Clotted blood is thrown up, in colour very black, sirs,
And generally sudden, as it comes up in a crack, sirs.
It's preceded at the stomach by a weighty sensation;
But nothing appears ruptured upon examination.
It differs from the last, by the particles thrown off, sirs,
Being denser, deeper-coloured, and without a bit of cough, sirs.
In plethoric habits bleed, and some acid draughts pour in, gents,
With Oleum Terebinthinæ (small doses) and astringents.
Sing hey, sing ho; if you think the lesion spacious,
The Acetate of Lead is found very efficacious.
Thus, in a few lines a great deal of valuable professional information is
conveyed, at the same time that the tedium of much study is relieved by
the harmony. If poetry is yet to be found in our hospitals--a queer place
certainly for her to dwell, unless in her present feeble state the
frequenters of Parnassus have subscribed to give her an in-patient's
ticket--we trust that some able hand will continue this subject for the
benefit of medical students generally; for, we repeat, it is much to be
regretted that no more of this valuable production remains to us than the
portion which Punch has just immortalized, and set forth as an apt example
for cheering the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. The gifted hand
who arranged this might have turned Cooper's First Lines of Surgery into a
tragedy; Dr. Copeland's Medical Dictionary into a domestic melodrama, with
long intervals between the acts; and the Pharmacopoeia into a light
one-act farce. It strikes us if the theatres could enter into an
arrangement with the Borough Hospitals to supply an amputation every
evening as the finishing _coup_ to an act, it would draw immensely when
other means failed to attract.
The last time we heard this poem was at an harmonic meeting of medical
students, within twenty shells' length of the ---- School dissecting-room.
It was truly delightful to see these young men snatching a few Anacreontic
hours from their harassing professional occupations. At the time we heard
it, the singer was slightly overcome by excitement and tight boots; and,
at length, being prevailed upon to remove the obnoxious understandings,
they were passed round the table to be admired, and eventually returned to
their owner, filled with half-and-half, cigar-ashes, broken pipes,
bread-crusts, and gin-and-water. This was a jocular pleasantry, which only
the hilarious mind of a medical student could have conceived.
As the day of examination approaches, the economy of our friend undergoes
a complete transformation, but in an inverse entomological
progression--changing from the butterfly into the chrysalis. He is seldom
seen at the hospitals, dividing the whole of his time between the grinder
and his lodgings; taking innumerable notes at one place, and endeavouring
to decipher them at the other. Those who have called upon him at this
trying period have found him in an old shooting-jacket and slippers,
seated at a table, and surrounded by every book that was ever written upon
every medical subject that was ever discussed, all of which he appears to
be reading at once--with little pieces of paper strewn all over the room,
covered with strange hieroglyphics and extraordinary diagrams of chemical
decompositions. His brain is just as full of temporary information as a
bad egg is of sulphuretted hydrogen; and it is a fortunate provision of
nature that the _dura mater_ is of a tough fibrous texture--were it not
for this safeguard, the whole mass would undoubtedly go off at once like a
too tightly-rammed rocket. He is conscious of this himself, from the
grinding information wherein he has been taught that the brain has three
coverings, in the following order:--the _dura mater_, or Chesterfield
overall; the _tunica arachnoidea_, or "dress coat of fine Saxony cloth;"
and, in immediate contact, the _pia mater_, or five-and-sixpenny long
cloth shirt with linen wristbands and fronts. This is a brilliant specimen
of the helps to memory which the grinder affords, as splendid in its
arrangement as the topographical methods of calling to mind the course of
the large arteries, which define the abdominal aorta as Cheapside, its two
common iliac branches, as Newgate-street and St. Paul's Churchyard, and
the medio sacralis given off between them, as Paternoster-row.
Time goes on, bringing the fated hour nearer and nearer; and the student's
assiduity knows no bounds. He reads his subjects over and over again, to
keep them fresh in his memory, like little boys at school, who try to
catch a last bird's-eye glance of their book before they give it into the
usher's hands to say by heart. He now feels a deep interest in the
statistics of the Hall, and is horrified at hearing that "nine men out of
thirteen were sent back last Thursday!" The subjects, too, that they were
rejected upon frighten him just as much. One was plucked upon his anatomy;
another, because he could not tell the difference between a daisy and a
chamomile; and a third, after "being in" three hours and a quarter, was
sent back, for his inability to explain the process of making malt from
barley,--an operation, whose final use he so well understands, although
the preparation somewhat bothered him. And thus, funking at the rejection
of a clever man, or marvelling at the success of an acknowledged
fool--determining to take prussic acid in the event of being
refused--reading fourteen hours a day--and keeping awake by the combined
influence of snuff and coffee--the student finds his first ordeal approach.
* * * * *