The Funny Side of Physic Part 98

Not a muscle of his countenance changed, as we ascended the wretched steps. The watcher admitted us to the poor, low room, and handing him a letter from my pocket, I said, "These are your daughter's last words to you, which she intrusted to my keeping for you. I will not intrude upon your privacy, but will await you at my office;" and bowing, I retired, leaving him beside the corpse of his neglected child.

In less than fifteen minutes he returned, and, without any allusion to the event, thanked me for my attentions, declining a chair, saying,--

"You will please make out your bill. I wish to be ready to start early in the morning, and take the corpse with me." He inquired for the address of an undertaker, and the present abode of _her_ child!

I stood speechless! He was an anomaly. I measured him with my eyes; he cast his own for an instant to the floor, and then said,--

"My business habits, I fear, shock you, sir. I have been in a hurry all my life. I have never had time to think. I owe you an apology, sir--pardon me."

I thought of the future fate of the poor child, and I must acknowledge I hypocritically, for once in my adult life, took the _hand of the man I totally despised_, as I asked him mildly if his daughter had not requested to be buried by the side of her husband, whom she loved so well.

"No, sir," he sharply replied; "his name was not mentioned in the letter; very properly too. I had no respect for him, sir, none whatever; nor should I have acceded to such, had she made the request."

I gave him the address of the grandchild, and also an undertaker's.

"I am much obliged to you," he said, hurriedly. "I will trouble you no further. I will send for the bill in the morning. Good evening, sir."

I wanted the man (_brute!_) to love the poor little orphan, his grandchild, and that night I prepared a letter--instead of a bill--which I hoped would benefit him, without aggravating his feelings towards her. I said that I deemed such a privilege a sacred one, not to be soiled by a pecuniary return. I said other things to him, in the note, which I need not repeat. Near spring, in a kind, almost affectionate letter, he announced to me the death of his grandchild. She had fulfilled her mission. She had greatly subdued his nature by her lovely character....

I learned that the remains of Dr. ---- were afterwards interred by the side of his wife and child, and I received but lately the a.s.surance that the wretched father, before his death, admitted that money was not the chief good.

Thus perished a n.o.ble physician, a devoted wife, and their lovely offspring, because of the selfish ingrat.i.tude of one to whom they were and still might have been an inestimable blessing.

THE PHYSICIAN.

"Honor a physician with the honor due unto him, for the uses which ye may have of him: for the Lord hath created him; for of the Most High cometh healing, and he shall receive honor of the king. The skill of the physician shall lift up his head: and in the sight of great men he shall be in admiration."--_Ecclesiasticus_ x.x.xviii.

If there is one cla.s.s of men in the world who deserves the grat.i.tude of their fellow-creatures above another, it is the physicians. By physician I mean not him who alone can theorize garrulously upon anatomy and physiology, chemistry and therapeutics, but who can render a.s.sistance, in time of need, to the sick and distressed. In ancient days physicians were reckoned "as the G.o.ds." I much wonder, as I turn the leaves of the Testament, at the abuse heaped upon the Saviour; for he went about healing the sick, and casting out devils (evil diseases). Surely society was at a very low ebb in those times.

Who has greater, firmer friends than the physician! The good physician is sure to prosper. Certainly "envy increases in exact proportion with fame; the man who is successful in his undertakings, and builds up a character, makes enemies, and calls forth swarms of stinging, peevish, biting insects, just as the suns.h.i.+ne awakens the world of flies;" but the true physician, having the desire at heart to benefit his fellow-creatures, is strong, is beloved, is blessed! He calls forth hosts of friends on every side, just as the pure morning air calls fragrance from every lovely flower. Would you have the prayers and blessing of the good? then

"Go to the pillow of disease, Where night gives no repose, And on the cheek where sickness preys Bid health to plant the rose.

Go where the sufferer ready lies To perish in his doom, s.n.a.t.c.h from the grave his closing eyes, And bring a blessing home."

A PETER-FUNK DOCTOR.

One day, pa.s.sing up Was.h.i.+ngton Street, Boston, I detected a familiar voice issuing from a store, on the window-panes of which lately vacated premises was pasted "Removal," and, looking in, I saw a man mounted on a box selling a pinchbeck watch. The place _looked_ a deal like a New York Peter-Funk shop. However that may have been, I recognized the hired auctioneer as once having been a medical pract.i.tioner. He was a graduate of C---- Medical College. Owing to his honesty and lack of acquisitiveness among dishonest and n.i.g.g.ardly creatures in ----, whom he faithfully served in his earlier efforts at his profession, he was compelled to resort to other means of gaining a support for himself and family, and finally was reduced to clerking and selling goods for those whose business tact exceeded his own.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PETER-FUNK PHYSICIAN.]

SELLING OUT.

Everybody has heard of Leavitt, the dry little joker, the humorous and popular auctioneer of Hartford, who sells everybody, and everything, from a riddled sauce-pan to a nine-acre lot in the suburbs.

One fine day he was selling, in front of the State House, a various collection of articles, with a lot of ancient and modern household furniture and traps that would have made Mrs. Toodles happy for a six months, and was "looking sharp" for some one to help him over a tough place on an odd lot, when he discovered in the crowd a pleasant, open, upturned countenance,--a sort of oasis in the desert,--to whom he at once appealed for a.s.sistance. A knowing wink from young rusticus was the response, a return from the auctioneer, and the bids went on with astonis.h.i.+ng rapidity, till down went a big lot of goods, which everybody seemed to have wanted--a truckle-bed and fixings, with earthen ware, etc.

"Yours, sir--what's your name?" said L. to the young man from the agricultural district.

"Mine? O, no; I didn't bid on 'em," said rustic.

"Yes, you did," replied the auctioneer.

"Well, I guess not, much."

"But you did--the whole lot. You winked every time I looked towards you."

"Winked?"

"Yes, and kept winking; and a wink is a bid always," said L., the least taken aback at the prospect of losing a good sale.

"Wal--as for that--so did you keep winkin' at me. I thought you was winkin' as much as to say, 'Keep dark; I'll stick somebody onto this lot of stuff;' and I kept winkin' back, as if to reply, 'Well, I'll be hanged if you don't, mister.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

x.x.xI.

"THIS IS FOR YOUR HEALTH."

"Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; Another race the following spring supplies; They fall successive, and successive rise; So generations in their course decay, So flourish these when those have pa.s.sed away."

THE INESTIMABLE VALUE OF HEALTH.--NO BLESSING IN COMPARISON.--MEN AND SWINE.--BEGIN WITH THE INFANT.--"BABY ON THE PORCH."--IN A STRAIT JACKET.--"TWO LITTLE SHOES."--YOUTH.--IMPURE LITERATURE AND Pa.s.sIONS.--"OUR GIRLS."--BARE ARMS AND BUSTS.--HOW AND WHAT WE BREATHE.--"THE FREEDOM OF THE STREET."--KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND MOUTH CLOSED.--THE LUNGS AND BREATHING.--A MAN FULL OF HOLES.--SEVEN MILLION MOUTHS TO FEED.--PURE WATER.--CLEANLINESS.--SOAP VS. WRINKLES.--G.o.d'S SUNs.h.i.+NE.

HEALTH IS ABOVE ALL THINGS.

Health is that which makes our meat and drink both savory and pleasant, else Nature's injunction of eating and drinking were a hard task and a slavish custom. It makes our beds lie easy and our sleep sweet and refres.h.i.+ng. It renews our strength with the morning's sun, and makes us cheerful at the light of another day. It makes the soul take delight in her mansion and pleasures, a pleasure indeed, without which we solace ourselves in nothing of terrene felicity or enjoyment.--_Mainwaring._

Without health there is no earthly blessing. In comparison with health all other blessings dwindle into insignificance. Life is a burden to the perpetual invalid, for whom the only solace is in the silent grave. Nor can such always look forward with perfect confidence to rest even beyond the dark portals of the tomb; for the infirm body is not unusually attended by an enfeebled mind which often jeopardizes Hope:--

"And Hope, like the rainbow of summer, Gives a promise of Lethe at last."

If, then, health is so essential to our earthly happiness, and to our hope of peace in immortality, O, let us who possess the boon strive to retain it, and we who have it not seek diligently to regain that which is lost.

The farmer does not consider it a compromise of his dignity to search out the best modes and means for increasing the quality as well as the quant.i.ty of his stock--his horses, his oxen, his sheep, and his swine,--and is man, the most n.o.ble work of his Maker,--man, created but a little below the angels,--is man an exception to this rule, that he should cease to be the study of mankind? Is humanity below the animals?

Mankind deteriorates while domesticated live stock improves.

G.o.d has given us bodies formed in his own likeness, and has p.r.o.nounced them "good," hence, not diseased; and it is evidently our most imperative duty to regard it as a great gift, and preserve these bodies as the inestimable boon of the Almighty.

It is very evident that man has fallen far short of the requirements of his Maker.

From Adam to the flood--a s.p.a.ce of time estimated at upwards of fifteen hundred years, according to Hebrew chronographers--the average of man's years was nine hundred. From Noah to Jacob, by the same chronology, it had dwindled to one hundred and forty-seven years. In the ninetieth psalm we read, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten." From actual statistics it is shown to average now less than one fourth of threescore and ten years.