[The London Medical Schools open in the first week of October.]
In the dim days of chilly October,
When leaves are grown ashen and brown,
Let us hope to be steady and sober,
The Medicals come up to town.
They will study all lore anatomic,
To ease future patients from pains;
And must vow that no "Champion Comic"
Shall win them from muscles and veins.
With dissecting _extensor_ and _flexor_,
They'll find work enough for the knife;
While a _plexus_ of nerves a perplexer
Will sometimes remain for all life.
While that life as an "organisation
In action," if critics speak truth,
Will remain the supremest attraction
For doctors in age or in youth.
In the summer their studies botanic
Will take them to flood and to field;
Well we know that the structures organic
Serene satisfaction will yield.
They will gauge both _corolla_ and _calyx_,
Till examinations are o'er.
May they find, with the study of _salix_,
They need wear the willow no more.
Then _Materia Medica's_ charming,
They'll learn all about Oil of Rue,
And if _Tinct_: _Podophylli_'s alarming,
They'll turn to their Squills and Tolu.
In the _Hordeum Decorticatum_
They'll find an old friend when they're ill;
While the _Ferrum_ that's dubbed _Tartaratum_
Is not quite the thing in a pill.
Then our chemistry comes, and each symbol
Will vary, it seems, every age,
And the man has a mind that is nimble,
Who conquers each intricate page.
There's AgNO_{3} as the Nitrate
Of silver as plain as can be,
And anon comes the Sulphate and Citrate
Of Iron, that's known as Fe.
Very steep is the pathway to knowledge,
As Medical Students will find;
And we'll hope that they'll work, when at College,
Or what they denominate "grind."
And hereafter, amid the aroma
Of weeds, they'll think tenderly still
Of the dear days before the diploma
That gave them the "Licence to Kill!"
* * * * *
How Then?
Mr. BRIGHT, backing up the Anti-Vaccination fanatics, says, "If honest
parents object to have their children vaccinated, I would not compel
them to submit." He would, in fact, substitute voluntary for
compulsory vaccination. But what if voluntary vaccination for the few
means involuntary small-pox for the many, Mr. BRIGHT?
* * * * *
IN NUCE.--Mr. GLADSTONE, adversely criticising Dr. INGRAM'S _History
of the Irish Union_, compares that gentleman to a buoy tossed about on
the waves. Indeed, the ex-Premier's article may be thus compendiously
summed up _à la_ PAUL BEDFORD:--"I _don't_ believe you, my Buoy!"
* * * * *