your mind I should have told you earlier that I intend to devote my life
entirely to science. There are many women with a capacity for marriage,
but few with a taste for biology. I will remain true to my own line,
then. I came down here while waiting for an opening in the Paris
Physiological Laboratory. I have just heard that there is a vacancy for
me there, and so you will be troubled no more by my intrusion upon your
practice. I have done you an injustice just as you did me one. I thought
you narrow and pedantic, with no good quality. I have learned during
your illness to appreciate you better, and the recollection of our
friendship will always be a very pleasant one to me."
And so it came about that in a very few weeks there was only one doctor
in Hoyland. But folks noticed that the one had aged many years in a few
months, that a weary sadness lurked always in the depths of his blue
eyes, and that he was less concerned than ever with the eligible young
ladies whom chance, or their careful country mammas, placed in his way.
XV
CRABBE'S PRACTICE
I wonder how many men remember Tom Waterhouse Crabbe, student of
medicine in this city. He was a man whom it was not easy to forget if
you had once come across him. Geniuses are more commonly read about than
seen, but one could not speak five minutes with Crabbe without
recognising that he had inherited some touch of that subtle, indefinable
essence. There was a bold originality in his thought, and a convincing
earnestness in his mode of expressing it, which pointed to something
higher than mere cleverness. He studied spasmodically and irregularly,
yet he was one of the first men--certainly the most independent
thinker--of his year. Poor Crabbe--there was something delightfully
original even in his mistakes. I can remember how he laboriously
explained to his examiner that the Spanish fly _grew_ in Spain. And how
he gave five drops of Sabin oil credit for producing that state which it
is usually believed to rectify.
Crabbe was not at all the type of man whom we usually associate with the
word "genius." He was not pale nor thin, neither was his hair of
abnormal growth. On the contrary he was a powerfully built,
square-shouldered fellow, full of vitality, with a voice like a bull and
a laugh that could be heard across the meadows. A muscular Christian
too, and one of the best Rugby forwards in Edinburgh.
I remember my first meeting with Crabbe. It gave me a respect both for
his cool reasoning powers and for his courage. It was at one of the
Bulgarian Atrocity meetings held in Edinburgh in '78. The hall was
densely packed and the ventilation defective, so that I was not sorry to
find that owing to my lateness I was unable to get any place, and had to
stand in the doorway. Leaning against the wall there I could both enjoy
the cool air and hear the invectives which speaker after speaker was
hurling at the Conservative ministry. The audience seemed
enthusiastically unanimous. A burst of cheering hailed every argument
and sarcasm. There was not one dissentient voice. The speaker paused to
moisten his lips, and there was a silence over the hall. Then a clear
voice rose from the middle of it: "All very fine, but what did
Gladstone----" There was a howl of execration and yells of "Turn him
out!" But the voice was still audible. "What did Gladstone do in '63?"
it demanded. "Turn him out. Show him out of the window! Put him out!"
There was a perfect hurricane of threats and abuse. Men sprang upon the
benches shaking their sticks and peering over each other's shoulders to
get a glimpse of the daring Conservative. "What did Gladstone do in
'63?" roared the voice; "I insist upon being answered." There was
another howl of execration, a great swaying of the crowd, and an eddy in
the middle of it. Then the mass of people parted and a man was borne out
kicking and striking, and after a desperate resistance was precipitated
down the stairs.
As the meeting became somewhat monotonous after this little
divertisement, I went down into the street to cool myself. There was my
inquisitive friend leaning up against a lamp-post with his coat torn to
shreds and a pipe in his mouth. Recognising him by his cut as being a
medical student, I took advantage of the freemasonry which exists
between members of that profession.
"Excuse me," I said, "you are a medical, aren't you?"
"Yes," he said; "Thomas Crabbe, a 'Varsity man."
"My name is Barton," I said. "Pardon my curiosity, but would you mind
telling me what Gladstone _did_ do in '63?"
"My dear chap," said Crabbe, taking my arm and marching up the street
with me, "I haven't the remotest idea in the world. You see, I was
confoundedly hot and I wanted a smoke, and there seemed no chance of
getting out, for I was jammed up right in the middle of the hall, so I
thought I'd just make them carry me out; and I did--not a bad idea, was
it? If you have nothing better to do, come up to my digs and have some
supper."
"Certainly," said I; and that was the foundation of my friendship with
Thomas Crabbe.
Crabbe took his degree a year before I did, and went down to a large
port in England with the intention of setting up there. A brilliant
career seemed to lie before him, for besides his deep knowledge of
medicine, acquired in the most practical school in the world, he had
that indescribable manner which gains a patient's confidence at once. It
is curious how seldom the two are united. That charming doctor, my dear
madam, who pulled the young Charley through the measles so nicely, and
had such a pleasant manner and such a clever face, was a noted duffer at
college and the laughing-stock of his year. While poor little Doctor
Grinder whom you snubbed so, and who seemed so nervous and didn't know
where to put his hands, he won a gold medal for original research and
was as good a man as his professors. After all, it is generally the
outside case, not the inside works, which is noticed in this world.
Crabbe went down with his young degree, and a still younger wife, to
settle in this town, which we will call Brisport. I was acting as
assistant to a medical man in Manchester, and heard little from my
former friend, save that he had set up in considerable style, and was
making a bid for a high-class practice at once. I read one most deep and
erudite paper in a medical journal, entitled "Curious Development of a
Discopherous Bone in the Stomach of a Duck," which emanated from his
pen, but beyond this and some remarks on the embryology of fishes he
seemed strangely quiet.
One day to my surprise I received a telegram from Mrs. Crabbe begging me
to run down to Brisport and see her husband, as he was far from well.
Having obtained leave of absence from my principal, I started by the
next train, seriously anxious about my friend. Mrs. Crabbe met me at the
station. She told me Tom was getting very much broken down by continued
anxiety; the expenses of keeping up his establishment were heavy, and
patients were few and far between. He wished my advice and knowledge of
practical work to guide him in this crisis.
I certainly found Crabbe altered very much for the worse. He looked
gaunt and cadaverous, and much of his old reckless joyousness had left
him, though he brightened up wonderfully on seeing an old friend.
After dinner the three of us held a solemn council of war, in which he
laid before me all his difficulties. "What in the world am I to do,
Barton?" he said. "If I could make myself known it would be all right,
but no one seems to look at my door-plate, and the place is overstocked
with doctors. I believe they think I am a D.D. I wouldn't mind if these
other fellows were good men, but they are not. They are all antiquated
old fogies at least half a century behind the day. Now there is old
Markham, who lives in that brick house over there and does most of the
practice in the town. I'll swear he doesn't know the difference between
locomotor ataxia and a hypodermic syringe, but he is known, so they
flock into his surgery in a manner which is simply repulsive. And
Davidson down the road, he is only an L.S.A. Talked about epispastic
paralysis at the Society the other night--confused it with liquor
epispasticus, you know. Yet that fellow makes a pound to my shilling."
"Get your name known and write," said I.
"But what on earth am I to write about?" asked Crabbe. "If a man has no
cases, how in the world is he to describe them? Help yourself and pass
the bottle."
"Couldn't you invent a case just to raise the wind?"
"Not a bad idea," said Crabbe thoughtfully. "By the way, did you see my
'Discopherous Bone in a Duck's Stomach'?"
"Yes; it seemed rather good."
"Good, I believe you! Why, man, it was a domino which the old duck had
managed to gorge itself with. It was a perfect godsend. Then I wrote
about embryology of fishes because I knew nothing about it and reasoned
that ninety-nine men in a hundred would be in the same boat. But as to
inventing whole cases, it seems rather daring, does it not?"
"A desperate disease needs desperate remedies," said I. "You remember
old Hobson at college. He writes once a year to the British Medical and
asks if any correspondent can tell him how much it costs to keep a horse
in the country. And then he signs himself in the Medical Register as
'The contributor of several unostentatious queries and remarks to
scientific papers!'"
It was quite a treat to hear Crabbe laugh with his old student guffaw.
"Well, old man," he said, "we'll talk it over to-morrow. We mustn't be
selfish and forget that you are a visitor here. Come along out, and see
the beauties (save the mark!) of Brisport." So saying he donned a
funereal coat, a pair of spectacles, and a hat with a desponding brim,
and we spent the remainder of the evening roaming about and discussing
mind and matter.
We had another council of war next day. It was a Sunday, and as we sat
in the window, smoking our pipes and watching the crowded street, we
brooded over many plans for gaining notoriety.
"I've done Bob Sawyer's dodge," said Tom despondingly. "I never go to
church without rushing out in the middle of the sermon, but no one knows
who I am, so it is no good. I had a nice slide in front of the door last
winter for three weeks, and used to give it a polish up after dusk every
night. But there was only one man ever fell on it, and he actually
limped right across the road to Markham's surgery. Wasn't that hard
lines?"
"Very hard indeed," said I.
"Something might be done with orange peel," continued Tom, "but it looks
so awfully bad to have the whole pavement yellow with peel in front of a
doctor's house."
"It certainly does," I agreed.
"There was one fellow came in with a cut head one night," said Tom, "and
I sewed him up, but he had forgotten his purse. He came back in a week
to have the stitches taken out, but without the money. That man is going
about to this day, Jack, with half a yard of my catgut in him--and in
him it'll stay until I see the coin."
"Couldn't we get up some incident," said I, "which would bring your name
really prominently before the public?"
"My dear fellow, that's exactly what I want. If I could get my name into
the _Brisport Chronicle_ it would be worth five hundred a year to me.
There's a family connection, you know, and people only want to realise
that I am here. But how am I to do it unless by brawling in the street
or by increasing my family? Now, there was the excitement about the
discopherous bone. If Huxley or some of these fellows had taken the
matter up it might have been the making of me. But they took it all in
with a disgusting complacency as if it was the most usual thing in the
world and dominoes were the normal food of ducks. I'll tell you what
I'll do," he continued, moodily eyeing his fowls. "I'll puncture the
floors of their fourth ventricles and present them to Markham. You know
that makes them ravenous, and they'd eat him out of house and home in
time. Eh, Jack?"
"Look here, Thomas," said I, "you want your name in the papers--is that
it?"
"That's about the state of the case."
"Well, by Jove, you shall have it."
"Eh? Why? How?"
"There's a pretty considerable crowd of people outside, isn't there,
Tom?" I continued. "They are coming out of church, aren't they? If there
was an accident now it would make some noise."
"I say, you're not going to let rip among them with a shot gun, are you,
in order to found a practice for me?"
"No, not exactly. But how would this read in tomorrow's
_Chronicle_?--'Painful occurrence in George Street.--As the congregation
were leaving George Street Cathedral after the morning service, they
were horrified to see a handsome, fashionably dressed gentleman stagger
and fall senseless upon the pavement. He was taken up and carried
writhing in terrible convulsions into the surgery of the well-known
practitioner Doctor Crabbe, who had been promptly upon the spot. We are
happy to state that the fit rapidly passed off, and that, owing to the
skilful attention which he received, the gentleman, who is a
distinguished visitor in our city, was able to regain his hotel and is
now rapidly becoming convalescent.' How would that do, eh?"
"Splendid, Jack--splendid!"
"Well, my boy, I'm your fashionably dressed stranger, and I promise you
they won't carry me into Markham's."
"My dear fellow, you are a treasure--you won't mind my bleeding you?"
"Bleeding me, confound you! Yes, I do very much mind."
"Just opening a little vein," pleaded Tom.
"Not a capillary," said I. "Now, look here; I'll throw up the whole
business unless you give me your word to behave yourself. I don't draw
the line at brandy."
"Very well, brandy be it," grumbled Tom.
"Well, I'm off," said I. "I'll go into the fit against your garden
gate."
"All right, old man."
"By the way, what sort of a fit would you like? I could give you either
an epileptic or an apoplectic easily, but perhaps you'd like something
more ornate--a catalepsy or a trade spasm, maybe--with miner's nystagmus
or something of that kind?"
"Wait a bit till I think," said Tom, and he sat puffing at his pipe for
five minutes. "Sit down again, Jack," he continued. "I think we could do
something better than this. You see, a fit isn't a very deadly thing,
and if I did bring you through one there would be no credit in it. If we
are going to work this thing, we may as well work it well. We can only
do it once. It wouldn't do for the same fashionably dressed stranger to
be turning up a second time. People would begin to smell a rat."
"So they would," said I; "but hang it, you can't expect me to tumble off
the cathedral spire, in order that you may hold an inquest on my
remains! I You may command me in anything reasonable, however. What
shall it be?"
Tom seemed lost in thought. "Can you swim?" he said presently.
"Fairly well."
"You could keep yourself afloat for five minutes?"
"Yes, I could do that."
"You're not afraid of water?"
"I'm not much afraid of anything."
"Then come out," said Tom, "and we'll go over the ground."
I couldn't get one word out of him as to his intentions, so I trotted
along beside him, wondering what in the wide world he was going to do.
Our first stoppage was at a small dock which is crossed by a swinging
iron bridge. He hailed an amphibious man with top-boots. "Do you keep
rowing-boats and let them out?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," said the man.
"Then good day," and to the boatman's profound and audible disgust we
set off at once in the other direction.
Our next stoppage was at the Jolly Mariner's Arms. Did they keep beds?
Yes, they kept beds. We then proceeded to the chemist's. Did he keep a
galvanic battery? Once again the answer was in the affirmative, and with
a satisfied smile Tom Crabbe headed for home once more, leaving some
very angry people behind him.
That evening over a bowl of punch he revealed his plan--and the council
of three revised it, modified it, and ended by adopting it, with the
immediate result that I at once changed my quarters to the Brisport
Hotel.
I was awakened next day by the sun streaming in at my bedroom window. It
was a glorious morning. I sprang out of bed and looked at my watch. It
was nearly nine o'clock. "Only an hour," I muttered, "and nearly a mile
to walk," and proceeded to dress with all the haste I could. "Well," I
soliloquised as I sharpened my razor, "if old Tom Crabbe doesn't get his
name in the papers to-day, it isn't my fault. I wonder if any friend
would do as much for me!" I finished my toilet, swallowed a cup of
coffee and sallied out.
Brisport seemed unusually lively this morning. The streets were crowded
with people. I wormed my way down Waterloo Street through the old Square
and past Crabbe's house. The cathedral bells were chiming ten o'clock as
I reached the above-mentioned little dock with the iron swinging bridge.
A man was standing on the bridge leaning over the balustrades. There was
no mistaking the heart-broken hat rim and the spectacles of Thomas
Waterhouse Crabbe, M.B.
I passed him without sign of recognition, dawdled a little on the quay,
and then sauntered down to the boathouse. Our friend of yesterday was
standing at the door with a short pipe in his mouth.
"Could I have a boat for an hour?" I asked.
He beamed all over. "One minute, sir," he said, "an' I'll get the
sculls. Would you want me to row you, sir?"
"Yes, you'd better," I replied.
He bustled about, and in a short time managed to launch a leaky-looking
old tub, into which he stepped, while I squatted down in the sheets.
"Take me round the docks," I said. "I want to have a look at the
shipping."
"Aye, aye, sir," said he, and away we went, and paddled about the docks
for the best part of an hour. At the end of that time we turned back and
pulled up to the little quay from which he had started. It was past
eleven now and the place was crowded with people. Half Brisport seemed
to have concentrated round the iron bridge. The melancholy hat was still
visible.
"Shall I pull in, sir?" asked the boatman.
"Give me the sculls," said I. "I want a bit of exercise--let us change
places," and I stood up.
"Take care, sir!" yelled the boatman as I gave a stagger. "Look out!"
and he made a frantic grab at me, but too late, for with a melodramatic
scream I reeled and fell over into the Brisport dock.
I hardly realised what it was I was going to do until I had done it. It
was not a pleasant feeling to have the thick, clammy water closing over
one's head. I struck the bottom with my feet, and shot up again to the
surface. The air seemed alive with shouts. "Heave a rope!" "Where's a
boat-hook!" "Catch him!" "There he is!" The boatman managed to hit me me
a smart blow on the head with something, an oar, I fancy, and I went
down again, but not before I had got my lungs well filled with air. I
came up again and my top-booted friend seized me by the hair of my head
as if he would tear my scalp off. "Don't struggle!" he yelled, "and I'll
save you yet." But I shook him off, and took another plunge. There was
no resisting him next time, however, for he got a boat-hook into my
collar, and though I kept my head under water as long as possible I was
ignominiously hauled to land.
There I lay on the hard stones of the quay, feeling very much inclined
to laugh, but looking, no doubt, very blue and ghastly. "He's gone, poor
chap!" said some one. "Send for a doctor." "Run, run to Markham." "Quite
dead." "Turn him upside down." "Feel his pulse." "Slap him on the back."
"Stop," said a solemn voice--"stop! Can I be of any assistance? I am a
medical man. What has occurred?"
"A man drowned," cried a score of voices. "Stand back, make a ring--room
for the doctor!"
"My name is Doctor Crabbe. Dear me, poor young gentleman! Drop his
hand," he roared at a man who was making for my pulse. "I tell you in
such a state the least pressure or impediment to the arterial
circulation might prove fatal."
To save my life I couldn't help giving a very audible inward chuckle at
Tom's presence of mind. There was a murmur of surprise among the crowd.
Tom solemnly took off his hat. "The death rattle!" he whispered. "The
young soul has flown--yet perchance science may yet recall it. Bear him
up to the tavern."
A shutter was brought, I was solemnly hoisted on to the top of it, and
the melancholy cortege passed along the quay, the corpse being really
the most cheerful member of the company.
We got to the Mariner's Arms and I was stripped and laid in the best
bed. The news of the accident seemed to have spread, for there was a
surging crowd in the street, and the staircase was thronged with people.
Tom would only admit about a dozen of the more influential of the
townspeople into the room, but issued bulletins out of the window every
five minutes to the crowd below.
"Quite dead," I heard him roar. "Respiration has ceased--no
pulsation--but we still persevere, it is our duty."
"Shall I bring brandy?" said the landlady.
"Yes, and towels, and a hip bath and a basin--but the brandy first."
This sentiment met with the hearty approbation of the corpse.
"Why, he's drinking it," said the landlady, as she applied the glass to
my lips.
"Merely an instance of a reflex automatic action," said Tom. "My good
woman, any corpse will drink brandy if you only apply it to the
glossopharyngeal tract. Stand aside and we will proceed to try Marshall
Hall's method of resuscitation."
The citizens stood round in a solemn ring, while Tom stripped off his
coat and, climbing on the bed, proceeded to roll me about in a manner
which seemed to dislocate every bone in my body.
"Hang it, man, stop!" I growled, but he only paused to make a dart for
the window and yell out "No sign of life," and then fell upon me with
greater energy than ever. "We will now try Sylvestre's method," he said,
when the perspiration was fairly boiling out of him; and with that he
seized me again, and performed a series of evolutions even more
excruciating than the first. "It is hopeless!" he said at last, stopping
and covering my head reverently with the bed-clothes. "Send for the
coroner! He has gone to a better land. Here is my card," he continued to
an inspector of police who had arrived. "Doctor Crabbe of George Street.
You will see that the matter is accurately reported. Poor young man!"
And Tom drew his handkerchief across his eyes and walked towards the
door, while a groan of sympathy rose from the crowd outside.
He had his hand upon the handle when a thought seemed to strike him, and
he turned back. "There is yet a possible hope," he said, "we have not
tried the magical effects of electricity--that subtle power, next of kin
to nervous force. Is there a chemist's near?"
"Yes, doctor, there's Mr. McLagan just round the corner."
"Then run! run! A human life trembles in the balance--get his strongest
battery, quick!" And away went half the crowd racing down the street and
tumbling over each other in the effort to be first at Mr. McLagan's.
They came back very red and hot, and one of them bore a shining brown
mahogany box in his arms which contained the instrument in question.
"Now, gentlemen," said Tom, "I believe I may say that I am the first
practitioner in Great Britain who has applied electricity to this use.
In my student days I have seen the learned Rokilansky of Vienna employ
it in some such way. I apply the negative pole over the solar plexus,
while the positive I place on the inner side of the patella. I have seen
it produce surprising effects; it may again in this case."
It certainly did. Whether it was an accident or whether Tom's innate
reckless devilry got the better of him I cannot say. He himself always
swore that it was an accident, but at any rate he sent the strongest
current of a most powerful battery rattling and crashing through my
system. I gave one ear-splitting yell and landed with a single bound
into the middle of the room. I was charged with electricity like a
Leyden jar. My very hair bristled with it.
"You confounded idiot!" I shouted, shaking my fist in Tom's face. "Isn't
it enough to dislocate every bone in my body with your ridiculous
resuscitations without ruining my constitution with this thing?" and I
gave a vicious kick at the mahogany box. Never was there such a
stampede! The inspector of police and the correspondent of the
_Chronicle_ sprang down the staircase, followed by the twelve
respectable citizens. The landlady crawled under the bed. A lodger who
was nursing her baby while she conversed with a neighbour in the street
below let the child drop upon her friend's head. In fact Tom might have
founded the nucleus of a practice there and then. As it was, his usual
presence of mind carried him through. "A miracle!" he yelled from the
window. "A miracle! Our friend has been brought back to us; send for a
cab." And then _sotto voce_, "For goodness' sake, Jack, behave like a
Christian and crawl into bed again. Remember the landlady is in the room
and don't go prancing about in your shirt."
"Hang the landlady," said I, "I feel like a lightning conductor--you've
ruined me!"