was going home to a customer with a pair of breeches under his arm, he perceived his neighbour Gargle, the apothecary, following a corps to the grave,—so says he, Master Gargle, I see you are going home with your work too.” The justice of this remark renders the circumstance so truly ridiculous, that it is a matter of admiration, how any man of the most common understanding can ever submit to an indignity so truly laughable. It certainly bears the appearance of your not being content with preying upon the property of the deceased, during their last hours of sublunary affliction, but you meanly pursue their very remains to the grave, and obtain a paltry hatband and gloves, at the expence of decency and discretion. Exclusive of this very striking obstacle, there is one of equal weight in the scale of your professional reputation—it certainly can add none to the eminence of your character, that the contents of the coffin was publickly known to be a subject of your skill and experimental practice.

You will certainly experience some difficulty in evading a compliance with many requests, made to you for this purpose; but I would recommend it to you to encounter displeasure, rather than become the dupe of so great an absurdity. To inculcate by example, what I have strongly recommended in precept, you may be assured, that I have, during my long practice, retained so great an aversion to this inconsistency of character, that I rendered myself totally incapable of compliance, by never having in possession a suit of mourning; this resource has always proved my never failing friend, when no other apology would be accepted; and by never seeming to recollect the want till a few hours before the funeral, a written apology has always proved a respectable substitute, to which there was no alternative.

Having descended to the very minutiÆ of a long, extensive, and successful practice, to form your mind, and regulate your manners in every professional transaction of your life, I cannot doubt, but rules so directly consonant to your personal interest and reputation, will receive every assistance from your unerring consistency and perseverance, conveying a perfect corroboration of the gratitude you feel, for the intrinsic worth of so liberal and friendly a communication.