Chapter XXI: Act IV: for further particulars (7)

A nice old lady called at our office one day, some years ago, during my absence, and informed Dr. Colley, who was attending my patients temporarily, that she had a live animal in her stomach. The doctor tells the story as follows:--

"'Now don't you laugh at me, doctor, 'cause all the doctors do, and I know it ain't no whim nor notion I've got in my _head_, but a real live animal I've got into my stomach,' she said.

"I looked at the good old lady, and could not find it in my heart to tell her she was laboring under a delusion, therefore I replied, very sympathetically,--

"'O, no doubt you are right, and all the doctors have been wrong. Why, just sit quiet a moment, and I will show you a whole bottle full that the doctor has from time to time taken from the stomachs of patients.' So saying, I went into the laboratory, and got down a bottle of centipedes, lizards, and a big, black, southern horn-bug, which the doctor's brother had collected in the South, and, dusting off the bottle, took it to the old lady, who sat comfortably in a rocking-chair, taking snuff, and nervously humming a little pennyroyal tune.

"'There, madam--there is a host of various kinds of reptiles, which the doctor has compelled to abandon the living stomach.'

"'Du tell,' she exclaimed, readjusting her glasses, 'if them all come out of folks' stomachs! Let me take the bottle.'

"'I suppose they really did, marm.'

"'And the big black one; who did that come out of?' she asked, turning the bottle around to get a view of the ugly monster--horns two inches long!

"'O, let me see. That came out of a colored man--awful appetite, madam.'

"'Du tell! Well, I'm much obleeged to you for showing them to me. Now I'll go right home, and pitch into them doctors. I knowed they're all wrong.' And so saying, the old lady arose, buzzed round and round like a bee in a bottle, got her reticule, and started for the door.

"'O, I forgot,' she exclaimed, coming back. 'Give me some of the medicine to get this animal out of my system, doctor.'

"I gave her a quantity of gentian, told her to use no snuff for two months, and she would have no further trouble with the animal; that she must not expect to see him, as they seldom came away whole, like those in the bottle. She promised, with a sigh, and a sorry look at the snuff-box, and went away. I have no doubt _but I did the best thing possible for her case_."

STORIES ABOUT LITTLE FOLKS.

As ludicrous as the above may seem, it is true; but we cannot vouch for the truth of the following story:--

* * * * *

_The Boy with a Bullet in him._--A lad swallowed a small bullet. His friends were very much alarmed about it; and his father thinking no pains should be spared to save his darling boy's life, sent post haste to a surgeon of skill, directing the messenger to tell the circumstances and urge his coming without delay. The doctor was found, heard the dismal tale, and with as much unconcern as he would manifest in a case of common headache, wrote the following laconic reply:--

SIR: Don't alarm yourself. If after three weeks the bullet is not
removed, give the boy a charge of powder.

Yours, &c., ----

P. S. _Do not aim the boy at anybody._--M. D.

* * * * *

_Case of Small-pox._--A lady school teacher in Omaha, having an inordinate dread of the small-pox, sent home a little girl because she said her mother was sick and had marks on her face. The next day the girl presented herself at the school-house, with her finger in her mouth, and her little bonnet swinging by the strings, and said to the teacher,--

"Miss ----, we've got a baby at our house; but mother told me to tell you that 'it isn't catchin'.'"

* * * * *

"_Not much to look at._"--The late eminent Dr. Wallaston was introduced, at an evening party, to a rather pert young lady.

"O, doctor," she said, "I am delighted to meet you; I have so long wished to see you."

"Well," said the man of science, "and pray what do you think of me now you have seen me?"

"You may be very clever," was the answer, "_but you are nothing to look at_."

* * * * *

_Funeral Anthems._--Reading in a western paper that at funerals out in Terre Haute they closed the solemn ceremony by singing very impressively "_The Ham-fat Man_," reminds me of the following, which actually occurred at Portsmouth, N. H., last year:--

Three little girls, who had carefully and tenderly buried a pet canary-bird in the garden, were seen holding a consultation, which terminated by sending one of the trio into the house, with the inquiry, "Do they sing at funerals?" Being answered in the affirmative, the little messenger ran back, and in a few moments the three were observed standing, hand in hand, around the little mound gravely singing,--

"_Shoo, fly! don't bodder me._"

XXX.

THE OTHER SIDE.

It's a very good rule in all things of life,
When judging a friend or brother,
Not to look at the question alone on one side,
But always to turn to the other.
We are apt to be selfish in all our views,
In the jostling, headlong race,
And so, to be right, ere you censure a man,
Just "put yourself in his place."--ANON.

PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE.--STEALING FROM THE PROFESSION.--ANECDOTE OF
RUFUS CHOATE.--INGRATES.--A NIGHT ROW.--"SAVING AT THE SPIGOT AND
WASTING AT THE BUNG."--SHOPPING PATIENTS.--AN AFFECTIONATE WIFE.--RUM
AND TOBACCO PATIENTS.--THE PHYSICIAN'S WIDOW AND ORPHANS, THE SUMMONS,
THE TENEMENT, THE INVALIDS, HOW THEY LIVED, HER HISTORY, THE UNNATURAL
FATHER, HOW THEY DIED, THE END.--A PETER-FUNK DOCTOR.--SELLING OUT.

While I trust that respectable, educated physicians will take no offence at the _exposé_ in the foregoing chapters, as nothing therein is _intended_ to lessen them in public opinion, or detract from the merit of the TRUE PHYSICIAN of any school, I cannot leave the subject without presenting some facts to show that the people are not blameless in creating and maintaining so many humbugs and impositions, to the damage and scandal of respectable practitioners and legitimate medicine.

STEALING FROM THE PROFESSION.

I need not tell men of any profession, that there are those, even in the respectable walks of life, who will watch their opportunity to button-hole the lawyer or the doctor, in the public streets, to "just ask him a question," rather than call at his office, where a fee would certainly be a just compensation for the expected advice.

One of these highway robbers once overtook Mr. Choate, the great Boston lawyer, on a public street, and asked him if he should sue Mr. Jones, so and so, briefly stating his case, if he, the lawyer, thought he, Smith, would win the suit.

"O, yes," replied the great lawyer; and Smith went on his way rejoicing.

The case went to trial, Smith _vs._ Jones. Smith employed a cheap pettifogger. Jones employed Mr. Choate to defend him, and gained the suit.

"Didn't you tell me I had a good case?" demanded the irascible plaintiff of Mr. Choate, when he found that the case had gone against him.

"Well, I think you did say something to me about it," replied Mr. Choate, very indifferently.

"Yes, and didn't you advise me to sue him?" cried the infuriated Smith.

"Let me see, Mr. Smith: how much did you pay me for that advice?"

"Nothing, sir! nothing!" roared Smith.

"Well, that was all it was worth," remarked Mr. Choate, quietly.

Another of these free advice fellows detained the author at the post-office last week, and very patronizingly asked,--

"What would you take for a code id de ed, docdor?"

"Take? take two pocket handkerchiefs," was the cheap prescription for a cheap patient.

INGRATES.

"What, then! doth Charity fail?
Is Faith of no avail?
Is Hope blown out like a light
By a gust of wind in the night?
The clashing of creeds, and the strife
Of the many beliefs, that in vain
Perplex man's heart and brain,
Are nought but the rustle of leaves,
When the breath of God upheaves
The boughs of the Tree of Life,
And they subside again!
And I remember still
The words, and from whom they came,
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!"

"Of all men, the physician is most likely to discover the leading traits of character in his fellow-beings; on no other condition than that of sickness do they present themselves without those guards upon the countenance and tongue that an artificial mode of life has rendered almost indispensable to their existence; in city life, more especially."

"The confiding patient often hangs, as it were, with an oppressive weight upon the conscientious physician, and if he be afflicted with a generous, sympathizing soul, farewell to his happiness. His heart will bleed for distress, both bodily and pecuniary, that he cannot alleviate, and he gives up in despair a profession which will so severely tax his nervous system as to render the best medical talent comparatively useless....

"Those who speak of the gratitude of the low Catholic Irish in this (New York) city, or any other city, as they present their true characters to the young practitioner, will find but one opinion,--a more improvident, heartless, and dishonest class of people never defiled the fair face of the earth. They are indeed a bitter curse to the young and humane physician."

And this from the pen of one of the most noble and humane physicians of the great metropolis, whose generosity forbids him ever to refuse a visit, day or night, to the distressed, even amongst the lowest of the class he so bitterly condemns. The above is the experience of other physicians besides Dr. Dixon, and in other cities besides New York.

During my days of extreme poverty in H., an Irish woman, whose child, suffering with cholera infantum, I snatched from the very jaws of death, cheated me out of my fees, when I afterwards learned that she owned two tenements, and had money in the Savings Bank.

While I was practising in H., one cold winter's night, an Irishman came for me to go to Front Street, as a man had fallen down stairs, and was "kilt intirely."

"Then it is Mr. Roberts, the undertaker, whom you want," I replied.

"O, no, he isn't kilt intirely, but broke his arrum, doctor."

Therefore I drew on my boots, took my hat and case, and was soon at the designated number. A drunken row, as usual. It was near midnight, Saturday night. A big, burly fellow lay on the bed in a large front room, surrounded by a dozen men and women, nearly all drunk, except the patient. His arm was dislocated at the shoulder downward. I drew off my coat, jumped upon the bed, set the man up, raised the limb, clapped my knee under the limb, raised the arm, and using it for a lever, the bone snapped into the socket as quickly as I am telling the story.

"Ah, that gives me aise; ah, God bless you, docther. How mooch is the damage? Get the wallet, woman, and let me pay the good docther," said the grateful patient. "How mooch? Say it asy, noo."

"Two dollars." A very modest fee for such a job at midnight.

"O, the divil!" cried the woman. "And is it two dollars for the snap of a job likes to that, noo, ye'll be axin' a poor man?"

I made no reply. The man asked for the money.

"Will yeze be axin' that much?" asked a six and a half foot Irishman who stood by the opposite side of the bed.

"Do you have to pay the bill, sir?" I demanded.

"Noo," he replied.

"Then mind your own business," I exclaimed, with a clincher, and a flash of the eyes that somehow caused him to cower like the miserable drunken coward he was, amid the laughs and jeers of the bystanders.

"There, take the money," said the woman (boarding mistress). "Dr. B. would come ferninst the railroad over for half of it, he would," she added.

"Woman," said I, "when next any of your kind want a doctor, do you go ferninst the railroad for Dr. B." (I knew she lied), "and get him for a dollar. As for me, _I never, for love or money, will come to your call again_."

I never heard of money enough to induce me to visit Front or Charles Street after that night, and I have seen some anxious faces looking about for a doctor, in case of emergency, in that locality.

"SAVING AT THE SPIGOT, AND WASTING AT THE BUNG."

Again, there is a class in every city who, to avoid a physician's fee, go to an apothecary, briefly and imperfectly state their case, perhaps to a green clerk, or a proprietor who is as ignorant of the pathology of the disease as the miserable applicant; and who ever knew of a druggist too ignorant to prescribe for a case over the counter? The result is often the administration of harsh remedies, which aggravate the present, or produce some other disease worse than the original, and in the end the patient is obliged to seek the advice of a physician.

Now the patient is ashamed to tell the whole truth, the doctor has yet to learn what drugs are rankling in the system, and the disease is often protracted thereby ten times as long as it need have been, had the man at the outset sought the advice of a respectable physician. This is an every-day occurrence. I knew a young man who recently went into consumption from having a comparatively simple case prolonged by this apotheco-medical interference.

SHOPPING PATIENTS.

"A queer kind of patients!" you exclaim.

Yes, very queer. One class of them go round from office to office, to "just inquire about a friend" (themselves), "if they could be cured," how long it would require, and, ten to one, even ask what medicines "you would give for such a case."

Such persons, if females, usually come into the city for the double purpose of seeing a doctor, or a dozen, and shopping,--doing the shopping first; tramping from one end of the city to the other, visiting the doctor last, with bundles and boxes by the score, "in a great hurry; must catch a certain train; all tired out;" making the opportunity for diagnosis an unfavorable one, and not unusually asking the doctor--a stranger, perhaps--to trust them till they come again.

Whoever "O. SHAW" may be, he knows a thing or two. Hear him.

AN AFFECTIONATE WIFE.

A poor mechanic, three weeks after marriage, was addressed by his wife thus:--

"Harry, don't you think a new silk dress would become my beauty?"

He answered affirmatively, of course, and promised that when his present job was completed, which would be in about a fortnight, the necessary stamps would be forthcoming, and that she might then array her loveliness in the wished-for dress. The affectionate wife kissed him, and thus rewarded his generosity. Three days afterwards the man met with an accident, and was brought home on a shutter, and it was evident that for weeks he would be confined to his bed. On beholding him, his wife gave vent to repeated outbursts of agony, as an affectionate woman should, considering the cause. This touched the unfortunate man, and he said, consolingly,--

"Dry your tears, dear Nettie; I'll be all right again in a few weeks."

"Perhaps you may," she answered; "but all your earnings for a long time after you resume work will be required to pay your doctor's bill, and you won't be able to get me _that new silk dress_."--O. SHAW.

A SENSIBLE PRESCRIPTION.

A doctor up town recently gave the following prescription for a lady: "A new bonnet, a cashmere shawl, and a new pair of gaiter boots." The lady, it is needless to say, has entirely recovered.

RUM AND TOBACCO PATIENTS.

Then there is a large class,--men, mostly; males, at least,--who, having spent all their substance and much of their health in excess of tobacco-using and whiskey-drinking, apply to the physician for aid, "in charity, for God's sake," as they have nothing with which to pay him, and usually a numerous family dependent upon their miserable labor for sustenance. Woe to the physician who gets a reputation for benevolence at this day and generation of "cheek."

"Doctor, I hope you _will_ do something for my distress," said a gentlemanly-dressed individual, not many months ago. "I have but sixteen cents in my pocket, and I owe for four weeks' board, and am out of employment." He was a play actor. Could I say no to so honest a statement of his low state of finance? I treated him faithfully, without a penny.

Not many weeks afterwards I knew of his going away and stopping two days at a hotel with a strange woman.

Still there are others who are quite able, but who think it no sin to cheat a doctor by misrepresenting their inability to pay. They work upon the sympathies of the benevolent doctor; they "would willingly pay a hundred dollars, if they had it," etc.; and thus slip off without compensating him for his services. Every physician knows that I have not overstated the above.

There is also a large class of patients, with whom, like the "old clo' Jew," wisdom, brain work, advice, go for nothing. You must represent their case as perfectly fearful, and do something perfectly awful for them, or you are of no account.

Selden, who understood these failings in mankind vastly well, gives them a sly hit in his "Table Talk." If a man had a sore leg, and he should go to an honest, judicious surgeon, and he should only bid him keep it warm, and anoint it with such an oil (an oil well known), that would do the cure, haply he would not much regard him, because he knows the medicine to be an ordinary one. But if he should go to a surgeon that should tell him, "Your leg will gangrene within three days, and it must be cut off; and you will die unless you do something that I could tell you," what listening there would be to this man!

"O, for the Lord's sake, tell me what this is; I will give you any content for your pains."

THE PHYSICIAN'S WIDOW AND ORPHAN.

Scenes from "Practice of a New York Surgeon."

I have abridged the following truthful story from the above work, which book I recommend to the perusal of all lovers of moral and entertaining literature.

_The Summons._--The experienced physician knows, from the sound of the door bell, whether it is the representative of wealth or penury who is outside at the bell-pull.

The doctor opened the door to the _timid_ summons.

"Will you please come and see my mother?" asked a little delicate and thinly-dressed girl. "She has been very ill for nearly a year, and I'm afraid she's going to die." The poor little heart was swelling with grief.

Almost ashamed as I donned my heavy coat, for the night was bitter cold, and the shivering little girl pattered after me with her well-worn shoes and scanty dress, I hurried along to the abode of poverty.

_The Tenement._--The faint rays of a candle issuing from an upper window of one of those wretched wooden buildings, guided us to the invalid's tenement, and as we approached the house the little girl ran ahead of me, and stood shivering in the doorway, while I carefully walked up the rickety steps.

Poor as the tenement was, its cleanliness was noticeable, from the fact that it was isolated from the loathsome Irish neighbors, whose superior means and brutal habits allowed them to occupy the lower and more accessible apartments almost in common with the swine which are fed from their very doorsteps.

_The Invalid._--A violent paroxysm of coughing had just seized the lady, and I waited some moments before I could observe her features. She had surely seen better days. There were about her and the little apartment evidences of refinement, from her own tidy person to the little sweet rosebush in full bloom, and the faultless white board, and the scanty, though snowy curtains that shaded the attic window, which produced a melancholy effect upon me, which was not lessened when good breeding required me to address my patient.

Her countenance had evidently been beautiful; an immense mass of auburn hair, such as Titian loved to paint, yet shaded her brow; the eyes were large and lustrous; the nose was slightly aquiline, the lips thin; and every feature bespoke the woman of a highly refined and intellectual nature. When her gaze met mine for an instant, I felt that pity was misplaced in the emotions which swelled my heart, for the lofty dignity, almost _hauteur_, in that look, would have become an empress in reduced circumstances.

"Go, dearest, to your little bed, and close the door, my love," she said, turning to the child.

The girl lingered an instant. I stood between the dying mother and her child. I turned aside whilst their lips met in that holy kiss that a dying mother only can give, ay, and a prayer that she alone can breathe.

When the little creature had withdrawn, by a narrow door scarcely distinguishable from the rest of the rough, whitewashed boards that divided her little closet from the main room, the mother turned her earnest gaze upon me, and said,--

"I have troubled you, doctor, not with the view of taxing your kindness to any extent, but to ask how long I may yet linger,"--placing her hand on her wasted bosom,--"depending for every service upon that little fragile creature, for whom alone I have, I fear, a selfish desire to live."

I could not answer immediately. My heart was too full. I had recognized the dreadful malady at a glance. She was far gone with consumption.

"I have a duty to perform, connected with her, that depends upon your answer--one that I have selfishly, alas! too long deferred."

* * * * *

As I arose to take my departure, she requested me to open the door to the little chamber. I did so, and there lay the poor, pale child, with her clothes unremoved. Merciful God! an infant watching its dying mother, a refined, delicate and intellectual woman, the wife of an educated physician, in a wretched tenement, surrounded by palaces!

_How they lived._--O, my God, what a discovery was made on my next visit, the following morning! Then I saw what had before excited my curiosity, viz., the manner in which my patient contrived to support herself and child, for I was quite sure that she would never condescend to beg.

I had observed, during my visit the previous evening, a very large package, tied up in commercial form, and by its side a large square board. The widow was now sitting up in bed, propped up with some coarse straw pillows, her cheeks burning with hectic, and the square board resting upon a couple of cross-pieces to keep it from her wasted limbs, and she and the child were at work putting up soda and seidlitz powders. Several dozen boxes had been filled during the morning, placed in envelopes, and labelled.

"'Tis the lot of humanity to labor," she said, when I had detected her at the task which taxed the last mite of her remaining strength, and I stood horrified looking on; "and why should I be exempt?" she asked, actually smiling gracefully.

I removed the board, but allowed the girl to resume her work by the little table near, saying that her remark was applicable only to those able to labor. She assured me that their contracted circumstances had "compelled her to make this exhibition of her industry."

_Her History._--Twelve years before, this beautiful and refined lady had left a home of wealth and affluence to share the fortunes of her husband, Dr. ----, who was worthy of all the love that a pure and affectionate woman could bestow. He struggled on manfully and hopefully against misfortune until two years ago....

I had once met her husband. It was under the following circumstances. A child had been run over, and much injured. I was called, but found, on my arrival, that this young doctor had been before me, and done all that was required; but the gentleman whose duty it was said if I would attend the case he would pay all charges, and the young physician, on learning this fact on the next visit, retired in my favor. That evening I called at his office, and insisted upon his accepting one half of the fees which I knew I should receive. He hesitatingly accepted, after much persuasion on my part; and I remember that it was my impression at the time that he was excessively proud.

Now, the poor wife informed me that, at the time, their means were entirely exhausted, and when he came home that evening with a large basket of necessaries, and some little delicacies to which they had long been unaccustomed, and upon her expressing her astonishment, he _sat down and wept like a child_.

"Great God," he cried, in agony of soul, "why did I take you from your father's house, where you had plenty? What a reward for devoting the flower of life to such a profession! To hear a wife, and the mother of my child, expressing astonishment and joy at the unwonted sight of the very necessaries of life!"

It was only when the note-books and manuscripts of this truly meritorious and unfortunate young man fell into my hands, that I discovered what a loss his family and the profession had sustained.

He was too proud to ask assistance. Even in his fatal sickness, he continued, until a late period, to decline medical treatment, rather than expose his poverty to his brethren. Finally he became known to Dr. ----, who devoted his time and purse to him until he died. That season Dr. ---- died also.

After his death, the lady with her child had removed to these miserable quarters. The needle, and coloring of prints, had sustained them both for a year, when, finding it impossible, with her failing health, to earn a living at that employment, she resumed the one by which her noble husband had been compelled to eke out his miserable income,--putting up seidlitz powders,--in order to sustain them.

Often, she told me, had she sat by his side till late in the night reading to him, whilst he plied his fingers industriously at this employment, so utterly repulsive to an intellectual man; and when she would beg him to retire, he would often cheerfully obey the summons to an all-night visit to some wretched and dishonest Irishman--who could not get the service of a more knowing (pecuniarily) physician without an advanced fee--in the remote hope of obtaining a few dollars, which his refinement taught these wretchedly dishonest people they had only to refuse, as they almost invariably do, in order to escape entirely the obligation! This is the gratitude (!) of which we have spoken before. It was whilst attending one of these miserable people that he imbibed the fatal disease which swept him from the earth, and left his poor wife and child to struggle on alone in their cheerless journey.

It is needless to say that from the time of the visits of the benevolent physician, the widow wanted for nothing that earth could bestow, to the day of her death, which soon occurred; else she would have died at her task!

_The Unnatural Father._--On the fifth day, evening, a man entered my office and inquired for me. He was plainly dressed in black, and possessed one of those hard, immovable countenances which admit of no particular definition.

"I received a letter from you relative to my daughter."

This was said in such a perfectly business-like manner, without the least emotion, that I was shocked, and my countenance must have expressed my astonishment, for he immediately added,--

"A sad business, my dear sir. Well, well, I will not detain you. The corpse is here?"

"No, sir. I will accompany you to the late abode of your daughter." I was glad that she had not been removed; I thought it might do his moral nature some good to see the condition to which his unnatural conduct had brought her.

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 assurance that the wretched father, before his death, admitted that money was not the chief good.

Thus perished a noble physician, a devoted wife, and their lovely offspring, because of the selfish ingratitude 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_ xxxviii.

If there is one class of men in the world who deserves the gratitude 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 assistance, in time of need, to the sick and distressed. In ancient days physicians were reckoned "as the gods." 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 sunshine 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,
Snatch from the grave his closing eyes,
And bring a blessing home."

A PETER-FUNK DOCTOR.

One day, passing up Washington 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 practitioner. He was a graduate of C---- Medical College. Owing to his honesty and lack of acquisitiveness among dishonest and niggardly 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.

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 assistance. A knowing wink from young rusticus was the response, a return from the auctioneer, and the bids went on with astonishing 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.'"

XXXI.

"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 passed 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
PASSIONS.--"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.--GOD'S
SUNSHINE.

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 refreshing. 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 quantity of his stock--his horses, his oxen, his sheep, and his swine,--and is man, the most noble 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.

God has given us bodies formed in his own likeness, and has pronounced 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 space 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.

And this fact in the face of civilization, enlightenment, and Christianity! Why so? How shall we account for the evil?

The Psalmist above quoted says further, "and if by reason of _strength_ they be fourscore years," etc., which implies that strength prolongs, and weakness--reversing the matter--shortens our days.

Let us begin at the beginning.

ABOUT THE BABIES.--HOW THEY ARE REARED AND HOW THEY SHOULD BE.

BABY ON THE PORCH.

Out on the porch, by the open door,
Sweet with roses and cool with shade,
Baby is creeping over the floor--
Dear little winsome blue-eyed maid!

All about her the shadows dance,
All above her the roses swing,
Sunbeams in the lattice glance,
Robins up in the branches sing.

Up at the blossoms her fingers reach,
Lisping her pleading in broken words,
Cooing away, in her tender speech,
Songs like the twitter of nestling birds.

Creeping, creeping over the floor,
Soon my birdie will find her wings,
Fluttering out at the open door
Into the wonderful world of things.

Bloom of roses and balm of dew,
Brooks that bubble and winds that call,
All things lovely, and glad, and new,
And the Father watching us over it all!

"Select the best sprouts for transplanting," says the "Old Farmer's Almanac." And here you have the whole root of the matter in a nut shell; for sickly-looking sprouts produce only sickly-looking plants. Like begets like.

Now, how about the babies? Women's rights are advocated. Men take their rights. But who shall defend the babies' rights? Poor, helpless little non-combatants! Let me say a few words in their behalf.

Children, from the cradle, are wrongfully treated. Their first rights are here curtailed. Look at the baby that is permitted to creep out "on the porch," or over nature's green carpet, and there bask in the sunshine and frolic in the open air; then look in pity upon the pale weekly house-plant child. The contrast is as striking as lamentable.

"O, he'll get his death's cold if the air blows upon him," hysterically screams the ignorant mother. Yes, "ignorant"--that is the adjective I want to describe her.

The young mother has doubtless been sent to a fashionable boarding-school, where she was taught algebra, French, (?) the art of adornment, how to walk fashionably, eat delicately, and dress _à la mode_, and even how to make a good "catch," but never how to preserve her health or rear an offspring. O, this would be shockingly immodest, or "counting chickens before they are hatched," I once heard a lady affirm.

Nine tenths of our American wives are totally ignorant of everything that pertains to their own health, or that of the healthful rearing of an infant.

BABY IN A STRAIT JACKET.

At first the infant is usually bound tightly in swaddling clothes, lest it move a limb, or for fear (like the down east orator) that it will "bust," and thus kept from air and exercise the first year or two, till it not unusually becomes a stunted, rickety thing, hardly worth "transplanting" or raising. Haven't you and I, kind reader, been subjected to something of this sort of strait jacket insanity?--insanity of parents! And having been tolerably strongly constituted from a "tough stock," we survived that first wrong, whereas thousands of "nicer" babies have succumbed to the swaddling and stifling process.

This is wrong, all wrong. The infant should be left free, at least as to its chest and limbs, in order to breathe, kick, and expand. How happy the little fellows are at evening to get rid of the murderous clothes which have been bundled about them all day, and how they will fight and squirm to get down on the carpet all stripped, and creep, or, if old enough, run about in freedom! How they crow and prattle!

Now, don't swaddle them--a simple, easy bandage is early admissible,--or cover their heads and faces with caps, sheets, or blankets. Inure them to the air early and continually, and they will have less colds and "snuffles" than if you confined them within doors. Give them air and sunlight, and away with your "goose-grease." Yes, I have even known some country people to apply skunk's oil, and others who larded the infant's nose and chest for the "snuffles." Croup delights in such babies!

Then from the strait jacket, baby is taken to the other extreme--bare arms, neck, and chest. Old Dr. Warren once said, "Boston sacrifices hundreds of children annually by not clothing their arms and chests." Once, when in remonstrating with a mother against this barbarous practice of thus exposing her little one-year-old to a chilling atmosphere when my arms and chest were not over warm as wrapped in an overcoat, she replied to me,--

"O, the little dear looks so pretty with its little white arms and neck all bare!"

"Yes," I replied, sorrowfully, "it will look pretty, also, laid out in its coffin."

She was greatly shocked by the remark, which, however, too soon proved true.

"Doctor's stuff" cannot counteract the fatal results of such ignorance and exposures.

TWO LITTLE SHOES.

Two little shoes laid away in the drawer,
Treasured so fondly--never to be worn;
Two little feet laid away in the tomb,
Cold and all lifeless--sadly we mourn.
What trifling things does not a mother keep,
Tokens of love the swelling heart to ease;
Useless little toys--a lock of golden hair;
Something to fondle--to cherish like these
Two little shoes laid away in the drawer,
Treasured so fondly, never to be worn!

These little shoes are only left us now;
Gone is our "darling," ever to remain;
Dear little feet, so plump and all dimpled,
Never will press them--never again!
But heavenly thoughts shall cheer me on my way:
Death is but life, in fairer, sunnier view;
Busy little feet but just run on before;
This is my solace as my tears bedew
Two little shoes laid away in the drawer,
Treasured so fondly, never to be worn.

IMPURE LITERATURE AND PASSIONS.

It is as marvellous as true that some children survive this treatment; besides the stuffing with meat victuals, candies, and cookies, inducing colic and dysentery; then dosing with rhubarb, paregoric, peppermint, and worse. Soothing syrups! Eternal quietuses! Yes, in spite of extremes of heat and cold, stuffing and dosing with crude and poisonous articles, some babies actually reach the next stage--youth!

From chilled blood, indigestion, poisonous air and drugs, repeated attacks of croup, bronchitis, dysentery, etc., the majority who have reached puberty are afflicted by some scrofulous taint, or development, or broken constitutions.

Now, they have appetites and passions to grapple. We have already, in chapter fifth, shown how the school-girl is cheated out of health by the deprivation of her "rights," among which are air, freedom, and exercise. Here is another evil, which must not be passed over unnoticed. A New York physician, who wields an abler pen than myself, thus expresses my ideas. What he applies to females is not limited by copyright. Males, help yourselves; it belongs to you quite as much as to the beautiful.

"It sickens the heart to contemplate the education of female children in this city." (And let me add, in this country.) "Should nature even triumph over all the evils above enumerated, no sooner has the poor girl attained the age of puberty, than her mind and nervous system are placed upon the rack of novel-reading and sentimental love stories. There is just enough of truth in some of these mawkish productions to excite the passions and distract the attention of the young girl from the love of nature and its teachings, and all rational ideas of real life, and to cause her to despise the commonplace parents whose every hour may be occupied for her consideration and welfare."

This writer goes on to condemn those selfish, money-grasping wretches "professors of religion, too," in our city, who publish this impure and overstrained literature, to the great injury of the morals of the young; adding, "What language can be too strong for such disgusting hypocrisy? We punish a poor wretch for the publication of an obscene book or print, and give honor and preferment to those who instil poison into the minds of our children by a book prepared with devilish ingenuity, and in every possible style of attraction and excitement.

"It is the premature excitement of the nervous and sexual system that should be avoided. The licentious characters presented in all the glowing tints of a depraved imagination cannot fail to injuriously affect the youthful organism."

The dissolute and immoral characters whom we debar from the personal friendship of our sons and daughters, whom we exclude from our parlors, and even street recognition, are sugared over, and, between gilded covers, passed freely into the _boudoirs_, school-rooms, and seminaries of our children, for their companionship at their leisure. The vile characters in person would be far less injurious, for in that case their hideousness would the surer be revealed.

"Nothing can be more certain than the production of these works of a precocious evidence of puberty. The forces of the young heart and vascular system are thus prematurely goaded into ephemeral action by the stimulus of an imagination alternately moved to laughter, and tears, and sexual passion."

Mr. Baxter, in Part 2, ch. xxi., direction 1, of his _Christian Directory_, which is a direction for reading other books than the Bible, says, "I pre-suppose that you keep the devil's books out of your hands and house. I mean cards, and idle tales, and play-books, and romances or love-books, and false, bewitching stories, and the seducting books of false teachers.... For where these are suffered to corrupt the mind, all grave and useful writings are forestalled; and it is a wonder to see how powerfully these poison the minds of children, and many other empty heads."

It would astonish and shame some parents if they would take pains to look over the books which are daily and nightly perused by their children. It is not enough for you to know that such books were obtained from a "dear friend," or from a respectable publisher, or pious bookseller, or that they are lawful publications. Parents and guardians, I pray you take warning.

"OUR GIRLS."

I want everybody, male and female, old and young, to read that most excellent book, "Our Girls," by Dr. Dio Lewis. It will do you good. For humanity's sake, and particularly for the benefit of females, I recommend it. Lest some of my readers should not follow this advice, I want to tell you what it says about

LOW NECK AND SHORT SLEEVES.

"Many a modest woman appears at a party with her arms nude, and so much of her chest exposed that you can see nearly half of the mammal glands. Many a modest mother permits her daughters to make this model-artist exhibition of themselves.

"One beautiful woman said, in answer to my complaints, 'You should not look.'

"'But,' I said, 'do you not adjust your dress in this way on purpose to give us a chance to look?'

"She was greatly shocked at my way of putting it.

"'Well,' I said, 'this assurance is perfectly stunning. You strip yourselves, go to a public party, parade yourselves for hours in a glare of gas-light, saying to the crowd, "Look here, gentlemen," and then you are shocked because we put your unmistakable actions into words.'

"In discussing this subject before an audience of ladies in this city (Boston), the other evening, I said, 'Ladies, suppose I had entered this hall with my arms and bust bare; what would you have done? You would have made a rush for the door, and, as you jostled against each other in hurrying out, you would have exclaimed to each other, "O, the unconscionable scallawag!" May I ask if it is not right that we should demand of you as much modesty as you demand of us?' But you exclaim, 'Custom! it is the custom, and fashion is everything.'" Again the author says,--

"This exposure of the naked bosom before men belongs not to the highest type of Christian civilization, but to those dark ages when women sought nothing higher than the gratification of the passions of man, and were content to be mere slaves and toys.

"Boston contains its proportion of the refined women of the country. We have here a few score of the old families, inheriting culture and wealth, and who can take rank with the best. A matron who knows their habits assures me that she never saw a member of one of those families in 'low neck and short sleeves.'

"In the future free and Christian America, the very dress of women will proclaim a high, pure womanhood.... We shall then discard the costumes devised by the dissolute capitals of Europe.

"What a strange spectacle we witness in America to-day! Free, brave American women hold out to the world the Bible of social, political, and religious freedom, and anon we see them down on their knees, waiting the arrival of the latest steamer from France, to learn how they may dress their bodies for the next month."

Well, he does not censure ladies in the above manner all through; but yet, in a most earnest and interesting way he divulges the most startling truths, and even very young misses are delighted with the whole argument. "Why, it's just like a story," exclaimed my twelve-year-old Katie on reading it.

What Dr. Lewis objects to on the score of immodesty, I also oppose on the ground of unhealthfulness. The idea of preventing or curing the laryngitis, or consumption, in a lady, when there is nothing but gauze, or a bit of ribbon and a galvanized bosom pin, between her neck and the cold and changeable atmosphere of the north or east, is ridiculously absurd. No doctors or doctors' pectorals can save such. "High necks," warm flannels, or make your wills.

HOW AND WHAT WE SHOULD BREATHE.