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T H
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RECREATION
SERIES
CHARLES WELLS MOULTON
General Editor
VOLUME FIVE
A Cl'liE FOR THE (rOUT
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POEMS
BY THE DOCTOR,
FOR THE .DOCTOR,
and ....
ABOUT THE DOCTOR.
EDITED BY
Una TRussellc Marren.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
'QJimiam pepper, A. D., 11. !>.
• ■*■'.'„ • '
^
ir
1904
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING CO.
Chicago akron, o. new York
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Copyright, 1897, by
INA RUSSELLE WARREN
Copyright, 1904.
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
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Table of Contents
An Advance Subscriber to the Editor Dr. Edward D. Freeman . . iii
The Drama of the Doctor's Window . Austin Dobson 9
The Convalescent TO HER Physician . Sydney Dobell 15
Andrew Jack, M. D John Stuart Blackie .... 16
The Morning Visit Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 18
The Country Doctor Will Carleton 21
Doctors Eugene Field 22
Doc Sifers James Whitcomb Riley . . 25
To Dr. (Afterwards Sir Edward) Wilmot William Duncombe 27
In a Dissecting Room Dr. William Burt Harlow . . 28
Ode to a Doctor James G. Burnett 29
A Ballade of Busy Doctors Dr. James Newton Matthews 30
My First Patient Dr. William Tod Helmuth . 31
MoRiTURi Salutarmus Dr. J. Dickson Bruns ... 36
The Remedy Worse than the Disease Matthew Prior 40
Marshal Saxe and His Physician . . . Horace Smith 41
A Quandary George Herbert Stockbridge. 43
The Doctor's Hard Case William E. A. Axon .... 45
Great Expectation oftheHouseof Doc Henry Ames Blood 46
Minerva Medica Dr. S. Weir Mitchell .... 49
Doctor Munroe James Hogg 52
Fallopius to his Dissecting Knife . . Eugene Lee- Hamilton ... 53
Doctor Bonomi S. Baring-Gould 54
The Quack Doctor Wentworth Dillon 62
The Transferred Malady Joel Benton 63
With the Scapel H. Savile Clarke 64
The Joking Doctor Francis Saltus Saltus .... 66
Guneopathy John Godfrey Saxe 68
Doctor Gall James Smith 69
Most to be Pitied Mrs. George Archibald ... 71
Miss Sophronia's Cure Sam Walter Foss 72
43434'7
TABLE OF CONTENTS
HousEV/iFELY Physic Thomas Tusser 73
A Human Skull Frederick Locker- Lampson 74
The Newcastle Apothecary George Col ;man 75
Boyle Godfrey, Chymist and Doctor
OF Medicine Dr. Charles Smith 78
The Old Doctor Eva Wilder McGlasson . . 80
On Aufidius Actius Sannazarius 81
The Same who Physick'd Peter .... Lord Byron 82
The General Practitioner Dr. J. Johnston 83
In the Hospital Rose Terry Cooke 84
The Doctor's Answer Dr. Samuel W. Kelley ... 85
Professions — Physic George Crabbe 87
Lines by a Lunatic, M. D H. Savile Clarke 95
On Dr. Lettsom, By Himself John Coakley Lettsom ... 95
The Village Doctor Samuel Slayton Luce ... 96
Bessie Brown, M. D. . , Samuel Minturn Peck ... 98
Rabelais and the Lampreys Horace Smith 100
The Doctor's Walk Andreas Justin Kerner ... 101
Old Gaffer von Gunther Dr. Henry W. Roby .... 102
Doctor Brighton J. Ashby-Sterry 104
An Old Skull James Clarence Harvey . . 106
The Country Doctor S. Q. Lapius 107
The Latest Reconstructive Nerve-
Tonic and Restorative Ben King, 110
The Honors that Await the Discoverer
IN Surgery Dr. George Chismore ... 1 1 1
Sent TO A Patient, with Ducks .... Dr. Edward Jenner .... 112
Love-Making Rebecca Morrow Reaves . 113
The Good Physician Thomas William Parsons . 114
In a Museum Stuart Cameron 115
My Uniformed Nurse Miles Tyler Frisble 116
To A Young Physician John Greenleaf Whittier . . 1 17
Doctor Dan's Secret Frederick Langbridge ... 118
The Blush Henry Chandler 119
The Dispensary Samuel Garth 120
A Doctor's Motto Richard Graves 124
Milk Dr. Joseph B. Grisv/old . . 125
The Quack Doctor's Proclamation . . Charles Dickens 128
The Physican Charles Lansing Raymond . 129
A Fourteenth Century Doctor . . , Geoffrey Chaucer .... 130
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Woman Healer Katharine Lee Bates .... 131
The Doctor and I Willian Osborn Stoddard . . 132
The City Dead- House Walt Whitman 133
The Doctor's Message Abraham Perry Miller . . . 134
Doctor O'Finnican Henry A. Van Fredenberg . 135
A Discovery in Biology Mary E. Leverett 138
The Doctor's Story Will Carleton 139
To Doctor Empiric Ben Jonson • ... 141
Viri Humani, Salsi Et Faceti, Gulielimi
Sutherland! William Meston, M. A. . . 142
Surgeons Must be very Careful . . . Emily Dickinson 146
His Pneumogastric Nerve Eugene Field 147
The Army Surgeon Sydney Dobell 148
A Cure for the Gout Edward Octavus Flagg ... 149
On a Quack William Wadd 151
Surgery vs Medicine Dr. William Tod Helmuth . 152
Kindness first Known in a Hospital . Elizabeth Barrett Browning 154
In the Hospital Grace Denio Litchfield ... 155
A Young Doctor's Apology for the
Smoothness of His Face Johannes Santolius 160
The Skeleton Fred Emerson Brooks ... 161
Synonymes Charlotte Fiske Bates ... 163
The Drug Clerk Francis Saltus Saltus .... 164
Granny's " Yarbs" John Langdon Heaton ... 165
The Doctor in Love Dr. Andrew McFarland . . 166
The Art OF Preserving Health — Diet. Dr. John Armstrong .... 167
Peace Born of Pain Caroline Edwards Prentiss . 181
Ode to Dyspepsia Dr. John Todhunter .... 182
The Consultation • . . . . Richard Graves 183
Too Progressive for Him Lurana W. Sheldon .... 184
The Doctor Dr. T. P. Wilson 185
"Doc" Henry Coolidge Semple. . . 187
Epitaph on a Patient Killed by a Can-
cer Quack Dr. Lemuel Hopkins .... 191
Greeting to Dr. Holmes Dr. Andrew H. Smith ... 193
The Old Oaken Bucket J. C. Bayles 195
Verses TO Dr. George Rogers .... Edmund Waller 196
Fin-de-Siecle Love Song Dr. Frederick Peterson ... 197
Ode to Dr. Hahnemann, the Homceo-
pathist Thomas Hood 198
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Our Faith Dr. N. W. Rand 202
y^STHETics IN Medicine Dr. E. B. Ward 205
The Birth and Death of Pain .... Dr. S. Weir Mitchell .... 207
Feminine Pharmacy Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley 2 10
Rip Van Winkle, M. D Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes .211
Hygeia Grant Thy Blessing Dr. John C. Hemmeter . . 219
A Hospital Story Theron Brown 220
A Lover of Learning Eva Wilder McGlasson . . . 221
Sir Medicus Challenged Henry A. Van Fredenberg . 223
The Water of Gold Austin Dobson 224
Audi Alteram Partem Samuel Bishop 225
On Dr. Cheyne, the Vegitarian .... Dr. Andrew Wynter .... 226
On Dr. Wynter Dr. John Cheyne 226
De Arte Mcdendi Dr. D. Bethune Duffield . 227
The Young Medic and the Old .... Dr. S. F. Bennett 242
The New Doctor Charles H. Crandall .... 244
The Doctor's Wife Dr. W. J. Bell 246
The Physician's Hymn Charles Wesley 247
The Hospital at Night J. William Lloyd 249
Ballad of the Doctor's Horse .... Absalom B. Salom 250
In Hospital William Ernest Henley ... 251
Ole Docteur Fiset Dr. Wm. Henry Drummond . 271
A Medical Student's Letter Richard Dalton Williams . .273
The Doctor's Dream Anonymous 275
The Doctor Anonymous 277
Lines to a Skeleton Anonymous 278
Doctor Drollhead's Cure Anonymous 279
OuLD DocTHER Mack ARTHUR PERCivaL GrAves . 280
Appendicitis Anonymous 282
Lament of an Unfortunate Druggist . Anonymous 283
Notes 285
List of Authors 287
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
A Cure for the Gout Frontispiece
From the Original by Dendy Sadler.
The Anxious Moment 72
From the Painting by B. Vautier.
The Doctor 142
From the Painting by Luke Fildes.
The Post-Mortem 220
Introduction
LDEST and most honorable of Guilds, the Doctors
/l I have written much in all ages about the Science and
Art of Medicine. A great building scarce suffices to
hold their writings. In turn the Doctors themselves
have been much written about, and here are gathered a well
chosen collection of these pieces. They have been chosen
not at random but so as to present, as to one who looks through
a window at the stream of life hurrying along some great
thoroughfare, all its phases and aspects. Through the ages
from the early dawn of human existence the Medicine Man has
pursued his strange yet sacred calling. Possessed of mysterious
knowledge which sets them apart, dealing ever with the tremen-
dous and baffling problems of life and death, looked to by all
when suffering and danger impend, worshiped as divine and
hailed as deliverers when the issue is good, or derided and
punished for their failures, the doctors have always enjoyed
strange experiences. The sufferer cannot promise too much in
the hope of relief, but the danger past and the pain relieved
how odious when the welcome, thrice welcome Healer is re-
garded as the importunate creditor whose demand seems
monstrous in the light of half forgotten suffering. Nor have
the Doctors failed to show the inconsistencies and the frailties
of their human nature, ever struggling with burdens too heavy
to be borne, and with problems too hard to be solved. The
triumph and the defeat, the glory of heroic devotion and self-
sacrifice, and the meanness of avarice and ambition, have
been seen and well portrayed. Through it all the belief of the
people in the healing art has remained true ; through it all the
aim of the Doctors has remained noble ; and the larger light of
knowledge of these later days is defining clearly the splendid
services rendered to humanity by medicine. It is no longer
merely the personal relation of doctor to patient, and the
(V)
VI INTRODUCTION
personal service : there is coming now the infinitely broader
relation of sympathy and confidence between the entire com-
munity and the whole medical profession, engaged in a common
work of discovering and removing the causes of Disease.
Hygiene and preventive medicine are the fields wherein the
greatest triumphs of the future, as of the past, are to be achieved.
But there will always remain the close and individual relation of
Doctor and patient which is so well depicted in all its phases in
the verses of this collection. We turn from the larger outlook
of the struggle which science wages against disease, to the
more narrow sphere wherein every home of the land the Doctor
wages his never ending battle with the individual cases of weak-
ness, of suffering, or of injury, In the poetry and in the prose
of life, in its happiest drama and its wildest tragedies he has
ever his important part to bear. It is good to find that the role
assigned him in the unfolding scroll of Time is one of ever
growing honor and importance.
— William Pepper, M. D,
Preface
IN MAKING this anthology of medical verse, it has been my
aim to produce a volume that will direct attention to the
valuable poems written by the Doctor and about the Doctor.
The medical profession has written much admirable poetry
which has appeared chiefly in local and medical journals. I
have made an effort to preserve and bring together in perma-
nent form these poems, with miany old favorites by well-known
authors. One limited volume would not contain all the verse
written upon this subject, and I am aware that poems worthy a
place have been omitted. On the other hand, a number of
original poems appear which were written expressly for this
book. The volume is compiled especially for the Doctor, with
the hope that he may find in it a restful diversion from an ardu-
ous practice. My task has been lightened by the considerate
criticisms and kindly suggestions offered by members of the
profession, to whom I here extend cordial thanks.
For the use of copyrighted poems I gratefully acknowledge
the graciousness of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Company;
Harper & Brothers; G. P. Putnam's Sons; Dodd, Mead &
Company ; Lee & Shepard ; Roberts Brothers ; Frederick A
Stokes Company ; Bowen-Merrill Company; Cassell Publishing
Company and many of the authors represented.
— I. R. W.
Buffalo, N. Y.,
September 3rd, 1897. (vii)
AN ADVANCE SUBSCRIBER
TO THE EDITOR
*HE Doctor's Window"! Hail the day
a 4» You named your book so queer!
^ The bocTORS, one and all, will say
- ?^ "You've 'read your TITLE clear'."
*' Could I but read my title clear
To mansions" all my own,
My "doctor's window" would appear
The marvel of the town.
Yes, it should glow with flowers rare,
With sunshine from above;
The brightest gems should sparkle there.
Enkindling all our love.
A "window" where the light would shine
On pleasures pure and bright;
Where one could worship at the shrine
Of poets, with delight.
And such is yours to give today,
"The Doctor's Window" true.
That in December voices May
With poems old and new.
— Dr. Edward D. Freeman.
(viii)
THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
The Drama of the Doctor's Window
IN THREE ACTS, WITH A PROLOGUE.
"A tedious brief scene of young- Pyramus,
And bis love Tbisbe ; very tragical mirth."
Midsummer-Night's Dream.
PROLOGUE
'ELL, I must wait ! " The Doctor's room.
Where I used this expression,
Wore the severe official gloom
Attached to that profession ;
Rendered severer by a bald
And skinless Gladiator,
Whose raw robustness first appalled
The entering spectator.
No one would call "The Lancet" gay,—
Few could avoid confessing
That Jones "On Muscular Decay"
Is, as a rule, depressing:
So, leaving both, to change the scene,
I turned toward the shutter,
And peered out vacantly between
A water-butt and gutter.
10 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Below, the Doctor's garden lay,
If thus imagination
May dignify a square of clay
Unused to vegetation,
Filled with a dismal-looking swing —
That brought to mind a gallows —
An empty ken'nel, mouldering,
;..' And two dysoept'c aloes.
*■ c t
t c « c
- ' ' *■
No sparrow chirped, no daisy sprung.
About the place deserted;
Only across the swing-board hung
A battered doll, inverted.
Which sadly seemed to disconcert
The vagrant cat that scanned it,
Sniffed doubtfully around the skirt.
But failed to understand It.
A dreary spot ! And yet, I own.
Half hoping that, perchance. It
Might, in some unknown way, atone
For Jones and for "The Lancet,"
I watched; and by especial grace,
Within this stage contracted.
Saw presently before my face
A classic story acted.
Ah. World of ours, are you so gray
And weary. World, of spinning.
That you repeat the tales today
You told at the beginning?
For lo 1 the same old myths that made
The early "stage successes,"
Still "hold the boards," and still are played
"With new effects and dresses."
Small, lonely, "three-pair-backs" behold,
Today, Alcestis dying;
Today, in farthest Polar cold,
Ulysses' bones are lying;
THE DRAMA OF THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW 11
Still in one s morning "Times" one reads
How fell an Indian Hector;
Still clubs discuss Achilles' steeds,
Briseis' next protector; —
Still Menelaus brings, we see.
His oft-remanded case on;
Still somewhere sad Hypsipyle
Bewails a faithless Jason ;
And here, the Doctor's sill beside,
Do I not now discover
A Thisbe, whom the walls divide
From Pyramus, her lover?
ACT THE FIRST
ACT I began. Some noise had scared
The cat, that like an arrow
Shot up the wall and disappeared ;
And then across the narrow,
Unweeded path, a small dark thing.
Hid by a garden-bonnet.
Passed wearily towards the swing.
Paused, turned, and climbed upon It
A child of five, with eyes that were
At least a decade older,
A mournful mouth, and tangled hair
Flung careless round her shoulder,
Dressed in a stiff ill-fitting frock,
Whose black uncomely rigor
Seemed to sardonically mock
The plaintive, slender figure.
What was it? Something in the dress
That told the girl unmothered ;
Or was it that the merciless
Black garb of mourning smothered
13 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Life and all light : — but rocking so,
In the dull garden-corner,
The lonely swinger seemed to grow
More piteous and forlorner.
Then, as I looked, across the wall
Of "next-door's" garden, that is —
To speak correctly — through its tall
Surmounting fence of lattice.
Peeped a boy's face, with curling hair,
Ripe lips, half drawn asunder.
And round, bright eyes, that wore a stare
Of frankest childish wonder.
Rounder they grew by slow degrees
Until the swinger, swerving.
Made, all at once, alive to these
Intentest orbs observing,
Gave just one brief, half uttered cry,
And, — as with gathered kirtle.
Nymphs fly from Pan's head suddenly
Thrust through the budding myrtle, —
Fled in dismay. A moment's space,
The eyes looked almost tragic ;
Then, when they caught my watching face
Vanished as if by magic ;
And, like some somber thing beguiled
To strange, unwonted laughter,
The gloomy garden having smiled,
Became the gloomier after.
THE DRAMA OP THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW 13
ACT THE SECOND
YES: they were gone, the stage was bare,-
Blank as before ; and therefore.
Sinking within the patient's chair,
Half vexed, I knew not wherefore,
I dozed; till, startled by some call,
A glance sufficed to show me.
The boy again above the wall.
The girl erect below me.
The boy, it seemed, to add a force
To words found unavailing.
Had pushed a striped and spotted horse
Half through the blistered paling,
Where now it stuck, stiff-legged and straight,
While he, in exultation.
Chattered some half-articulate
Excited explanation.
Meanwhile, the girl, with upturned face,
Stood motionless, and listened;
The ill-cut frock had gained a grace.
The pale hair almost glistened ;
The figure looked alert and bright,
Buoyant as though some power
Had lifted it, as rain at night
Uplifts a drooping flower.
The eyes had lost their listless way, —
The old life, tired and faded.
Had slipped down with the doll that lay
Before her feet, degraded ;
She only, yearning upward, found
In those bright eyes above her
The ghost of some enchanted ground
Where even Nurse would love her
1.4 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Ah, tyrant Time ! you hold the book,
We, sick and sad, begin it;
You close it fast, if we but look
Pleased for a meager minute ;
You closed it now, for, out of sight,
Some warning finger beckoned ;
Exeunt both to left and right ; —
Thus ended Act the Second.
ACT THE THIRD
OR so it proved. For while I still
Believed them gone for ever,
Half raised above the window sill,
I saw the lattice quiver ;
And lo, once more appeared the head.
Flushed, while the round mouth pouted,
" Give Tom a kiss," the red lips said.
In style the most undoubted.
The girl came back without a thought,
Dear Muse of Mayfair, pardon,
If more restraint had not been taught
In this neglected garden ;
For these your code was all too stiff,
So, seeing none dissented,
Their unfeigned faces met as if
Manners were not invented.
Then on the scene, by happy fate,
When lip from lip had parted,
And, therefore, just two seconds late,
A sharp-faced nurse-maid darted ;
Swooped on the boy, as swoops a kite
Upon a rover chicken.
And bore him sourly off, despite
His well-directed kicking.
THE CONVALESCENT TO HER PHYSICIAN 15
The girl stood silent, with a look
Too subtle to unravel,
Then, with a sudden gesture took
The torn doll from the gravel ;
Hid the whole face, with one caress,
Under the garden-bonnet.
And, passing in, I saw her press
Kiss after kiss upon it.
Exeunt omnes. End of play.
It made the dull room brighter
The Gladiator almost gay.
And e'en "The Lancet" lighter.
— Austin Dobson.
The Convalescent to Her Physician
■* RIEND, by whose cancelling hand did Fate forgive
Her debtor, and rescribe her stern award
Oh with that happier light wherein I live
May all thine after years be sunned and starred
May God, to Whom my daily bliss I give
In tribute, add it to thy day's reward.
And mine uncurrent joy may'st thou receive
Celestial sterling ! Aye and thou shalt thrive
Even by my vanished woes : for as the sea
Renders its griefs to Heaven, which fall in rains
Of sweeter plenty on the happy plains.
So have my tears exhaled ; and may it be
That from the favoring skies my lifted pains
Descend, oh friend, in blessings upon thee !
— Sydney Dobell.
IS THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Andrew Jack, M. D.
f
-AREWELL to the University!
I'm titled now with high degree ;
All capped and doctor'd forth I ride,
To see the world's great pomp and pride
For years I've drudged, a patient hack,
With whip and driver at my back ;
But now unmuzzled I propose
To track the game with my own nose.
The wide, wide world before me lies,
With many a blank, and many a prize ;
But crowns are nowhere gained by sighs ;
He nobly wins who boldly tries.
What made the Romans men of might
But wars to wage and foes to fight ?
Then let us fight like them, and win !
Or, if we lose — bad luck 's no sin !
Farewell gray hall and fusty book.
And front severe and solemn look ;
Long rows of lectures dull and dry.
In mummied state there let them lie
Farewell, proud Arthur's Seat, where oft
With bouyant heart I stood aloft.
And through the broad sun's crimson glow.
Looked on the old gray town below,
And spied afar the huge, huge Bens
That gird our peaceful Highland Glens,
Where birches nod, and fountains pour
On ferny brae and pebbly shore.
And fare-thee-well, my student's home,
Far up near to the starry dome,
ANDREW JACK, M. D. 17
'Mid wreaths of smoke, and bristling crops
Of gables gaunt and chimney-tops !
And fare-thee-well, good Dame M' Knight.,
Who kept me always right and tight,
And washed my clothes and brushed my hat ;
God bless you, honest dame, for that !
And farewell, Nelly M'lntyre,
Who smoothed my bed and trimmed my fire.
Blue-eyed, blithe-hearted, bright-souled Nell ;
By Jove, I loved that girl too well !
Dear blue-eyed Nell, when Dame M' Knight
Called, " Come up, Nell, and put things right!"
And thou shot up with three light skips.
My heart leapt to my finger-tips.
No courier of the heavenly clans,
With light blue scarf and silver vans,
Could witch my eye like view of Nell ;
By Jove, I loved that girl too well!
But love is not a bond to bind
The full-blown sail that takes the wind ;
A fair face marred Mark Antony ;
So, Nell, I'll think no more of thee!
Farewell, my comrades and my chums.
With whom I picked dry learning's crumbs.
And quaffed, four green and golden years,
Life's mingled bowl of hopes and fears.
God bless you all, my jolly boys!
The day is past to play with toys ;
I go to fight my way, — and you.
Do well what thing you find to do !
I hear the railway whistle call.
And brush the briny drops that fall ;
I leave you now plain Andrew Jack,
Perhaps I'll come Sir Andrew back!
— John Stuart Blackie.
6~2
18 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
The Morning Visit
' / I SICK man's chamber, though it often boast
/t" The grateful presence of a literal toast,
I / Can hardly claim, amidst its various wealth,
-/ »■ The right unchallenged to propose a health ;
Yet though its tenant is denied the feast.
Friendship must launch his sentiment at least,
As prisoned damsels, locked from lovers' lips.
Toss them a kiss from off their fingers' tips.
The morning visit, — not till sickness falls
In the charmed circles of your own safe walls ;
Till fever's throb and pain's relentless rack
Stretch you all helpless on your aching back ;
Not till you play the patient in your turn.
The morning visit's mystery shall you learn.
'Tis a small matter in your neighbor's case,
To charge your fee for showing him your face ;
You skip up-stairs, inquire, inspect, and touch.
Prescribe, take leave, and off to twenty such.
But when at length, by fate's transferred decree,
The visitor becomes the visitee.
Oh, then, indeed, it pulls another string;
Your ox is gored, and that 's a different thing!
Your friend is sick : phlegmatic as a Turk,
You write your recipe and let it work ;
Not yours to stand the shiver and the frown,
And sometimes worse, with which your draught goes down
Calm as a clock your knowing hand directs,
Rhei, jalapae ana grana sex,
Or traces on some tender missive's back,
SCRUPULOS DUOS PULVERIS IPECAC ;
And leaves your patient to his qualms and gripea
Cool as a sportsman banging at his snipes.
THE MORNING VISIT 19
But change the time, the person, and the place,
And be yourself " the interesting case,"
You'll gain some knowledge which it's well to learn ;
In future practice it may serve your turn.
Leeches, for instance, — pleasing creatures quite ;
Try them, — and bless you.— don't you find they bite?
You raise a blister for the smallest cause,
But be yourself the sitter whom it draws.
And trust my statement, you will not deny
The worst of draughtsmen is your Spanish fly !
It's mighty easy ordering when you please,
Infusi sennae capiat uncias tres ;
It's mighty different when you quackle down
Your own three ounces of the liquid brown.
PiLULA, PULvis. — pleasant words enough.
When other throats receive the shocking stuff ;
But oh, what flattery can disguise the groan
That meets the gulp which sends it through your own J
Be gentle, then, though Art's unsparing rules
Give you the handling of her sharpest tools ;
Use them not rashly, — sickness is enough ;
Be always " ready," but be never " rough."
Of all the ills that suffering man endures,
The largest fraction liberal Nature cures ;
Of those remaining, 't is the smallest part
Yields to the efforts of judicious Art ;
But simple Kindness, kneeling by the bed
To shift the pillow for the sick man's head.
Give the fresh draught to cool the lips that burn.
Fan the hot brow, the weary frame to turn, —
Kindness, untutored by our grave M. D.'s,
But Nature's graduate, when she schools to please.
Wins back more sufferers with her voice and smile
Than all the trumpery in the druggist's pile.
Once more, be quiet : coming up the stair.
Don't be a plantigrade, a human bear.
But, stealing softly on the silent toe.
Reach the sick chamber ere you 're heard below.
20 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Whatever changes there may greet your eyes.
Let not your looks proclaim the least surprise ;
It 's not your business by your face to show
All that your patient does not want to know ;
Nay. use your optics with considerate care,
And don't abuse your privilege to stare.
But if your eyes may probe him overmuch,
Beware still further how you rudely touch ;
Don't clutch his carpus in your ley fist,
But warm your fingers ere you take the wrist.
If the poor victim needs must be percussed,
Don't make an anvil of his aching bust ;
(Doctors exist within a hundred miles
Who thump a thorax as they 'd hammer piles ;)
If you must listen to his doubtful chest.
Catch the essentials, and ignore the rest.
Spare him ; the sufferer wants of you and art
A track to steer by, not a finished chart.
So of your questions : don't in mercy try
To pump your patient absolutely dry ;
He 's not a mollusk squirming in a dish,
You 're not Agassiz, and he 's not a fish.
And last, not least, in each perplexing case,
Learn the sweet magic of a cheerful face;
Not always smiling, but at least serene.
When grief and anguish cloud the anxious scene.
Each look, each movement, every word and tone
Should tell your patient you are all his own ;
Not the mere artist, purchased to attend,
But the warm, ready, self-forgetting friend
Whose genial visit in itself combines
The best of cordials, tonics, anodynes.
Such is the visit that from day to day
Sheds o'er my chamber its benignant ray.
I give his health, who never cared to claim
Her babbling homage from the tongue of Fame ;
Unmoved by praise, he stands by all confest.
The truest, noblest, wisest, kindest, best.
— Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 21
The Country Doctor
\
j:* HERE'S a gathering in the village, that has never been
^ outdone
Since the soldiers took their muskets to the war of
'sixty-one ;
And a lot of lumber-wagons near the church upon the hill,
And a crowd of country people, Sunday-dressed and very still.
Now each window is pre-empted by a dozen heads or more.
Now the spacious pews are crowded from the pulpit to the
door;
For with coverlet of blackness on his portly figure spread,
Lies the grim old country doctor, in a massive oaken bed.
Lies the fierce old country doctor,
Lies the kind old country doctor.
Whom the populace considered with a mingled love and dread.
Maybe half the congregation, now of great or little worth.
Found this watcher waiting for them, when they came upon the
earth ;
This undecorated soldier, of a hard, unequal strife,
Fought in many stubborn battles with the foes that sought their
life.
In the night-time or the day-time, he would rally brave and
well.
Though the summer lark was fifing, or the frozen lances fell ;
Knowing if he won the battle, they would praise their Maker's
name,
Knowing if he lost the battle, then the doctor was to blame.
'T was the brave old virtuous doctor,
'T was the good old faulty doctor,
'Twas the faithful country doctor — fighting stoutly all the same.
When so many pined in sickness, he had stood so strongly by,
Half the people felt a notion that the doctor couldn't die;
22 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
They must slowly learn the lesson how to live from day to day,
And have somehow lost their bearings — now this landmark is
away.
But perhaps it still is better that this busy life is done :
He has seen old views and patients disappearing one by one ;
He has learned that Death is master both of Science and of
Art;
He has done his duty fairly, and has acted out his part.
And the strong old country doctor.
And the weak old country doctor.
Is entitled to a furlough for his brain and for his heart.
— Will Carleton.
Doctors
c"*IS quite the thing to say and sing
^ Gross libels on the doctor —
To picture him an ogre grim
?* Or humbug-pill concocter;
Yet it's in quite another light
My friendly pen would show him —
Glad that it may with verse repay
Some part of what I owe him I
When one's all right he's prone to spite
The doctor's peaceful mission ;
But when he's sick, it's loud and quick
He bawls for a physician !
With other things the doctor brings
Sweet babes our hearts to soften ;
Though I have four, I pine for more —
Good doctor, pray, come often!
What though he sees death and disease
Run riot all around him ?
Patient and true, and valorous, too, —
Such have I always found him !
DOCTORS 23
Where'er he goes, he soothes our woes.
And, when skill 's unavailing,
And death is near, his words of cheer
Support our courage failing.
In ancient days they used to praise
The godlike art of healing;
An art that then engaged all men
Possessed of sense and feeling;
Why, Raleigh — he was glad to be
Famed for a quack elixir,
And Digby sold (as we are told)
A charm for folk love-sick, sir !
Napoleon knew a thing or two,
And clearly he was partial
To doctors ; for, in time of war,
He chose one for a marshal.
In our great cause a doctor was
The first to pass death's portal.
And Warren's name at once became
A beacon, and immortal !
A heap, indeed, of what we read
By doctors is provided.
For to those groves Apollo loves
Their leaning is decided ;
Deny who may that Rabelais
Is first in wit and learning —
And yet all smile and marvel while
His brilliant leaves they 're turning.
How Lever's pen has charmed all men —
How touching Rab's short story!
And I will stake my all that Drake
Is still the schoolboy's glory I
A doctor-man it was began
Great Britain's great museum ;
The treasures there are all so rare,
It drives me wild to see 'em 1
24 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
There's Cuvier, Parr, and Rush — they are
Big monuments to learning ;
To Mitchell's prose (how smooth it flows !)
We all are fondly turning ;
Tomes might be writ of that keen wit
Which Abernethy 's famed for —
With bread-crumb pills be cured the ills
Most doctors now get blamed for !
In modern times the noble rhymes
Of Holmes (a great physician !)
Have solace brought and wisdom taught
To hearts of all condition.
The sailor bound for Puget Sound
Finds pleasure still unfailing.
If he but troll the barcarolle
Old Osborne wrote on Whaling !
If there were need I could proceed
Ad naus with this prescription,
But, INTER Nos, a larger dose
Might give you fits conniption :
Yet, ere I end, there's one dear friend
i'd hold before these others.
For he and I, in years gone by.
Have chummed around like brothers.
Together we have sung in glee
The songs old Horace made for
Our genial craft — together quaffed
What bowls that doctor paid for !
I love the rest, but love him best,
And, were not times so pressing,
I'd buy and send — you smile, old friend ?
Well, then, here goes my blessing !
— Eugene Fiel:
DOC SIFERS 25
V
Doc Sifers
F all the doctors i could cite you to in this-here town,
I Doc Sifers is my favo-RiTE, jes take him up and down:
[Count in the Bethel Neighberhood, and Rollins, and
Big Bear,
And Sifers' standin 's jes as good as ary doctor's there !
There's old Doc Wick, and Glenn, and Hall, and Wurgler, and
McVeigh,
But I'll buck Sifers 'ginst 'em all and down 'em any day !
Most old Wick ever knowed, I s'pose, was whisky I — Wurgler—,
well,
He et MORphine — ef actions shows and facts 's reliable.
But Sifers — though he ain't no sot, he's got his faults ; and yit
When you git Sifers onc't, you've got a doctor, don't fergit 1
He ain't much at his office, er his house, er anywhere
You'd natchurly think certain fer to ketch the feller there.
But don't blame Doc : he's got all sorts o' cur'ous notions — as
The feller says, — his odd-come-shorts — like smart men mostly
has : —
He'll more'n like be potter'n 'round the Blacksmith Shop ; er in
Some back-lot, spadin' up the ground, er gradin' it agin ;
Er at the workbench, planin' things ; er buildin' little traps
To ketch birds ; galvenizin' rings ; er graftin' plums, perhaps.
Make anything ! — good as the best 1 — a gunstock — er a flute. —
He whittled out a set o' chessmen onc't o' laurel-root,
Durin' the Army — got his trade o' surgeon there — I own
Today a finger ring Doc made o' sealin'-wax and bone!
An' glued a fiddle onc't fer me — jes' all so busted you
'D a-throwed the thing away, but he fixed her as good as new!
26 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And take Doc, now, in aigger, say, er cramps ; er rheumatiz ;^
And all afflictions thataway, and he 's the best they is !
Er janders — milksick — I don't keer — k-yore anything he tries,—
A felon — er a frost-bit' yeer — er granilated eyes.
There was the Widder Daubenspeck they all give up fer dead —
With fits, and " ligture o' the neck," and clean out of her head 1—
First had this doctor, what's-his-name, from Puddlesburg ; and
then
This little red-head, " Burnin' Shame," they call him — Dr
Glenn.
And they " consulted " on the case, and claimed she'd haf to
die. . . .
I jes' was joggin' by the place, and heerd her daughter cry.
And stops and calls her to the fence ; and I-says-I, " Let me
Send SiFERS — bet you fifteen cents he'll k-yore her ! "
" Well," says she,
" Light out! " she says. — And, lipp-tee-cut I I loped in town —
and rid
'Bout two hours more to find him, but I scored him when 1
did!
He wuz down at the Gunsmith Shop, a-stuffln' birds ! . . .
Says he,
" My sulky's broke." Says I, " You hop right on and ride with
me!"
I got him there ! . . . " Well, Aunty, ten days k-yores
you," Sifers said,
" But what's yer idy linger'n' when they want you Overhead? "
And there's Dave Banks — jes' back from war without a scratch —
one day
Got ketched up in a sickle-bar — a reaper-runaway ; —
His shoulders, arms, and hands and legs jes' sawed in strips !—
And Jake
Dunn starts fer Sifers, — feller begs to shoot him, pity's-sake!
Doc, 'course, was gone; but he had penned the notice — "At
Big Bear —
Be back tomorry: Gone to 'tend the Bee Convention there."
TO DR. (AFTERWARDS SIR EDWARD) WILMOT 27
But Jake, he tracked him ! — rid and rode the whole indurin'
night !
And 'bout the time the roosters crowed they both hove into
sight.
Doc had to ampitate — but 'greed to save Dave's arms, and
said
He COULD a-saved his legs ef he'd got there four hours ahead.
Doc's wife's own mother purt' nigh died onc't 'fore he could
be found.
And all the neighbers, fur and wide, a-all jes chasin' round! —
Tel finally, — I had to laugh, — 't'uz jes like Doc, you know, —
Was learnin' fer to telegraph, down at the old Dee-po.
But all they're faultln' Sifers fer, they 's none of 'em kin say
He's blggoty, er keerless, er not posted anyway;
He ain't built on the common plan o' doctors nowadays, —
He's jes' a great big brainy man — that's where the trouble lays!
— James Whitcomb Riley.
To Dr. (Afterwards Sir Edward) Wilmot
WITH doubtful strife, Humanity and Art
For conquest vie in Wilmot's head and heart.
On his loved son Apollo did bestow
The healing power, and words to soften woe.
With sympathizing eyes and tender mind
He views the maladies of human-kind ;
Reprieves the languid patient from the grave,
While Pity soothes whom Medicine cannot save !
— William Duncombe.
38 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
In a Dissecting Room
IGHTLESS eyes half closed beneath
Long, black lashes curling yet ;
Wavy locks the pale face wreathe
With the salty drops still wet.
Lying there so silently
Womanhood reproachful seems ;
'Tis a face that we may see
Reappear in troubled dreams.
Lifeless, wasted arm and hand
Stripped of skin by scalpel keen ;
Shining tendons, band on band
Ligaments and muscles seen.
Wondrously the fingers move,
Answering to the testing touch
Of each muscle far above,
Whilst the learner marvels much
Searcher, would that thou couldst find
What mysterious power once moved
That dead form ! How vain and blind
This long quest of ours has proved !
Now the forceps and the knife
Merciless attack the face
Eagerly with death at strife,
Winning by a swifter pace.
Inch by inch the clinging skin
With reluctance parting shows
Unknown wonders far within.
Sources whence expression flows.
ODE TO A DOCTOR 29
Tiny threadlike muscles here
Teach the lips to move in smile*;
Draw the eyelids tense with fear,
Close them when soft sleep beguiles.
These have knit the brows to frown ;
Those have taught the mouth to kiss ;
Care and pain have oft weighed down
Wrinkling forehead's calm with this
These once spread the nostrils wide
When in anger breath came fast ;
Or when blew from ocean's tide
Airs of health caught ere they passed.
Magic house, where sometime dwelt
Spirit, soul, howe 'er 'tis known!
Ah, what thrills thy walls have felt 1
Whither has thy tenant flown ?
If this ruined home appear
Wonderful beyond compare,
What was then the dweller here
That could vanish into air ?
— Dr. William Burt Harlow
Ode to a Doctor
THE Doctor comes, and quick prescribes;
And then, when we are better,
He sends a bill that reads like this :
"To Dr. Cureall, Dr."
For when we 're in the grasp of Pain,
And he has come and knocked her,
We surely must admit that we
Are Dr. to our Dr.
— James G. Burnett.
30 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
5
A Ballade of Busy Doctors
'HEN winter pipes in the poplar-tree,
And soles are shod with the snow and sleet —
When sick-room doors close noiselessly,
And doctors hurry along the street ;
When the bleak north winds at the gables beat,
And the flaky noon of the night is nigh,
And the reveler's laugh grows obsolete.
Then Death, white Death, is a-driving by.
When the cowering sinner crooks his knee,
. At the cradle-side, in suppliance sweet,
And friends converse in a minor key,
And doctors hurry along the street ;
When Croesus flies to his country seat.
And castaways in the garrets cry.
And in each house is a " shape and a sheet,"
Then Death, white Death, is a-driving by.
When the blast of the autumn blinds the bee,
And the long rains fall on the ruined wheat.
When a glimmer of green on the pools we see.
And doctors hurry along the street ;
When every fellow we chance to meet
Has a fulvous glitter in either eye.
And a weary wobble in both his feet,
Then Death, white Death, is a-driving by.
ENVOY.
When farmers ride at a furious heat.
And doctors hurry along the street.
With brave hearts under a scowling sky,
Then Death, white Death, is a-driving by.
Dr. James Newton Matthews.
MY FIRST PATIENT 31
My First Patient
'HAT shall I say, when all my friends tonight
Have blazed in such a galaxy of light;
How can I sing, when all around me here
Speaks of naught else than Pittsburg's jovial
cheer ;
What shall I do to raise my name to glory, —
With your permission, may I tell a story?
'Tis not a story such as doctors tell
A dying patient, that he '11 soon "get well "
If he, all medication being vain,
Will seek the balmy air of distanade,
I*] And there, half-hid in the soil, I saw
&i--A. A row of teeth and a lower jaw,
Twas a skull all gray and grinning.
With a bit of glass I scraped it clean,
'Twas the first of its kind I had ever seen.
So I fixed the jaw with a piece of twine.
Hung the skull on a climbing vine.
And said, with an accent winning :
" I say, old skull, you 've a happy face,
I thought that the grave was a dismal place,
I '11 wager a hat that when on earth
You had n't that permanent look of mirth,
And frowned as you went about sinning.
"Confess if you 're happier now than then.
And I '11 put you back in the earth again.
Refuse and your future shall surely be
In the dusty den of an old M. D."
The old skull kept on grinning.
— James Clarence Harvey.
THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 107
The Country Doctor
■*HE country doctor ! Let the bard
Whose lyre is tuned to Idle praise —
His locks unshorn, his face unmarred
By sweat and grime, his hands unscarred
By daily toil— in dulcet lays,
In empty word and hollow phrase
Recount the annals of the great :
Let him record and celebrate
Their noble deeds ; their pomp and state.
Their wisdom — all, perpetuate.
A humbler theme to you I bring,
The smell of flowers, the breath of spring.
The flutter of the blue bird's wing,
And with it all 1 bring to you
The country doctor, good and true.
The country doctor ! Him whose life
From sun to sun is daily rife
With bootless toil and ceaseless strife ;
Whose sturdy frame is made to feel
The summer's flame, the winter's steel,
I come to sing in praise of him.
His soul is fat, his purse is slim.
His eyesight keen, his foresight dim,
For caring naught for power or pelf.
While there 's a crust upon the shelf,
He works for fun and boards himself 1
Ah! ye, who traverse city streets
On swaying springs and cushioned seats.
The difficulties that he meets,
The bumps and jolts, ye little know.
Through seas of mud, o'er wastes of snow,
Where icy tempests howl and blow,
108 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
In pouring rain, where torrents flow
And sheen and shadow come and go,
Astride the sorriest of nags
And armed with spur and saddlebags,
He onward works his weary way;
And be it night or be it day.
He never falters nor looks back
Adown the steep and rugged track.
But sets his teeth and onward plods.
Himself a clod among the clods 1
I 've said, " A clod among the clods."
'Twere better, " God among the gods 1 "
For sacrificing hours of ease
And striving hard to do and please.
And winning but the dregs and lees
Of life's sweet wine, he fights disease
With clenched hand and bated breath.
And knows no conqueror but death.
* It shames me not to tell the truth.
An unkempt, muddy god, forsooth I
Besmeared— bespattered — leggings, sult-
From crown of hat to sole of boot.
And ofttimes tumbled in the wave
That seems to yawn a watery grave,
He bobs serenely on the flood
And swims above the sea of mud,
For lo ! his pockets are so light
He can not disappear from sight !
No scientific friend has he.
Who ends his name "A. M., M. D."
Or tacks thereto a " Ph. G.",
To help him in perplexity,
And earn them both a handsome fee ;
But when he finds a knotty case,
A problem that he dare not face,
He sends his patient off to town
To some physician of renown.
THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 109
(God save the mark ! All, all are great
Who dwell within the city's gate 1)
And THIS great man dilates his eyes
And rubs his hands, looks wondrous wise,
And nimbly gobbles up the prize !
The City doctor counts his gold.
Makes fresh deposits in the banks,
And sends the Country doctor, old,
A neatly worded note of thanks !
To church the City doctor goes.
(Ye need not smile and wink at me
And strive his spotless name to smirch :
I 'm told on good authority
The City doctor goes to church.)
To take an hour's profound repose.
To hear the gilded organ ring.
To say his prayers and nod and doze
And see the sweet soprano sing.
The organ peals, the tenor squeals.
Great Scott ! how good that doctor feels.
The selfsame hour, the selfsame date.
The Country doctor, sport of fate.
Moves up some gully's rocky course
Astride his rhubarb-colored horse.
The only anthem that he hears,
The only tune that greet his ears
Is murmured by the evening breeze.
Which moans " Old Hundred " thro' the trees !
The City doctor spends his days
In crowded marts and traveled ways ;
At night he sees the latest plays,
And rests his half-enchanted gaze
On some new " star " that lights the stage
A star of most uncertain age.
Of whom the critics rant and rage.
The Country doctor, poor, despised.
His purse half-starved and undersized,
110 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Contents himself to stay at home ;
The only stars he ever knows
Are those that rest in heaven's dome
And light the waste of winter snows.
The Country doctor ! Blessed be he
Who sets the weary suff'rer free
From burning fever, racking pain
And countless ills, and does it, too.
Without a thought or hope of gain ;
Without a single cent in view!
I come to sing in praise of him.
Whose soul is fat, whose purse is slim ,
Whose eyesight 's keen, whose foresight 's dim.
For caring naught for fame or pelf,
While there 's a crust upon the shelf.
He works for fun and boards himself!
— S. Q. Lapius.
The Latest Reconstructive Nerve-Tonic and
Restorative
^ F I should die tonight —
^ i And you should come to my cold corpse and say.
^
Weeping and heart sick, o'er my lifeless clay,
. If I should die tonight —
And you should come in deep grief and woe,
And say, " Here's that $10 1 owe."
I might rise up in my great white cravat.
And say, "What's that? "
If I should die tonight —
And you should come to my corpse and kneel.
Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel,
I say, if I should die tonight.
And you should come to me, and here and then
Just even hint about paying me that ten,
I might arise a while — but I 'd drop dead again.
Ben King.
THE HONORS THAT AWAIT THE DISCOVERER 111
The Honors That Await the Discoverer in
Surgery
F the doctors in convention, Surgeon Blank a moment
claimed,
[While he showed an apparatus and its various points
explained,
Which he said he had invented for the cure of a disease
That all other forms of treatment but the knife had failed to
ease.
When he closed, some seven members in their wisdom rose
and said
They were each of them delighted with the paper Blank had
read;
While it showed the greatest merit, they were still compelled
to say,
That the malady in question could not be relieved that way.
One averred, in his opinion, 'twould be trifling with a life
To attempt to treat such cases without recourse to the knife,
And one warned his fellow-members that the plan was yet
untried.
And one prophesied a failure, others, novelties decried.
So, in short, each poured cold water in the biggest kind of
streams
On the head of the inventor and his too ambitious schemes ;
Winding up with the assertion, that, as now the matter stands,
If successful with the author, it would fail in other hands.
In a year or so thereafter the convention met once more.
And again in proper season Surgeon Blank was on the floor ;
This time with numerous, patients of his own and others, too.
Proving thus to a conviction every point he claimed was true.
And once more the seven members were on hand in wise array,
And in turn, in the proceedings, each arose and had his say.
112 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
All were proud of being fellows of a body Blank adorned,
And they each one begged to mention, that, while other doctors
scorned —
At the time of the invention when the subject first was
broached —
They expressed themselves delighted and all doubters had
reproached.
It was a glorious triumph our esteemed colleague had won.
But it should not be forgotten that it had before been done.
It was true the operation had most uniformly failed,
But then its vital principles no authority assailed.
And then they quoted Heurteloup and Joseph Emile, Cornay.
And Civiale, and Jacobsen, Brodie, Leroy, Mercier;
Proving thus that Blank's invention was invented long ago.
And that certain small improvements were the most that he
could show ;
And even in regard to these, each did contrive in terms
To convey the intimation that Blank had from him the germs.
Such is oft the meed of genius, but it 's not the only one ;
There's the inward satisfaction of a duty ably done ;
And the fame that bides forever for such deeds is still in store
When detraction's voice is silent, when this fleeting life is o'er.
Dr. George Chismore.
Sent to a Patient, with the Present of a
Couple of Ducks
T 'VE dispatch 'd, my dear madam, this scrap of a
■^ letter,
To say that Miss is very much better.
A Regular Doctor no longer she lacks.
And therefore 1 've sent her a couple of Quacks
— Dr. Edward Jenner.
LOVE-MAKING 113
W:
Love-Making
THE WAY OF THE M. D.
'ELL. Angelina, this is most absurd.
The way I feel, it is upon my word ;
Of course his own disease you would suppose
An ^sculapius could diagnose.
But now the fact is this, I can 't locate
This pain of mine, whether 'tis in my pate,
Or In my heart, my liver or my lung.
Sometimes it seems in all, and too, my tongue
Is subject to a paralytic stroke : —
You laugh, my dear, but really 'tis no joke.
For when I 'd broach a subject unto you, —
One old as time, but somehow ever new.
The icicle that shivers in December,
Is not more chill than this unruly member.
At fever point sometimes my pulses beat,
Again 'tis low as zero, Fahrenheit,
And so erratic is my respiration
1 fear 'twill prove its own annihilation.
In strength and appetite I could compete
Once, with the great Crotonian athlete.
But now my muscles, all, are lax, undone,
And all my gastric provinder is gone ;
I 've dosed myself with potion after potion,
I 've plunged myself in lotion after lotion.
But there 's no pill, no powder, lotion, plaster,
Can mitigate this coming dire disaster.
Yet sometimes I do look for convalesence,
And hope beams nigh, 'till once more in your presence,
Then ruin rampant threatens dissolution,
And heart and brain is a crazy convolution, —
What shall I do my love, what shall I do?
You see I am splenetic — awful blue,
5-8
114 THE DOCTORS WINDOW.
And there's a remedy, or I'm undone ;
SiMiLiA siMiLiBus, SO on ;
What think you of it? You're the cause, you know,
So let your healing virtues to me flow ;
Unless you do, I care not now to say
What may become of me some gloomy day;
Perhaps you'll find at an unlucky hour.
My poor disjecta membra at your door,
— Rebecca Morrow Reaves.
The Good Physician.
"Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch,." — Milton.
TO RMS are remembered when the voyage is
o'er,
But not the breeze that wafted us ashore.
If this once busy being were of those
Whom Fame forgets, it mars not his repose ;
He never sought, in life's industrious ways,
A large return, or loud or lasting praise ;
But to the sacred task which Heaven assigned,
In pain's hushed chamber, gave his strength and mind.
Believing so he served his Maker best.
Trusting the Great Physician for the rest.
We write his name on this pretenceless stone.
To point his pillow to his friends alone ;
Nor would we vex his spirit to record
How much he did, how little his reward :
Yet all he asked he had ; and had he more,
He would have given the whole to bless the poor.
— Thomas William Parsons.
IN A MUSEUM 115
In a Museum
\
y^HIS is a skeleton
'^ Of some unhappy one,
Who, ere his race was run,
Drank joy in plenty.
Now for each gaper's view
Stand his bones, good as new,
Ticketed " Number two
Hundred and twenty."
Reason reigned in this skull ;
Now all its power is null.
Flashed once these sockets dull
With passionate tremor.
He was a man like us,
This bony incubus,
This was his humerus ;
This was his femur.
See ! 'neath these ribs there dwelt
A heart that love once felt.
These bony knees have knelt.
Scorning abrasions ;
These maxillary bones
Oft uttered dulcet tones,
Or asked for little loans
Upon occasions.
Maybe in times remote
This hand our heart-strings smote
With tender things it wrote.
Idyl or sonnet.
His head when tenanted
Wore a silk hat well bred —
116 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
P'raps, though, it was her head
And wore a bonnet.
Maybe the vanished guest
Was poor, despised, distressed ;
Or perchance he possessed
Mansions and villas.
Speak, oh, attendant wight,
Is this description right ?
" Can't say it is, sir, quite.
That 's a gorilla's."
Stuart Cameron.
My Uniformed Nurse
SWEETLY winsome face.
Ripe lips and merry eyes
Where tender pity lies ;
1 Brown hair beneath a cap of lace
To keep the wayward locks in place.
A fichu neat and plain
Crossed on her bosom white ;
Her heart beneath is light.
But throbs in sympathy with pain
And other 's sorrows feels again.
Her very presence heals.
Her quiet footfalls soothe.
Her hand is soft and smooth.
And as my fevered pulse she feels
A glad thrill through my being steals.
And when, grown bold, I say,
"I love you, gentle nurse !"
She says, "I 'm sure you 're worse !
You must not talk, you 're worse today,"
And so she flings my heart away,
Myles Tyler Frisbie,
TO A YOUNG PHYSICIAN 117
To a Young Physician
\
c"*HE paths of pain are thine. Go forth
■^ With healing and with hope ;
The suffering of a sin-sick earth
Shall give thee ample scope.
Smite down the dragons fell and strong.
Whose breath is fever fire ;
No knight of table or of song
Encountered foes more dire.
The holiest task by heaven decreed,
An errand all divine,
The burden of our mortal need
To render less is thine.
No crusade thine for cross or grave,
But for the living man.
Go forth to succor and to save
All that thy skilled hands can.
Before the unveiled mysteries
Of life and death, go stand
With guarded lips and reverent eyes
And pure of heart and hand.
So shalt thou be with power endued
For Him who went about
The Syrian hill-paths, doing good
And casting devils out.
That holy Helper liveth yet.
Thy friend and guide to be ;
The Healer by Gennesaret
Shall walk the rounds with thee !
— John Greenleaf Whittier.
118 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Doctor Dan's Secret
HEARTY old man is Doctor Dan
As any in Romford Town,
With his cheery grin, and his threefold chin,
And his jolly old shining crown.
And friends who have proved what his quarters are
Right willingly stay to dine ;
They have faith in his cook and his fat cigar
And his bottle of vintage wine.
*' It *s a queer little crib," says Doctor Dan,
" But cosy enough for a single man."
As they lounge at ease, and toast their knees.
The host, with a laugh, will say,
" My kingdom's small, but over it all
I reign with a despot's sway.
No serious dame may freeze my joke
With a glance of her awful eye.
Nor cough rebuke from a cloud of smoke.
Nor put the decanter by.
I feel in my heart," says Doctor Dan,
'* For that poor white slave, the married man."
But as soon as the last good-bye is said.
And he fears not ring or knock,
He walks to his desk, with a solemn tread,
And quietly turns the lock.
The tear-mists rise in his brave blue eyes,
As he stands and gazes there ;
It is gold — bright gold — in his hand that lies —
But the gold of a lost love's hair.
*' It was only a dream," says Doctor Dan,
" But the waking has left me a lonely man."
— Frederick Langbridge.
THE BLUSH 119
The Blush
A BRIEF, RHYMING THESIS ATTRIBUTED TO CLARA SOPHIA
SERENO. M. D,
"*HE ruddy incalescency
Of radiant peach-bloom.
Or glow on May-tinne apple-boughs,
Effulgent, like the rose,
Or dainty folds of fervency
Rhodora may unfurl,
To match Aurora's tenderness.
I will not dare presume
To reach with terms expositive,
But earnestly propose.
In language astiological
To scan the blushing girl.
A transient erubescency,
A calorific glow,
O'erspreads the physiognomy.
Suffusing Flora's cheek,
And from the apt perceptiveness
Of cause, as of a blow
Upon the quick sensorium
And capillaries weak,
Eventuates in paresis
Of vaso-motor nerves,
Whereby their loss of springiness
Encourages a flush
Of soft, effusive radiance,
Which evidently serves
To prompt a weak prascordla
To consummate a blush.
— Henry Chandler.
120 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
The Dispensary
EXTRACTS
PEAK, goddess ! since ',is thou that best canst
tell.
I How ancient leagues to modern discord fell;
And why physicians were so cautious grown
Of others' lives, and lavish of their own!
How by a journey to the Elysian plain
Peace triumphed, and old Time returned again.
Not far from that most celebrated place.
Where angry Justice shows her awful face ;
Where little villians must submit to fate,
That great ones may enjoy the world in state ;
There stands a dome, majestic to the sight,
And sumptuous arches bear its oval height ;
A golden globe placed high with artful skill.
Seems to the distant sight, a gilded pill :
This pile was, by the pious patron's aim,
Raised for a use as noble as its frame ;
Nor did the learn'd Society decline
The propagation of that great design ;
In all her mazes Nature's face they viewed.
And as she disappeared, their search pursued
Wrapped in the shade of night the goddess lies
Yet to the learn'd unveils her dark disguise,
But shuns the gross access of vulgar eyes.
Now she unfolds the faint and dawning strife
Of infant atoms kindling into life ;
How ductile matter new meanders takes.
And slender trains of twisting fibres makes :
And how the viscous seeks a closer tone,
By just degrees to harden into bone ;
THE DISPENSARY 121
While the more loose flow from the vital urn,
And In full tides of purple streams return ;
How lambent flames from life's bright lamps arise.
And dart emanations through the eyes ;
How from each sluice a gentle torrent pours,
To slake a feverish heat with ambient showers ;
Whence, their mechanic powers, the spirits claim ;
How great their force, how delicate their frame ;
How the same nerves are fashioned to sustain
The greatest pleasure and the greatest pain.
Why bilious juice a golden light puts on,
And floods of chyle in silver currents run ;
How the dim speck of entity began
To extend its recent form, and stretch to man:
To how minute an origin we owe
Young Ammon, Cassar, and the great Nassau ;
Why paler looks impetuous rage proclaim.
And why chill virgins redden into flame ;
Why envy oft transforms with wan disguise,
And why gay mirth sits smiling in the eyes ;
All ice why Lucrece, or Sempronia, fire;
Why Southwell rages to survive desire.
Whence Milo's vigor at th' Olympic's shown,
Whence tropes to Finch, or impudence to Sloane ;
How matter, by the varied shape of pores.
Or idiots frames, or solemn senators.
Hence 'tis we wait the wondrous cause to find.
How body acts upon impassive mind :
How fumes of wine the thinking part can fire.
Past hopes revive, and present joys inspire :
Why our complexions oft our soul declare,
And how the passions in the features are :
How touch and harmony arise between
Corporeal figure and a form unseen :
How quick their faculties the limbs fulfil.
And act at every summons of the will.
With mighty truths, mysterious to descry,
Which in the womb of distant causes lie.
But now no grand inquiries are descried,
Mean faction reigns, where knowledge should preside.
122 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Fueds are increased, and learning laid aside.
Thus synods oft concern for faith conceal,
And for important nothings show a zeal :
The drooping Sciences neglected pine,
And Pasn's beams with fading luster shine.
No readers here with hectic looks are found,
Nor eyes in rheum, through midnight-watching drowned :
The lonely edifice in sweats complains
That nothing there but sullen silence reigns.
This place, so fit for undisturbed repose,
The God of Sloth for his asylum chose ;
Upon a couch of down in these abodes
Supine with folded arms he thoughtless nods ;
Indulging dreams his godhead lull to ease,
With murmurs of soft rills, and whispering trees:
The poppy and each numbing plant dispense
Their drowsy virtue, and dull indolence ;
No passions interrupt his easy reign,
No problems puzzle his lethargic brain.
But dark oblivion guards his peaceful bed.
And lazy fogs hang lingering o 'er his head.
As at full length the pampered monarch lay
Battening in ease, and slumbering life away,
A spiteful noise his downy chains unties,
Hastes forward, and increases as it flies.
First some to cleave the stubborn flint engage.
Till urged by blows, it sparkles into rage :
Some temper lute, some spacious vessels move:
These furnaces erect, and those approve.
Here phials in nice discipline are set,
There gallipots are ranged in alphabet.
In this place, magazines of pills you spy;
In that, like forage, herbs in bundles lie ;
While lifted pestles, brandished in the air,
Descend in peals, and civil wars declare.
Loud strokes, with pounding spice, the fabric rend.
And aromatic clouds in spires ascend.
THE DISPENSARY 123
" Since by no arts I therefore can defeat
The happy enterprises of the great,
I '11 calmly stoop to more inferior things.
And try if my loved snakes have teeth or stings."
She said ; and straight shrill Colon's person took,
In morals loose, but most precise in look.
Blackfriars annals lately pleased to call
Him, Warden of Apothecaries-hall,
And, when so dignified, did not forbeai
That operation which the learn'd declare
Gives colics ease, and makes the ladies fair.
In trifling show his tinsel talent lies,
And form the want of intellects supplies.
In aspect grand and goodly he appears,
Revered as patriarchs in primeval years.
Hourly his learn'd impertinence affords
A barren superfluity of words ;
The patient's ears remorseless he assails.
Murders with jargon where his medicine fails.
The Fury thus assuming Colon's grace.
So slung her arms, so shuffled in her pace.
Onward she hastens to the famed abodes.
Where Horoscope invokes the infernal gods ;
And, reached the mansion where the vulgar run,
For ruin throng, and pay to be undone.
This visionary various projects tries.
And knows, that to be rich is to be wise.
By useful observations he can tell
The sacred charms that in true sterling dwell.
How gold makes a patrician of a slave,
A dwarf an Atlas, a Thersites brave.
It cancels all defects, and in their place
Finds sense in Brownlow, charms tn Lady Grace :
It guides the fancy, and directs the mind ;
No bankrupt ever found a fair one kind.
So truly Horoscope its virtues knows.
To this loved idol 'tis, alone, he bows;
And fancies such bright heraldry can prove
The vile plebeian but the third from Jove.
124 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Long has he been of that amphibious fry,
Bold to prescribe, and busy to apply.
His shop the gazing vulgar's eyes employs
With foreign trinkets, and domestic toys :
Here mummies lay, most reverendly stale,
And there, the tortoise hung her coat of mail ;
Not far from some huge shark's devouring head
The flying-fish their finny pinions spread.
Aloft in rows large poppy heads were strung,
And near, a scaly alligator hung :
In this place, drugs in musty heaps decayed ;
In that, dried bladders and drawn teeth were laid.
An inner room receives the numerous shoals
Of such as pay to be reputed fools.
Globes stand by globes, volumes on volumes lie,
And planetary schemes amuse the eye.
The sage, in velvet chair, here lolls at ease,
To promise future health for present fees.
Then, as from tripod, solemn shams reveals,
And what the stars know nothing of foretells.
— Samuel Garth.
A Doctor's Motto
DOCTOR, who, for want of skill,
Did sometimes cure — and sometimes kill ;
Contrived at length, by many a puff,
• ' And many a bottle filled with stuff,
To raise his fortune, and his pride ;
And in a coach, forsooth ! must ride.
His family coat long since worn out.
What arms to take, was all the doubt.
A friend, consulted on the case,
Thus answered with a sly grimace :
" Take some device in your own way.
Neither too solemn nor too gay ;
Three Ducks, suppose ; white, gray, or black ;
And let your motto be. Quack ! quack 1 "
— Richard Graves.
MILK 125
Milk
CANTO I.
^ n the early days of history
'jfc Which are so enshrined in mystery,
;?rAnd the stories told about thena are such hard ones to
1 believe ;
In the days of ancient Adam
When the only living madam
Was the young girl of that period, whose maiden name was Eve ;
It is said this man and woman,
I suppose because 'twas human
Then as now, and ever will be, while the worlds the same
remain,
Without service, without clergy,
Without silver or liturgy,
Walked together, talked together, dined together, and raised
Cain.
If you '11 pardon the digression.
And permit a plain expression
From a man who 's looking backward after some six thousand
years,
I will say, this act of sinning
Was, to my mind, the beginning
Of the trouble we poor mortals suffer in this "vale of tears."
But I do not mind confessing
I consider it a blessing.
Notwithstanding it has brought us so much sorrow, so much
pain.
For this singular relation
Made for us an occupation.
And the Doctor chases sickness as the sunshine does the rain.
126 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
So I look on the transaction
With complacent satisfaction
From the standpoint of a Doctor, or perhaps, an accoucheur.
And I criticise them, never,
And I bless them both, forever ;
In which radical expression I expect you to concur.
To return to Cain, the baby:
Eve was ill, and Adam, maybe
Badly frightened by the crying and contortions of the boy ;
Took him in his arms, caressed him.
Patted, cooed, and fondly pressed him
To his bosom, full of kindness, empty of the " infant 's joy."
Vain were all attempts to quiet
This new youth in search of diet.
And his crying, and his sobbing, roused the mother from her
rest:
Lovingly she reached and took him,
Instantly his cries forsook him.
And he nestled in her bosom, with his mouth upon her breast.
Adam, wondering at the stillness, —
Fearful of some sudden illness —
Mindful of his own transgression, and the curse his sin had
brought.
Eagerly the babe inspected.
Listened, pondered, and reflected.
Opened wide his eyes with wonder, at the sight his vision
caught.
Joy of joys ! two flowing fountains
Issued from two snowy mountains,
"Succor! succor! and nepenthe," Adam shouted. "Let me
sing
Hallelujah! and Eureka!
I have found it, no more seek a-
Midst the garden for a diet fit for infant, fit for king."
MILK 127
CANTO n.
Of one thing I am certain, and that is, if Cain
Had been kept on this pabulum, simple and plain,
Had taken it fresh and without sterilizing,
With perfect digestion, no acid uprising.
His brain had been clear and his mind strong and stable,
With never a thought in 't of killing poor Abel.
But as he grew older and cut his front teeth.
And his gums became sore from the pressure beneath.
And he fretted a little, and what was far worse.
Awakened at midnight and wanted to nurse,
His mother (of course her intentions were good)
Raised the devil in Cain, for she altered his food.
I believe from that moment his troubles began,
And he grew up a hard and disatisfied man ;
His appetite changed, and 'tis said he would choke
At the cocoanut's milk or the cream of a joke,
And the sweet milk of kindness in him became sour,
And he never was happy again from that hour.
Eructations of passion, as well as of gas.
Were as common as " chumps " in a medical class.
And — well you know how the curse upon Cain
Followed that on poor Eve, and must ever remain.
MORAL.
This original lactation.
Was the sign for all creation
That a food was there provided for the infant, well or ill:
Milk, the healthiest of diet ;
Milk, the most nutritious ; try it,
Use it, prove it, recommend it ; drink it — and I 'm sure you
will.
■—Dr. Joseph B. Griswold.
I2d THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
The Quack Doctor's Proclamation
N astonishing Doctor has just come to town,
Who will do all the faculty perfectly brown :
He knows all diseases, their causes and ends;
And he "begs to appeal to his naedical friends."
Tol de rol
Diddle doll :
Tol de rol, de dol,
Diddle doll
Tol de rol dol.
He 's a magnetic Doctor, and knows how to keep
The whole of a Government snoring asleep
To popular clamors ; till popular pins
Are stuck in their midriffs — and then he begins.
Tol de rol, etc.
He 's a CLAIRVOYANT subject, and readily reads
His countrymen's wishes, conditions, and needs,
With many more fine things I can't tell in rhyme —
And he keeps both his eyes shut the whole of the time.
Tol de rol, etc.
You mustn 't expect him to talk ; but you '11 take
Most particular notice the Doctor 's awake.
Though for aught from his words or his looks that you
reap, he
Might just as well be most confoundedly sleepy.
Tol de rol. etc.
Homeopathy, too. he has practised for ages
(You '11 find his prescriptions in Luke Hansard's pages) ;
Just giving his patient, when madden'd by pain.
Of Reform the ten thousandeth part of a grain,
Tol de rol, etc.
THE PHYSICIAN 12D
He 's a medicine for Ireland, in portable papers ;
The infallable cure for political vapors ;
A neat label round it his prentices tie —
" Put your trust in the Lord, and keep this powder dry 1"
Tol de rol, etc.
He's a corn-doctor, also of wonderful skill, —
No cutting no rooting-up, purging, or pill, —
You're merely to take, 'stead of walking or riding.
The sweet schoolboy exercise— innocent sliding.
Tol de rol, etc.
There 's no advice gratis. If high ladies send
His legitimate fee, he's their soft-spoken friend.
At the great public counter with one hand behind him
And one in his waistcoat, they 're certain to find him.
Tol de rol, etc.
He has only to add he 's the real Doctor Flam.
All others being purely fictitious and sham ;
The house is a large one, tall, slated, and white.
With a lobby, and lights in the passage at night.
Tol de rol, etc.
— Charles Dickens.
The Physician
ANOTHER, all whose face
Bore marks of patience, train'd by years of care.
His glasses, shifted oft with easy grace.
Great coat, large pockets, and abundant hair
Marked him — "physician." one whose calm, wise air
Can bid the raging fever sink to rest ;
And turn to smiles his patients' weary stare.
While children wonder at his bottle-chest,
•And how a still pulse tells him just what pill is best.
— George Lansing Raymond.
5-9
130 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
A Fourteenth Century Doctor
ITH us ther was a Doctor of Phisike,
In all this world ne was ther non him like
To spek of phisike, and of surgerie :
/<^ For he was grounded in astronomic.
He kept his patient a ful gret del
In houres by his magike naturel.
Wei could he fortunen the ascendent
Of his images for his patient.
He knew the cause of every maladie.
Were it of cold, or hote, or moist, or drie,
And wher engendred, and of what humour,
He was a veray prafite practisour.
The cause yknowe, and of his harm the rote,
Anon he gave to the sike man his bote.
Ful redy hadde he his apothecaries
To send his dragges, and his lettuaries,
For eche of hem made other for to winne ;
Hir friendship na 's not'newe to beginne.
Wei knew he the old Esculapius,
And Dioscorides, and eke Rufiis;
Old Hippocras, Hali, and Gallien,
Serapion, Rasis, and Avicen ;
Averrois, Damascene, and Constantin;
Bernard, and Gatisden, and Gilbertin.
Of his diete mesurable was he.
For he was of no superfluitee.
But of gret nourishing, and digestible.
His studie was but little on the Bible.
In sanguin and in perse he clad was alle
Linned with taffata, and with sendalle.
And yet he was but esy of dispence :
He kepte that he wan in the pestilence.
For golde in phisike is a cordial ;
Therfore he loved gold in special.
— Geoffrey Chauc£r.
THE WOMAN HEALER 131
The Woman Healer
TEADFAST she comes to cast her rose of youth
Beneath the feet of pain. — a rose whose breath,
Eternal-sweet with woman's tender ruth,
Softens the shadows leading down to death.
New figure in the centuries, she stands,
Guiding the cruel mercy of the knife ;
With thought-engraven brows and skillful hands.
And yearning heart to save the house of life.
Bless her, O women, for it was your call,
It was the myraid cry of your distress.
That urged her outward from the cloistered hall
To make the burden of your anguish less.
Shine on her, stars, while forth she goes alone
Beneath the night, on gracious errand sped ;
And lend such lustre as your rays have thrown
Round bridal steps that chime with lover's tread.
Her pathway scent, O flowers that fleck the field.
As from her hurrying feet the dews are driven,
With no less fragrance than your clusters yield
By dimpled hands to happy mothers given.
And brothers, you who watch her toilsome days.
With doubtful lip in half derision curled.
Scant not her meed of courtesies and praise.
The bloom and starlight of the spirit world.
For with a sense of loss too fine to own.
The nestward longing of the carrier dove.
She turneth from her first, entitled throne.
And all the household walks that women love ;
132 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
The gracious ministries of little deeds
And service for the few, by love made sv/eet —
From these she turneth unto wider needs,
And pours her ointment on the stranger's feet.
Perchance, amid the clash of striving days,
She may lay by a trick or two of charms.
May miss of those caressing, dainty ways
That women learn from babies in their arms ;
But even while the battle leaves its trace.
The vanward battle ill to be withstood.
She but refines her best, peculiar grace,
And proves her self-forgetful womanhood.
— Katharine Lee BAXEa
The Doctor and I
\
~r*HE Doctor stands in his doorway,
^ And marks how the rain descends.
And the thunder that follows the lightning,
And the wind that the maple bends.
The Doctor 's a man of science.
And knows why the rain comes down.
And why the lightning flashes
From the clouds that above us frown.
He knows, I suppose, why the thunder
From lightning will not divorce ;
And why the tall maples are bending.
And where the wind comes from, — of course.
I 'm only a simple farmer.
My brain is not learned like his ;
I but know that the storm a glory,
And the rain a blessing is.
THE CITY DEADHOUSE 133
Perhaps, as he watches the tempest.
He enjoys far more than I ;
He deems it a "triumph of science,"
But to me "God passeth by."
But I must not envy the Doctor,
Though more than this he knows.
And I 'm but a prairie farmer,
In tattered, homespun clothes.
He knows, by his patent rain-guage,
Just how much rain was given.
And I by the smile on my corn-fields, —
But I hope that we both thank Heaven.
— William Osborn Stoddard,
The City Dead-House
Y the city dead-house by the gate,
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause, for lo, an outcast form, a poor dead
prostitute brought.
Her corpse they deposit unclaimed, it lies on the damp brick
pavement.
The divine woman, her body, I see the body. I look on it alone.
That house once full of passion and beauty, all else I notice not.
Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from the faucet, nor
odors morbific impress me,
But the house alone — that wondrous house — that delicate fair
house — that ruin !
That immortal house more than all the rows of dwellings ever
built !
Or white-domed capitol with majestic figure surmounted, or all
the old high-spired cathedrals.
That little house alone more than them all — poor, desperate
house !
134 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Fair, fearful wreck — tenament of a soul — Itself a soul.
Unclaimed, avoided house — take one breath from my tremulous
lips.
Take one tear dropt aside as I go for thought of you,
Dead house of love — house of madness and sin, crumbled,
crushed.
House of life, erewhile talking and laughing — but ah, poor
house, dead even then.
Months, years, an echoing, garnished house — but dead, dead,
dead.
Walt Whitman.
The Doctor's Message
Y little patient, gone so soon before.
To that mysterious, much desired shore ;
When you come there , where yet I hope to be ,
-What will you tell the blessed Lord for me ?
Will you remember I was kind to you ?
And tell Him all the good I sought to do ?
Or will you tell Him I am bruised and sore ?
And that my heart Is tender to the core ?
Or will you ask Him to remove my pain,
And give my darlings back to me again ?
Nay, tell Him this— that I was kind to you,
And how I wrought my best to bring you through.
And then, amid the grief I cannot tell
To any man, but which he knows so well.
He may, perhaps, bestow a peaceful heart.
Until, like you. He calls me to depart.
Remember me to Him, whate 'er you do.
And tell Him, dear, that I was kind to you.
— Abraham Perry Miller.
DOCTOR O'FINNIGAN 135
Doctor O'Finnigan
URE there ne'er was a doctor
Was an abler concocter
Of pills and of potions,
Of yarbs and of lotions
To cure all the ills of poor sufferin' humanity.
Than Doctor O'Finnigan,
Who'd make the sick grin again
By the mirth in his fayture.
By his indless good nature,
And his blarney that drove away ills and insanity.
Every colleen who knew him
With her ailments wint to him.
And the merry old mixer
Never failed an elixir
To give that would cure every ill from love-tiff to fever.
And his patients all pretty.
As they'd blush at his witty
And fine jovial speeches.
Would offer him the witches !
For his service their kisses, which he'd take, the deceiver!
Every gossoon that sought him,
Twas no matter what brought him.
His own ills or the distress
Of his master or mistress.
Found comfort and cure in good old Doctor O'Finnigan.
For the tales that he told thim,
With the nostrums he sold thIm,
Made each mother's son of thim
So glad that aich wan of thim
Had no sooner gone out than he'd wish to go In again.
136 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And the poor and the sorra
All wint to him, begorra,
For his mirth and his potions
He 'd pour on thim by oceans,
Trailing the poor just the same as he traited the wealthy.
And I sa)' without jokin'
The soul-sad and heart-broken
Found the doctor a treasui'e
Of delight beyond measure,
For he 'd make thim all laugh, sure, till they 'd grow strong
and healthy.
He 'd give food to the needy.
He 'd give clothes to the seedy:
Not wan wint impty-handed
Who his graces demanded,
For his heart was as warm as his laughter was cheerful.
And he 'd no dearer pleasure
Than to sow the rich treasure
Of the sweet seeds of laughter
That might bring harvest after
Of contintmint and health to the ailing and tearful.
All the praists and the praichers.
All the lawyers and taichers.
The Catholics, the Shakers,
Prizbytarians, Quakers,
And thim that was bothered with sorra a bit of religion.
Good and bad in condition,
High and low in position,
Gintility, quality.
All bowed to his jollity,
And the doctor's sweet humor was the life of the region
At aich birth he was prlsent.
At aich christenin' plizant,
Aich weddin' he attinded,
And the guests he befrinded
With the wine of his humor, the brand of O'Flnnigan,
DOCTOR O'FINNIGAN 137
And thin he on the morra
At the wake would kill sorra,
Make the keeners fall laughln'
As they crooned round the coffin,
And 'twas not till he 'd left could the wailin' begin again.
He grew older and grizzled,
But his beard sure was frizzled
With strong manhood's full vigor ;
He grew stouter in figure,
But niver a wan of us thought him walker or older.
For his swate laughter mellow
Made him seem a young fellow
When sivinty years' labor
With his crony and neighbor
He was wearin' with honor on the head on his shoulder.
I am thinkin' his lotions
And his yarbs, pills, and potions
Counted less in successes
In his cures of distresses
Than the force of the great, manly, warm bubblin' heart of
him,
For his mirth drove aich ailment
From its place of consalement,
Enablin' him to mate it
In the daylight to trate it,
And 'twas sorra the sickness that e 'er got the start of him,
He was found in his carriage.
Coin' home from a marriage.
Ninety years from the mornin'
That had witnessed his bornin',
And the smile was still playin' on his faytures unwrinkled.
And ochone ! there was sorra
In that region the morra.
Whin his old neighbors crowded
Round his loved form white-shrouded.
But he only smiled swater as the water was sprinkled.
138 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Father Briardy mintioned
That pure grief well-intintioned
Sure might follow a mortal
Who had passed through the portal,
But that weepin' and wailin' had no charm for the sleeper.
So our tears they were Inded,
Or with tinder smiles blinded,
And all smiling we followed
Where his grave they had hollowed.
And we flowered his coffin and left him with the Keeper.
To this day in Killarney,
'Tls the highest of blarney
Just to hint that a human.
Be it man, be it woman.
Do be like In the least to good Doctor O'Finnigan;
For his name brings thoughts tinder.
While the smiles the tears hinder,
And the hearts that be sorrowin'.
From his glad mim'ry borrowin'
Courage, arise from despair life's battle to win again.
— Henry A. Van Fredenberg.
A Discovery in Biology
I THINK I know what Cupid is:
Bacteria Amoris ;
And when he's fairly at his work,
He causes dolor cordis.
So, if you'd like, for this disease,
A remedy specific.
Prepare an antitoxine, please,
By methods scientific.
Inoculate another heart
With germs of this affection.
Apply this culture to your own,
'Twill heal you to perfection.
— Mary E. Leverett.
THE DOCTOR'S STORY 139
The Doctor's Story
00 D folks ever will have their way —
Good folks ever for it must pay.
'But we, who are here and everywhere,
The burden of their faults must bear.
We must shoulder others' shame —
Fight their follies and take their blame ;
Purge the body, and humor the mind ;
Doctor the eyes when the soul is blind ;
Build the column of health erect
On the quicksands of neglect :
Always shouldering others' shame —
Bearing their faults and taking the blame !
II.
Deacon Rogers, he came to me —
" Wife is agoin' to die," said he.
" Doctors great, an' doctors small,
Haven 't improved her any at all.
" Physic and blister, powders and pills.
And nothing sure but the doctors' bills 1
" Twenty women, with remedies new.
Bother my wife the whole day through ;
"Sweet as honey, or bitter as gall —
Poor old woman, she takes "em all.
" Sour or sweet, whatever they choose ;
Poor old woman, she daren't refuse.
140 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
" So she pleases whoe 'er may call,
An' Death is suited the best of all.
" Physic and blister, powder an' pill —
Bound to conquer, and sure to kill ! "
III.
Mrs. Rogers lay In her bed,
Bandaged and blistered from foot to head.
Blistered and bandaged from head to toe.
Mrs. Rogers was very low.
Bottle and saucer, spoon and cup.
On the table stood bravely up ;
Physics of high and low degree ;
Calomel, catnip, boneset tea ;
Everything a body could bear,
Excepting light, and water, and air.
I opened the blinds ; the day was bright.
And God gave Mrs. Rogers some light.
IV.
I opened the window ; the day was fair.
And God gave Mrs. Rogers some air.
Bottles and blister. p>owders and pills.
Catnip, boneset, sirups, and squills ;
Drugs and medicines, high and low,
I threw them as far as I could throw.
•' What are you doing ? " my patient cried;
" Frightening Death," I coolly replied.
•' You are crazy ! " a visitor said ;
I flung a bottle at his head.
TO DOCTOR EMPIRIC 141
Deacon Rogers, he came to me ;
" Wife is comin' round," said he.
" I really think she will worry through ;
She scolds me just as she used to do.
'■ All the people have poohed an' slurred —
All the neighbors have had their word ;
" 'Twere better to perish, some of 'em say.
Than be cured in such an irregular way."
VI.
"Your wife," said I, " had God's good care,
And His remedies — light and water and air.
" All the doctors, beyond a doubt,
Couldn 't have cured Mrs. Rogers without."
VII.
The Deacon smiled, and bowed his head,
" Then your bill is nothing," he said.
" God's be the glory as you say .
God bless you, doctor ! good-day ! good-day I"
VIII.
If ever I doctor that woman again,
I '11 give her medicine made by men.
— ^WiLL Carleton.
To Doctor Empiric
WHEN men a dangerous disease did 'scape.
Of old, they gave a cock to yEsculape ;
Let me give two, that doubly am got free ;
From my disease's danger, and from thee.
— Ben Jonson.
142 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Viri Humani, Salsi Et Faceti,
Gulielmi Sutherlandi,
Multarum Artium Et Scientiarum Doctoris Doctissimi.
DIPLOMA.
T T BIQUE gentium et terrarum,
/ } From Sutherland to Padanarum,
I np From those who have six months of day,
0«t— JL Ad Caput usque Bonas Spei,
And farther yet, si forte tendat
Ne ignorantiam quis praetendat, —
We doctors of the Merry Meeting
To all and sundry do send greeting,
Ut omnes habeant compertum,
Per hanc praesentem nostram chartam,
Gulielmum Sutherlandum Scotum
At home per nomen Bogsie notum.
Who studied stoutly at our College,
And gave good specimens of knowledge
In multis artibus versatum.
Nunc factum esse doctoratum.
Quoth Preses, Strictum post examen,
" Nunc esto Doctor" ; we said, " Amen."
So to you all hunc commendamus,
Ut juvenem quern nos amamus,
Qui multas habet qualitates
To please all humors and astates.
He vies, if sober, with Duns Scotus,
Sed multo magis si sit potus.
In disputando just as keen as
Calvin, John Knox, or Tom Aquinas.
In every question of theology,
Versatus multum in trickology ;
\w'\
The Doctor
VIRI HUMANI, SALSI ET FACET! 143
Et in catalogis librorum
Fraser could never stand before him ;
For he, by page and leaf, can quote
More books than Solomon e 'er wrote.
A lover of the mathematics
He Is, but hates the hydrostatics,
Because he thinks it a cold study
To deal in water, clear or muddy.
Doctissimus est medicinas.
Almost as Boerhaave or Bellini.
He thinks the diet of Cornaro
In Meat and drink too scrimped and narrow,
And that the rules of Leonard Lessius
Are good for nothing but to stress us.
By solid arguments and keen
He has confuted Doctor Cheyne,
And clearly proven by demonstration
That claret is a good collation,
Saniset asgris, always better
Than coffee, tea, or milk and water ;
That cheerful company, cum risu,
Cum vino forti, suavi visu,
Gustatu dulci, still has been
A cure for hypo and the spleen ;
That hen and capon, vervecina,
Beef, duck and pasties, cum ferind,
Are good stomachics, and the best
Of cordials, probatum est.
******
A good French nightcap still has been,
He says, a proper anodyne.
Better than laudanum or poppy,
Ut dormiamus like a toppy.
Affirmat lusum alearum,
Medicamentum esse clarum.
Or else a touch at three-hand ombre
When toil or care our spirits cumber.
Which graft wings on our hours of leisure,
And make them fly with ease and pleasure.
144, THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Aucupium et venationem,
Post longam nimis potationem,
He has discovered to be good
Both for the stomach and the blood.
He clearly proves the cause of death
Is nothing but the want of breath ;
And that indeed is a disaster
When 'tis occasioned by a plaster
Of hemp and pitch laid closely on
Somewhat above the collar-bone.
To this, and ten times more his skill
Extends, when he could cure or kill.
Immensam cognltionem legum
Ne prorsus hie silentio tegam.
Cum sociis artis, grease his fist,
Torquebat illas as you list.
If laws for bribes are made, 'tis plain
They may be bought and sold again ;
Spectando aurum, now we find
That Madam Justice is stone-blind,
So deaf and dull in both her ears,
The clink of gold she only hears ;
Naught else but a loud party shout
Will make her start or look about.
His other talents to rehearse,
Brevissime in prose or verse.
To tell how gracefully he dances.
And artfully contrives romances ;
How well he arches and shoots flying
(Let no man think that we mean lying),
How well he fences, rides and sings,
And does ten-thousand other things ;
Allow a line, nay, but a comma.
To each, turgeret hoc diploma;
Quare, ut tandem concludamus.
Qui brevitatem approbamus
VIRI HUMANI, SALSI ET FACETI 145
(For brevity is always good,
Providing we be understood).
In rerum omnium naturis,
Non minus quam scientia juris
Et medicinas, Doctoratum
Bogsffium novimus versatum ;
Nor shall we here say more about him.
But you may dacker if you doubt him.
Addamus tamen hoc tantillum,
Duntaxat nostrum hoc sigillum,
Huic testimonio appensum.
Ad confirmandum ejus sensum,
Junctis chirographis cunctorum.
Blithe, honest, hearty sociorum.
Dabamus at a large punch-bowl
Within our proper common school,
The twenty-sixth day of November,
Ten years, the date we may remember,
After the race of Sheriffmuir
(Scotsmen will count from a black hour),
Ab omni probo nunc signetur.
Qui denegabit extrudetur.
FORMULA GRADUS DANDI.
Eadem nos auctoritate,
Reges memoria5 beatse,
Pontifices et papas lasti.
Nam alii sunt a nobis spretl,
Quam quondam nobis indulserunt,
Qua5 privilegia semper erunt,
Collegio nostro safe and sound,
As long's the earth and cups go round
Te Bogsasum hie creamus,
Statuimus et proclamamus,
Artium Magistrum et Doctorem,
Si libet etiam Professorem ;
Tibique damus potestatem
Potandi ad hilaritatem,
Ludendi porro et jocandi,
Et moestos vino medicandi,
6—10
146 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Ad risum etiam fabulandi ;
In promissionis tua2 signum
Caput, honore tanto dignum
Hoc cyatho condecoramus,*
Ut tibi felix sit oramus ;
Prgeterea in manum damus
Hunc calicem, ex quo potamus,
Spumantem generoso vino,
Ut bibas more Palatino.
Sir, pull it off and on your thumb.
Cernamus supernaculum,
Ut specimen ingenii
Post studia decennii.
(While he :s drinking, the chorus sings)
" En calicem spumantem.
Falerni epotantem ;
En calicem spumantem,
lo, io, io."
(After he has drunk, and turned the glass
ON HIS thumb, they EMBRACE HIM, AND SING
AGAIN.)
" Laudamus hunc Doctorem
Et fidum compotorem ;
Laudamus hunc Doctorem,
Io, io, io."
— William Meston, M. A.
Surgeons Must Be Very Careful
SURGEONS must be very careful
When they take the knife !
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit,— Life !
— Emily Dickinson.
*Here he was cro"wned w^ith the punch-bowl.
HIS PNEUMOGASTRIC NERVE 147
His Pneumogastric Nerve
PON an average, twice a week,
When anguish clouds my brow,
My good physician friend I seek
To know "what ails me now."
He taps me on the back and chest
And scans my tongue for bile,
And lays an ear against my breast
And listens there awhile.
Then is he ready to admit
That all he can observe
Is something wrong inside, to wit :
My pneumogastric nerve !
Now, when these Latin names within
Dyspeptic hulks like mine
Go wrong, a fellow should begin
To draw what 's called the line.
It seems, however, that this same,
Which in my hulk abounds,
Is not, despite its awful name,
So fatal as it sounds.
Yet, of all torments known to me,
I '11 say without reserve
There is no torment like to thee.
Thou pneumogastric nerve !
This subtle, envious nerve appears
To be a patient foe —
It waited nearly forty years
Its chance to lay me low;
Then like some blithering blast of hell.
It struck this guileless bard.
And in that evil hour I fell
Prodigious far and hard.
148 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Alas ! what things I dearly love —
Pies, puddings and preserves —
Are sure to rouse the vengeance of
All pneumogastric nerves !
Oh, that I could remodel man!
1 'd end these cruel pains
By hitting on a different plan
From that which now obtains.
The stomach, greatly amplified,
Anon should occupy
The all of that domain Inside
Where heart and lung now lie.
But, first of all, I should dispose
That diabolic curve
And author of my thousand woes,
The pneumogastric nerve !
— Eugene Field
The Army Surgeon
VER that breathing waste of friends and foes,
iThe wounded and the dying, hour by hour, —
'in will a thousand, yet but one in power, —
He labors through the red and groaning day.
The fearful moorland where the myriads lay
Moved as a moving field of mangled worms.
And as a raw brood, orphaned in the storms.
Thrust up their heads if the wind bend a spray
Above them, but when the bare branch performs
No sweet parental office, sink away
With hopeless chirp of woe, so as he goes
Around his feet in clamorous agony
They rise and fall ; and all the seething plain
Bubbles a cauldron vast of many-colored pain.
— Sydney Dobell.
A CURE FOR THE GOUT 149
A Cure for the Gout
NCE flourished a famed Dr. Bluff.
lA diamond 'twas said in the rough,
He spake nothing save what he meant
And cared Httle whither it went.
He groped not around in the dark
But directly he shot at the mark,
Prescriptions to cure did he give
In hopes that a patient might live,
And winced not at scruple or gall
Did his treatment the timid appal ;
He brandished his surgical knife
As though he demanded your life
Or were fresh from a clinical strife.
But, if so apparently rude.
All knew him both skilful and good,
Possessed of a sound heart and mind
With sense and with science combined.
Those ill oft applied for his care
As if he were more debonair,
Unallured by deportment or speech
Well assured the disease he could reach —
A practice they sought that could preach.
Mrs. Calamus long had employed
This healer and ne 'er felt annoyed
When his phrase had less sugar than salt —
Always ready his worth to exalt.
More sensitive far was her lord
Whom gout had tight bound with its cord,
Though kind he was troubled with spleen
That often towards Mars would careen,
Yet afterwards all was serene.
He adored his most tractable wife,
The motive and prop of his life,
150 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
While no one who caused her a pain
Had courage to cause It again.
One day when confined to his bed
Of the slightest disturbance in dread.
He sent for his friend, Dr. Bluff,
To soothe him with sanative stuff.
The Doctor made haste to obey
Such a call without any delay —
And rode even out of his way.
Some drops did the healer prescribe,
Leaving word that the patient imbibe
The same at the mid hour of night
And when morn should awaken the light:
His wife was to give him each dose.
She only allowed to come close ;
All others a terror would seize
Who approached when he writhed with disease
Sleep, alas ! did the watcher o'erpower.
While slipped unregarded the hour
When the patient his physic should take,
That torture his limbs might forsake.
The sufferer next day became worse
Through the nap unforeseen of his nurse.
The Doctor, returned to his post,
Found Calamus pale as a ghost
And shrewdly began to suspect
Why his potion was void of effect —
That 'twas caused by a woman's neglect.
When convinced his suspicions were true,
At random wild epithets flew.
His anger was uttered aloud
As though it were launched at a crowd.
And she on whose head it was heaped
In heart-rending anguish was steeped:
It came like the rattle of hail
Or like a cyclonical gale ;
Professional dignity mocked,
Reputation most sensitive shocked.
Took form in profaneness of speech
From the skilled though irascible leech.
ON A QUACK 151
While thus to his rage he gave vent
On the partner most innocent spent,
The husband uneasily lay
On his couch like a hound held at bay.
He groaned that he had not a chance
The insulter to strike with a lance ;
The physician v/ith wrath so inflamed
That his own ebullition was shamed.
Like a lion aroused by his foe
He assayed for the Doctor to go,
A unicorn's strength he received
As he sought to avenge the aggrieved.
He leaped from his bed to the floor
While the latter in fright sought the door.
But Calamus seized his coat-tail
And his biceps came down like a flail
Till at last cried " enough, hold, enough ! "
The defeated and crest-fallen Bluff.
Of Galen-traditions galore
None truer than this were of yore ;
It was said that the Doctor brought low.
To anger in time became slow.
While far spread the tidings about —
Though somewhat heroic no doubt —
He had found a new cure for the Gout.
— Edward Octavus Flacg.
On a Quack
THIS quack to Charon would his penny pay:
The grateful ferryman was heard to say —
" Return, my friend! and live for ages more.
Or I must haul my useless boat ashore."
— William Wadd.
152 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Surgery vs. Medicine
PRIORITY IN AGE AND DEVELOPMENT CLAIMED FOR THE PLAINTIFF.
Delivered at the banquet given at Delmonico's to the students
and alumni of the New York Homoeopathic Medical College,
March 8, 1887, and also at the dinner given by the English phy-
sicians to the International Congress, June, 1881, at the Crite-
rion, London.
{ ' AM a surgeon, and in making this assertion
"} ) 'Tis my apology for doing wliat I can
j7 To set aside that undeserved aspersion
■ • That says, while medicine is quite as old as man.
Holding within its vast consideration
All wisdom, learning, ethics, and decorum.
That surgery is claimed, as is a poor relation.
Being at best " the opprobrium medicorum."
'Tis certainly a subject for humility.
And one 'tis hard for doctors to endure,
That they must own their utter inability
In many cases to effect a cure ;
And then, with shrugs and sighs, their patients urge on
To give themselves their only chance for life
By calling on the poor, forgotten surgeon.
Who cuts and cures them with the dreaded knife.
But as for age, I '11 prove 'tis all a libel,
(The statement 's bold, but I could make it bolder)
For on no less authority than the Bible
I '11 prove that surgery is surely older
Than any form of med'cine whatsoever;
And having finished, will appeal to the majority.
And have the point adjusted here forever.
That •' SURGERY in ace can claim priority,"
SURGERY vs. MEDICINE 153
'Tis true the snake aroused the curiosity,
And gave to Eve the apple fair and bright ;
She ate, and with a fatal generosity
Inveigled Adam to a luscious bite.
That from that time disease and suffering came,
Doctors were called upon to cure the evil ;
The art of healing, then, with all its fame.
Was AT THE FIRST developed by the devil.
Med 'cine thus stands coeval with the sinning
Of mother Eve, fair creature, though quite huma.i,
While noble surgery had its beginning
In Paradise BEFORE there was a woman.
The facts are patent, and we all agree
'Twas Satan laid on man the direful rod ;
That DOCTORS are the Devil's progeny,
While surgeons come directly down from God!
For thus we read (although the analgesia
Of Richardson was then entirely unknown)
Adam profoundly slept with anassthesia,
And from his thorax was removed a bone,
This was the first recorded operation,
(No doctor here dare tell me that I fib ! )
And surgery, thus early in creation,
Can claim complete excision of a rib I
But this is nothing to the obligation
The world to surgery must ever own.
When woman, loveliest of the creation.
Grew and developed from that very bone.
Then lovesick swains began indicting sonnets.
And Fashion talked with Folly by the way.
Then came bulimia for becoming bonnets —
Hereditary epidemic of today.
Then, too, began those endless loves and frolics
That poets sing in soft and sweet refrains.
Doctors grew frantic o 'er infantile colics.
Announced at midnight with angelic strains.
154 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
From this the world was peopled. So Doctors own,
While you lay claim to such superiority,
That surgery in the development of bone
As well as age, can clearly claim priority.
My task is done, and with my best endeavor
I have essayed to vindicate my art ;
So list my friends, ere friendly ties we sever,
While waning moments bring the hour to part,
Whatever land, whatever clime may hold you.
Some time give honor to the bright scalpel.
And when you recollect what I have told you,
Remember me — 'tis all I ask. Farewell.
— Dr. William Tod Helmuth.
Kindness First Known in a Hospital
THE place seemed new and strange as death.
The white strait bed, with others strait and white,
Like graves dug side by side at measured lengths,
And quiet people walking in and out
With wonderful low voices and soft steps.
And apparitional equal care for each.
Astonished her with order, silence, law :
And when a gentle hand held out a cup.
She took it as you do at sacrament.
Half awed, half melted, — not being used, indeed,
To so much love as makes the form of love
And courtesy of manners. Delicate drinks
And rare white bread, to which some dying eyes
Were turned in observation. my God,
How sick we must be ere we make men just !
I think it frets the saints in heaven to see
How many desolate creatures on the earth
Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship
And social comfort, in a hospital.
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
IN THE HOSPITAL 155
In the Hospital
RIMED with misery, want, and sin,
From a drunken brawl they brought him in,
'While tearless-eyed around his bed,
They whispered coldly : He is dead.
And looked askance as they went past,
And said: Best so. He has sinned his last.
But the Doctor came and declared : Not so.
A fragment of life yet lies aglow.
And day and night beside the bed.
He bent his skilful, earnest head;
By night, by day, with toil, with pain.
Coaxed back the worthless life again ;
Coaxed back the life so nearly told.
And the man returned to his ways of old, —
Returned unchanged to his old, sad ways.
And sinned and sinned to the end of his days.
And the Doctor wrote in his private book :
Sin, Sorrow, Wrong, where'er I look.
I have saved a hideous life. And why?
That a man curse God again, and die.
II.
The mother smiled through her wretchedness.
For the new-born babe lay motionless.
156 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And the nurses looked at her ringless hand.
Best dead, they said. We understand.
But the Doctor came and declared : Not so.
A fragment of life yet lies aglow.
And wrestling close and long with Death,
He brought again the faltering breath,
And gave the poor unwelcome life
Back to the mother who was not wife.
And she took it with loathing and bore off in shame
The babe for whom Earth had no place when it came.
And the Doctor wrote in his private book :
Sin, Sorrow, Wrong, where'er I look.
I have saved a needless life. And why ?
That a babe risk Heaven ere it die.
III.
With pitying hands and gentle feet.
They bore in a child struck down on the street.
Mangled and bruised in every limb.
With brow snow-cold and blue eyes dim.
And they kissed the silk hair on his golden head.
And sobbed : Thank God, the sweet child is dead.
But the Doctor came and declared : Not so.
A fragment of life yet lies aglow.
And day and night, beside the bed,
He bent his skilful, earnest head.
With patience, care, and tireless pain.
Won back the broken life again ;
Won it back from the brink of Death's calm river,
To struggle, and sicken, and suffer forever;
IN THE HOSPITAL 157
Won it back from the merciful shores of the dead.
To lie through slow years on a terrible bed.
And the Doctor wrote in his private book :
Sin, Sorrow, Wrong, where'er I look.
I have saved a sorrowful life. And why?
That a child taste of Hell ere men let him die.
And the Doctor closed his book, and said :
Three live by me who best were dead.
BEYOND THE HOSPITAL
The Doctor's work was done. He lay
Upon his death-bed, old and gray,
With the look on his face as of one who has wept,
And has labored and watched while his fellows have slept.
And he folded his hands on his weary breast,
And murmured: Come, Death. 1 am ready for rest.
God judge of me lightly. 1 did what I could,
And yet have wrought evil in striving for good.
And swiftly, lo, all space was riven
To where the Angels stood in Heaven.
And he heard one say: A wise man dies.
Is it time I went down and closed his eyes?
Not yet, they said. 'Tis in his book :
Sin, Sorrow, Wrong, where 'er I look.
Is he ready for Heaven who needs to learn first,
God's hand brings a blessing e 'en out of life's worst ?
Not yet, said they. This wise man said :
Three live by me who best were dead.
Is he ready for death, knowing not what life meant,
That no being lives but to some good Intent ?
158 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And the Angels stood beside his bed.
Unlearn Earth's falsehoods, friend, they said.
And the Doctor uplifted his questioning gaze.
And saw through the world and its innermost ways,
Where groveled a mortal, close wrapped in his sin,
Degraded without and degraded within.
God forgive ! groaned the Doctor. I am the cause
Yon creature yet liveth to transgress Thy laws.
Speak soft, said the Angels. How mayest thou tell
What moment of sinning condemns him to Hell?
Or how knowest thou but some late day of grace
May find, e 'en for him, in high Heaven a place?
Leave God to adjudge him. Thou seest in part ;
Thou look 'st at the life ; God looks at the heart.
Oh pity him, help him ! but dare not to say
It were better to shorten his life by a day ;
For as red flags of danger warn off from the road,
So yon erring soul hath led many to God.
The Doctor smiled softly : I understand.
God holds, e'en for sinners, some work in His hand.
And he turned his wondering eyes away
To where a craddled infant lay,
While the mother hung o 'er it with love and with shame,
For she gave it a life, but could give it no name.
God forgive ! cried the Doctor. The babe but for me,
Had been spared all knowledge of Earth's infamy.
Speak soft, said the Angels. That babe is the link
To draw her soul back from destruction's brink.
IN THE HOSPITAL 159
There is nobler work given those puny hands.
Than falls to the lot of the Angel bands.
Oh pity it, shield it ! but dare not to say
It were better to shorten its life by a day:
For sweeter is Rest, won through danger and toil :
And purer is Purity treasured through soil.
The Doctor smiled softly: The longer our strife,
The nobler is winning the heavenly life.
And he turned his tear-dim eyes away
To where a child complaining lay.
Struggling and spent with incurable pain.
While Death stood aloof, and science was vain.
God forgive ! moaned the Doctor. The child, but for me.
Had never awakened to life's cruelty.
Speak soft, said the Angels. How mayest thou know
What beautiful growth comes to Earth of his woe ?
Oh pity him, love him ! but dare not to say
It were better to shorten his life by a day !
For like flowers that spring but on sunless knolls,
Some graces bloom only in tortured souls.
And a hundred hearts, all for the sake of that one,
Are learning the beauty of duties done ;
Are learning unselfishness, thoughtfulness, care,
By the side of that pain which they may not share.
And the sufferer — Heaven deserteth such not ;
God's arm is around him ; envy his lot.
Amen ! said the Doctor. God stoops to the weak.
'Tis they who are strongest have farthest to seek.
160 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Oh, blessed all lives, since for each God hath user
Despite of sin, sorrow, and wrong, and abuse !
1 thank Thee, I thank Thee, O God, that those three
Whose lives I deplored are yet living by me.
Then low spoke the Angels : Now tell It in Heaven
A glad soul the more to our fair Realm is given.
And the sunlight fell soft as God's kiss on his head,
And men stooped o'er him weeping, and said : He is
dead.
But his lips wore a smile of supremest content
And of infinite calm. For he knew what Life meant.
— Grace Denio Litchfield.
A Young Doctor's Apology for the Smoothness
of His Face
WHAT 1 praise my rosy cheeks and youthful face ?
Alas 1 such features would my rank disgrace.
Such beauties suit fair ladies of eighteen.
And not a doctor's philosophic mien.
The beetle brow, the wrinkle deep and wide,
A pompous look by studious thoughts supplied.
Are a sage doctor's charms. No more upbraid
My miss-like visage. Lately I surveyed
In yonder stream my phiz, and found it rough
With wrinkles, and for a doctor's grave enough.
Besides, revolving years will soon destroy
Whate 'er remains that marks me for a boy :
Yet still I hope they will not snatch one part
Of the fair image of an honest heart.
— Johannes Santouus.
THE SKELETON 161
The Skeleton
OOD-EVENING. Sexton I Don't lose your
breath !
[You are not shaking the hand of Death !
'For I 'm a skeleton, you must know ;
I just came out of the grave below.
For years I 've noticed your careless tread,
And harmless whistling above the dead.
Though I 'm a stranger, I know you well.
And grieve that longer I cannot dwell
Whithin old Trinity's churchyard block.
While those Italians are blasting rock !
Oh, I 'm a skeleton, you must know I
I 've left my tenement down below !
I'm forced to move to an uptown flat ;
The rooms are smaller, but what of that >
Yes, I 'm a relic of long ago !
I 've slept a century down below !
My name is gone from the crumbling stone ;
There 's nothing left of myself but bone.
A Knickerbocker I am of old !
The grave's " Four Hundred," when all is told.
Within old Trinity's churchyard lie —
And so exclusive 1 But here 's good-by !
For things are coming to such a pass
The dead can 't sleep for the smell of gas.
Oh, I 'm a skeleton, etc., etc.
I left this land to my next of kin.
All save the spot I was buried in.
They wet my bones with their useless tears,
But bones and memories fade with years ;
&-11
162 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Then came the lawyer to break the will ;
The land went after to pay the bill.
Now strangers come with their ceaseless tread
And grudge the space of my folding-bed ;
They crowd me so in the narrow tomb,
I '11 have to look for another room.
Oh, I 'm a skeleton, etc., etc.
Farewell, old Sexton, for we must part !
I 'd heave a sigh, but I have no heart ;
'Twas at post-mortem when some old quack
Took heart and lungs which he brought not back.
He took whatever he found inside,
As proof conclusive the corpse had died.
, He robbed the dead with a grewsome theft ;
The microbes dining on what was left.
The dead breathe not as the living do :
The ribs are open, the air blows through.
Oh, I 'm a skeleton, etc., etc.
From lack of food I have grown so thin
I 've hardly features enough to grin.
Your tenant longer I may not be
Since death and progress cannot agree ;
For who can tell what the sound forebodes
To one entombed, when the gas explodes?
I might have slept till the final fire,
But touched my foot on a subway wire,
Which gave my rickety nerves a shock.
So up I jumps and 1 dons my frock.
Oh, I 'm a skeleton, etc., etc.
Life is uncertain, but death is sure ;
And one dies rich but to wake up poor !
However big the estate one owns,
Some stranger scatters his worthless bones !
'Tis just as well, for the moldy grave
Gives little rest near the rattling pave ;
And very few are the nights we pass
Without a whiff of the sewer gas :
SYNONYMES 163
For though I am dead, you must not suppose
I lost my smell when I lost my nose.
Oh, I'm a skeleton, etc.. etc.
We lonely skeletons used to laugh
To hear the click of the telegraph ;
But now we tremble in every bone
When folks " Hello ! " on the telepnone f
Though steam heat lessen the graveyard chill
The Knickerbocker cannot lie still
Though modern faith would the thought dispel,
He still believes in the old-time hell.
And has good reason to fear the worst
Has come to him when the steam pipes burst I
Oh, I'm a skeleto.n. 2*c., ttc.
— Fred Emerson Brooks.
Synonymes.
WHEN Caroline Ingalls
Was ill of the shingles.
Her neighbor came over the way;
" I'm not for a visit.
But Biddy what is it
that ails Mrs. Ingalls, I pray?"
As Biddy looked at her.
The NAME of the matter
Went off on a hide-and-seek play.
But the SUBSTANCE took shaping.
While at the roof gaping :
" Faith, Ma'am, 'tis the clapboards, they say !"
— CiiAki-c»TTE FisKE Bates.
104 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
The Drug Clerk
^ WEARY of a life like this,
-7 ) Repose I 'm sadly needing,
^ But chances of ulterior bliss
Are rapidly receding.
How can I 'mid poetic sweets
Divinely bask and frolic,
When some one while I 'm reading Keats,
Comes in and yells with colic?
And how when dreaming of soft rills
And moonbeams sympathetic,
Can I prepare a pint of squills,
Or some fierce, brown emetic?
To scan the laureate's noble book,
1 have no time nor leisure.
And should I try to read " The Brook."
I 'm called on for magnesia 1
And when grand Milton most exalts
My mind and mood and manner,
Ten orders come for Epsom salts
And ipecacuana I
1 cannot find, I grieve to say,
A single moment handy.
And I believe the town today
Drinks far more drugs than brandy !
The mass of quinine people buy.
Is something most terrific.
For castor oil the children cry.
The whole town is morbific !
GRANNY'S "YARBS" 165
And then, besides, a dire mistalce
Was mine today, while dreanndig,
The cough-stuff that I had to make,
I fear with strychnine 's teeming!
And so I have resolved tonight,
No more to be a moaner,
But read my Byron out of sight.
Somewhere in Arizona.
— Francis Saltus Saltus.
Granny's "Yarbs"
SHE dosed the boy with calomel,
Then gave him catnip tea ;
And yet he didn 't feel quite well-
He had the grip, you see.
She gave him tansy, boneset, squills
Rubbed tallow on his chest,
Anc fed him lots of blue-mass pills,
Which quickly did the rest.
By this time John could not get up.
And, as he lay in bed,
She drenched him from a quassia cup
Till he was nearly dead.
And when at last the doctor came
And fetched poor Johnny 'round,
Folks said: " 'Twas Granny, all the same,
Kept him above the ground."
— John Langdon Heaton.
166 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
The Doctor in Love
EWITCHING, beauteous, cruel Jane McSparrowl
My bosom's lord no longer its own lord is ;
Inspired by thee, Dan Cupid's fatal arrow
Has pierced my apex cordis.
No knock 1 heed, nor answer any call ;
No action have in ilium or duodenum ;
Spleen, pancreas, colon, stomach, liver, all
Have something very odd in 'em.
My outward size is fitted to deceive ;
By stays and padding 1 'm a hollow sham ;
My Inward sighs with painful labor heave
My wasted diaphragm.
My brachials are gone, my deltoid dwindles ;
This pectoralis major 's all unreal ;
These shanks, so shapely once, are now but spindles,
From lack of popliteal.
Masseters aiKl molars have no further use ;
For weeks a score I 've fed on thinest gruel ;
Gone are the functions of the gastric juice.
For want of gastric fuel.
Of best prescriptions I have taken twenty ;
Spts. vin. gal, — (I hardly dare exhibit 'em);
Decoct. Hord. Oct. I, ter in die ; Spiritus frumentie
Cape ab libitum,
But all in vain : a subject, a cadaver,
I hasten toward that tenement so narrow ;
Foredoomed I am, since fated not to have her —
Sweet, cruel, Jane McSparrow.
—-Dr. Andrew McFarlanh.
THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH 167
The Art of Preserving Health
DIET
' ~~^ NOUGH of air. A desert subject now,
r Rougher and wilder, rises to my sight.
A barren waste, where not a garland grows
■ -«To bind the Muse's brow ; not even a proud
Stupendous solitude frowns o 'er the heath,
To rouse a noble horror in the soul :
But rugged paths fatigue, and error leads
Through endles labyrinths the devious feet.
Farewell, etherial fields ! the humbler arts
Of life ; the table and the homely gods
Demand my song. Elysian gales, adieu I
The blood, the fountain whence the spirits flow,
The generous stream that waters every part,
And motion, vigor, and warm life conveys
To every particle that moves or lives ;
This vital fluid, through unnumbered tubes
Poured by the heart, and to the heart again
Refunded ; scourged forever round and round ;
Enraged with heat and toil, at last forgets
Its balmy nature ; virulent and thin
It grows : and now, but that a thousand gates
Are open to its flight, it would destroy
The parts it cherished and repaired before.
Besides, the flexible and tender tubes
Melt in the mildest, most nectareous tide
That ripening nature rolls ; as In the stream
Its crumbling banks ; but what the vital force
Of plastic fluids hourly batters down,
That very force those plastic particles
Rebuild : so mutable the state of man.
For this the watchful appetite was given,
168 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Daily with fresh materials to repair
This unavoidable expense of life,
This necessary waste of flesh and blood.
Hence the concoctive powers, with various art,
Subdue the cruder aliments to chyle ;
The chyle to blood : the foamy purple tide
To liquors, which through finer arteries
To different parts their winding course pursue ;
To try new changes, and new forms put on,
Or for the public, or some private use.
Nothing so foreign but the athletic hind
Can labor into blood. The hungry meal
Alone he fears, or aliments too thin ;
By violent powers too easily subdued,
Too soon expelled. His daily labor thaws
To friendly chyle the most rebellious mass
That salt can harden, or the smoke of years ;
Nor does his gorge the lucious bacon rue,
Nor that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste
Of solid milk. But ye of softer clay,
Infirm and delicate ! and ye who waste
With pale and bloated sloth the tedious day !
Avoid the stubborn aliment, avoid
The full repast ; and let sagacious age
Grow wiser, lessoned by the dropping teeth.
Half subtilized to chyle, the liquid food
Readiest obeys the assimilating powers
And soon the tender vegetable mass
Relents ; and soon the young of those that tread
The steadfast earth, or cleave the green abyss,
Or pathless sky. And if the steer must fall.
In youth and sanguine vigor let him die ;
Nor stay till rigid age or heavy ails
Absolve him ill requited from the yoke.
Some with high forage and luxuriant ease
Indulge the veteran ox ; but wiser thou,
From the bald mountain or the barren downs,
Expect the flocks by frugal nature fed ;
A race of purer blood, with exercise
Refined and scanty fare : for, old or young.
THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH 169
The stalled are never healthy ; nor the crammed.
Not all the culinary arts can tame,
To wholesome food, the abominable growth
Of rest and gluttony ; the prudent taste
Rejects, like bane, such loathsome lusciousness.
The languid stomach curses even the pure
Delicious fat, and all the race of oil :
For more the oily aliments relax
lis feeble tone ; and with the eager lymph
(Fond to incorporate with all it meets)
Coyly they mix, and shun with slippery wiles
The wooed embrace. The irresoluble oil,
So gentle late and blandishing, in floods
Of rancid bile o 'erflows : what tumults hence.
What horrors rise, were nauseous to relate.
Choose leaner viands, ye whose jovial make
Too fast the gummy nutriment imbibes :
Choose sober meals ; and rouse to active life
Your cumbrous clay ; nor on the enfeebling down,
Irresolute, protract the morning hours.
But let the man whose bones are thinly clad,
With cheerful ease and succulent repast
Improve his habit if he can ; for each
Extreme departs from perfect sanity.
I could relate what table this demands
Or that complexion ; what the various powers
Of various foods, but fifty years would roll.
And fifty more before the tale were done.
Besides there often lurks some nameless, strange.
Peculiar thing ; nor on the skin displayed,
Felt in the pulse, nor in the habit seen ;
Which finds a poison in the food that most
The temperature effects. There are, whose blood
Impetuous rages through the turgid veins.
Who better bear the fiery fruits of Ind
Than the moist melon, or pale cucumber.
Of chilly nature others fly the board
Supplied with slaughter, and the vernal powers.
For cooler, kinder sustenance, implore.
Some e 'en the generous nutriment detest
170 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Which, In the shell, the sleeping embryo rears.
Some, more unhappy still, repent the gifts
Of Pales ; soft, delicious, and benign :
The balmy quintessence of every flower,
And every grateful herb that decks the spring :
The fostering dew of tender sprouting life ;
The best refection of declining age ;
The kind restorative of those who lie
Half dead and panting, from the doubtful strife
Of nature struggling In the grasp of death.
Try all the bounties of this fertile globe.
There is not such a salutary food
As suits with every stomach. But (except.
Amid the mingled mass of fish and fowl,
And boiled and baked, you hesitate by which
You sunk oppressed, or whether not by all)
Taught by experience soon you may discern
What pleases, what offends. Avoid the cates
That lull the sickened appetite too long ;
Or heave with feverish flushings all the face,
Burn in the palms, and parch the roughening tongue ;
Or much diminish or too much increase
The expense which Nature's wise economy.
Without or waste or avarice, maintains.
Such cates adjured, let prowling hunger loose.
And bid the curious palate roam at will ;
They scarce can err amid the various stores
That burst the teeming entrails of the world.
Led by sagacious taste, the ruthless king
Of beasts on blood and slaughter only lives ;
The tiger, formed alike to cruel meals.
Would at the manger starve : of milder seeds
The generous horse to herbage and to grain
Confines his wish ; though fabling Greece resound
The Thracian steeds, with human carnage wild.
Prompted by instinct's never erring power,
Each creature knows its proper aliment ;
But man, the Inhabitant of every clime.
With all the commoners of nature feeds.
Directed, bounded by this power within,
THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH 171
Their cravings are weH aimed : voluptuous man
Is by superior faculties misled ;
Misled from pleasure e 'en in quest of joy.
Sated with nature's boons, what thousands seek,
With dishes tortured from their native taste ; .
And mad variety, to spur beyond
Its wiser will the jaded appetite 1
Is this for pleasure ? Learn a juster taste ;
And know that temperance is true luxury.
Or is it pride ? Pursue some nobler aim ;
Dismiss your parasites, who praise for hire ;
And earn the fair esteem of honest men,
Whose praise is fame. Formed of such clay as yours,
The sick, the needy, shiver at your gates ;
E'en modest want may bless your hand unseen,
Though hushed in patient wretchedness at home. .
Is there no virgin, graced with every charm
But that which binds the mercenary vow ?
No youth of genius, whose neglected bloom
Unfostered sickens in the barren shade ?
No worthy man, by fortune's random blows,
Or by a heart too generous and humane.
Constrained to leave his happy natal seat,
And sigh for wants more bitter than his own ?
There are, while human miseries abound,
A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth
Without one fool or flatterer at your board,
Without one hour of sickness or disgust.
But other ills the ambiguous feast pursue.
Besides provoking the lascivious taste.
Such various foods, though harmless each alone,
Each other violate ; and oft we see
What strife is brewed, and what pernicious bane.
From combinations of innoxious things.
The unbounded taste I mean not to confine
To hermit's diet needlessly severe.
But would you long the sweets of health enjoy,
Or husband pleasure ; at one impious meal
Exhaust not half the bounties of the year,
Of every realm. It matters not meanwhile
172 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
How much tomorrow differ from today ;
So far indulge : 'tis fit, besides, that man,
To change obnoxious, be to change inured.
But stay the curious appetite, ana taste
With caution fruits you never tried before.
For want of use the kindest aliment
Sometimes offends ; while custom tamed the rage
Of poison to mild amity with life.
So Heaven has formed us to the general taste
Of all its gifts ; so custom has improved
This bent of nature; that few simple foods,
Of all that earth or air or ocean yield,
But by excess offend. Beyond the sense
Of light refection, at the genial board
Indulge not often ; nor protract the feast
To dull satiety ; till soft and slow
A drowsy death creeps on, the expansive soui
Oppressed, and smothered the celestial fire.
The stomach, urged beyond its active tone,
Hardly to nutrimental chyle subdues
The softest food : unfinished and depraved.
The chyle, in all its future wanderings, owns
Its turbid fountain ; not by purer streams
So to be cleared, but foulness will remain.
To sparkling wine what ferment can exalt
The unripened grape ? Or what mechanic skill
From the crude ore can spin the ductile gold ?
Gross riot treasures up a wealthy fund
Of plagues: but more immedicable ills
Attend the lean extreme. For physic knows
How to disburden the too tumid veins,
E 'en how to ripen the half-labored blood ;
But to unlock the elemental tubes.
Collapsed and shrunk with long inanity.
And with balsamic nutriment repair
The dried and worn-out habit, were to bid
Old age grow green, and wear a second spring:
Or the tall ash, long ravished from the soil,
Through withered veins imbibe the vernal dew.
When hunger calls, obey ; nor often wait
THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH 173
Till hunger sharpen to corrosive pain :
For the keen appetite will feast beyond
What nature well can bear ; and one extreme
Ne 'er without danger meets its own reverse.
Too greedily the exhausted veins absorb
The recent chyle, and load enfeebled powers
Oft to the extinction of the vital flame.
To the pale cities, by the firm-set siege
And fam.ine humbled, may this verse be borne
And hear, ye hardiest sons that Albion breeds,
Long tossed and famished on the wintry main:
The war shook off, or hospitable shore
Attained, with temperance bear the shock of joy;
Nor crown with festive rites the auspicious day ;
Such feast might prove more fatal than the waves,
Than war or famine. While the vital fire
Burns feebly, heap not the green fuel on ;
But prudently foment the wandering spark
With what the soonest feeds its kindred touch :
Be frugal e 'en of that : a little give
At first ; that kindled, add a little more ;
Till, by deliberate nourishing, the flame,
Revived, with all its wonted vigor glows.
But though the two (the full and.the jejune)
Extremes have each their vice ; it mUch avails
Ever with gentle tide to ebb and flow
From this to that : so nature learns to bear
Whatever chance or headlong appetite
May bring. Besides a meager day subdues
The cruder clods by sloth or luxury
Collected, and unloads the wheels of life.
Sometimes a coy aversion to the feast
Comes on, while yet no blacker omen lours :
Then is a time to shun the tempting board.
Were it your natal or your nuptial day.
Perhaps a fast so seasonable starves
The latent seeds of woe, which rooted once
Might cost you labor. But the day returned
Of festal luxury, the wise indulge
Most in the tender vegetable breed :
174 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Then chiefly when the summer beams inflame
The brazen heavens ; or angry Sirius sheds
A feverish taint through the still gulf of air,
The moist cold viands then, and flowing cup
From the fresh dairy-virgin's liberal hand,
Will save your head from harm, though round the
world
The dreaded Causes roll his wasteful fires.
Pale humid Winter loves the generous board.
The meal more copious, and a warmer fare ;
And longs with old wood and old wine to cheer
His quaking heart. The seasons which divide
The empire of heat and cold ; by neither claimed,
Influenced by both ; a middle regimen
Impose. Through autumn's languishing domain
Descending, nature by degrees invites
To glowing luxury. But from the depth
Of winter when the invigorated year
Emerges ; when Favonius, flushed with love,
Toyful and young, in every breeze descends
More warm and wanton on his kindling bride ;
Then, shepherds, then begin to spare your flocks ; -
And learn, with wise humanity, to check
The lust of blood. Now pregnant earth commits
A various offspring to the indulgent sky :
Now bounteous Nature feeds with lavish hand
The prone creation : yields what once sufficed
Their dainty sovereign, when the world was young :
Ere yet the barbarous thirst of blood had seized
The human breast. — Each rolling month matures
The food that suits it most ; so does each clime.
Far in the horrid realms of Winter, where
The established ocean heaps a monstrous waste
Of shining rocks and mountains to the pole,
There lives a hardy race, whose plainest wants
Relentless Earth, their cruel stepmother.
Regards not. On the waste of iron fields
Untamed, intractable, no harvests wave;
Pomona hates them, and the clownish god
Who tends the garden. In this frozen world
THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH 175
Such cooling gifts were vain : a fitter meal
Is earned with ease ; for here the fruitful spawn
Of Ocean swarms, and heaps their genial board
With generous fare and luxury profuse.
These are their bread, the only bread they know;
These, and their willing slave, the deer, that crops
The shrubby herbage on their meager hills.
Girt by the burning Zone, not thus the South
Her swarthy sons in either Ind maintains;
Or thirsty Libya ; from whose fervid loins
The lion bursts, and every fiend that roams
The affrighted wilderness. The mountain herd,
Adust and dry, no sweet repast affords :
Nor does the tepid main such kinds produce.
So perfect, so delicious as the shoals
Of icy Zembla. Rashly where the blood
Brews feverish frays ; where scarce the tubes sustain
Its tumid fervor and tempestuous course ;
Kind Nature tempts not to such gifts as these.
But here in livid ripeness melts the grape ;
Here, finished by invigorating suns,
Through the green shade the golden orange glows ;
Spontaneous here the turgid melon yields
A generous pulp ; the cocoa swells on high
With milky riches; and in horrid mail
The crisp ananas wraps its poignant sweets,
Earth's vaunted progeny : in ruder air
Too coy to flourish, e 'en too proud to live ;
Or hardly raised by artificial fire
To vapid life. Here with a mother's smile
Glad Amalthea pours her copious horn.
Here buxom Ceres reigns : the autumnal sea
In boundless billows fluctuates o 'er their plains.
What suits the climate best, what suits the men,
Nature profuses most, and most the taste
Demands. The fountain, edged with racy wine
Or acid fruit, bedews their thirsty souls.
The breeze, eternal breathing round their limbs.
Supports in else intolerable air :
While the cool palm, the plantain, and the grove
176 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
That waves on gloomy Lebanon, assuage
The torrid hell that beams upon their heads.
Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead ;
Now let me wander through your gelid reign.
I burn to view the enthusiastic wilds
By mortal else untrod. I hear the din
Of waters thundering o 'er the ruined cliffs.
With holy reverence I approach the rocks
Whence glide the streams renowned in ancient song.
Here from the desert down the rumbling steep
First springs the Nile, here bursts the sounding Po
In angry waves ; Euphrates hence devolves
A mighty flood to water half the east ;
And there, in gothic solitude reclined,
The cheerless Tanais pours his hoary urn.
What solemn twilight 1 What stupendous shades
Inwrap these infant floods ! Through every nerve
A sacred horror thrills, a pleasing fear
Glides 'er my frame. The forest deepens round ;
And more gigantic still, the impending trees
Stretch their extravagant arms athwart the gloom.
Are these the confines of some fairy world ?
A land of genii ? Say, beyond these wilds
What unknown nations ? If indeed beyond
Aught habitable lies. And whither leads.
To what strange regions, or of bliss or pain,
That subterraneous way? Propitious maids.
Conduct me, while with fearful steps 1 tread
This trembling ground. The task remains to sing
Your gifts (so Pasan, so the powers of health
Command) , to praise your crystal element :
The chief ingredient in Heaven's various works ;
Whose flexile genius sparkles in the gem.
Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine ;
The vehicle, the source, of nutriment
And life, to all that vegetate or live.
comfortable streams 1 with eager lips
And trembling hand the languid thirsty quaff
New life in you ; fresh vigor fills their veins.
No warmer cups the rural ages knew ;
THE ART OP PRESERVING HEALTH IT?
None warmer sought the sires of humankind.
Happy in temperate peace ! their equal days
Felt not the alternate fits of feverish mirth
And sick dejection. Still serene and pleased
They knew no pains but what the tender soul
With pleasure yields to, and would ne 'er forget.
Blessed with divine immunity from ails,
Long centuries they lived ; their only fate
Was ripe old age, and rather sleep than death.
Oh! could those worthies, from the world of gods,
Return to visit their degenerate sons,
How would they scorn the joys of modern time,
With all our art and toil, improved to pain !
Too happy they ! but wealth brought luxury,
And luxury on sloth begot disease.
Learn temperance, friends; and hear without dis-
dain
The choice of water. Thus the Coan sage
Opined, and thus the learned of every school.
What least of foreign principles partakes
Is best : the lightest then ; what bears the touch
Of fire the least, and soonest mounts in air ;
The most insipid; the most void of smell.
Such the rude mountain from his horrid sides
Pours down ; such waters in the sandy vale
For ever boil, alike of winter frosts
And summer's heat secure. The crystal stream.
Through rocks resounding, or for many a mile
O 'er the chafed pebbles hurled, yields wholesome,
pure.
And mellow draughts ; except when winter thaws.
And half the mountains melt into the tide.
Though thirst were e 'er so resolute, avoid
The sordid lake, and all such drowsy floods
As fill from Lethe Belgia's slow canals
(With rest corrupt, with vegetation green ;
Squalid with generation, and the birth
Of little monsters); till the power of fire
Has from profane embraces disengaged
The violated lymph. The virgin stream,
5—12
178 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
In boiling, wastes its finer soul in air.
Nothing like simple element dilutes
The food, or gives the chyle so soon to flow :
But where the stomach, indolent and cold,
Toys with its duty, animate with wine
The insipid stream : though golden Ceres yields
A more voluptuous, a more sprightly draught ;
Perhaps more active. Wine unmixed, and all
The gluey floods that from the vexed abyss
Of fermentation spring; with spirit fraught,
And furous with intoxicating fire,
Retard concoction, and preserve unthawed
The embodied mass. You see what countless years,
Embalmed in fiery quintessence of wine,
The puny wonders of the reptile world.
The tender rudiments of life, the slim
Unravelings of minute anatomy,
Maintain their texture, and unchanged remain.
We curse not wine : the vile excess we blame ;
More fruitful than the accumulated board
Of pain and misery. For the subtle draught
Faster and surer swells the vital tide ;
And with more active poison, than the floods
Of grosser crudity convey, pervades
The far remote meanders of our frame.
Ah I sly deceiver ! branded o 'er and o 'er,
Yet still believed 1 exulting o 'er the wreck
Of sober vows ! — But the Parnassian maids
Another time, perhaps, shall sing the joys.
The fatal charms, the many woes of wine ;
Perhaps its various tribes, and various powers.
Meantime, I would not always dread the bowl.
Nor every trespass shun. The feverish strife ,
Roused by the rare debauch, subdues, expels
The loitering crudities that burden life ;
And, like a torrent full and rapid, clears
The obstructed tubes. Besides, this restless world
Is full of chances, which, by habit's power.
To learn to bear is easier than to shun.
Ah ! when ambition, meager love of gold.
THE ART OP PRESERVING HEALTH 179
Or sacred country calls, with mellowing wine
To moisten well the thirsty suffrages ;
Say how, unseasoned to the midnight frays
Of Comus and his rout, wilt thou contend
With Centaurs long to hardy deeds inured ?
Then learn to revel ; but by slow degrees :
By slow degrees the liberal arts are won ;
And Hercules grew strong. But when you smooth
The brows of care, indulge your festive vein
In cups by well-informed experience found
The least your bane : and only with your friends,
There are sweet follies ; frailties to be seen
By friends alone, and men of generous minds.
Oh ! seldom may the fated hour return
Of drinking deep ! 1 would not daily taste,
Except when life declines, e 'en sober cups.
Weak withering age no rigid law forbids,
With frugal nectar, smooth and slow with balm.
The sapless habit daily to bedew,
And give the hesitating wheels of life
Gliblier to play. But youth has better joys :
And is it wise, when youth with pleasure flows.
To squander the reliefs of age and pain ?
What dexterous thousands just within the goal
Of wild debauch direct their nightly course !
Perhaps no sickly qualms bedim their days,
No morning admonitions shock the head.
But, ah I what woes remain! life rolls apace,
And that incurable disease, old age.
In youthful bodies more severely felt.
More sternly active, shakes their blasted prime :
Except kind Nature by some hasty blow
Prevent the lingering fates. For know, whate 'er
Beyond its natural fervor hurries on
The sanguine tide ; whether the frequent bowl.
High seasoned fare, or exercise to toil
Protracted ; spurs to its last stage tired life.
And sows the temples with untimely snow.
When life is new, the ductile fibres feel
The heart's increasing force ; and, day by day.
180 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
The growth advances : till the larger tubes.
Acquiring (from their elemental veins,
Condensed to solid chords) a firmer tone,
Sustain, and just sustain the impetuous blood.
Here stops the growth. With overbearing pulse
And pressure, still the great destroy the small ;
Still with the ruins of the small grow strong.
Life glows meantime, amid the grinding force
Of viscous fluids and elastic tubes ;
Its various functions vigorously are plied
By strong machinery ; and in solid health
The man confirmed long triumphs o 'er disease.
But the full ocean ebbs : there is a point,
By nature fixed, whence life must downward tend.
For still the beating tide consolidates
The stubborn vessels, more reluctant still
To the weak throbs of the ill supported heart.
This languishing, these strengthening by degrees
To hard, unyielding, unelastic bone,
Through tedious channels the congealing flood
Crawls lazily, and hardly wanders on ;
It loiters still: and now it stirs no more. ^
This Is the period few attain ; the death
Of nature ; thus (so Heaven ordained it) life
Destroys Itself ; and could these laws have changed,
Nestor might now the fates of Troy relate ;
And Homer live immortal as his song.
What does not fade ? The tower that long had
stood
The crush of thunder and the warring winds,
Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o 'er its base.
The flinty pyramids, and walls of brass,
Descend : the Babylonian spires are sunk ;
Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires rush by their own weight.
This huge rotundity we tread grows old ;
And all those worlds that roll around the sun.
The sun himself, shall die ; and ancient Night
PEACE BORN OF PAIN 181
Again involve the desolate abyss :
Till the great Father through the lifeless gloom
Extend his arm to light another world,
And bid nev/ planets roll by other laws.
For through the regions of unbounded space,
Where unconfined Omnipotence has room,
Being, in various systems, fluctuates still
Between creation and abhorred decay :
It ever did; perhaps, and ever will.
New worlds are still emerging from the deep ;
The old descending, in their turns to rise.
— Dr. John Armstrong.
1
\
Peace Born of Pain
^ ' N probing Life, wise Doctors look
On it, as men must look on Life
Who, in its very breath
Read Death ;
Life is but gashed to find that strife
Provokes too savage throes ;
Pain's woes
May vien
To stain
The flesh,
As fresh
As winter's moon- white, hurried snows.
In probing Life, wise Doctors gaze
On it, as men must gaze on Life
Who, in its very breath
Read Death ;
They probe to heal, but in amaze
See how it is God alters strife
182 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
To peace which, roseate, glows ;
This flows
But sweet
And. fleet,
Must kiss
New bliss
Into Life, the bliss of soul-repose.
— Caroline Edwards Prentiss.
Ode to Dyspepsia
CCURSED Hag! Hell-conceived, fury-born,
Twin sister of the fiend Despair, avaunt !
Hence with thy harpy talons, which have torn
Too long my vitals 1 Down to thy damned haunt
Of caverned horror and heart-eating woe !
Leave me, and plunge below
To that black pit, with all thy ghoulish crew
Of loathsome-visaged shapes ;
Nightmares that come with pallid features blue
To rack me with soul-shattering escapes
From grisly phantoms. Vampires, flapping wings
Obscene about my bed ;
Dread, formless, and abominable Things
That rise from gory pools, till o 'er my head
The shuddering night is full of firey eyes
And threatening fingers pointing scorn ! Ye dead.
Haunt me not thus I Come not in fearful guise
Gibbering from bloody shrouds, or, long-engraved,
Rising to fear me with the abhorred sight—
What coffin-planks have saved
From the worm's banquet. 'Twill not bear the light.
That mass of swollen corruption — green decay
Makes hideous every member 1 Get thee hence.
Foul incubus 1 Take thy loathed weight away
THE CONSULTATION 183
From off my breast ! O sickening horror — ! Whence
Comes any help? I wake, and it is day!
Thank heaven that night is done ! But with the morn
Come fiendish voices whispering suicide —
Madness — damnation ; with malignant scorn
My anguish they deride.
II.
Joy, for my chains are breaking! Get thee gone,
Fell sorceress ! Hellward roll thy scorpion train,
Too long its hateful coils have round me lain ;
But now thy reign is done.
Day breaks in gladness, and night comes to steep
Mine eyelids in her drowsiest honey-dew.
And folded by the downy wings of sleep,
Pillowed secure upon her mother's-breast,
In happy dreams and healing slumber deep
I sink to balmy rest.
— John Todhunter.
The Consultation
THREE doctors, met in consultation.
Proceed with great deliberation ;
The case was desperate, all agreed,
But what of that ? they must be fee 'd.
They write then (as 'twas fit they should)
But for their own, not patients' good.
Consulting wisely (don't mistake, sir,)
Not what to give, but what to take, sir.
— Richard Graves.
184 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Too Progressive for Him
^ ■ AM somethin' of a vet 'ran, just a turnin' eighty year —
"7 I A man that 's hale an' hearty an' a stranger tew all fear ;
^ But I 've heard some news this mornin' that has made my
old head spin,
An' I 'm goin' to easy my conshuns if 1 never speak ag'in.
I 've lived my four-score years of life, an' never till tew-day
Wuz I taken fer a jackass or an ign 'rant kind o' jay,
Tew be stuffed with such durned nonsense 'bout them crawHn'
bugs an' worms
That 's a-killin' human bein 's with their " mikroskopic germs."
They say there *s " mikrobes " all about a-lookin' fer their prey ;
There 's nothin' pure tew eat nor drink, an' no safe place tew
stay;
There 's " misamy " in the dewfall an' " malary " in the sun ;
'Tain't safe to be outdoors at noon or when the day is done.
There's "bactery" in the water an' "trikeeny" in the meat,
A " meeby " in the atmosphere, an' " calory " in the heat ;
There 's " corpussels " an' "pigments" in a human bein's
blood,
An' every other kind o' thing exlstin' sence the flood.
Terbacker 's full o' " nickerteen," whatever that may be :
An' your mouth '11 all get puckered with the " tannin' " in the
tea ;
The butter 's " olymargareen " — it never saw a cow ;
An' things is gettin' wus an' wus from what they be just now.
Them bugs is all about us, just a-waitin' fer a chance
Tew navigate our vitals an' tew 'naw us off like plants.
THE DOCTOR 185
There 's men that spends a lifetime huntin' worms, just like a
goose,
An' takin' Latin names to 'em an' lettin' ov 'em loose.
Now, I don't believe sech nonsense, an' 1 'm not a-goin' tew try
If things has come tew such a pass, 1 'm satisfied tew die ;
I '11 go hang me in the sullar, fer 1 won't be such a fool
As to wait until I 'm pizened by a " annymallycool."
— LuRANA W. Sheldon.
The Doctor
A PICTURE OF THE OLDEN TIME.
r*HE old-time Doctor rises into view.
'^ A "well-read" man he was; and much he
knew
. P For he was " college bred ; " and in the eyes
Of simple folks, no man could be more wise.
He had a sheep-skin in his office hung,
Which, like a banner to the breezes flung,
Proclaimed to all the world his wondrous lore.
Endorsed by learned men full half a score.
His modest sign that hung above the gate,
Failed not his many virtues to relate :
" Physician, Surgeon, Accoucheur," in one ;
And yet with these the list was but begun.
He knew and numbered all the human bones ;
And well he knew all geologic stones ;
He knew how blood coursed swiftly through the veins,
He knew the cause of summer drought and ralrs ;
He cured his patients of each threatening ill,
And matched the parson in polemic skill ;
In politics, philosophy and art.
He never failed to take a ready part.
The master of the village school, his power
in argument acknowledged; and so, hour
186 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
By hour, they sat in hot dispute ; the crowd,
Meanwhile, each disputant applauded loud.
But these were byplays in the doctor's life, —
With other conflicts he was daily rife ;
For fell disease and death rode on the air,
And found their ready victims everywhere.
Against these foes, there was no known defence
Except the Doctor's wise omnipotence.
And so, whate 'er his patients might befall.
He ready stood to answer every call.
On ambling horse he rode the country o'er,
And carried hope and help from door to door
Where 'er he went, to gentle babe or sire, —
Pain fled away, and fever cooled its fire.
Of modern healing art he little knew,
His work was plain, and what he had to do
His trusting patients quietly endured.
Though oft uncertain if he killed or cured.
His lancet was his faithful right-hand man;
For, at its touch, the crimson current ran.
Till blood, like water, flowed on every side.
And every cabin was in crimson dyed.
His massive saddle-bags with drugs o 'er ran :
But calomel and jalap led the van.
His dose the palate did not always please ;
His pills were large, and bitter were his teas ;
His drastic mixtures were no idle play.
And his emetics brooked no long delay.
In short, his victims, like some luckless craft,
Were driven amain and swept afore and aft.
And if at last they died, there was no one
Dared say, "They died from having nothing done."
He promptly, bravely, took his part and place ;
And every station did his genius grace.
Heroic man ! He did his duty well ;
He fought for others till at last he fell.
Above his grave we need no column raise,
He lives immortal in our love and praise!
— Dr. T. p. Wilson.
DOC" 187
••Doc
9>
TO MY OLD PARD, DOCTOR H. K.
OC wuz the biggest liar 'at ever hit the town,
I An' when it cum to citin' facks you couldn't pin him
down ;
But when we larned 'at he hed strayed frum sumwhars
in the east,
I tol' the boys it wuzzen't rite to blame him in the least ;
Fur people thar is mighty apt, ez I hev often stated,
To stretch the blanket to us fokes becaws they 're eddicated ;
An' I diskivered signs in Doc I never knowed to fail.
An' Doc kurroberated me an' sed 'at he hed went to Yale.
He sed he studded medycine an' I will also state
Ef lyin' wuz a study thar, Doc wuz a gradooate.
Doc hung his shingle up one day nex' to McGrew's saloon,
An' sed he hoped to hell thar 'd be sum sickness purty soon.
So when the gang diskivered 'at he wuz lately cum.
We all konkluded to drap down an' make him feel to hum;
An' size the feller up a bit, an' ef he wuz no good.
To leave a hint fur him to skin to sum fur naberhood.
We foun' him straddle uv a cheer awrasslin' 'ith a book.
An' 'parently so lost in thought he would n't turn an' look.
Then Brazos Butch went up to him an' slapped him on the
back,
To show thet fur ez welcum went thar wuzzen't eny lack.
An' all the boys 'at cum 'ith us wuz friendly sort uv stock.
Fur they jes' waltzed rite up to him an' gurgled, '• Howdy,
Doc!"
Then Butch went on to make a talk how we hed saw his sign,
The fust 'un like it thar 'd ben hung sence August '69,
When sum young sawbones made a speech 'at v/uzzen't zackly
rite,
An* to condense the tale, Butch sed, wuz planted thet same
night.
188 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
An' sence thet time thar 'd ben no one to rekommend a pill,
Er rite a order on a slip fur Quinine Sam to fill ;
An' consequently it wuz odd to see thet shingle out,
So they hed cum to make a call an' heer the stranger spout ;
An' ef he spouted like a man, the gang 'ud buy the jooce ;
But ef he did n't belch out rite, they 'd hev to cook his goose.
Then Doc, he made a litenin' move 'at tuk us by surprise.
An' 'fore we knowed it, hed two guns shuved plum Into our
eyes.
" Hans up! " sez Doc, and up they went — he hed the drap on
us,
An' every feller seed he wuz no ordernery cuss.
The way he held them guns, I knowed he would n't make no
botch,
An' fur ez statoo wuz consarned he beat the six foot notch.
He tol' the gang 'at he wuz made uv purty decent stuff,
An' 'at no onry skunk 'at lived could make him take a bluff;
An' furthermore 'at he hed cum to settis in our town,
So ef we did n't like his style jes' yank his shingle down.
But he 'ud warn the varmint then 'at undertuk the deed.
To make his will in favor uv sum cuss 'at wuz in need,
An' to insert a clause in it 'at likely 'ud be granted.
To name the spot whar he 'ud like to hev his carkus planted.
So Doc enumerated then how meny men he 'd killed.
An' testified the joy he felt when blud wuz bein' spilled.
He sed he wuzzen't very ol' — in fack wuz twenty-five,
But ever' time he quit a scrap, thar wuz less men alive.
An' countin' them 'at he hed winged an' them whose lites wuz
out
He rekoned thar 'd be eighty-five, er sum'ers thar about.
But ef the gang desired to live an' sung out good an' strate,
He 'd jes' pos'pone the funerel ontil sum futur' date.
Fur he wuz wore out pluggin' men an' ort to hev a rest,
But ef the fellers disapproved, he 'lowed they knowed the best.
So then he looked at Butch an' sed 'at he desired sum gent
To orate fur the crowd an' say what wuz the sentiment.
Then Brazos eyed the gang a-spell an' giv' a little cough
An' sed the boys wuz all agreed to call the durn thing off.
Then Doc put up them guns uv his an' flashed a jug uv jooce
'At he hed settin' on the flore fur his immejit use.
"DOC" 189
" This ile ", sez Doc, a lookin' 'roun', " is frum a eastern jint,
An' only cost me, jug an' all, sum twenty bones a pint."
He sed the proper age uv it could not be ritely tol',
But he 'ud estermate it wuz sum ninety odd year ol'.
He did n't know "at this same ile was thet ident'kle sort
'At Mike McGrew keeps in a barr'l fur sixty cents a quart.
But ez it wuz his treat, the boys wuz too high-toned to say
It wuz the onriest 'at they hed downed fur meny a day ;
And Doc lied on so nateral like, the gang wuz too perlite
To call him down about the same fur thet wuz skeercely rite ;
An' ef it wuz a joy to him it wuz no hurt to us.
So we kep' on a swallerin' an' Doc kep' lyin' wuss.
Doc tol' us 'at his folks at hum wuz loaded down 'ith wealth.
An' he wuz jes' sojournin' roun' fur buildin' up his health.
An' also 'at ef he was broke a tellygram 'ud bring
A hunderd-thousan' dollar check too quick fur enything.
Ef thet thar feller tol' the truth while he wuz livin' here,
It mus' a ben a acksident when no one else wuz near.
But then the boys wuz not inklined to argyfy 'ith Doc,
Fur he could skin us all to death 'ith them big words in stock,
Which wuz ez long ez Butch onct sed when we wuz in Piute,
Ez ridin' hoss-back all the way frum thar to Scalper's Chute.
But then the gang hed soon ketched on how Doc's talk all wuz
gas.
So when he tol' them yarns uv his, we simply let 'em pass,
Ez ef they wuz the gospul truth an' never sed a word
Except they wuz the durndest things 'at we hed ever herd.
But Doc wuz game an' would n't take a bluff frum no galoot
An' ef a feller crowded him, he 'd yank his tool an' shoot.
Doc's heart wuz big ez eny man's 'at I hev ever seed,
An' no cuss ever got turned down 'at claimed he wuz in need.
An' I kin rekoUect uv Doc a hunderd things he did—
One night he rid to Bowie Bend to see a greaser kid
'At he hed heerd wuz down in bed 'ith sum tarnashun 'plaint.
When it wuz rainin' chunks uv wet 'at 'ud hev drowned a saint.
But Doc he staid out thar thet night an' haf uv the nex' day,
An' when he cum a ridin' back, the only thing he 'd say
Wuz, " Boys, the kid wuz too fur gone fur me to beat the
game —
But I hev cured a thousan' kids efflickted "bout the same."
190 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
But we could see his heart wuz teched by th' dampness in his
eye,
So to conceal the same, he tuk and tol' another lie.
Thar warn't a cuss aroun' that way uv eny kind uv stock
'At could n't make a hard luck play an' borry coin uv Doc ;
An' tho' he never got it back in no one case I know,
He never made no kick a tall but let the borry go.
When 'lections cum aroun' thet Fall we sed 'at Doc mus' run
Fur sheriff, jedge er sumthin' else an' we 'ud start sum fun
'Ith eny cuss 'at cum aroun' the town on 'lection day
An' throwed a bluff uv his intent to vote the tother way.
But Doc he sed it wuzzen't rite, fur he wuz goin' hum
An' would n't see the town agen fur meny a year to cum ;
An' 'at thar wuz a gal up east 'at wuz to be his wife.
So he jes' hed to make a sneek an' change his mode uv life.
An' Doc, he lef within a week accordin' to his word,
The only statement uv a fack frum him we ever herd.
He set 'em up jes' fore he lef an' his remarks wuz fine
About the letters he 'ud rite — tho' no cuss got a line;
An' Butch remarked one afternoon about a year from then.
While we wuz roundin' up sum steers on range called " Num-
ber Ten,"
Thet ef Doc railly hed got hitched 'at when the preecher sed
"Will you run double 'ith this gal?" why Doc he shuk his hed,
Fur ef he hed a nodded it, the truth 'ud hev cropped out,
An' truth wuz a gol-durned affair Doc would n't hev about.
An' all the fellers in the gang indorsed the speech ez rite.
An' complimented Butch an' swore 'at he hed secon' sight.
— Henry Coolidge Semple.
On a Petit-Maitre Physician
WHEN Pennington for female ills Indites,
Studying alone not what, but how, he writes.
The ladies, as his graceful form they scan.
Cry, with ill-omened rapture — " Killing man! "
— Anonymous.
EPITAPH 191
Epitaph
ON A PATIENT KILLED BY A CANCER QUACK.
ERE lies a fool flat on his back,
The victim of a cancer quack;
Who lost his money and his life,
A By plaster, caustic, and by knife.
The case was this — a pimple rose
Southeast a little of his nose ;
Which daily reddened and grew bigger.
As too much drinking gave it vigor :
A score of gossips soon ensure
Full three score diff 'rent modes of cure:
But yet the full-fed pimple still
Defied all petticoated skill ;
When fortune led him to peruse
A handbill in the weekly news,
Signed by six fools of different sorts,
All cured of cancers made of warts ;
Who recommend, with due submission.
The cancer-monger as magician.
Fear winged his flight to find the quack.
And prove his cancer-curing knack ;
But on his way he found another, —
A second advertising brother ;
But as much like him as an owl
Is unlike every handsome fowl ;
Whose fame had raised as broad a fog.
And of the two the greater hog ;
Who used a still more magic plaster,
That sweat, forsooth, and cured the faster.
This doctor viewed, with moony eyes
And scowled-up face, the pimple's size ;
Then christened it in solem answer,
And cried, " This pimpiel's name is CANCER."
192 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
" But courage, friend, I see you 're pale,
My sweating plasters never fail ;
I 've sweated hundreds out with ease,
With roots as long as maple trees,
And never failed in all my trials —
Behold these samples here in vials !
Preserved to show my wond 'rous merits,
Just as my liver is in spirits.
For twenty joes the cure is done — "
The bargain struck, the plaster on.
Which gnawed the cancer at its leisure.
And pained his face above all measure.
But still the pimple spread the faster,
And swelled like toad that meets disaster.
Thus foiled, the doctor gravely swore
It was a right rose-cancer sore ;
Then stuck his probe beneath the beard.
And showed them where the leaves appeared ;
And raised the patient's drooping spirits,
By praising up the plaster's merits.
Then purged him pale with jalap drastic,
And next applies th' infernal caustic;
Which, gnawing on with fiery pace.
Devoured one broadside of his face ;
" Courage — 't is done ! " the doctor cried.
And quick the incision knife applied,
That with three cuts made such a hole.
Out flew the patient's tortured soul !
Go, readers, gentle, eke and simple,
If you have wart, or corn, or pimple.
To quack Infallible apply ;
Here 's room enough for you to lie.
His skill triumphant still prevails.
For DEATH'S a cure that never falls.
— Dr. Lemuel Hopkins.
GREETING TO DR. HOLMES 193
Greeting to Dr. Holmes
Read at the dinner given by the Medical Profession of New
York to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, April 12th, 1883.
YOU 'VE heard of the deacon's one-hoss shay
Which, finished in Boston the self-same day
That the city of Lisbon went to pot,
Did a century's service, and then was not.
But the record 's at fault which says that it bust
Into simply a heap of amorphous dust ;
For after the wreck of that wonderful tub,
Out of the ruins they saved a hub ;
And the hub has since stood for Boston town,
Hub of the Universe — note that down.
But an orderly hub, as all will own,
Must have something central to turn upon,
And, tempered and smooth, and true, and bright.
We have the axle here tonight.
Thrice welcome, then, to our festal board
The doctor-poet, so doubly stored
With science as well as with native wit ;
(POETA NASCITUR, yOU knOW, NON FIT;)
Skilled to dissect with knife or pen.
His subjects dead or living men ;
With thoughts sublime on every page
To swell the veins with virtuous rage.
Or with a syringe to inject them
With sublimate to disinfect them ;
To show with demonstrator's art
The complex chambers of the heart.
Or, armed with a diviner skill.
To make it pulsate at his will ;
To brighten up by harmless guile
The frowning visage with a smile
Or lead the class in desperate tussels.
With Latin names of facial muscles.
5—18
194 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
By facile pen to soothe the brain
With many a smooth melodious strain,
Or to describe with pains laborious
The even calamus scriptorius.
To fire the eye by wit consummate,
Or draw the aqueous humor from it ;
In generous verse to celebrate
The loaves and fishes of some giver.
And then proceed to demonstrate
The lobes and fissures of the liver ;
To nerve with fervor of appeal
The sluggish muscles into steel,
Or, pulling their attachments, show
Whence they arise and where they go ;
In times of peril give the tone
To public feeling called backbone ;
Or grapple with that subject solemn,
" Supporters of the spinal column."
And now I close my artless ditty
As per agreement with committee ;
And making place for those more able,
I leave the subject on the table.
Yet one word more. I 've had my pride
As MEDicus most sorely tried,
When Englishmen who sometimes show
Of things American, you know,
An ignorance that is melancholy ;
As Dr. Holmes is very jolly,
Assume that he must therefore be
A Doctor of Divinity.
So to avoid all chance of wrong
To medicine, or church, or song,
Let Doctor Holmes discarded be
For OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M. D.
And now, for I really must come to an end,
May the fate of the chaise be the fate of our friend :
May he never break down, and never wear out,
But a century old, or thereabout.
Not feeling the weight of the years as they fly ;
Simply stop living when ready to die.
— Dr. Andrew H. Smith.
THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET 195
The Old Oaken Bucket
(revised and edited by "A sanitarian")
'ITH what anguish of mind I remember my child-
5l / hood,
Recalled in the light of a knowledge since
gained ;
The malarious farm, the wet fungus grown wildwood,
The chills then contracted that since have remained ;
The scum-covered duck pond, the pigsty close by it,
The ditch where the sour smelling house drainage fell ;
The damp, shaded dwelling, the foul barnyard nigh it —
But worse than all else was that terrible well,
And the old oaken bucket, the mold crusted bucket.
The moss covered bucket that hung in the well.
Just think of it ! Moss on the vessel that lifted
The water I drank in the days called to mind,
Ere I knew what professors and scientists gifted
In the waters of wells by analysis find ;
The rotting wood fiber, the oxide of iron,
The algge, the frog of unusual size,
The water, impure as the verses of Byron,
Are things I remember with tears in my eyes.
And to tell the sad truth — though I shudder to think It,
I considered that water uncommonly clear.
And often at noon, when I went there to drink it,
1 enjoyed it as much as I now enjoy beer.
How ardent I seized it with hands that were grimy!
And quick to the mud covered bottom it fell !
Then reeking with nitrates and nitrites, and slimy
With matter organic, it rose from the well.
196 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Oh, had I but realized in time to avoid them,
The dangers that lurked in that pestilent draught,
I 'd have tested for organic germs, and destroyed them
With potassic permanganate ere I had quaffed.
Or, perchance, I 'd have boiled it and afterward strained it
Through filters of charcoal and gravel combined ;
Or after distilling, condensed and regained it
In portable form, with its filth left behind.
How little I knew of the dread typhoid fever
Which lurked in the water I ventured to drink ;
But since I 've become a devoted believer
In the teachings of science, I shudder to think.
And now, far removed from the scenes 1 'm describing,
The story for warning to others I tell.
As memory reverts to my youthful imbibing
And I gag at the thought of that horrible well,
And the old oaken bucket, the fungus grown bucket — -
In fact, the slop bucket — that hung in the well.
— J. C. Bayles.
Verses to Dr. George Rogers
ON HIS TAKING THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHYSIC AT PADUA,
IN THE YEAR 1646.
'HEN as of old the earth's bold children
strove.
With hills on hills, to scale the throne of
Jove,
Pallas and Mars stood by their sovereign's side.
And their bright arms in his defence employed ;
While the wise Phoebus, Hermes, and the rest
Who joy in peace, and love the Muses best.
Descending from their so distempered seat.
Our groves and meadows chose for their retreat.
FIN-DE-SIECLE LOVE SONG 197
There first Apollo tried the various use
Of herbs, and learned the virtues of their juice.
And framed that art, to which who can pretend
A juster title than our noble friend?
Whom the like tempest drives from his abode,
And like employment entertains abroad.
This crowns him here, and In the bays so earned,
His country's honor is no less concerned,
Since it appears not all the English rave,
To ruin bent ; some study how to save ;
And as Hippocrates did once extend
His sacred art, whole cities to amend ;
So we, great friend! suppose that thy great skill.
Thy gentle mind, and fair example, will,
At thy return, reclaim our frantic isle,
Their spirits calm, and peace again shall smile.
— Edmund Waller
Fin-de-Siecle Love Song
BY A DOCTOR
IVE me your hand and let me feel your pulse
And learn how fares your cardiac apparatus.
Whether it starts and beats uncertainly,
While Cupid aims his keen swift arrow at us !
Grant me one fever, it Is all I ask —
Take me to be your knight as well as doctor I
For you, of what fine potions, powders, pills,
Could I forever be the proud concocter 1
0, sweet compendium of anatomy.
How beautiful your eyelids' modest ptosis —
For lo ! you love, I feel it in your pulse ;
I 'd stake my life upon my diagnosis !
— Dr. Frederick Peterson.
198 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Ode to Dr. Hahnemann, the Homoeopathist
'ELL, Doctor,
Great concoctor
Of medicines to help in man's distress ;
fc)^ Diluting down the strong to meek,
And making e 'en the weak more weak,
" Fine by degrees, and beautifully less " —
Founder of a new system economic,
To druggists any thing but comic ;
Framed the whole race of OUapods to fret
At profits, like thy doses, very small ;
To put all Doctors' Boys in evil case,
Thrown out of bread, of physic, and of place —
And show us old Apothecaries' Hall
"To Let."
How fare thy Patients? are they dead or living,
Or well as can expected be, with such
A style of practice, liberally giving
" A sum of more to that which had too much ? "
Dost thou preserve the human frame, or turf it?
Do thorough draughts cure thorough colds or not?
Do fevers yield to any thing that 's hot?
Or hearty dinners neutralize a surfeit ?
Is 't good advice for gastronomic ills.
When Indigestion's face with pain is crumpling,
To cry, " Discard those Peristaltic Pills,
Take a hard dumpling? "
Tell me, thou German Cousin,
And tell me honestly, without a diddle.
Does an attenuated dose of rosin
Act as a tonic on the old Scotch fiddle?
Tell me, when Anhalt-Coethen babies wriggle.
Like eels just caught by sniggle.
ODE TO DR. HAHNEMANN, THE HOMCEOPATHIST 199
Martyrs to some acidity internal,
That gives them pangs infernal,
Meanwhile the lip grows black, the eye enlarges;
Say, comes there all at once a cherub-calm,
Thanks to that soothing homoeopathic balm,
The half of half of half a drop of " varges"?
Suppose, for instance, upon Leipzig's plain.
A soldier pillowed on a heap of slain.
In urgent want both of a priest and proctor ;
When lo ! there comes a man in green and red,
A featherless cocked hat adorns his head,
In short, a Saxon military doctor —
Would he, indeed, on the right treatment fix.
To cure a horrid gaping wound.
Made by a ball that weighed a pound,
If he well peppered it with number six ?
Suppose a felon doomed to swing
Within a rope,
Might friends not hope
To cure him with a string ?
Suppose his breath arrived at a full stop.
The shades of death in a black cloud before him,
Would a quintillionth dose of the New Drop
Restore him ?
Fancy a man gone rabid from a bite,
Snapping to left and right.
And giving tongue like one of Sebright's hounds.
Terrific sounds.
The pallid neighborhood with horror cowing.
To hit the proper homoeopathic mark;
Now, might not " the last taste in life " of bark
Stop his BOW-WOW-ING?
Nay, with a well-known remedy to fit him.
Would he not mend, if, with all proper care,
He took "A HAIR
Of the DOG THAT BIT HIM ? "
200 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Picture a man — we '11 say a Dutch Meinheer —
In evident emotion,
Bent o 'er the bulwark of the Batavier,
Owning those symptoms queer
Some feel in a Sick Transit o 'er the ocean,
Can any thing in life be more pathetic
Than when he turns to us his wretched face ? —
But would it mend his case
To be decillionth-dosed
With something like the ghost
Of an emetic?
Lo I now a darkened room !
Look through the dreary gloom,
And see that coverlet of wildest form,
Tost like the billows in a storm,
Where ever and anon, with groans, emerges
A ghastly head ! —
While two impatient arms still beat the bed.
Like a strong swimmer's struggling with the surges:
There Life and Death are on their battle-plain,
With many a mortal ecstasy of pain —
What shall support the body in its trial.
Cool the hot blood, wild dream, and parching skin.
And tame the raging Malady within —
A sniff of Next-to-Nothing in a phial?
01 Doctor Hahnemann, if here I laugh
And cry together, half and half.
Excuse me, 'tis a mood the subject brings.
To think, whilst I have crowed like chanticleer,
Perchance, from some dull eye the hopeless tear
Hath gushed with my light levity at schism.
To mourn some Martyr of Empiricism :
Perchance, upon thy system, I have given
A pang, superfluous, to the pains of Sorrow,
Who weeps with Memory from morn till even ;
Where comfort there is none to lend or borrow.
Sighing to one sad strain,
" She will not come again.
ODE TO DR. HAHNEMANN, THE HOMCEOPATHIST 201
Tomorrow, nor tomorrow, nor tomorrow!"
Doctor, forgive me, if I dare prescribe
A rule for thee thyself, and all thy tribe.
Inserting a few serious words by stealth ;
Above all price of wealth
The Body's jewel — not for minds profane,
Or hands, to tamper with in practice vain —
Like to a Woman's Virtue is Man's Health.
A heavenly gift within a holy shrine!
To be approached and touched with serious fear.
By hands made pure, and hearts of faith severe,
Ev 'n as the Priesthood of the ONE divine!
But, zounds ! each fellow with a suit of black.
And, strange to fame,
With a diplomaed name.
That carries two more letters pick-a-back,
With cane, and snuffbox, powdered wig, and block.
Invents his dose, as if it were a chrism.
And dares to treat our wondrous mechanism
Familiar as the works of old Dutch clock;
Yet, how would common sense esteem the man,
how, my unrelated German cousin.
Who having some such time-keeper on trial.
And finding it too fast, enforced the dial.
To strike upon the Homoeopathic plan
Of fourteen to the dozen ?
Take my advice, 'tis given without a fee,
Drown, drown your book ten thousand fathoms deep,
Like Prospero's, beneath the briny sea,
For spells of magic have all gone to sleep I
Leave no decillionth fragment of your works
To help the interest of quacking Burkes ;
Aid not in murdering even widows' mites —
And now forgive me for my candid zeal,
1 had not said so much, but that I feel
Should you take ill what here my Muse Indites..
And Ode-ling more wiii set you all to rights.
— Thomas Hood
202 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Our Faith
Read at the annual dinner of the Homoeopathic Medical So
ciety of Western Massachusetts, Spring6eld, March 20, 1S95.
S comrades of a scattered band
At war against disease and death,
We meet to grasp the friendly hand
And reaffirm our common faith.
We reaffirm, but not abuse,
The sacred rights for which we stand —
The right to take, the right to use,
The best our wisdom can command.
We bow unto no nian the knee ,
We brook no ancient, iron creed ;
Our attitude is — Loyalty
To Truth wherever she may lead.
Whate 'er of worth the fathers wrought
We humbly, gratefully confess ;
Nor prize we less the latest thought
That comes humanity to bless.
We honor age, we honor youth,
We honor every class, or clan.
That bravely battles for the truth
And for the betterment of man.
Nor care we what the means, or whenca
In which restoring power we find —
From matter, or the more intense
And subtle potencies of mind, —
OUR FAITH 203
From earth, or air, or sun, or seas.
Or from the lightning 's lurid breath,—
We care not, so they heal disease
And stay the awful hand of death.
If this be " dogmatism blind,"
With dear old Whittier we say:
•• Pray for us, that our feet may fin'i
Some broader, safer, surer way."
Albeit this our faith holds fast —
The kindlier method, known as ou!^:.
Above the crudeness of the past,
Like Calvary over Sinai towers 1
The long-used lancet lies at rest ;
The leech bides in its native flood;
And ne 'er again, at man 's behest.
Shall they regale on human bloorf.
The cruel thirst of time ago
Is lost in crystal waters quaffed ;
For Hahnemann has lived — and lol
The fevered lip hath cooling draught I
All honor to that gracious name I
Nail it aloft before our sight,
Among the noblest sons of fame.
In characters of living light!
But Heaven forbid that we should boASt
Over our bit of knowledge gained.
It seems so swallowed up and lost
Beside the boundless unattained.
The unattained ! Stupendous word '
What visions in its face we see I
And in its syllables are heard
What whisperings from futurity I
204 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
It points us to a golden day,
Wherein man shall so comprehend
Great Nature 's laws — and so obey,
That all disease shall have an end ;
A day when gladness grief shall drown,
And dirge to delectation rise,
And Prophylaxis win the crown
From Therapeutics' envious eyes ;
A day when time, exempt from fears,
Shall sit so lightly on the brow
That man shall round an hundred years
As gracefully as sixty now.
Perchance he may on earth remain
So long as he shall choose to stay,
Then take some through, aerial train.
And, like Elijah, whirl away!
Indeed we cannot apprehend
The wonders we may yet behold.
When blood of horse and man shall blend
As in the centaurs, famed of old ;
When wicked germs no more shall dare
To stifle babies at the breast,
And all the microbes of the air
Have been forever laid at rest ;
When people, of whatever " school,"
Shall cease to " dose" — if cease they can.
And learn that Nature, as a rule.
If not abused is true to man.
'Tis coming 1 Yes, we dare to hope.
Though doubt doth every point beset.
The culture tube and microscope
Will solve the mighty problem yet.
ESTHETICS IN MEDICINE 205
'Tis coming — the protecting light
Of higher knowledge yet to be —
As sure as stars come out at night,
Or rivers reach the roaring sea.
'Tis coming ! Expectation thrills
At thought of triumphs pressing on !
See I Even now the eastern hills
Are bannered with the flags of dawn !
—Dr. N. W. Rand.
Esthetics in Medicine
Y your leave, I desire just to call your attention,
And will barely suggest that I simply would men-
tion
The fact that the science of beauty is rarely
Brought into physic, — at least not quite fairly!
For men love their lager, and dinners, and wine,
And women, and horses, and everything fine ;
But physic goes begging, at least, if not so.
The patient goes begging to let him " go slow."
Now gesthetics most surely and certainly should,
By all that is great and everything good.
Be brought into physic ; for what shall we do
With mankind in a fever, "too utterly too?"
And nothing that 's lovely, and nothing that 's bright.
With a storm coming on and the land out of sight 1
In place of the old-fashioned course of emetics.
Why not give a dose of exquisite aesthetics ?
Bring your patient to health on a bed of soft roses,
Surrounded by lilies, and sunflowers, and posies I
Now, the knife of surgeon — as an entering wedge —
Should be shining and bright, with no " feather edge,"
And should penetrate kindly and gently and sure.
With a loving respect for all human gore.
The patient should lie in an easy repose.
With a flower on his breast (a. carnation rose) ,
206 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And be perfectly calm and collected, unruffled,
While gently his sighs by a sunflower are muffled.
Again, when we reach the domain of the eye —
That beautiful organ so like to the sky —
The delicate, sensitive, beautiful slash
Iridectomy calls for, should be done with a gash
So fine in its features, so graceful in curve,
That nature will halt to admire its sweet swerve.
And then — now, you members who do much of this
Will want to get out your old student 's hiss —
In the line of obstetrics, where is the face
That never saw loveliness in such a place ?
Your patient, of course, is having some pain!
But they 're sweet, if they 're frequent enough, and again,
They certainly will, and its lovely to know.
Produce a production 1 a blossom, a blow !
In cases like this there should be no annoy ;
The nurse and attendants all pregnant with joy,
Should buoy up the patient (no pun — understand !)
And bring the whole cargo to light and to land.
Again, in prognosing any kind of disease.
It is well to avoid getting up any breeze
By telling the patients they 're likely to die.
When the trouble in fact may be all in your eye.
And the patient as safe as old Aristotle,
When he stranded on Greece like a castor oil bottle !
Just tell 'em you '11 fetch 'em out all high and dry.
That all things are lovely and the goose hangeth high!
That the bright shining sun will be struck by a comet,
Before the hearse starts, and they ever get on it !
That the lilies which float in the sunlight 's broad gleam
Will pull out their roots and start up the stream
Before they e 'er launch in Charon 's old shell
Which crosses the river and paddles for — well.
Encourage your patients, and teach them to know
That there 's something to live for, to blossom and grow;
Don 't give up the case 'till flowers cease to bloom,
Because sadness comes o 'er you, despondence, and gloom 1
Don 't take a back seat while blossoms still flutter.
For there 's flowers in physic " too utterly utter ! "
—Dr. E. B. Ward.
THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF PAIN 20lr
The Birth and Death of Pain
Fead October 16, 1896, at the commemoration of the Fiftieth
Anniversary of the First Public Demonstration of Surgical Anes-
thesia.
~* ORGIVE a moment, if a friend's regret,
r Delay the task your honoring kindness set.
I miss one face to all men ever dear ;
I miss one voice that all men loved to hear.
How glad were I to sit with you apart
Could the dead master use his higher art
To lift on wings of ever lightsome mirth
The burdened muse above the dust of earth,
To stamp with jests the heavy ore of thought,
To give a day, with proud remembrance fraught,
The vital pathos of that Holmes-spun art
Which knew so well to reach the common heart.
Alas ! for me, for you, that fatal hour !
Gone is the master ! Ah ! not mine the power
To gild with jests, that almost win a tear.
The thronging memories that are with us here.
The Birth of Pain ! Let centuries roll away ;
Come back with me to nature's primal day.
What mighty forces pledged the dust to life !
What awful will decreed its silent strife !
Till through vast ages rose on hill and plain
Life's saddest voice, the birth-right wail of pain.
The keener sense, and ever growing mind,
Served but to add a torment twice refined,
As life, more tender, as it grew more sweet,
The cruel links of sorrow found complete
When yearning love to conscious pity grown
Felt the mad pain thrills, that were not its own.
What will implacable, beyond our ken.
Set this stern fiat for the tribes of men !
20d THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
This, none shall 'scape, who share our human fates :
One stern democracy of anguish waits
By poor men's cots — within the rich man's gates.
What purpose hath it? Nay, thy quest is vain :
Earth hath no answer : If the baffled brain
Cries, 'tis to warn, to punish — Ah, refrain !
When writhes the child, beneath the surgeon's hand,
What soul shall hope that pain to understand ?
Lo ! Science falters o 'er the hopeless task,
And Love and Faith in vain an answer ask,
When thrilling nerves demand what good is wrought
Where torture clogs the very source of thought.
Lo ! Mercy ever broadening down the years
Seeks but to count a lessening sum of tears.
The rack is — the torture chamber lies
A sorry show for shuddering tourists' eyes.
How useless pain, both Church and State have learned
Since the last witch, or patient martyr burned.
Yet still, forever, he who strove to gain
By swift despatch a shorter lease for pain
Saw the grim theater, and 'neath his knife,
Felt the keen torture, in the quivering life.
A word for him who, silent, grave, serene.
The thought-stirred master of that tragic scene.
Recorded pity through the hand of skill,
Heard not a cry, but, ever conscious, still.
In mercy merciless, swift, bold intent.
Felt the slow moments that in torture went
While 'neath his touch, as none today has seen.
In anguish shook life's agonized machine.
The task is o 'er ; the precious blood is stayed ;
But double price the hour of tension paid.
A pitying hand is on the sufferer's brow —
" Thank God 'tis over." Few who face me now
Recall this memory, let the curtain fall.
Far gladder days shall know this storied hall !
Though Science patient as the fruitful years.
Still taught our art to close some fount of tears.
THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF PAIN 209
Yet who that served this sacred home of pain
Could e 'er have dreamed one scarce-imagined gain,
Or hoped a day would bring his fearful art
No need to steel the ever kindly heart.
So fled the years ! While haply here or there.
Some trust delusive left the old despair ;
Some comet thought — flashed fitful through the night.
No lasting record, and no constant light.
Then radiant morning broke, and ampler hope
To art and science gave illum.ined scope,
What Angel bore the Christ-like gift inspired
What love divine with noblest courage fired
One eager soul that paid in bitter tears
For the glad helping of unnumbered fears,
From the strange record of creation tore
The sentence sad, each sorrowing mother bore
Struck from the roll of pangs one awful sum,
Made pain a dream, and suffering gently dumb !
Whatever triumphs still shall hold the mind.
Whatever gifts shall yet enrich mankind.
Ah! here, no hours shall strike through all the years.
No hour as sweet, as when hope, doubt and fears,
'Mid deepening stillness, watched one eager brain,
With God-like will, decree the Death of Pain.
How did we thank him ? Ah ! no joy-bells rang.
No pasans greeted, and no poet sang.
No cannon thundered, from the guarded strand
This mighty victory to a grateful land !
We took the gift, so humbly, simply given,
And coldly selfish — left our debt to Heaven.
How shall we thank him? Hush ! a gladder houi
Has struck for him ; a wiser power
Shall know full well how fitly to reward
The generous soul, that found the world so hard.
Oh! fruitful Mother — you, whose thronging states,
Shall deal not vainly with man's changing fates.
6—14
210 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Of freeborn thought, or war's heroic deeds,
Much have your proud hands given, but nought exceeds
This Heaven-sent ansv/er to the cry of prayer,
This priceless gift which all mankind may share.
A solemn hour for such as gravely pause
To note the process of creation's laws 1
Ah, surely, he, whose dark, unfathomed mind
With prescient thought, the scheme of life designed.
Who bade His highest creature slowly rise,
Spurred by sad needs, and lured by many a prize.
Saw, with a God's pure joy. His ripening plan.
His highest mercy brought by man to man.
— Dr. S. Weir Mitchell.
\
Feminine Pharmacy
"cohere in the corner Pharmacy,
^ This lithesome lady lingers.
And potent pills and philters true
^ Are fashioned by her fingers.
Her face behind the soda fount,
May oft be seen in summer,
How sweetly foams the soda fizz,
When you receive it from her 1
While mixing belladonna drops
With tincture of lobelia
And putting up prescriptions she
Is fairer than Ophelia.
Each poison has its proper place,
Each potion in its chalice ;
Her daedal fingers are so deft.
They call her digit Alice.
— Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley.
RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. 211
Rip Van Winkle, M. D.
An after-dinner prescription taken by the Massachusetts Med-
ical Society, at their meeting held May 25, 1870.
CANTO FIRST.
LD Rip Van Winkle had a grandson Rip,
jOf the paternal block a genuine chip, —
I A lazy, sleepy, curious kind of chap;
He, like his grandsire, took a mighty nap,
Whereof the story I propose to tell
In two brief cantos, if you listen well.
The times were hard when Rip to manhood grew ;
They always will be when there 's work to do.
He tried at farming, — found it rather slow. —
And then at teaching — what he didn 't know ;
Then took to hanging round the tavern bars,
To frequent toddies and long-nine cigars,
Till Dame Van Winkle, out of patience, vexed
With preaching homilies, having for their text
A mop, a broomstick, aught that might avail
To point a moral or adorn a tale.
Exclaimed, " I have it! Now, then, Mr. V. !
He 's good for something, — make him an M. D. ! "
The die was cast ; the youngster was content ;
They packed his shirts and stockings, and he went.
How hard he studied it were vain to tell;
He drowsed through Wistar, nodded over Bell,
Slept sound with Cooper, snored aloud on Good ;
Heard heaps of lectures, — doubtless understood, —
A constant listener, for he did not fail
To carve his name on every bench and rail.
213 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Months grew to years ; at last he counted three,
And Rip Van Winkle found himself M. D.
Illustrious title ! in a gilded frame
He set the sheepskin with his Latin name,
Ripum Van Winklum, quem we — scimus — know
Idoneum esse — to do so and so.
He hired an office ; soon its walls displayed
His new diploma and his stock In trade,
A mighty arsenal to subdue disease.
Of various names, whereof I mention these :
Lancets and bougies, great and little squirt.
Rhubarb and Senna, Snakeroot, Thoroughwort,
Ant. Tart., Vin. Colch., Pil. Cochise, and Black Drop,
Tinctures of Opium, Gentian, Henbane, Hop,
Pulv. Ipecacuanha, which for lack
Of breath to utter men call Ipecac,
Camphor and Kino, Turpentine, Tolu,
Cubebs, " Copeevy," Vitriol, — white and blue, —
Fennel, and Flaxseed, Slippery Elm and Squill,
And roots of Sassafras, and " Sassaf 'rill,"
Brandy, — for colics, — Pinkroot, death on worms, —
Valerian, calmer of hysteric squirms,
Musk, Assafcetida, the resinous gum
Named from its odor, — well, it does smell some, —
Jalap, that works not wisely, but too well.
Ten pounds of Bark and six of Calomel.
For outward griefs he had an ample store.
Some twenty jars and gallipots, or more :
Ceratum simplex — housewives oft compile
The same at home, and call it " wax and ile ; "
Unguentum resinosum — change its name.
The " drawing salve " of many an ancient dame ;
Argenti Nitras, also Spanish flies.
Whose virtue makes the water-bladders rise —
(Some say that spread upon a toper 's skin
They draw no water, only rum or gin) ;
Leeches, sweet vermin! don't they charm the sick?
And Sticking-plaster — how it hates to stick !
RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. 213
Emplastrum Ferri — ditto Picis, Pitch;
Washes and Powders, Brimstone for the — which,
Scabies or Psora, Is thy chosen name
Since Hahnemann 's goose-quill scratched thee Into
fame.
Proved thee the source of every nameless ill,
Whose sole specific is a moonshine pill,
Till saucy Science, with a quiet grin,
Held up the Acarus, crawling on a pin?
— Mountains have labored and have brought forth mice :
The Dutchman 's theory hatched a brood of — twice
I 've well nigh said them — words unfitting quite
For these fair precincts and for ears polite.
The surest foot may chance at last to slip,
And so at length it proved with Doctor Rip,
One full-sized bottle stood upon the shelf,
Which held the medicine that he took himself;
Whate 'er the reason, it must be confessed
He filled that bottle oftener than the rest;
What drug it held I don 't presume to know —
The gilded label said " Elixir Pro."
One day the Doctor found the bottle full,
And, being thirsty, took a vigorous pull,
Put back the " Elixir" where 'twas always found,
And had old Dobbin saddled and brought round,
— You know those old-time rhubarb-colored nags
That carried Doctors and their saddle-bags ;
Sagacious beasts ! they stopped at every place
Where blinds were shut — knew every patient 's case— -
Looked up and thought — The baby 's in a fit —
That won 't last long — he '11 soon be through with it;
But shook their heads before the knockered door
Where some old lady told the story o 'er
Whose endless stream of tribulation flows
For gastric griefs and peristaltic woes.
What jack-o' lantern led him from his way
And where it led him., it were hard to say;
214 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Enough that wandering many a weary mile
Through paths the mountain sheep trod single file,
'ercome by feelings such as patients know
Who dose too freely with " Elixir Pro,"
He tumbl — dismounted, slightly in a heap,
And lay, promiscuous, lapped in balmy sleep.
Night followed night, and day succeeded day.
But snoring still the slumbering Doctor lay.
Poor Dobbin, starving, thought upon his stall.
And straggled homeward, saddle-bags and all.
The village people hunted all around,
But Rip was missing, — never could be found.
" Drowned," they guessed ; — for more than half a year
The pouts and eels did taste uncommon queer ;
Some said of apple-brandy — other some
Found a strong flavor of New England rum.
Why can 't a fellow hear the fine things said
About a fellow when a fellow 's dead ?
The best of doctors — so the press declared —
A public blessing while his life was spared.
True to his country, bounteous to the poor,
In all things temperate, sober, just, and pure;
The best of husbands ! echoed Mrs. Van,
And set her cap to catch another man.
So ends this Canto — if it 's quantum suff..
We '11 just stop here and say we 've had enough.
And leave poor Rip to sleep for thirty years ;
1 grind the organ — if you lend your ears
To hear my second Canto, after that
We '11 send around the monkey with the hat.
CANTO SECOND.
So thirty years had passed — but not a word
In all that time of Rip was ever heard ;
The world wagged on — it never does go back—
The widow Van was now the widow Mac —
RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. 215
France was an Empire — Andrew J. was dead,
And Abraham L. was reigning in his stead.
Four murderous years had passed in savage strife,
Yet still the rebel held his bloody knife
At last one morning — who forgets the day —
When the black cloud of war dissolved away?
The joyous tidings spread o 'er land and sea,
Rebellion done for ! Grant has captured Lee !
Up every flagstaff sprang the Stars and Stripes —
Out rushed the Extras wild with mammoth types —
Down went the laborer's hod, the school-boy's book —
" Hooraw ! " he cries, " the rebel army 's took I "
Ah I what a time ! the folks all mad with joy :
Each fond, pale mother thinking of her boy ;
Old gray-haired fathers meeting — " Have — you —
heard?"
And then a choke — and not another word ;
Sisters all smiling — maidens, not less dear.
In trembling poise between a smile and tear ;
Poor Bridget thinking how she '11 stuff the plums
In that big cake for Johnny when he comes ;
Cripples afoot; rheumatics on the jump ;
Old girls so loving they could hug the pump ;
Guns going bang! from every fort and ship;
They banged so loud at last they wakened Rip
I spare the picture, how a man appears
Who 's been asleep a score or two of years ;
You all have seen it to perfection done
By Joe Van Wink — I mean Rip Jefferson.
Well, so it was ; old Rip at last came back.
Claimed his old wife — the present widow Mac —
Had his old sign regilded, and began
To practice physic on the same old plan.
Some weeks went by — it was not long to wait—
And "please to call " grew frequent on the slate
He had, in fact, an ancient, mildewed air,
A long gray beard, a plenteous lack of hair, —
The musty look that always recommends
216 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Your good old Doctor to his ailing friends.
— Talk of your science ! after all is said
There 's nothing like a bare and shiny head ;
Age lends the graces that are sure to please ;
Folks want their Doctors mouldy, like their cheese.
So. Rip began to look at people 's tongues
And thump their briskets (called it " sound their lungs") ,
Brushed up his knowledge smartly as he could,
Read in old Cullen and in Doctor Good.
The town was healthy ; for a month or two
He gave the sexton little work to do.
About the time when dog-day heats begin,
The summer's usual maladies set in ;
With autumn evenings dysentery came,
And dusky typhoid lit his smouldering flame ;
The blacksmith ailed, the carpenter was down,
And half the children sickened in the town.
The sexton's face grew shorter than before —
The sexton's wife a bran-new bonnet wore —
Things looked quite serious — Death had got a grip
On old and young, in spite of Doctor Rip.
And now the Squire was taken with a chill —
Wife gave " hot-drops" — at night an Indian pill ;
Next morning, feverish — bedtime, getting worse —
Out of his head — began to rave and curse ;
The Doctor sent for — double quick he came :
Ant. Tart. gran, duo, and repeat the same
If no ET CETERA. Third day — nothing new ;
Percussed his thorax till 't was black and blue —
Lung-fever threatening — something of the sort —
Out with the lancet — let him bleed — a quart —
Ten leeches next — then blisters to his side ;
Ten grains of calomel ; just then he died.
The Deacon next required the Doctor's care —
Took cold by sitting in a draught of air —
RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D 217
Pains in the back, but what the matter is
Not quite so clear, — wife calls it " rheumatiz."
Rubs back with flannel — gives him something hot —
" Ah ! " says the Deacon, " that goes nigh the spot."
Next day a rigor — " Run, my little man,
And say the Deacon sends for Doctor Van."
The Doctor came — percussion as before.
Thumping and banging till his ribs were sore —
" Right side the flattest" — then more vigorous raps —
" Fever — that 's certain — pleurisy, perhaps.
A quart of blood will ease the pain, no doubt.
Ten leeches next will help to suck it out,
Then clap a blister on the painful part —
But first two grains of Antimonium Tart.
Last with a dose of cleansing calomel
Unload the portal system — (that sounds well!)"
But when the selfsame remedies were tried.
As all the village knew, the Squire had died ;
The neighbors hinted : " This will never do ;
He's killed the Squire— he '11 kill the Deacon too.'
Now when a doctor's patients are perplexed
A CONSULTATION comes in order next —
You know what that is ? In a certain place
Meet certain doctors to discuss a case
And other matters, such as weather, crops.
Potatoes, pumpkins, lager-beer and hops.
For what's the use!— there's little to be said.
Nine times in ten your man's as good as dead ;
At best a talk (the secret to disclose —
Where three men guess and sometimes one man knows.)
The counsel summoned came without delay —
Young Doctor Green and shrewd old Doctor Gray
They heard the story—" Bleed ! " says Doctor Green.
"That's downright murder! cut his throat, you mean 1
Leeches ! the reptiles ! Why for pity's sake,
Not try an adder or a rattlesnake?
218 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Blisters'. Why bless you, they're against the law —
It's rank assault and battery if they draw !
Tartrate of Antimony ! shade of Luke,
Stomachs turn pale at thought of such rebuke !
The portal system ! What's the man about?
Unload your nonsense ! Calomel 's played out !
You've been asleep — you'd better sleep away
Till some one calls you."
" Stop 1 " says Doctor Gray —
" The story is you slept for thirty years ;
With brother Green, I own that it appears
You must have slumbered most amazing sound ;
But sleep once more till thirty years come round,
You'll find the lancet in its honored place,
Leeches and blisters rescued from disgrace.
Your drugs redeemed from fashion's passing scorn.
And counted safe to give to babes unborn."
Poor sleepy Rip, M. M. S. S., M. D.,
A puzzled, serious, saddened man was he;
Home from the Deacon's house he plodded slow
And filled one bumper of " Elixir Pro."
" Good-by," he faltered, " Mrs. Van, my dear!
I 'm going to sleep, but wake me once a year ;
I don't like bleaching in the frost and dew,
I '11 take the barn, if all the same to you,
Just once a year — remember ! no mistake !
Cry, ' Rip Van Winkle ! time for you to wake ! '
Watch for the week in May when laylocks blow,
For then the Doctors meet, and I must go."
Just once a year the Doctor's worthy dame
Goes to the barn and shouts her husband 's name ;
" Come, Rip Van Winkle ! " (giving him a shake)
" Rip 1 Rip Van Winkle ! time for you to wake !
Laylocks in blossom 1 't is the month of May —
The Doctors' meeting is this blessed day.
And come what will, you know I heard you swear
You 'd never miss it, but be always there I "
HYGEIA! GRANT THY BLESSING 219
And so it is, as every year comes round
Old Rip Van Winkle here is always found.
You '11 quickly know him by his mildewed air,
The hayseed sprinkled through his scanty hair,
The lichens growing on his rusty suit —
1 've seen a toadstool sprouting on his boot —
Who says 1 lie ? Does any man presume ? —
Toadstool ! No matter — call it a mushroom.
Where is his seat? He moves it every year ;
But look, you '11 find him, — he is always here,—
Perhaps you '11 track him by a whiff you know —
A certain flavor of " Elixir Pro."
Now, then, I give you — as you seem to think
We can give toasts without a drop to drink —
Health to the mighty sleepers, — long live he !
Our brother Rip, M. M. S. S., M. D. !
— Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Hygeia Grant Thy Blessing
t¥ AIL to all y^sculapians the nation 's bond enfolds,
J, I And to all good companions, whom friendship 's union
^ I holds ;
1- Hygeia ! Grant thy blessing to all whom we adore .
And with thy healing wisdom guide thou us evermore.
From silent forest flowing the healing waters pour,
Refreshing all that 's growing and aiding life endure.
And as the meadows languish for blessed rain, so we
When suff 'ring, in our anguish Hygeia sigh for thee.
When we are weak and ailing, let thou us not despair,
With succor never failing bring hope and comfort fair.
O thou benignant mother of health, and strength and might.
Bring brother near to brother in knowledge, truth and might.
— Dr. John C. Hemmeter.
220 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
A Hospital Story
HITE faces, pained and thin.
Gathered new pain — as at sonne sight of slaughter-
And waiting nurses, with their cups of water,
a)"^ Shrank, when they saw the bargeman 's little
daughter,
From Hester Street, brought In.
w
Caught by the cruel fire.
In act of filial duty, she had tasted
Death even then. The form that flame had wasted,
In vain, to save, the swiftest helpers hasted.
With love that would not tire.
And all that skill could do
Was done. Her fevered nerves, with anguish leaping
The surgeon soothed at last; and, left in keeping
Of tender eyes that night, the child lay sleeping
Until the clock struck two.
The streets' loud roar had died.
No angry shout was heard, nor drunken ditty ;
From Harlem to the bay, peace held the city
And the great hospital, where holy Pity
With Grief knelt, side by side.
The watchful nurse leaned low.
And saw in the scarred face the life-light waver.
Poor Annie woke. A cooling draught she gave her,
And called the doctor ; but he could not save her,
And soon he turned to go.
Calm, as from torture free.
She lay; then strangely, through her lips, sore wounded.
•. f /'I r ( 7
ed And
somes'
^4 »
;; ^U'set.
■•l,f ^x, "^h.-^ ,-
save.
Tbe Pos I -Mortem
skill could do
■■aver.
Ar
^rr-.'ie lay , uion i:i ,
A LOVER OP LEARNING 221
Broke warbled words, and the tones swelled, and rounded
To a clear nymn, that like an angel 's sounded —
•' Nearer, my God, to Thee ! "
One stanza, strong and sweet,
Of that melodious prayer, to heaven went winging
From the child 's soul ; and all who heard that singing
Gazed through quick tears, or bowed, like suppliants clinging
Around the Mercy Seat.
Then to a slender hum
Sank the soft song, too feeble to recover ;
But the sick heard, and felt it o 'er them hover
Like a saint 's blessing — till the scene was over,
And the young voice was dumb.
" Nearer, my God, to Thee 1 "
God heard. He loosed from earth, in his good pleasure.
That little life, and took it for his treasure ;
And all his love — a love no mind can measure —
Answered poor Annie 's plea.
Theron Brown.
A Lover of Learning
COLLEGE fellers! well, says I.
'F I 'd of hed a chance to feed
On the stujous oats an'— rye
Which they 'pear to thrive on — why,
I 'd of beat 'm all fer speed.
Reckon never was a man
Liked a book ez well ez me:
Why, I 'd ruther set an' scan
Throo a page of spellin' than
Smoke er chew in company
222 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Suits me when the candle 's lit
An' the logs er flamln' high
Jest to dror the blind an' sit
Sprawlin', half-asleep, an' yit
With the almanick clost by.
Lor', the pack o' thruths thet lay
Twixt them yeller kivers! — jokes
Thet ef I was laid away
In a grave ud make my clay
Hoot an' howl like livin' folks.
Stories too, an' hand-signed bills
Wrote by folks give up to die
'Fore they heard o' Plunkett 's pills.
Tell ye ! them 's the things thet fills
Up your throat an' damps your eye
Makes me mighty shaky-kneed,
Spellin' out the symptom list ;
Nigh near every one I read
Seems a-growin' like a weed
In me, till 1 fahly jist
Git so pious thet my ha 'r
Heaves on end an' cold chills lurch
Down my spine ; an' then 1 sw 'ar
In a stumlin' sort o' pray 'r
Thet 1 'low to go to church
Oftener an' what I 've went
Late years — ef f 'm spared from dyin'
Spite of all the ailments pent
Up in my old hide. They 're sent
Mebby jest for sancterfyin'.
— Eva Wilder McGlasson
SIR MEDICUS CHALLENGED 223
Sir Medicus Challenged
'HAT skilled physician owns the art
1^ / To heal the hurt done to my heart
By Daphne, mischief of Diana's train,
{q)\ Who wickedly doth joy her in my pain ?
She twits my tears, she scouts my sighs —
! would some healer improvise
A herbal charm from Daphne's laurel leaf,
A philter that might drive away my grief !
In this rare philter there should be
My Daphne's maddening mockery.
The glint of all her swirling burnished hair,
The perfume thralling of her presence rare,
The glory of red mocking lips
That wound the swain their dew who sips,
The bloom of blushes on her marble flesh
When love-thoughts force her blood beyond its mesh,
The spice of all her merry taunts
When she my rival's favors flaunts,
All, all that bitter is or fatal-sweet
In Daphne — all should in this philter meet !
Sir Medicus, have you the skill
This prescript difficult to fill?
Have you e 'er learned the all of healing arts.
The trick of curing Cupid's wounds in hearts ?
Because of Daphne's ways I ail
And wander earth forlorn and pale.
And 1 would have your aid to make me well,
To make me proof against her wounding spell !
What alkaloid have you to pit
Against the germ in Daphne's wit,
Which poisons me with sad, yet sweet, unrest
And grows to flaming fever in my breast ?
224 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Have you a lymph to immunize
My heart against my Daphne's eyes?
Alas! Sir Medicus, I greatly fear
Your vaunted skill is wholly helpless here,
And that your drugs nor kill nor cure !
Ah well ! One other aid is sure :
Adieu, Sir Medicus 1 Here have your pay-
King Hymen's torch shall fire my ills away !
— H. A. Van Fredenberg.
The Water of Gold
UY— who '11 buy? " In the market-place,
Out of the market din and clatter.
The quack, with his puckered, persuasive face,
Patters away in the ancient patter.
.. Buy — who '11 buy? In this flask I hold —
In this little flask that I tap with my stick, sir-
Is the famed, infallible Water of Gold —
The one, original, true elixir!
" Buy — who '11 buy? There 's a maiden there-
She with the ell-long flaxen tresses —
Here is a draught that will make you fair,
Fit for an emperor's own caresses 1
" Buy— who '11 buy? Are you old and gray?
Drink but of this, and in less than a minute,
Lo ! you will dance like the flowers in May,
Chirp and chirp like a new-fledged linnet !
'< Buy — who '11 buy? Is a baby ill?
Drop but a drop of this in his throttle.
Straight he will gossip and gorge his fill,
Brisk as a burgher over a bottle !
AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM 225
"Here is wealth for your life — if you will but ask ;
Here is health for your limb, without lint or lotion ;
Here is all that you lack, in this tiny flask;
And the price is a couple of silver groschen !
" Buy — who '11 buy ? " So the tale runs on,
And still in the great world 's market-places
The Quack, with his quack catholicon,
Finds ever his crowd of upturned faces;
For he plays on our hearts with his pipe and drum.
On our vague regret, on our weary yearning ;
For he sells the thing that never can come.
Or the thing that has vanished, past returning.
— Austin Dobson.
Audi Alteram Partem
WHEN quacks, as quacks may by good luck, to
be sure,
Blunder out at haphazard a desperate cure.
In the prints of the day, with due pomp and parade,
Case, patient, and doctor are amply displayed.
All this is quite just — and no mortal can blame it;
If they can save a man's life, they 've a right to pro-
clain it ;
But there 's reason to think they might save more
lives still.
Did they publish a list of the numbers they kill!
— Samuel Bishop.
.5—15
226 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
On Dr. Cheyne, the Vegetarian
"*ELL me from whom, fat-headed Scot,
Thou didst thy system learn ;
From Hippocrates thou hadst it not.
Nor Celsus, nor Pitcairn.
Suppose we own that milk is good.
And say the same of grass ;
The one for babes is only food,
The other for an ass.
Doctor ! our new prescription try
(A friend's advice forgive);
Eat grass, reduce thyself, and die ; —
Thy patients then may live.
— Dr. Andrew Wynter.
To Dr. Wynter
MY system. Doctor, is my own,
No tutor I pretend ; —
My blunders hurt myself alone.
But yours your dearest friend.
Were you to milk and straw confined.
Thrice happy might you be ;
Perhaps you might regain your mind.
And from your wit get free.
I can 't your kind prescription try.
But. heartily forgive ;
'Tis nat 'ral you should bid me die,
That you yourself may live.
— Dr. John Cheyne.
DE ARTE MEDENDI 227
De Arte Medendi
\
J HRO' long millenial years our world has swung,
"Y* And gloomy Death, with iron hand and tongue
Man's grave has digged, and doleful requiem sung-
*' Earth unto earth," " dust back again to dust."
The evil man, the good, the wise, the just,
The tottering child of age, the babe at birth,
Must find alike their rest in Mother Earth.
Death reigns, not only in her caves of gloom and night,
But thro' her open valleys, fair and bright,
For fount of endless youth not yet is found
Amid her rocks, or dells with flowers crowned.
Wise yEschylus, two thousand years agone.
Spoke the one truth this world has ever known :
" Death only of the Gods cares not for gifts ;
For him no altar sacrifice uplifts.
Nor hymn of praise from mortal lips ascends,
Since sweet Persuasion ne 'er before him bends."
And Seneca, while speaking of the dead
In Christ's own century, sublimely said :
" There 's no one but can snatch man's life away,
But none from man grim death can turn or stay ;
A thousand gates stand open wide that way."
And so, the wail of pestilential woes
That in the early ages first arose,
Sweeps on in chorus pitiful and low,
Humanity's sad wail, as on its echoes go,
That man is not immortal here below !
Afar in Egypt, men's strong love essayed
Death's crumbling power to check, if not evade.
And by embalming arts, whose secret lay
Hid with the generations of their day,
228 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
They sought to hold the body from decay
Till back the spirit came In some far distant day ;
While 'er their mummied forms with wondrous skill
They piled the caverened pyramids, which still
Hold fast the blackened visages of kings
Behind the symbol of expanded wings,
And other strange and hieroglyphic things
That hint of far off flights for those hence flown
Within the limitless and deep unknown.
Yet they, who with the surgeon's skillful knife
Opened the veins thro' which this fancied life
(Steeped in sweet spices, frankincense and wine)
Was well embalmed, fled from the temple's shrine
With curses hot pursued and showers of stone
For thus profaning Egypt's flesh and bone ;
While down amid the lowest depths of caste,
These early surgeons of the world were past
The priestly superstitions of the time.
As often since in many another clime,
Held struggling Science then in iron fetters fast.
And so in later Greece the same stern rule
Still held its sway in every new-born school ;
Though Homer, in his ancient battle-song,
Sings of the healer's deeds in war's wild throng.
And says in words we here may quote again,
" A HEALER 'S WORTH A HUNDRED OTHER MEN ; "
Yet brave Hippocrates, whose heart was fired
And with Humanity's own love inspired.
Though by the laws dissection of his kind
Was contraband, with penalties assigned.
Discounted Darwin and the Law's red tape
By keen dissection of th' ancestral ape.
And so began the myst 'ry to unfold.
Of bones and nerves and muscles manifold.
And soon he hazarded the amputation,
Set close the fracture and dislocation.
Ventured beneath the ribs with bloody blade.
And faltered not, though friends stood back dismayed
DE ARTE MEDENDI 229
Cauteries, and cruel moxa with its brand.
And bandaging of wounds witli gentle hand,
Were so by him in his dark age displayed,
That he the coming centuries shaped and swayed;
And so tonight, back on the stream of time,
We send a cheer for this Old Man Sublime.
And Rome for full six hundred years or more.
When her grand soldiers daily dripped with gore,
Found no one standing in her martial van
A healing helper of poor stricken man
Till Celsus rose, who, when the soldier bled,
Stripped off the battered helmet, bound up the bruised head.
Tied up the ruptured arteries with skill.
And left a name the Ages cherish still.
But lo ! the Christian Star ascends the sky,
The world's Great Healer to the world draws nigh,
Walks forth among the smitten ones of Earth,
And by His deeds discloses Heavenly birth.
He healed the lame, the halt, the blind,
And " cast out devils" from the shattered mind;
Bade trembling palsy from the limbs be gone,
Made straight the withered arm and shrunken bone,
And from foul Leprosy's infected cave
Forth drew the men accursed, and cleansing gave ;
Then, reaching down the grave, all dark and cold.
He snatched his mouldering friend from Death's strong-
hold,
And Ages still stand awed at deed so bold.
His skill we see, but whence His mighty power
We know not yet, e 'en in Earth's latest hour ;
Save that He seemed all Nature's laws to know,
And how to turn their currents' mystic flow
Along the burdened body's crippled form,
And lift the sick to health.
With all its joyous wealth.
The sleeping dead to life, all fresh and warm.
Himself, He humbly styled, "The Son of Man ; "
Yet, King of Life was He, ere yet the world began.
230 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Oh. for the day! Say, shall it ever be
This side the fathomless eternity,
That Nature's kingdom with her hidden laws •
And all their power with every secret cause
And every undeveloped latent force,
In knowledge ample, from their buried source
Shall be revealed to scientific scan,
As once they were to His, this " Son of Man? "
But with His Star's approach, as by a spell,
From off the feet of Truth the fetters fell ;
And onward, onward she was bade to go,
Walking divinely, all the wide world thro'.
And soon fair Science, creeping from her hold.
Grew daily more inquisitive and bold ;
And though the early church still frowned the while.
And vain Astrology came with her smile,
Still did "the healers " slowly press their way,
And gather wisdom with each new-born day,
Till Alchemy and all her magic arts
And martyr-relics from the Church's marts
And senseless nostrums vanished to the night.
As to the front came Science in her might.
And as the schools arise on Europe's plains,
Fair Science, calmly entering there, explains
To those who turn on her their wondering eyes
The secrets of her new-born mysteries.
Arabia trims her golden lamps to shine ;
Then Spain, and France, and Italy conjoin
To throw their light far out upon the world.
And over land and over sea 'tis whirled.
Till grand old England's towers reflect its beams
And a new glory on her banner gleams.
Rudely at first the surgeon there appeared,
As we behold him sketched and high upreared
By poet — first in England's royal line —
Good Master Chaucer, full of wit and wine.
Who more than full five hundred years ago.
When poetry was in its vernal glow.
DE ARTE MEDENDI 231
Paints in his " Pilgrinns," the doctor of his time;—
Hark how he gives it in his rought old rhyme*
And now, a half millenium of years,
I light me down this world of dust and tears.
And halt in humble village of my birth.
Where gaily sped my early years of mirth ;
Full fifty years (or thereabouts) ago,
We had a doctor there — right well I know,
For unto him my debut into life I owe.
How shall I sketch this lofty, stern old man,
Who handled these first years when life began?
Severe of manner, tall, and dressed in black,
Methodical as Greeley's almanack,
A watch chain pendant, with red cornelian key.
That shone (as oft it dangled down his knee) ,
Like Mars on lonely Midnight's dusky dress,
Or phosphorescent light in wilderness —
And Phebus! what a hideous, druggy smell
Within his garments there was wont to dwell I
A small apothecary shop I 'm sure
Was hidden there; enough " to kill or cure."
I smell it yet through all this lapse of years,
Though then I smelt it generally with tears.
For whatsoe 'er our ailments chanced to be,
" Calomel and jalap " was the remedy-
Though why this union I could never see,
For if the cal 'mel was to stay all down,
And work that fearful purpose, all its own,
Why put the nauseous jalap in the cup.
When that was bound straightway to bring it up ?
And were there time, I believe, I 'd almost dare
To put this same conundrum to the Chair ;
And also this : Why was this doctor always prone
To bleed us ever on the ankle bone.
And in the arm, when we were older grown?
And ample proof have I for all I say ;
His scars I carry still,
See Page 130.
232 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And doubtless will,
Down to my dying day.
I feel a faintness now, as I recall
The bowl, the lance, the spurt upon the wall.
The ribbon-bandage and that sickening sense of woe
That slowly crept my wounded system through.
And seemed to spread through every plaintive toe.
Since naught like this, today our boys befall,
I wonder why 'twas ever done at all :
As boys we thought it (and 'twas no mean guess)
The very " mystery of ungodliness ! "
And yet this same old man was kind and good.
I see him now, as more than once he stood
Within the heavy-curtained, silent room,
Laden with pure Farina's choice perfume.
And drew aside the damask hangings round the bed,
To show a little black-haired sleepy head
That lay beneath our wearied mother's eye,
Who smiled upon us with a tender sigh.
As kissing each upon his forehead bowed.
She whispered through her lace's snowy cloud,
"The Doctor, boys, last night a present brought.
Which he somewhere among the roses caught,
A little brother for you — now each one come
And kiss him welcome to our own dear home."
Oh, sainted mother, dear mothers of us all.
As we in manly years your pangs recall.
Your patient feebleness, your loving smile,
While near to Death's dark door ye lay the while.
We thank the healer who stood sentinel,
And checked the tolling of the passing knell.
And spared thee till thy work with us was done ; —
But now that ye afar to Heaven have flown.
And into holy angel forms have grown.
Look down this night on each surviving son ;
Look down in love — and bless us every one 1
But here we turn the Past's dull, dingy page
And stand illumined in the present age.
DE ARTE MEDENDI 233
What glories now does happy Science pour
Around the doctor's path and crowded door !
Behold the learned doctor of today !
Versed in all knowledge of those schools that sway
The modern mind in Learning's crowded way.
The telephone hangs in his open hall,
Through which he promptly speaks to those who call
From towns a hundred miles and more away,
Prescribing pills and potions for the day.
And diagnosing distant babes with croup,
By wheezings heard on telephonic loop,
" Use iodide potasse, or glycerine.
Wet cloths, with streaks of goose grease laid between ; "
These are the doctor's words in full direction,
Then bangs the button to cut off " connection ; "
And turning to his drowsy wife in bed, he says,
" That babe 's all right ; they '11 grease his throat and head.
Tomorrow morning round the floor he '11 creep ;
God bless the inventors of telephones and sleep."
And what a boon the modern doctor finds
In these new capsules of gum Arabic rinds.
The sugar pills — the little and the big —
(Though first esteemed a little "infra dig.")
On ancient styles of dose had got the rig ;
And tramps who cure incurable disease,
In order all their customers to please,
Put up bread v/ads, and many such like simples
In this shrewd form of sugar-coated pimples.
And so cod liver oil, and oil of castor
(So often followed with a swift disaster)
And ipecac, and jalap in a spoon.
Mixed up with currant jelly, jam or prune.
Were straight adjudged unfit for gentle throats.
As assafoetida, or hickr 'y pickr 'y roots ;
When, just in time these ancient drugs to save.
The capsule man appeared and kindly gave
This armor gelatine today we see,
And Dr, Bolus now stands cap-a-pie I
234 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Why now a dozen doses sly are hid
Within this little shell with gummy lid,
And one of good fat size might carry down
Med 'cine enough to cure a country town.
Farewell the stormy strife with boy and spoon,
The mother's peace has come, and not a day too soon ;
For if a boy was ere inclined to swear,
And pull his loving mother by the hair,
'Twas when she poured down his reluctant throat
Those drug-shop horrors, on which the doctor wrote.
With cabalistic marks some scrawl like this :
•' Signa; misce aquis pluvialis,
Et rec 'pe cochl. mag. alternis horis ;
Sed dum precatus, bene quassatus."
But all the same, what ere the learned note,
The mix was sure to prove both bane and antidote.
And then what wonders now our eyes behold !
Strange mechanisms, of curious shape and mould,
That fill the fancy druggists' showcase bright,
And set our brains all swimming at the sight,
The various sorts and kinds of microscope,
Ophthalmo, otoscope, and stethoscope,
And scopes for every organ known to man,
And twisted tubes, and globes on every plan.
With strange injecting and expelling pumps.
And artificial limbs with cushioned stumps.
And ivory pipes and gutta percha rings,
And, as Hans Breitman says, "all various kinds of dings."
Such things as no one but a surgeon knows,
With names as long as cross-barred Highland hose. —
I wonder if these doctors, "just for fun,"
Don 't sometimes, when their working day is done,
Take hold and with the very best intent
Full "diagnose" each curious instrument.
I 'm sure the laymen would like well to see
The learned ones of this fraternity
Take earnest hold of each and every one,
And in succession bravely " try them on,"
That so, as back they laid them on the shelf
Each man would know "just how it was himself.''
DE ARTE MEDENDI 235
But time forbids that we should longer stay
In pointing out these wonders of today ;
And yet there gleams, the wonder of them all,
Bright as the sunny sea round Ocean's wall,
Mercy descending as an angel fair,
With smiles as soft as Summer's gentle air,
To check and soothe Humanity's wild pain
And lull the tortured nerves to sleep again.
Oh, Ansesthesia! stern Surgery's fair saint,
Still hear our smitten Earth's distressful plaint.
And come, come ever to the patient's bed,
And sway thy magic wand, and downward shed
Thy gentle, drowsy dew with Lethe's stream,
And list and bear away the sufferer in a dream —
While Surgery's sharp blade goes flashing down
To regions where abnormal roots have grown.
And lapped and wrapt with cords both flesh and bone.
See yon sad woman, trembling, pale and weak,
Though now a blush comes creeping o 'er her cheek.
As modestly she draws her dress aside
And yields the surgeon what she fain would hide.
Her bosom fair, the source in years far flown
Of loving life to children now upgrown ;
Their bright young mother's flowing breast.
Where oft she pillowed their frail heads to rest !
(Alas, that such dread things should ever be),
But there the keen- eyed surgeons quickly see
The devil-plant has lodged, and vainly tried
Its cursed sprouts and tentacles to hide
In what was once that gentle woman's pride !
She nerves her trembling spirit for the strife
And bloody struggle of the cruel knife.
Lifts up a prayer to those she loves in Heaven,
That strength to her may in this hour be given ;
When lo ! sweet Anaesthesia appears,
Checks the wild tumult of her fears,
And with a loving hand restrains her tears,
" For pity runneth soon in gentle heart,"
And with a sister's sorrow bears a part.
236 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
She speaks, reminding her of earlier days,
When she was struggling in that dizzy maze
Wherein brave woman, though by torture torn,
Rejoices that her strong man-child is born ;
And how she once had safely led her through
That demon-like, convulsive fever throe,
And anchored her when all the storm was past
Within love's arms, by Home's own cable fast ; —
Then bids her rise and with her fly afar
In winged journey to some distant star.
While the good surgeon, does "what he thinks best;''
Then back again to sweet release and rest !
She yields; and Anaesthesia's kerchief white
Drops o 'er her face, and now she 's on her flight,
While the bright knife, with busy whirl and flash,
Runs its wild round, with bloody thrust and gash,
And lo 1 'tis done !
The demon-plant is gone !
And not a scream, or agonizing groan,
Escaped the sleeping form, all strapped and prone.
No, not one troubled sigh or moan !
And as the wandering women earthward come,
Softly descending from the starry dome,
They meet the smiling surgeon's " welcome home! "
God bless the doctor, who can smile away
The patient's tears ; and kindly to her say,
" 'Tis over now ! I pray you do not weep,
But lay you down, and drop way to sleep."
"Good deeds thro| heaven," 'tis said, "ring clear, like bells,"
And word Is deed, when it dark fear dispels,
And soothing words like these fall soft and sweet,
When they poor, wounded, trembling woman greet;
Sweet as the dew from Heaven's own crystal urns.
And happy he, who their full benedictions earns 1
For life is sweet to those who love and are beloved,
Death welcomed only when Life's loves are all removed.
Nor does this saint yield only to the call
Of those who dwell in lordly grounds and hall ;
DE ARTE MEDENDI 237
She follows marching armies to the field,
And bears the wounded soldiers on her shield
From out the battles' roaring storm and flood
To some rude hut or overshadowing wood.
Where the Green Sash essays to stay the tide
That flows from wounds, the Red Sash opened wide.
Brave are the heroes, girt with sash of red.
Who in the battle oft find bloody bed.
But brave as any such that e 'er were seen
Are they who serve beneath the sash of green ;
Who take war's holocaust within their tent,
And there, with tourniquet and instrument.
And lotion, lint, and liniment,
Staunch the life-flow from shattered trunk or limb
And put on lips of dying men a hymn —
A hymn of praise for life ; when all was dark,
And scarcely visible the vital spark
Within the sinking soldier's drooping eye.
Whose prayer was only that he " quickly die."
But there the surgeon and assistants stand,
A pile of severed limbs on either hand :
And Anassthesia, ever at their side
To check the pain, and staunch the purple tide
Of those who lay beneath the surgeon's knife,
And look to him and her alone for life.
Oh, well for them that she is on the field.
Or they of shattering wounds would ne 'er be healed ;
Well for the hospitals of war and peace,
For war and pestilence will never cease ;
Well for the world at large that she appears.
And every suffering mortal soothes and cheers.
Reviving hope and dissipating fear ;
A thousand thanks to those who brought her here !
Such names as Warren, Jackson, Morton, Wells,
Will live as long as suffering manhood dwells
Within this weary world of death and funeral knells.
And now, young scientists, to you I turn,
Well knowing how your youthful spirits burn
238 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
To pluck the laurel wreath that somewhere blooms
Adown the track of time, but not yet looms
Within your far-off telescopic range
Of things unborn, the curious and strange
Which future years hold fast and unrevealed.
Till you yourselves the casket have unsealed.
Your oath this night, as solemnly it fell
Before this cloud of witnesses, keep well ;
Keep bravely well, with all your mind and strength,
In all its parts, through all its breadth and length ;
And shield not only sacred motherhood.
But helpless, unborn life, from deeds of blood.
As you would shield a gentle sister's life.
Or guard a brother from the assassin's knife ;
And ever let the voiceless babe still find
In you, the God-appointed savior of its kind.
At Learning's shrine still bend the reverent knee.
Disciples now ye are, and long must be.
Children forever in Wisdom's nursery;
For so it is with all who fain would find
The mighty mysteries of her mighty mind.
Yet this you know, as we have seen tonight,
The Past's great tidal wave in power and might
Is here and bears you off in its embrace
To those fair hills crowned with her temples' grace ;
A new horizon breaking on your view.
Wide as the one which on Columbus grew,
As near our shores his storm-tost shallop drew.
What, let me ask you, can you yet make plain
Of that dark mystery, the silent brain,
Whose corrugated, complicated folds
In some strange way our active life upholds.
Yet answers not to surgeon's knife or probe,
Though deep he thrust them through each pulseless lobe ?
Were I a painter or a sculptor true,
I know a subject I should lift to view ;
The student, in the dark dissecting room
Alone within the candle-lighted gloom.
DE ARTE MEDENDI 239
Pondering above some fellow mortal's brain,
In earnest search to find that subtle chain
Which, catching Life's bright spark from out the sky
And thrilling it through pulse and artery.
Kindles to smiles young beauty's lovely face,
Braces the athlete for his panting race,
Wakes in its strength the statemen's mighty power.
Or poet's harp, in his inspired hour ;
Gives man not only life, but thoughtful soul,
Till the last hour, when breaks the golden bowl,
And God's eternal silence settles o 'er the whole !
There stands the student, pondering, pondering still ;
How long think you before my statue will
Give place to him, who glad " Eureka " cries.
And solves this riddle of the earth and skies ?
But you, who through your coming life must stand
And labor in this shadowy borderland.
Have this and other themes to tax your thought,
As on you toil, and labor in your lot.
The chemist's world behold! how wide its range.
With combinations endless in their change.
That drop their new results with every day,
To help poor sufferers on their weary way,
And show the miner how to draw the gold
Hid in the mountains from the days of old,
And drag the murderer to scaffold stand
By tracking poison to his cruel hand.
'Twas by her flashing arrows, deftly sped,
That grim Astrology fell with the dead.
With all her quips and quirks, and skulls and bones ; —
And of her famous "philosophic stones,"
The only one that Modern Science knows.
Or over which a single thought bestows.
Is that gray granite stone at her grave's head;
Of her, " Hic jacet," is the best word ever said.
And yonder floral world in dewy bloom.
That flings on every breeze its rich perfume.
Invites you to her many buds and flowers ;
240 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And by the aid of Chemistry's rare powers
Bids you distill
Whate 'er you will
Of balm or poison from her rosy bowers ;
The gates of this new world just now expand,
Go enter in, possess the golden land ;
Your Medica Materia enrich.
With no Shakespearean stew of hell-born witch.
But medications rare, and well refined,
To soothe the body and compose the mind ;
Perchance some plant may bring to you a cure
For all the woes
And all those torturing throes
That Alcohol's and Opium's slaves endure !
These we expect through Chemistry's high art.
And in it you should bear a noble part,
For wealth untold in Nature's bosom lies,
If only sought with cunning hand and eyes.
And though in grand old Job's poetic book
(On which no eye irreverent can look)
We read those startling questions put to man,
" Declare! where wast thou when this fair world began?
Have Death's grim gates been opened unto thee ?
Hast thou e 'er entered the deep springs of the sea?
Or in thy hands the glorious day-spring held?
Or all the gloomy doors of death beheld?
Hast thou perceived the dwelling of the light?
Or found the home of darkness and the night?
Can'st thou the influence sweet of Pleiades ere bind?
Or cast Orion's bands upon the wind?
Know'st thou where Heaven's high ordinance had birth?
Can 'st set dominion to it from the earth?
Or lift thy voice up to the clouds of rain,
And call down waters to the thirsty plain?
When all the morning stars together sang.
And Sons of God their lofty chorus rang,
Gird up thy loins, and answer if thou can,
Where wast thou then, trembling son of man? "
DE ARTE MEDENDI 241
Yet still, frail man, in searching out Earth's nnystery
In which lies hid his own high destiny,
Has boldy pushed keen Reason's eye afar ;
Far as Alcyone, yon mystic star
That hangs a central pivot strong and high.
Round which revolving worlds go circling by.
Like blazing chariots through the starry plain.
And pathless depths of Deity's domain ;
But finds not yet in all the heavenly zone
Just where the mighty God has built His throne.
Or where the habitation called "His own ! "
But other wonders man has yet to find,
Within that darker world, the world of mind,
Beyond whose cloudy'portals you must go
With careful glance, and cautious steps, and slow.
If you its mysteries would solve, and know; —
And so, into that weird and spectral sphere,
Where we are told, our dead ones reappear.
And some stand wondering, while others jeer,
We bid you in your time, to enter here,
And with fair Science and her plummet line,
Sound fearlessly these depths, and bid light shine
Through all this shadowy land, that we may see
If truth be there, or only jugglery.
This we should know ; for if there be a law
Which from the facts unflinching Truth may draw,
Then publish it to all the earth abroad,
Though creeds be shaken and old idols nod ;
Truth cannot suffer, for she's born of God.
Thus clad with armor from beyond the skies,
Go forth, as Adam went from Paradise,
Forbid the tree of knowledge — yet still intent
To make the best of his sad banishment,
And through all Nature's wide expanse,
To send a keen and penetrating glance,
That he might know all he had power to find
In voiceless nature, that could bless mankind.
6—16
242 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Be this your purpose as you say farewell,
And pass beyond your Alma Mater's bell ;
Pursue the laws of Truth, where 'er they lead,
Though roads be rough, and feet may sometimes bleed.
Though friends deride, and angry zealots plead ;
Who knows but Truth herself, in some near day,
May drop, with folded wing, along your way.
And in your hand the golden key of knowledge lay.
Then struggle on, and on, with all the zeal you can,
Your motto, " Love to God — Love to your fellow-man."
— Dr. D. Bethune Duffield.
The Young Medic and the Old
' ~>w EACON JONES was always ailing,
J lAnd his many aches bewailing,
pyAnd old Doctor Grampus failing
• — ^ To alleviate his ills.
With his mind in perturbation,
He called in, for consultation,
A young Hahnemann creation,
Who was known as " Little Pills."
Little Pills was heavy loaded.
And, by thirst for glory goaded,
How his rhetoric exploded.
When he met the Doctor old!
But his skill as rhetorician,
Held a second rate position.
With this young diagnostician.
And his words were free and bold :
" The patient has pleuritis.
And a grave appendicitis.
And an awful stomatitis.
That may push htm to the wall ;
THE YOUNG MEDIC AND THE OLD 243
While a marked endocarditis,
And a raging enteritis,
With a touch of meningitis,
Should be very {jlain to all !
"And I judge that he is ailing —
By the way that he is railing.
And his miseries bewailing —
In a way that is a shame ;
For his symptoms show metritis.
And an endo-cervicitis,
With hysteric ovaritis —
Once my grandma had the same I
" You can see he has colitis.
And a rheumatoid arthritis.
And, to cure his urethritis,
Will be worth a pile of wealth !
And, with all his ills and aching,
And his head with palsy shaking,
And his nervous system breaking,
He don 't feel quite well, himself!
" There are symptoms of iritis.
And a virulent phlebitis.
And his throat shows diptheritis,
As 1 very plainly see ;
In extremis 1 believe him,
And I 'd scorn me to deceive him,
When I say I can relieve him
With a ' 20 ' French bougee !
" Then the ninety-ninth dilution
Of a pellet in solution —
It will hasten resolution,
In a very wondrous way;
While the millionth trituration
Of a certain preparation,
Will complete his restoration.
At a very early day."
244 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Doctor Grampus sat and listened,
In his eye a tear-drop glistened —
First he 'd shed since he was christened —
Then he fainted quite away ;
But a sight so very shocking,
Didn 't stop the Medic's talking,
But his tongue kept up tall walking
'Til he 'd said his little say.
But, poor Deacon Jones, enlightened,
At his case was badly frightened,
For his burden was not lightened
By this learned diatribe ;
He rolled up his eyes in sorrow,
Chilling to the very marrow,
Whispered, "Good-bye, sweet, tomorrow!
I must die — i " and he died.
— Dr. S. F. Bennett.
The New Doctor
(or the music cure.)
H, Doctor, your hand! So! And now, as I
hold
This palm that I value so truly,
. Here 's a bill for your bill, though I warrant the
gold
Cannot pay all my debt to you duly.
Yes, 1 need you no longer ; the pain I endured
Has vanished, I hope, now, forever.
You will laugh when I tell you the way I was cured
By contracting a more ardent fever !
THE NEW DOCTOR 246
You have heard how the women are thronging the ways
That lead up to fame and position ;
And 1 know you will frown when I join in the praise
Of fair woman in guise of physician.
As I stopped by a door one fine morning in May,
A song through the doorway came trilling,
And down to the core of my heart made its way.
Like a tonic, both healing and thrilling.
It seemed to say ! " Live not for self but for me,
And your heart will beat easy hereafter."
So she cured me with song, and with smiles set me free,
And such dear counter-irritant laughter !
Now, given that one has a palpitant heart,
Is not a soft pressure pacific ?
And, if taken between meals, with delicate art,
Are not kisses a fine soporific ?
You said, once, my heart had expanded too wide ;
So I thought, as it was over-roomy,
I might as well take a dear lady inside —
And 'tis glad now, where once it was gloomy.
I wish that I could but portray you my prize —
All the grace of my dear little singer —
But I stop in despair at her beautiful eyes !
No, I cannot describe her! I '11 bring her!
Now, Doctor, don 't envy this rival of yours.
With her pharmacopoeia of beauty ;
Since her voice and her eyes work such marvelous
cures.
To love my new doctor is duty.
— Charles H. Crandall.
246 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
The Doctor's Wife
T^HE night was dark and bitter cold.
"f The wind across the prairie swept,
While 1 in comforts warm enrolled
Snored softly on and soundly slept,
When suddenly my door bell rang —
Infernal sound ! It pierced my ears,
As on the creaking floor I sprang,
My heart athrob with direst fears.
Lest one had come to call me out
Into the cruel biting blast. —
I for my garments cast about
Wishing this night-call were my last.
But oh, the best thought of my life!
't calms me now as oft before.
I '11 send my thoughtful, faithful wife
To meet the stranger at the door.
She goes and oh, the sweetest lies
That ever mortal tongue has told,
As in her artless way she tries
To say, — that I 'm out in the cold.
" He won 't be home till break of day
And then he '11 come, poor tired man,
I 'm awful sorry he 's away.
He '11 come as promptly as he can."
I go to bed, but not to sleep,
I ponder long on doctor's wives,
The only ones who ever think
Of our rest-broken, weary lives.
THE PHYSICIAN'S HYMN 247
I somehow think God don 't record
Those little white-lies often told
To give a way-worn doctor sleep,
Or save him from the winter's cold.
And if He does, I 'm sure His pen
Writes very near, in letters bright,
A tender thought of her who thinks
Of doctors, toiling in the night.
—Dr. W. J. Bell.
The Physician's Hymn
" Y\^YS1CIAN, Friend of human kind,
^y Iwhose pitying Love is pleased to find
(^^ A cure for every ill ;
By Thee raised up, by Thee bestowed
To do my fellow-creatures good,
I come to serve Thy will.
I come not like the sordid herd.
Who, mad for honor or reward.
Abuse the healing art :
Nor thirst of praise, nor lust of gain.
But kind concern at human pain.
And love constrains my heart.
On Thee I fix my single eye.
Thee only seek to glorify,
And make Thy goodness known ;
Resolved, if Thou my labors bless,
To give Thee back my whole success,
To praise my God alone.
The friendly properties that flow
Through Nature's various works, I know
The Fountain whence they came ;
248 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And every plant, and every flower
Medicinal derives its power
From Jesus' balmy Name.
Confiding in that Name alone,
Jesus, I in Thy work go on,
To tend Thy sick and poor.
Dispenser of Thy medicines 1 ;
..But Thou the blessing must supply,
I But Thou must give the cure.
For this I humbly wait on Thee :
The servant of Thy servants see
Devoted to Thy will,
Determined in Thy steps to go.
And bless the sickly sons of woe,
Who groan Thy help to feel.
Afflicted by Thy gracious hand,
They now may justly all demand
My instrumental care :
Thy patients. Lord, shall still be mine ;
And to my weak attempts I join
My strong effectual prayer.
while Thou givest their bodies ease.
Convince them of their worst disease.
The sickness of the mind ;
And let them groan by sin opprest.
Till coming unto Thee for rest.
Rest to their souls they find.
With these and every sin-sick soul,
1 come myself to be made whole.
And wait the sovereign word.
Thou canst, I know, Thou dost forgive
But let me without sinning live,
To perfect love restored.
THE HOSPITAL AT NIGHT 249
Myself, alas, I cannot heal;
But Thou shalt every seed expel
Of sin out of my heart,
Thine utmost saving health display.
And purge my inbred sin away,
And make me as Thou art.
Till then in Thy blest hands I am.
And still in faith the grace I claim
To all believers given.
Perfect the cure in me begun.
And when my work on earth is done.
Receive me up to heaven.
— Charles Wesley.
The Hospital at Night
ROOSEVELT, MIDNIGHT, APRIL 8tH, 1839
^ SIT within the long dim ward at night ;
1 ) Around me silent beds or snores or groans, —
^ Ah 1 List that prayer with anguish In its tones :
"0 God, God, God 1 How soon will it be light !"
" Kape sthill ! An' let usshlape. Oi think yees moight!"-
A boy asleep, who smiles, (with broken bones)
Dreaming of mother or some playground sight.
Without, thick darkness and a wind that moans.
A rattling breath, a gasp, a still, white stare,
A nurse's jest: " Discharged — tie up the jaw,
A label on the wrist to save mistakes,"
The tramp of dead-house men of heedless air.
Two lines of lifted faces full of awe —
A sickened sot, that cot tomorrow shakes.
—J. William Lloyd.
250 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Ballade of the Doctor's Horse
UT in the mist of the morning light,
Threading the dusty thoroughfares lone,
(Tirelessly, plaintlessly, day and night,
Seeking the homes where the ailing moan,
Thou drawest the y^sculapian throne
That bears the king with the healing seed
To sooth to a sigh the pain-forced groan :
Ho for the Doctor's sturdy old steed !
Rough is thy coat, but keen is thy sight.
Coming and going when fields are sown.
Jogging along when bloom is at height,
Sniffing the scent of the meadows mown.
Patient when nipped by the air snow-flown.
Each thought of thy master thou dost read,
To thee each " case " through the rein is shown:
Ho for the Doctor's sturdy old steed !
Pegasus bearing the Muse in flight
Boasteth no glory over thine own.
Worthy old steed, whose chiefest delight
Lies in the love in thy driver's tone !
To rurals and urbans art thou known,
To humans of every race and creed ;
Far, far o'er the earth thy fame is blown :
Ho for the Doctor's sturdy old steed!
ENVOI :
Model of merit for seer and drone.
When thou art gone, shall a graven stone
Tell from thy mound of thy life and deed :
Ho for the Doctor's sturdy old steed !
— Absalom B. Salom.
IN HOSPITAL 251
IN HOSPITAL
ENTER PATIENT
^■^HE morning mists still haunt the stony street ;
=t» The northern summer air is shrill and cold ;
And lo, the Hospital, gray, quiet, old,
. . Where life and death like friendly chafferers meet,
Through the loud spaciousness and draughty gloom
A small, strange child — so aged, yet so young! —
Her little arm besplinted and beslung,
Precedes me gravely to the waiting room.
I limp behind, my confidence all gone.
The gray-haired soldier-porter waves me on,
And on I crawl, and still my spirits fail:
A tragic meanness seems so to environ
These corridors and stairs of stone and Iron,
Cold, naked, clean — half-workhouse and half-jail.
II
WAITING
A SQUARE, squat room (a cellar on promotion),
Drab to the soul, drab to the very daylight;
Plasters astray in unnatural-looking tinware ;
Scissors and lint and apothecary's jars.
Here, on a bench a skeleton would writhe from.
Angry and sore, I wait to be admitted:
Wait till my heart is lead upon my stomach,
While at their ease two dressers do their chores.
252 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
One has a probe — it feels to me a crowbar.
A small boy sniffs and shudders after bluestone.
A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers.
Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame.
Ill
INTERIOR
THE gaunt brown walls
Look Infinite in their decent meanness.
There is nothing of home In the noisy kettle,
The fulsome fire.
The atmosphere
Suggests the haunt of a ghostly druggist.
Dressings and lint on the long, lean table —
Whom are they for ?
The patients yawn,
Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin.
A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles.
It 's grim and strange.
Far footfalls clank.
The bad burn waits with his head unbandaged.
My neighbor chokes in the clutch of chloral.
O a gruesome world !
IV
BEFORE
BEHOLD me waiting — waiting for the knife.
A little while, and at a leap I storm
The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform
The drunken dark, the little death-in-life.
The gods are good to me : I have no wife.
No Innocent child, to think of as I near
The fateful minute ; nothing ail-too dear
Unmans me for my bout of passive strife.
IN HOSPITAL 253
Yet am I tremulous and a trifle sick,
And, face to face wfth chance, I shrink a little:
My hopes are strong, my will is something weak.
Here comes the basket ? Thank you. I am ready.
But. gentlemen my porters, life is brittle :
You carry Cassar and his fortunes — steady 1
Y
OPERATION
OU are carried in a basket.
Like a carcase from the shambles,
To the theater, a cockpit.
Where they stretch you on a table.
Then they bid you close your eyelids.
And they mask you with a napkin,
And the anaesthetic reaches
Hot and subtle through your being.
And you gasp, and reel, and shudder
In a rushing, swaying rapture,
While the voices at your elbow
Fade — receding — fainter — farther
Lights about you shower and tumble,
And your blood seems crystallising —
Edged and vibrant, yet within you
Racked and hurried back and forward.
Then the lights grow fast and furious.
And your hear the noise of waters.
And you wrestle, blind and dizzy,
In an agony of effort,
Till a sudden lull accepts you.
And you sound an utter darkness . .
And awaken . . . with a struggle
On a hushed, attentive audience.
254 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
VI
AFTER
LIKEAS a flamelet blanketed in smoke,
So through the ana5Sthetic shows my life ;
So flashes and so fades my thought, at strife
With the strong stupor that I heave and choke
And sicken at, it is so foully sweet.
Faces look strange from space^and disappear.
Far voices, sudden loud, offend my ear —
And hush as sudden. Then my senses fleet :
All were a blank, save from this dull, new pain
That grinds my leg and foot ; and brokenly
Time and the place glimpse on to me again ;
And, unsurprised, out of uncertainty,
I wake — relapsing — somewhat faint and fain.
To an immense, complacent dreamery.
VII
VIGIL
LIVED on one's back.
In the long hours of repose
Life is a practical nightmare —
Hideous, asleep or awake.
Shoulders and loins
Ache I
Ache, and the mattress.
Run into boulders and hummocks.
Glows like a kiln, while the bedclothes-
Tumbling, importunate, daft —
Ramble and roll, and the gas,
Screwed to its lowermost,
An inevitable atom of light.
Haunts, and a stertorous sleeper
Snores me to hate and despair.
IN HOSPITAL 255
All the old time
Surges malignant before me ;
Old voices, old kisses, old songs
Blossom derisive about me ;
While the new days
Pass me in endless procession :
A pageant of shadows
Silently, leeringly wending
On . . . and still on . . . still on.
Far in the stillness a cat
Languishes loudly. A cinder
Falls, and the shadows
Lurch to the leap of the flame. The next man
to me
Turns with a moan ; and the snorer.
The drug like a rope at his throat.
Gasps, gurgles, snorts himself free, as the night-
nurse.
Noiseless and strange,
Her bull's-eye half-lanterned in apron,
(Whispering me, "Are ye no sleepin' yet? "
Passes, list-slippered and peering,
Round . . . and is gone.
Sleep comes at last —
Sleep full of dreams and misgivings —
Broken with brutal and sordid
Voices and sounds
That impose on me, ere I can wake to it,
The unnatural, intolerable day.
VIII
STAFF-NURSE: OLD STYLE
THE greater masters of the commonplace,
Rembrandt and good Sir Walter — only these
Could paint her all to you : experienced ease.
And antique liveliness, and ponderous grace ;
256 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
The sweet old roses of her sunken face ;
The depth and malice of her sly gray eyes ;
The broad Scots tongue that flatters, scolds, defies ;
The thick Scots wit that fells you like a mace.
These thirty years has she been nursing here,
Some of them under SYME, her hero still.
Much is she worth, and even more is made of her.
Patients and students hold her very dear.
The doctors love her, tease her, use her skill.
They say " The Chief" himself is half-afraid of her.
IX
LADY PROBATIONER
SOME three, or five, or seven and thirty years;
A Roman nose; a dimpling double-chin;
Dark eyes and shy that, ignorant of sin,
Are yet acquainted, it would seem, with tears;
A comely shape; a slim, high-colored hand.
Graced, rather oddly, with a signet ring ;
A bashful air, becoming everything;
A well-bred silence always at command.
Her plain print gown, prim cap, and bright steel chain
Look out of place on her, and I remain
Absorbed in her, as in a pleasant mystery.
Quick, skilful, quiet, soft in speech and touch . . .
" Do you like nursing? " " Yes, Sir, very much."
Somehow, I rather think she has a history.
STAFF-NURSE: NEW STYLE
BLUE-EYED and bright of face, but waining fast
Into the sere of virginal decay,
I view her as she enters, day by day.
As a sweet sunset almost overpast
m HOSPITAL 257
Kindly and calm, patrician to the last,
Superbly falls her gown of sober gray,
And on her chignon's elegant array
The plainest cap is somehow touched with caste.
She talks Beethoven ; frowns disapprobation
At Balzac's name, sighs it at "poor George Sand's";
Knows that she has exceeding pretty hands ;
Speaks Latin with a right accentuation ;
And gives at need (as one who understands)
Draught, counsel, diagnosis, exhortation.
XI
CLINICAL
HIST? . . .
Through the corridor's echoes
Louder and nearer
Comes a great shuffling of feet.
Quick, every one of you,
Straighten your quilts, and be decent !
Here's the Professor.
In he comes first
With the bright look we know,
From the broad, white brows the kind eyes
Soothing yet nerving you. Here, at his elbow.
White-capped, white-aproned, the Nurse,
Towel on arm and her inkstand
Fretful with quills.
Here, in the ruck, anyhow.
Surging along,
Louts, duffers, exquisites, students, and prigs —
Whiskers and foreheads, scarf-pins and spectacles!
Hustle the Class ! And they ring themselves
Round the first bed, where the Chief
(His dressers and clerks at attention!)
Bends in inspection already.
258 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
So shows the ring
Seen, from behind, round a conjuror
Doing his pitch in the street.
High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow
ones.
Round, square, and angular, serry and shove ;
While from within a voice,
Gravely and weightily fluent.
Sounds ; and then ceases ; and suddenly
(Look at the stress of the shoulders !)
Out of a quiver of silence,
Over the hiss of the spray.
Comes a low cry, and the sound
Of breath quick intaken through teeth
Clenched in resolve. And the Master
Breaks from the crowd, and goes,
Wiping his hands.
To the next bed, with his pupils
Flocking and whispering behind him.
Now one can see.
Case Number One
Sits (rather pale) with his bed-clothes
Stripped up, and showing his foot
(Alas for God's image !)
Swaddled in wet, white lint
Brilliantly hideous with red.
XII
ETCHING
TWO and thirty is the ploughman.
He's a man of gallant inches.
And his hair is close and curly.
And his beard ;
But his face is wan and sunken,
And his eyes are large and brilliant,
And his shoulder-blades are sharp,
And his knees.
IN HOSPITAL 259
He is weak of wits, religious.
Full of sentiment and yearning,
Gentle, faded — with a cough
And a snore.
When his wife (who was a widow,
And is many years his elder)
Fails to write, and that is always,
He desponds.
Let his melancholy wander,
And he'll tell you pretty stories
Of the women that have wooed him
Long ago ;
Or he'll sing of bonnie lasses
Keeping sheep among the heather,
With a crackling, hackling click
In his voice.
XIII
CASUALTY
A
S with varnish red and glistening
Dripped his hair; his feet were rigid;
Raised, he settled stiffly sideways :
You could see the hurts were spinal.
He had fallen from an engine,
And been dragged along the metals.
It was hopeless, and they knew it ;
So they covered him, and left him.
As he lay, by fits half sentiment,
Inarticulately moaning.
With his stockinged feet protruded
Sharp and awkward from the blankets.
To his bed there came a woman.
Stood and looked and sighed a little,
And departed without speaking.
As himself a few hours after.
160 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
I was told it was his sweetheart.
They were on the eve of marriage.
She was quiet as a statue,
But her lip was gray and writhen.
XIV
AVE, CAESAR!
FROM the Winter's gray despair.
From the summer's golden langor.
Death, the lover of Life,
Frees us for ever.
Inevitable, silent, unseen.
Everywhere always,
Shadow by night and as light in the day,
Signs she at last to her chosen ;
And, as she waves them forth.
Sorrow and Joy
Lay by their looks and their voices.
Set down their hopes, and are made
One in the dim Forever.
Into the winter's gray delight.
Into the summer's golden dream.
Holy and high and impartial.
Death, the mother of Life,
Mingles all men for ever.
XV
"THE CHIEF"
HIS brow spreads large and placid, and his eye
Is deep and bright, with steady looks that still.
Soft lines of tranquil thought his face fulfill —
His face at once benign and proud and shy.
If envy scout, if ignorance deny.
His faultless patience, his unyielding will.
Beautiful gentleness, and splendid skill,
Innumerable gratitudes reply.
IN HOSPITAL 261
His wise, rare smile is sweet with certainties,
It seems in all his patients to compel
Such love and faith as failure cannot quell.
We hold him for another Herakles,
Battling with custom, prejudice, disease,
As once the son of Zeus with Death and Hell,
XVI
HOUSE-SURGEON
EXCEEDING tall, but built so well his height
Half-disappears in flow of chest and limb ;
Moustache and whisker trooper-like in trim ;
Frank-faced, frank-eyed, frank-hearted ; always bright
And always punctual — morning, noon, and night;
Bland as a Jesuit, sober as a hymn ;
Humourous, and yet without a touch of whim ;
Gentle and amiable, yet full of fight;
His piety, though fresh and true in strain.
Has not yet whitewashed up his common mood
To the dead blank of his particular Schism :
Sweet, unaggressive, tolerant, most humane,
Wild artists like his kindly elderhood,
And cultivate his mild Philistinism.
XYII
INTERLUDE
o
THE fun, the fun and frolic
That The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Scatter through a penny whistle
Tickled with artistic fingers !
Kate the scrubber (forty summers.
Stout but sportive) treads a measure,
Grinning, in herself a ballet,
Fixed as fate upon her audience.
262 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Stumps are shaking, crutch-supported ;
Splinted fingers tap the rhythm ;
And a head all helmed with plasters
Wags a measured approbation.
Of their mattress-life oblivious,
All the patients, brisk and cheerful.
Are encouraging the dancer,
And applauding the musician.
Dim the gasses in the output
Of so many ardent smokers,
Full of shadow lurch the corners,
And the doctor peeps and passes.
There are, maybe, some suspicions
Of an alcoholic presence . . .
" Tak' a sup of this, my wumman ! " . , .
New Year comes but once a twelve month.
XVIII
CHILDREN: PRIVATE WARD
HERE in this dim, dull, double-bedded room,
I am a father to a brace of boys,
Ailing, but apt for every sort of noise.
Bedfast, but brilliant yet with health and bloom.
Roden, the Irishman, is "sieven past,"
Blue-eyed, snub-nosed, chubby, and fair of face.
Willie 's but six, and seems to like the place,
A cheerful little collier to the last.
They eat, and laugh, and sing, and fight, all day;
All night they sleep like dormice. See them play
At Operations : — Roden, the Professor,
Saws, lectures, takes the artery up, and ties ;
Willie, self-chloroformed, with half-shut eyes.
Holding the limb and moaning — Case and Dresser.
IN HOSPITAL 263
XIX
SCRUBBER
SHE'S tall and gaunt, and in her hard, sad face.
With flashes of the old fun's animation.
There lowers the fixed and peevish resignation
Bred of a past where troubles came apace.
She tells me that her husband, ere he died.
Saw seven of their children pass away,
And never knew the little lass at play
Out on the green, in whom he 's deified.
Her kin dispersed, her friends forgot and gone,
All simple faith her honest Irish mind.
Scolding her spoiled young saint, she labors on :
Telling her dreams, taking her patients' part,
Trailing her coat sometimes : and you shall find
No rougher, quainter speech, nor kinder heart.
XX
VISITOR
HER little face is like a walnut shell
With wrinkling lines ; her soft, white hair adorns
Her either brow in quaint, straight curls, like horns;
And all about her clings an old, sweet smell.
Prim is her grown and quakerlike her shawl.
Well might her bonnets have been born on her.
Can you conceive a Fairy Godmother
The subject of a real religious call ?
In snow or shine, from bed to bed she runs.
Her mittened hands, that ever give or pray.
Bearing a sheaf of tracts, a bag of buns.
All twinkling smiles and texts and pious tales :
A wee old maid that sweeps the Bridegroom's way,
Strong in a cheerful trust that never fails,
264 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
XXI
ROMANCE
TALK of pluck ! " pursued the Sailor,
Set at euchre on his elbow,
" I was on the wharf at Charleston,
Just ashore from off the runner.
" It was gray and dirty weather,
And I heard a drum go rolling,
Rub-a-dubbing in the distance.
Awful dour-like and defiant.
" In and out among the cotton.
Mud, and chains, and stores, and anchors,
Tramped a squad of battered scarecrows —
Poor old Dixie's bottom dollar 1
" Some had shoes, but all had rifles,
Them that was n't bald, was beardless.
And the drum was rolling Dixie,
And they stepped to it like men, sir !
" Rags and tatters, belts and bayonets.
On they swung, the drum a-rolling.
Mum and sour. It looked like fighting,
And they meant it too, by thunder!
XXII
PASTORAL
TIS the Spring
Earth has conceived, and her bosom.
Teeming with summer. Is glad.
Thro' the green land,
Vistas of change and adverture.
The gray roads go beckoning and winding.
Peopled with wains, and melodious
IN HOSPITAL 265
With harness-bells jangling,
Jangling and twangling rough rhythms
To the slow niarch of the stately, great horses
Whistled and shouted along.
White fleets of cloud.
Argosies heavy with fruitfulness,
Sail the blue peacefully. Green flame the hedge-
rows.
Blackbirds are bugling, and white in wet winds,
Sway the tall poplars.
Pageants of color and fragrance.
Pass the sweet meadows, and viewless
Walks the mild spirit of May,
Visibly blessing the world.
O the brilliance of blossoming orchards!
the savor and thrill of the woods,
When their leafage is stirred
By the flight of the angel of rain !
Loud lows the steer ; in the fallows
Rooks are alert ; and the brooks
Gurgle and tinkle and trill. Thro' the gloaming
Under the rare, shy stars,
Boy and girl wander,
Dreaming in darkness and dew.
It 's the Spring.
A sprightliness feeble and squalid
Wakes in the ward, and I sicken,
Impotent, winter at heart.
XXIII
MUSIC
DOWN the quiet eve,
Thro' my window, with the sunset.
Pipes to me a distant organ
Foolish ditties :
266 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And, as when you change
Pictures in a magic lantern,
Books, beds, bottles, floor, and ceiling
Fade and vanish,
And I 'm well once more. . . .
August flares adust and torrid.
But my heart is full of April
Sap and sweetness.
In the quiet eve
I am loitering, longing, dreaming . . .
Dreaming, and a distant organ
Pipes me ditties.
I can see the shop,
I can smell the sprinkled pavement,
Where she serves — her chestnut chignon
Thrills my senses.
the sight and scent.
Wistful eve and perfumed pavement !
In the distance pipes an organ . . .
The sensation
Comes to me anew.
And my spirit, for a moment
Thro' the music breathes the blessed
Air of London.
XXIY
SUICIDE.
S
TARING corpselike at the ceiling.
See the harsh, unrazored features.
Ghastly brown against his pillow,
And the throat— so strangely bandaged !
IN HOSPITAL 267
Lack of work and lack of victuals,
A debauch of smuggled whisky,
And his children in the workhouse,
Made the world so black a riddle
That he plunged for a solution ;
And, although his knife was edgeless,
He was sinking fast toward one,
When they came, and found, and saved him.
Stupid now with shame and sorrow,
In the night I hear him sobbing.
But sometimes he talks a little,
He has told me all his troubles.
In his face, so tanned and bloodless.
White and wide his eyeballs glitter ;
And his smile, occult and tragic,
Makes you shudder when you see it.
XXV
APPARITION
THIN-LEGGED, thin-chested, slight unspeakably.
Neat-footed, and weak-fingered : in his face —
Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race,
Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea.
The brown eyes radiant with vivacity —
There shines a brilliant and romantic grace,
A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace
Of passion, impudence, and energy.
Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck,
Most vain, most generous, sternly critical.
Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist :
A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck,
Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all,
And something of the Shorter-Catechist.
268 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
XXVI
ANTEROTICS
L
AUGHS the happy April morn
Thro' my grimmy, little window.
And a shaft of sunshine pushes
Thro' the shadows in the square.
Dogs are romping thro' the grass,
Crows are cawing round the chimneys,
And among the bleaching linen
Goes the west at hide-and-seek.
Loud and cheerful clangs the bell.
Here the nurses troop to breakfast.
Handsome, ugly, all are women . .
O the Spring— the Spring— the Spring 1
XXVII
NOCTURN
A
T the barren heart of midnight,
When the shadow shuts and opens
As the loud flames pulse and flutter,
I can hear a cistern leaking. •
Dripping, dropping, in a rhythm
Rough, unequal, half-melodious,
Like the measures aped from nature
In the infancy of music ;
Like the buzzing of an insect,
Still, irrational, persistent, . . .
I must listen, listen, listen
In a passion of attention ;
Till it taps upon my heartstrings,
And my very life goes dripping.
Dropping, dripping, drip-drip-dropping,
In the drip-drop of the cistern.
IN HOSPITAL 269
XXVIII
DISCHARGED
CARRY me out
Into the wind and the sunshine,
Into the beautiful world.
the wonder, the spell of the streets I
The stature and strength of the horses.
The rustle and echo of footfalls,
The flat roar and rattle of wheels !
A swift tram floats huge on us . . .
It's a dream?
The smell of the mud in my nostrils
Is brave — like a breath of the sea !
As of old.
Ambulant, undulant drapery.
Vaguely and strangely provocative,
Flutters and beckons. O yonder —
Scarlet ! — the glint of a stocking I
Sudden a spire,
Wedged in the mist 1 the houses.
The long lines of lofty, gray houses !
Cross-hatched with shadow and light,
"These are the streets. . . .
Each is an avenue leading
Whither I will 1
Free . . . !
Dizzy, hysterical, faint,
1 sit, and the carriage rolls on with me
Into the wonderful world.
— The Old Infirmary, Edindurgh, 1873-75.
27b THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Envoy
TO CHARLES BAXTER
DO you remember
That afternoon — that Sunday afternoon ! —
When, as the kirks were ringing in
And the gray city teemed
With Sabbath feelings and aspects,
Lewis — our Lewis then,
Now the whole world's! — and you
Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came.
Laden with BALZACS
(Big, yellow books, quite impudently French)
The first of many times,
To that transformed back-kitchen where I lay
So long, so many centuries —
Or years, is it ! — ago?
Dear Charles, since then
We have been friends, Lewis and you and I,
(How good it sounds, " Lewis and you and I ! ") :
Such friends, 1 like to think
That in us three, Lewis and me and you,
Is something of that gallant dream
Which old DUMAS — the generous, the humane.
The seven-and-seventy times to be forgiven ! —
Dreamed for a blessing to the race.
The immortal Musketeers.
Our Athos rests — the wise, the kind.
The liberal and august, his fault atoned.
Rests in the crowded yard
There at the west of Princes Street. We three-
You, I, and Lewis! — still afoot.
Are still together, and our lives,
In chime so long, may keep
(God bless the thought !)
Unjangled till the end.
— William Ernest Henley.
OLE DOCTEUR FISET 271
Ole Docteur Fiset
LE Docteur Fiset of Saint Anicet
iSapre tonnerre ! he was leev' long tarn,
'l s'pose he's got ninety year or so,
Beat all on de parish 'cept Pierre Courteau,
An' day affer day he work all de sam' !
Dat house on de hill, you can see it still,
She's sam' place he bull' de firs' tarn he come,
Behin' it dere's wan leetle small jardin,
Got plaintee de bes tabac Canayen,
Wit' fameuse apple, an' beeg blue plum —
An' dey're all right dere, for de small boys' scare,
No matter de apple look nice an' red.
For de small boy know if he's stealin' some.
Den Docteur Fiset on dark night he come
An' cut leetle feller right off hees head !
But w'en dey was rap, an' tak' off de cap,
M'sieu' le Docteur he will say " Entrez! "
Den all de boy pass on jardin behind,'
Were dey eat mos' ev'ryt'ing good dey fin'
Till dey can't go on school nearly two, free day! —
But Docteur Fiset, not moche fonne he get
Drivin' all over de whole contree ;
If de road she's bad, if de road she's good
W'en ev'ryt'ings drown on de Spring-tam flood.
An' workin' for not'ing half-tam, mebbe!
Let her rain or snow, all he want to know
Is jus' if anywan's feelin' sick,
For Docteur Fiset's de ole fashion kin',
Doin' good was de only t'ing on hees min',
So he got no use for de politique.
^t3 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
An* he's careful too ! 'cos firs' t'ing he do
For fear dere was danger some fever case.
Is tak' w'en he's come, leetle w'isky chaud,
Den 'noder wan too. jus' before he go,
He's so scare carry fever aroun' de place 1
On nice Summer day, w'en w'ere makin' hay,
Dere's not'ing more pleasant for us I'm sure
Dan see de ole man came joggin' along
Alway singin' some leetle song.
An' hear heem say "Tiens! mes amis, Bonjourl"
An' w'en de cole rain was commence again
An' we're sittin' at home on some warm cor-nerre.
If we hear de buggy an' see de light
Tearin' along t'roo de black black night
We know right off, it's de old Docteur 1
An' he's smart horse, sure, w'at he call " Faubourg"
Ev'ry place on de county he know dem all,
An' you ought to see de nice way he go
For fear he's upsettin' upon de snow
W'en ole man's asleep on de cariole.
I 'member w'en poor Hormisdas Couture
Get sick on hees place twenty mile away.
An' hees boy Ovide he was come " Raquette,"
W'at you call "Snow-shoe," for Docteur Fiset —
An' Docteur he start wit' hees horse an' sleigh.
All de night before, de beeg storm she roar
An' mos' of de day it's de sam also
De drif was pilin' up ten feet high.
You can't see not'ing dis side de sky,
Not'ing but wan avalanche of snow !
I'm hearin' de bell w'en I go on de well
For water de cattle on barn close by.
But I only ketch sight of hees cheval blanc
An' hees coonskin coat wit' de capuchon.
An' de storm tak' heem off jus' de sam he fly —
A MEDICAL STUDENT'S LETTER 273
Mus' be le bon Dieu dat Is help heem t'roo,
Ole Docteur Fiset an' hees horse " Faubourg."
'Y'was somet'ing for splalnin', wall ! I dont care
But somehow or 'nother he's gettin' dere
An' save de life Hormisdas Couture !
But it's sam alway, lak dat ev'ry day
He never was spare hese'f pour nous autres ;
He don't mak' moche monee Docteur Fiset,
An' offen de only t'ing he was get
Is de poor man's prayer, an' wan bag of oat.
***************
Wall ! Doctor Fiset of Saint Anicet
He's not dead yet ! an' I'm purty sure
If you're passin' dat place about ten years more,
You will see heem go roun' lak he go before,
Wit' de ole cariole an' hees horse " Faubourg."
— Dr. William Henry Drummond.
A Medical Student's Letter
"If you'd go for to think for to dare for to try for to beat me
at lyrics,
Man would fall down with the laughing, and woman go off in
hysterics."
I
^ ' N vain alchemic hieroglyphs to charm me now, whereas I
hum
Love-songs all day, and look as pale as oxide of potassium.
Oh ! did 1 own, far, far away, some spicy and tobaccoed isle,
I'd smoke and sigh the livelong day. and curse the salts of
KAKODYLE,
With SULPHURETTED HYDROGEN, AMMONIA, AND KALIUM,
And sit most sentimentally in buffo, and Haynes Bailey hum.
I cause among the Burschen all considerable merriment.
By swallowing the alcohol Intended for experiment ;
5—18
274 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And from the grave professors, too, Incur enormous odium,
For once, instead of tea, I filled their pot with salt of sodium ;
The world guffaws, not without cause, to see me quite dejected
thus —
My languages forgotten, and my sciences neglected thus.
The old may scold, the young give tongue, fall flat the fat, and
laugh the lean.
To see me spill the glyceryl, and fill my pipe with naphtha-
line.
Contract four flexors, lovely Frau, and take me to your pec-
torals —
A doctor skilled to kill or cure and readily detect your ills.
Oh I think of what a treasure in pertussis or sciatica,
In catalepsy, muUygrubs, or facies hypocratica.
Beware, my fair, or hear me swear, by Ahriman, that if you're
stiff,
Your acid frown shall, slap bang down, precipitate me o'er a
cliff.
Farewell, then, dear companions, and farewell, cenoe deorum.
Where we talked de rebus omnibus, with notae variorum.
But always perorated with a scientific jorum.
We supped on theobromine,. and perhaps at times we quaffed
a late
Crucible of alcohol disputing of a naphthalate,
Till our noses glowed like cinnabar, and many a yellow rum
bum.
Per, hot and cold, flowed on like gold, or iodine of plumbum,
Retorts sublime, we slaked our lime, until the morning star,
boys.
Beheld us fall, with beakers all, and roll among the carboys.
But now a very absent man, I've scarcely got a word to say.
Or, if to show my teeth at all, 'tis something miost absurd to say;
And even at the opera, among the gods and top-row lights,
I ruminate on behemoths and chew the cud on coprolites.
And shall I in suspension hang, to glorify thee, eh? Nay,
Nor In the meerchaum plunge by way of bolneum arenae.
We are not isomorphous in our souls, thou fair deceiver.
And I to coquetry's retort decline to play receiver ;
Nor would my heart amalgamate to that of a divinity
Who could not cling to mine with more than chemical affinity.
THE DOCTOR'S DREAM 275
No, fuse me in a furnace blast! I'll sing that Celtic air first.
" Go to the d 1 and shake yourself," to banish my despair
first.
For what's a queen in diamonds, with her coronation garb on,
But CALCIUM and phosphorus, haematosine and carbon ?
I'll take unto me crucibles and capsules, tubes and funnels,
And pour down mine assophagus rich German wine in runnels ;
And though my frozen Fraulein like to Aphrodite wore a form,
'Twill act upon my occiput like ether or like chloroform ;
And ever on my optics shall the vision of that maiden jar,
Erewhile that thrilled me with a shock more powerful than a
Leyden jar.
— Richard Dalton Williams.
The Doctor's Dream
' AM sitting alone, by the surgery fire, with my pipe alight,
) now the day is done ;
The village is quiet, the wife's asleep, the child is hushed,
and the clock strikes one !
And I think to myself, as I read the Journal, and I bless my
life for the peace upstairs.
That the burden's sore for the best of men, but few can dream
what a doctor bears ;
For here I sit at the close of a day, whilst others have counted
their profit and gain.
And I have tried as much as a man can do, in my humble
manner, to soften pain ;
1 've warned them all, in a learned way, of careful diet, and
talked of tone ;
And when I have preached of regular meals, I 've scarcely had
time to swallow my own.
I was waked last night in my first long sleep, when I crawled to
bed from my rounds — dead beat.
"Ah, the Doctor's called! " and they turned and snortd, as my
trap went rattling down the street !
276 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
I sowed my oats, pretty wild they were, in the regular manner
when life was free ;
For a medical student isn't a saint, any more than your ortho-
dox Pharisee !
I suppose I did what others have done, since the whirligig round
of folly began ;
And the ignorant pleasures I loved as a boy, I have pretty well
cursed since I came to be man.
But still I recall through the mist of years, and through the
portals of memory steal.
The kindly voice of a dear old man who talked to us lads of the
men who heal,
Of the splendid mission in life for those who study the science
that comes from God,
Who buckle the armor of Nature on, who bare their breasts
and who kiss the rod.
So the boy disappeared in the faith of the man, and the oats
were sowed, but I never forgot
There were few better things in the world to do than to lose all
self in the doctor's lot.
So 1 left life that had seemed so dear, to earn a crust that isn't
so cheap.
And I bought a share of a practice here, to win my way, and to
lose my sleep ;
To be day and night at the beck and call of men who ail and
women who lie ;
To know how often the rascals live, and see with sorrow the
dear ones die ;
To be laughed to scorn as a man who fails, when nature pays
her terrible debt ;
To give a mother her first-born's smile, and leave the eyes of
the husband wet ;
To face and brave the gossip and stuff that travels about
through a country town ;
To be thrown in the way of hysterical girls, and live all terrible
scandals down ;
To study at night in the papers here of new disease and of
human ills;
THE DOCTOR 277
To work like a slave for a weary year, and then to be cursed
when 1 send my bills !
Upon my honor, we 're not too hard on those who cannot afford
to pay.
For nothing I 've cured the widow and child, for nothing I 've
watched till the night turned day;
I 've earned the prayers of the poor, thank God, and 1 've borne
the sneers of the pampered beast,
I 've heard confessions and kept them safe as a sacred trust
like a righteous priest.
To do my duty I never have sworn, as others must do in this
world of woe,
But 1 've driven away to the bed of pain, through days of rain,
through nights of snow.
*****
As here I sit and I smoke my pipe, when the day is done and
the wife's asleep,
I think of that brother-in-arms who 's gone, and utter — well
something loud and deep !
And I read the Journal and 1 fling it down, and I fancy 1 hear
in the night that scream.
Of a woman who 's crying for vengeance ! Hark ! no, the
house is still ! It 's a doctor's dream !
— Anonymous.
The Doctor
IN love he practiced, and in patience taught,
The sacred art that battles with disease ;
Nor stained by one disloyal act or thought,
The holy symbol of Hippocrates.
— Anonymous
THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
Lines to a Skeleton
EHOLD this ruin ! 'twas a skull,
Once of etheral spirit full ;
jThls narrow cell was life's retreat,
This space was thought's mysterious seat.
What beauteous visions filled this spot!
What dreams of pleasure long forgot !
Nor love, nor joy, nor hope, nor fear.
Has left one trace of record here.
Beneath this mouldering canopy.
Once shone the bright and busy eye ;
But start not at the dismal void —
If social love that eye employed.
If with no lawless fire It gleamed.
But through the dew of kindness beamed.
That eye shall be forever bright.
When stars and sun have lost their light.
Here, in this silent cavern, hung
The ready, swift and tuneful tongue ;
If falsehood's honey It disdained,
And, where it could not praise, was chained.
If bold In virtue's cause it spoke.
Yet gentle concord never broke ;
That tuneful tongue shall plead for thee,
When death unvails eternity.
Say, did these fingers delve the mine,
Or with it's envied rubles shine?
To hew the rock or wear the gem
Can nothing now avail to them.
But if the page of truth they sought.
Or comfort to the mourner brought,
DOCTOR DROLLHEAD'S CURE 279
These hands a richer meed shall claim
Than all that waits on wealth or fame.
Avails it, whether bare or shod.
These feet the path of duty trod?
If from the bowers of joy they fled
To sooth affliction's humble bed ;
If grandeur's guilty bribe they spurned.
And home to virtue's lap returned,
These feet with angel's wings shall vie.
And tread the palace of the sky.
— Anonymous,
Doctor Drollhead's Cure
"*HREE weeks to a day had old Doctor Drollhead
Attended to Miss Debby Keepill;
Three weeks to a day had she lain in her bed
Defying his marvelous skill.
She put out her tongue for the twenty-first time.
But it looked very much as it should ;
Her pulse with the doctor's scarce failed of a rhyme,
As a matter of course, it was good.
Today has this gentleman happened to see —
Very strange he's not done it before —
That the way to recovery simply must be
Right out of this same chamber door.
So he said, " Leave your bed, dear Miss Keepill, I pray ;
Keep the powders and pills, if you must,
But the color of health will not long stay away
If you exercise freely, I trust."
"Why, doctor! of all things, when I am so weak
That scarce from my bed can I stir,
Of color and exercise thus will you speak ?
Of what ARE you thinking, dear sir?"
K
280 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
" That a fright is the cure, my good lady, for you,"
He said to himself and the wall.
And to frighten her, what did the good doctor do,
But to jump into bed, boots and all.
And as in jumped he, why then out jumped she.
Like a hare, except for the pother,
And shockingly shocked, pray who wouldn't be ?
Ran, red as as a rose, to her mother.
Doctor Drollhead, meanwhile, is happily sure,
Debby owes a long life just to him;
And vows he 's discovered a capital cure
For the bedrid when tied by a whim.
At any rate, long, long ago this occurred.
And Debby is not with the dead ;
But in pretty good health, 't may be gently inferred.
Since she makes all the family bread.
— Anonymous.
Ould Docther Mack
YE may tramp the world over
From Delhi to Dover,
And sail the salt say from Archangel to Arragon,
Circumvint back
Through the whole Zodiack,
But to ould Docther Mack ye can't furnish a paragon.
Have ye the dropsy.
The gout, the autopsy ?
Fresh livers and limbs Instantaneous he '11 shape yez ;
No ways infarior
In skill, but suparior.
And lineal postarior of Ould Aysculapious ;
H'e and his wig wid the curls so carroty,
Aigle eye and complexion clarety :
Here's to his health,
Honor and wealth,
The king of his kind and the crame of all charity!
OULD DOCTHER MACK 281
How the rich and the poor.
To consult for a cure,
Crowd on to his doore in their carts and their carriages,
Shown' their tongues
Or unlacin' their lungs,
For divle one symptom the docther disparages.
Troth, and he '11 tumble
For high or humble
From his warm feather-bed wid no cross contrariety ;
Makin' as light
Of nursin' all-night
The beggar in rags as the belle of society.
And as if by meracle.
Ailments hysterical,
Dad, wid one dose of bread-pills he can smother.
And quench the love-sickness
Wid wonderful quickness,
By prescribin' the right boys and girls to aich other.
And the sufferin' childer —
Your eyes 'twould bewilder
To see the wee craythurs his coat-tails unravellln',
And aich of them fast
On some treasure at last,
Well known' ould Mack 's just a toy-shop out travellin'.
Then, his doctherln' done.
In a rollickin' run
Wid the rod or the gun, he's the foremost to figure,
By Jupiter Ammon,
What Jack-snipe or salmon
E'er rose to backgammon his tail-fly or trigger !
And hark ! the view-hollo !
'Tis Mack in full follow
On black Faugh-a-ballagh the country-side sailin*.
Och, but you'd think
'Twas ould Nimrod in pink,
Wid his spurs cryin' chink over park-wall and palin'.
282 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
He and his wig. wid the curls so carroty,
Aigle eye and complexion clarety ;*
Here's to his health.
Honor and wealth !
Hip, hip, hooray ! wid all hilarity.
Hip, hip. hooray ! that's the way.
All at once, without disparity !
One more cheer
For our docther dear.
The king of his kind and the crame of all charity.
Hip, hip. Hooray!
— Arthur Percival Graves.
Appendicitis
AVE you got the new disorder?
If you haven't 'tis in order
To succumb to it at once without delay.
A- It is called appendicitis.
Very different from gastritis,
Or the common trash diseases of the day.
It creates a happy frolic.
Something like the winter colic,
That has often jarred our inner organs some.
Only wrestles with the wealthy.
And the otherwise most healthy.
Having got it, then your nigh to kingdom come.
Midway aown in your intestine.
Its interstices infestin'.
Is a little alley, blind and dark as night ;
Leading off to simply nowhere.
Catching all stray things that go there ;
As a pocket it is simply out of sight.
It is prone to stop and grapple
With the seed ot grape or apple,
Or a soldier button swallowed with your pie.
LAMENT OP AN UNFORTUNATE DRUGGIST 283
Having levied on these chattels,
Then begin internal battles,
That are apt to end in mansions in the sky.
Once located, never doubt it.
You would never be without it ;
It's a fad among society that's gay;
Old heart failure and paresis
Have decamped and gone to pieces,
And dyspepsia has fallen by the way.
Then stand back there diabetes.
For here comes appendicitis,
With a brood of minor troubles on the wing;
So, vermiform, here's hoping
You'll withstand all drastic doping,
And earn the appellation, " Uncrowned King."
— Anonymous.
Lament of an Unfortunate Druggist
A member of the Pharmaceutical Society, whose matrimonial
speculations have been disappointed.
YOU that have charge of wedded love, take heed
To keep the vessel which contains it air-tight ;
So that no oxygen may enter there 1
Lest (like as in a keg of elder wine,
The which, when made, thy careless hand forgot
To bung securely down) full soon, alas!
Acetous fermentation supervene
And winter find thee wineless, and, instead
Ot wine, afford thee nought but vinegar.
Thus hath it been with me : there was a time
When neither rosemary nor jessamine.
Cloves or verbena, marechale, resede.
Or e'en great Otto's self, were more delicious
Unto my nose, than Betsy to mine eyes ;
284 THE DOCTOR'S WINDOW
And, in our days of courtship, I have thought
That my career through life, with her, would be
Bright as my own show-bottles ; but, ah me !
It was a vision'd scene. From what she was
To what she is, is as the pearliness
Of Greta Prasp. compared with Antim. Nig.
There was a time she was all Almond-mixture
(A bland emulsion ; I can recommend it
To him who hath a cold) , but now, woe ! woe !
She is a fierce and foaming combination
Of turpentine with vitriolic oil.
Oh ! name not Sulphur, when you speak of her.
For she is Brimstone's very incarnation.
She is the Bitter-apple of my life,
The Scillas oxymel of my existence,
That knows no sweets with her.
What shall I do? — where fly? — what Hellebore
Can ease the madness that distracts my brain !
What aromatic vinegar restore
The drooping memory of brighter days .
They bid me seek relief in Prussic acid ;
They tell me Arsenic holds a mighty power
To put to flight each ill and care of life :
They mention Opium, too ; they say its essence,
Called Battley's Sedative, can steep the soul
Chin-deep in blest imaginings ; till grief
Changed by its chemic agency, becomes
One lump of blessed Saccharum ; — these things
They tell to me — me, who for twelve long years
Have triturated drugs for a subsistence.
From seven i' th' morning until the midnight hour.
I have no faith in physic's agency
E'en when most genuine, for I have seen
And analysed its nature, and I know.
That Humbug is its Active Principle,
Its ultimate and Elemental Basis.
What then is left? No more to Fate I'll bend:
I will rush into chops ! and Stout shall be — my end ! !
— Anonymous.
Notes
Carleton, pp 21, 139. "The Country Doctor" is from
"Rhymes of Our Planet," copyright, 1895, by Harper and
Brothers; and "The Doctor's Story" is from "Farm Le-
gends," copyright, 1875, 1887, by Harper and Brothers. These
poems are published by special arrangement with the author
and publishers.
Field, pp 22, 147. The poems "His Pneumogastric
Nerve," and "Doctors" were written by Mr. Field while
in London in 1889-90, and were published in the Chicago
Daily News, now the Chicago Record. The original text is
here given.
Riley, p 25. The changes in the text from original in
" Doc Sifers " were made by Mr. Riley especially for this col-
lection. The poem as here given is the same as will appear
in the revised edition of this author's works.
Helmuth, p 31. " My First Patient" was originally read
at the banquet of the American Institute of Homoeopathy, at
Pittsburg, and afterwards at a faculty dinner at the Hotel
Brunswick, New York.
Bruns, p 36. Dr. J. Dickson Bruns was a native of
South Carolina, and was born in Charleston, in 1837. For
many years preceeding his death, in 1883, he was a resi-
dent and a leading practitioner of New Orleans. The poem,
" Morituri Salutamus," was obtained from his son. Dr. Henry
Dickson Bruns of New Orleans.
Mitchell, p 49. " Minerva Medica" was originally read
at the dinner commemorative of the fiftieth year of the doctor-
ate of D. Hayes Agnew, April 6, 1888.
Kerner, p 101. This rendering of "The Doctor's
Walk" is by the Rt. Rev. J. L. Spalding and is from his volume
of excellent translations, " Songs Chiefly from the German."
286 NOTES
Parsons, p 114. "The Good Physician" originally ap.
peared in The Galaxy for November, 1862.
Garth, p 120. "The Dispensary" is a burlesque poem
in six cantos, written in defence of an edict passed by the Col-
lege of Physicians, July, 1687, which required medical men to
give gratuitous advice to the poor. The poem was published
in 1696.
Chaucer, p 130. "A Fourteenth Century Doctor" is
from " The Canterbury Tales," and is the oldest poetic descrip-
tion of a physician in modern English literature.
Meston, p 142. This "Diploma" is considered one of the
best of the older macaronics. It was written by William Mes-
ton, M. A., Professor of Philosophy in Marischal College, Aber-
deen, about the beginning of last century, whose works are now
rarely to be seen,
Armstrong, p 167, "The Art of Preserving Health"
was published in 1744, and attracted a considerable attention
in its day. It is a kind of dictionary of domestic medicine,
containing much learning, much medical and moral philosophy,
but without much original power, either of poetical conception
or execution ; it is, however, distinguished by classical correct-
ness and closeness of style.
Hemmeter, p 219. " Hygeia Grant Thy Blessing," is
from the Cantata of " Hygeia." the music as well as the text
being written by Prof. Hemmeter. This song was produced
before the American Medical Association in Baltimore, in May,
1895.
Duffield, p 227. " De Arte Medendi " was delivered at
the Fourteenth Annual Commencement of the Detroit Medical
College, March 2, 1882.
Illustrations. The privilege of reproducing the picture,
" A Cure for the Gout" has been purchased from the Berlin
Photographic Company of New York, who are the owners of the
copyright. " The Anxious Moment," " A Clinic by Dr.
Charcot," and " The Doctor " are used by special arrangements
with William Wood and Company, New York, and are from
their series of pictures for physicians' offices.
List of Authors
Archibald, Mrs. George p 71
Armstrong, Dr. John p 167
Axon, William E. A. p 45
Bates, Charlotte Fiske p 163
Bates, Katharine Lee p 131
Bayles, J. C. p 195
Bell, Dr. W. J. p 246
Benton, Joel p 63
Bennett. Dr. S. F. p 242
Bishop, Samuel p 225
Blackie, John Stuart p 16
Blood, Henry Ames p 46
Brooks, Fred Emerson p 161
Brown, Theron p 220
Browning, Elizabeth B. p 154
Burnett, James G. p 29
Bruns, Dr. J. Dickson p 36
Byron, Lord p 82
Cameron, Stuart p 115
Carleton, Will p 2 1 , 1 39
Chandler, Henry p 119
Chaucer, Geoffrey p 130
Chismore, Dr. George pill
Clarke, H. Savile p 64, 95
Col man, George p 75
Cooke, Rose Terry p 84
Crabbe. George p 87
Crandall, Charles H. p 244
Cheyne, Dr. John p 226
Dickens, Charles p 128
Dickinson, Emily p 146
Dillon, Wentworth p 62
Dobell, Sydney p 15, 148
Dobson, Austin p 9, 224
Drummond. Dr. Wm. Henry p 271
Duffield, Dr. D. Bethune p 227
Duncombe, William p 27
Field, Eugene p 22, 147
Flagg, Edward Octavus p 149
Foss, Sam Walter p 72
Freeman, Dr. Edward D. iii
Frisbie, Myles Tyler p 1 16
Garth, Samuel p 120
Gould, S. Baring- p 54
Graves, Richard p 124, 183
Griswold, Dr. Joseph B. p 125
Hamilton, Eugene Lee- p 53
Harlow, Dr. Wm. Burt p 28
Harvey, James Clarence p 106
Heaton, John Langdon p 165
Helmuth, Dr. Wm. Tod p 31, 152
Hemmeter, Dr. John C. p 219
Henley, William Ernest p251
Hogg, James p 52
Holmes, Dr. Oliver W. p 18, 21 1
Hood, Thomas p 198
Hopkins, Dr. Lemuel p 191
King, Ben p 1 10
Jenner, Dr. Edward p 112
Johnston, Dr. J. p 83
Jonson, Ben p 141
Kelley, Dr. Samuel W. p 85
288
LIST OF AUTHORS.
Kerner, Andreas JusTiN p 101
Lamson, Frederick Locker- p 74
Langbridge, Frederick p 118
Lapius, S. Q. p 107
Lettsom, John Coakley p 95
Leverett, Mary E. p 138
Litchfield, Grace Denio p 155
Lloyd, J. William p 249
Luce, Samuel Slayton p 96
Matthews, Dr. James N. p 30
McFarland, Dr. Andrew p 166
McGlasson, Eva Wilder p 80, 221
Meston, William p 142
Miller, Abraham Perry p 134
Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir p 49, 207
Parsons, Thomas William p 114
Peck, Samuel Minturn p 98
Peterson, Dr. Frederick p 197
Prentiss, Caroline Edwards p 181
Prior, Matthew p 40
Rand, Dr. N. W. p 202
Raymond, Charles Lansing p 129
Reaves, Rebecca Morrow p 1 13
Riley, James Whitcomb p 25
Rosy, Dr. Henry W. p 102
Salom, Absalom B. p 250
Saltus, Francis Saltus p 66, 164
Sannazarius, Actius pBl
Santolius, Johannes p 160
Saxe, John Godfrey p 68
Semple, Henry Coolidge p 187
Sheldon, Lurana W. p 184
Smith, Dr. Andrew p 193
Smith, Dr. Charles p 78
Smith, Horace p41, 100
Smith, James p 69
Stockbridge, George H. p 43
Stoddard, William Osborn p 132
Sterry, J. Ashby- p 104
TODHUNTER, JOHN p 182
TussER, Thomas p 73
Van Fredenberg, H. a. p 135,223
Wadd, William p 1 5 1
Waller, Edmund p 196
Ward. Dr. E. B. p 205
Wesley, Charles p 247
Whitman, Walt p 133
Whittier, John Greenleaf p 117
Wiley, Dr. Harvey W. p 210
Williams, Richard Dalton p 273
Wilson. Dr. T. P. p 185
Wynter, Dr. Andrew p 226
Anonymous p 277-283
lEDL
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