The Funny Side of Physic Part 44

I have already exceeded the s.p.a.ce to which this chapter was limited, and there are a thousand superst.i.tious beliefs and practices which are not herein enumerated nor explained. But rest a.s.sured that nothing exists without its uses, without the knowledge of the divine Author, and nothing supernatural does or ever did exist amongst natural beings. There is nothing within this world but what G.o.d has placed for man's good. There is nothing here past man's ability to fathom. G.o.d is love.

What there is beyond this world, we shall find out quite soon enough.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XIII.

TRAVELLING DOCTORS.

"His fancy lay to travelling."--L'ESTRANGE.

PUBLIC CONFIDENCE(?).--THE EYE OF THE PUBLIC.--A BAD SPECIMEN.--"REMARKABLE TUMOR."--"THE SINGING DOCTOR."--CAUGHT IN A STORM.--BIG PUFFING.--A SPLENDID "TURNOUT."--WHO WAS HE?--A SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE.--THE "SPANKING DOCTOR."--A FAIR VICTIM.--LOOSE LAWS.--DR. PULSEFEEL.--IMPUDENCE.--A FIDDLING DOCTOR.--AN ENCORE.--"CHEEK."--VARIOUS WAYS OF ADVERTISING.

One might say, with some propriety, that these characters--travelling doctors--should have been cla.s.sed under the heading of our first chapter, as "humbugs;" but if we should put all under that head that belong there, O, where would the chapter end? As "all is not gold that glitters," so neither, on the other hand, is there anything so bad that no virtue can be found in it. No heart is so utterly depraved as to prevent any good thought or deed from emanating therefrom, though sometimes the good is quite imperceptible to us short-sighted mortals.

As the majority of physicians "turned" out of our medical colleges, or of those in practice in our cities, are unfit to have intrusted to their care the health and lives of our families, friends, or ourselves, so the majority of travelling doctors are to be reckoned equally untrustworthy; no more so.

If the blessed Saviour should return to earth, and travel from town to city, as he did eighteen hundred years ago, healing the sick, I really think there would be a less number believing in him now than then. Less grat.i.tude for his marvellous cures there could not be; for then some of the miserable wretches, whom he healed free of charge, did not so much as return him thanks. This may be said of some of our patients at this day.

Let a medical man of ever so great reputation travel, and he is lost. A band of angels, on a healing mission, would stand no chance with a people who only expect humbugs to visit them. The Shakspearian inquiry would at once and repeatedly be put,--

"How chance it they travel? Their _residence_, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways!"

Let us view a few travelling doctors through the _public_ eye:--

"So shall I dare to give him shape and hue, And bring his mazy-running tricks to view; From humbug's minions catch the scattered rays, That in one focus they may brightly blaze.

"I'd give our (nameless) knight, before he starts, A tireless mind, where never Conscience smarts; An oily tongue, which word should never speak To call a blush to Satan's brazen cheek; With, yet, a power of lungs the weak to move, Which lung-quiescent ... might approve; A changing face, which e'en might Homer feign, A ton of bra.s.s for every ounce of brain.

"Then launch him forth, right cunningly to rage Through the thin shams of this enlightened age; To tell the people they are lords of earth, And pick their pockets while he lauds their worth; Drug men with folly, which no clime engrosses, And sense deal out in homeopathic doses; And making goodness to his projects bend, With all right aims an ultra spirit blend.

"He leagues with those who number in their trade A falsehood told for every sixpence made; To Mammon mortgage all they have of heart, To keep their wealth, with priceless honor part.

The fear of G.o.d the smallest of their fears, Rolling in wealth, but bankrupt in ideas; To save their purse, their souls contented lose, And count all right, if worldly gain accrues; Who, when they die, no memory leave behind, But in the curses of their cheated kind!

"With these Sir Humbug riches seeks to gain, And feels his way through lab'rinths of chicane; Embezzles, swindles, lies, until at last The eye of Justice on his crime is cast, When, drugged with wealth, he quits our plundered sh.o.r.e, And Texas boasts one fiery hero more."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TUMOR DOCTOR CONTEMPLATES SUICIDE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARIAM, THE TUMOR DOCTOR.]

The worst specimen of a travelling doctor I ever knew first appeared at R., one of the princ.i.p.al towns of Vermont, a few years ago. His name was Mariam; or that was what he called himself. He was a Canadian by birth, about twenty-five years of age, short, dark-complexioned, and claimed to be the seventh son of somebody. He was very illiterate, not being able to write a prescription, or his name, for that matter, when he came to R.

I visited his rooms at the hotel, after he had been in town some weeks, and noticed, among other things, that his table was strewn with sheets of paper, upon which he had been practising writing his signature. He opened here boldly. He sent out thousands of circulars in the various trains of cars running from R., distributing them in person, on the Poor Richard's principle, that "if you want your work done, do it; if not, send." He inserted cards in the two village papers, containing the most illiterate and preposterous statements, and hundreds flocked to see him. Imagine his knowledge, for he a.s.sured me, to whom he opened his heart in confidence, that he never read a page of a medical work in his life.

He first claimed to cure by the laying on of hands; but as he possessed no magnetic powers, he gradually abandoned that deception. As he could not write a prescription, and knew nothing of compounding medicines, he would go with a patient to a druggist's, and looking over the names of drugs on the bottles exposed on the shelves, order two or three articles at random, and, as one druggist a.s.sured me, of the most opposite properties; such as tincture of iron and iodide of potash, etc. (NOTE. The acid in the M.

Tinct. iron sets the iodine free.)

His clothes were very seedy, "and the crown of his hat went flip flap,"

and his toes were healthy, "being able to get out to the air," when he came to R. Soon he was "in luck," and a nice suit of clothes, a new silk hat, and boots, speedily graced his not inelegant person. I saw him both before and after the transformation.

The following is a true copy of one of his certificates, taken from his circular:--

"A GREAT CURE OF AN OVARIAN TUMOR!

"This is to certify that Dr. Mariam cured me of an immense _ovarian tumor of the left shoulder_, weighing five pounds and a half, from which I suffered," etc., etc.

(Signed) Mrs. ---- ----.

"MALONE, N. Y."

On this item being ridiculed in the papers of R., Mariam changed it to a "rose cancer," and continued the certificate.

Mariam had been practising in Malone, N. Y., also at Whitehall, where, I was informed by a newspaper man, he was arrested for obtaining money under false pretences. He, however, escaped and fled, to practise his deceptions elsewhere. It was reported that he shuffled off his mortal coil by finally taking two ounces of laudanum, after the civil authorities had placed him comfortably in the county jail, where he had the pleasure of pa.s.sing many days in viewing the world through an iron-barred window, and reflecting on his eventful career.

THE SINGING DOCTOR.

In remarkable contrast with the above described ignoramus, we present the following description, from two contributors, of an extraordinary personage, known for a time as "The Singing Doctor."

The "Hoosac Valley News" tells this story:--

"One day late in the autumn of 1860, while the rain poured in torrents, and the wind howled fearfully along the hills of old Plymouth, I was obliged to drive to Watertown. The 'Branch' was swollen to the river's size, and foamed madly down over the sombre rocks, while above my head, on the other side of the road, the trees rocked and swayed, as though about to fall into the seething, roaring waters below.

"Above, or mingled with the clas.h.i.+ng of the elements, I heard some voice, as if singing. It struck me with wonder. I stopped to listen. It became more distinct, as if approaching. What was it? Who could it be, singing amid the fearful tempest?

"In the midst of my surmising, the object of my wonder came in sight, around a turn in the road just ahead of me.

"It was the Singing Doctor, whom I instantly recognized by his little old white horse, as well as by his own voice, to which I had before listened.

The little animal was drenched like a 'drowned rat.' The doctor, in his open buggy, with no umbrella,--for the sweeping wind precluded the possibility of holding one,--and the driving rain pelting mercilessly upon his face and head, was singing.

"'You must be a happy man,' I exclaimed, 'to be singing amid this awful storm.'

"'Why not?' he replied. 'It is always better to be singing than sighing;'

and we pa.s.sed on through the dangerous defile, and separated....

"Last summer, as I journeyed through the Green Mountain State on a pleasure excursion, I met, on a romantic mountain pa.s.s, a magnificent turnout,--a splendid top carriage, drawn by four beautiful, jet black Morgan mares,--which did not attract my attention so much, however, as the music within the carriage. It was the Singing Doctor again, with his two little daughters, singing.

"The handsome and good-natured driver offered me the best half of the road; but still I lingered till the last notes of the song died away, when I drove past the 'Sanatorian,' wondering to myself what singing had to do with his increasing prosperity."

The remainder of the sketch is from the pen of a lady in Vermont:--