"His fancy lay to travelling."--L'ESTRANGE.
PUBLIC CONFIDENCE(?).--THE EYE OF THE PUBLIC.--A BAD
SPECIMEN.--"REMARKABLE TUMOR."--"THE SINGING DOCTOR."--CAUGHT IN A
STORM.--BIG PUFFING.--A SPLENDID "TURNOUT."--WHO WAS HE?--A SUDDEN
DISAPPEARANCE.--THE "SPANKING DOCTOR."--A FAIR VICTIM.--LOOSE
LAWS.--DR. PULSEFEEL.--IMPUDENCE.--A FIDDLING DOCTOR.--AN
ENCORE.--"CHEEK."--VARIOUS WAYS OF ADVERTISING.
One might say, with some propriety, that these characters--travelling
doctors--should have been classed under the heading of our first chapter,
as "humbugs;" but if we should put all under that head that belong there,
O, where would the chapter end? As "all is not gold that glitters," so
neither, on the other hand, is there anything so bad that no virtue can be
found in it. No heart is so utterly depraved as to prevent any good
thought or deed from emanating therefrom, though sometimes the good is
quite imperceptible to us short-sighted mortals.
As the majority of physicians "turned" out of our medical colleges, or of
those in practice in our cities, are unfit to have intrusted to their care
the health and lives of our families, friends, or ourselves, so the
majority of travelling doctors are to be reckoned equally untrustworthy;
no more so.
If the blessed Saviour should return to earth, and travel from town to
city, as he did eighteen hundred years ago, healing the sick, I really
think there would be a less number believing in him now than then. Less
gratitude for his marvellous cures there could not be; for then some of
the miserable wretches, whom he healed free of charge, did not so much as
return him thanks. This may be said of some of our patients at this day.
Let a medical man of ever so great reputation travel, and he is lost. A
band of angels, on a healing mission, would stand no chance with a people
who only expect humbugs to visit them. The Shakspearian inquiry would at
once and repeatedly be put,--
"How chance it they travel? Their _residence_, both in reputation and
profit, was better both ways!"