APOTHECARY.
1ST PHY. It is a great honour to me to be chosen to do you a service.
MR. POUR. I am your servant.
1ST PHY. Here is a clever man, one of my brethren, with whom I will
consult concerning the manner of our treating you.
MR. POUR. There is no need of so much ceremony, I tell you; I am
easily satisfied.
1ST PHY. Bring some seats. (_Servants come in and place chairs._)
MR. POUR. (_aside_). These servants are rather dismal for a young man.
1ST PHY. Now, Sir; take a seat, Sir. (_The two_ PHYSICIANS _make_ MR.
DE POURCEAUGNAC _sit between them_.)
MR. POUR. (_seated_). Your very humble servant. (_Each_ PHYSICIAN
_takes one of his hands, and feels his pulse._) What are you about?
1ST PHY. Do you eat well, Sir?
MR. POUR. Yes; and drink still better.
1ST PHY. So much the worse! That great craving for cold and wet is a
sign of the heat and aridity that is within. Do you sleep well?
MR. POUR. Yes; when I have made a hearty supper.
1ST PHY. Do you dream much?
MR. POUR. Now and then.
1ST PHY. Of what nature are your dreams?
MR. POUR. Of the nature of dreams. What the deuce is the meaning of
this conversation?
1ST PHY. Have a little patience. We will reason upon your affair in
your presence; and we will do it in the vulgar tongue, so that you may
understand better.
MR. POUR. What great reasoning is there wanted to eat a mouthful?
1ST PHY. Since it is a fact that we cannot cure any disease without
first knowing it perfectly, and that we cannot know it perfectly
without first establishing its exact nature and its true species by
its diagnosis and prognosis, you will give me leave, you, my senior,
to enter upon the consideration of the disease that is in question,
before we think of the therapeutics and the remedies that we must
decide upon in order to effect a perfect cure. I say then, Sir, if you
will allow me, that our patient here present is unhappily attacked,
affected, possessed, and disordered by that kind of madness which we
properly name hypochondriac melancholy; a very trying kind of madness,
and which requires no less than an Aesculapius deeply versed in our
art like you; you, I say, who have become grey in harness, as the
saying hath it; and through whose hands so much business of all sorts
has passed. I call it hypochondriac melancholy, to distinguish it from
the other two; for the celebrated Galen establishes and decides in a
most learned manner, as is usual with him, that there are three
species of the disease which we call melancholy, so called, not only
by the Latins, but also by the Greeks; which in this case is worthy of
remark: the first, which arises from a direct disease of the brain;
the second, which proceeds from the whole of the blood, made and
rendered atrabilious; and the third, termed hypochondriac, which is
our case here, and which proceeds from some lower part of the abdomen;
and from the inferior regions, but particularly the spleen; the heat
and inflammation whereof sends up to the brain of our patient
abundance of thick and foul fuliginosities; of which the black and
gross vapours cause deterioration to the functions of the principal
faculty, and cause the disease by which he is manifestly accused and
convicted. In proof of what I say, and as an incontestable diagnostic
of it, you need only consider that great seriousness, that sadness,
accompanied by signs of fearfulness and suspicion--pathognomonic and
particular symptoms of this disease, so well defined by the divine
ancient Hippocrates; that countenance, those red and staring eyes,
that long beard, that habit of body, thin, emaciated, black, and
hairy--signs denoting him greatly affected by the disease proceeding
from a defect in the hypochondria; which disease, by lapse of time,
being naturalised, chronic, habitual, ingrained, and established
within him, might well degenerate either into monomania, or into
phthisis, or into apoplexy, or even into downright frenzy and raving.
All this being taken for granted, since a disease well-known is a
disease half cured, for _ignoti nulla est curatio morbis_, it will not
be difficult for you to conclude what are the remedies needed by our
patient. First of all, to remedy this obdurate plethora, and this
luxuriant cacochymy throughout the body, I opine that he should be
freely phlebotomised; by which I mean that there should be frequent
and abundant bleedings, first in the basilic vein, then in the
cephalic vein; and if the disease be obstinate, that even the vein of
the forehead should be opened, and that the orifice be large, so that
the thick blood may issue out; and, at the same time, that he should
be purged, deobstructed, and evacuated by fit and suitable purgatives,
i.e. by chologues and melanogogues. And as the real source of all this
mischief is either a foul and feculent humour or a black and gross
vapour, which obscures, empoisons, and contaminates the animal
spirits, it is proper afterwards that he should have a bath of pure
and clean water, with abundance of whey; to purify, by the water, the
feculency of the foul humour, and by the whey to clarify the blackness
of the vapour. But, before all things, I think it desirable to enliven
him by pleasant conversations, by vocal and instrumental music, to
which it will not be amiss to add dancers, that their movements,
figures, and agility may stir up and awaken the sluggishness of his
spirits, which occasions the thickness of his blood from whence the
disease proceeds. These are the remedies I propose, to which may be
added many better ones by you, Sir, my master and senior, according to
the experience, judgment, knowledge and sufficiency that you have
acquired in our art. _Dixi._
2ND PHY. Heaven forbid, Sir, that it should enter my thoughts to add
anything to what you have just been saying! You have discoursed too
well on all the signs, symptoms, and causes of this gentleman's
disease. The arguments you have used are so learned and so delicate
that it is impossible for him not to be mad and hypochondriacally
melancholic; or, were he not, that he ought to become so, because of
the beauty of the things you have spoken, and of the justness of your
reasoning. Yes, Sir, you have graphically depicted, _graphice
depinxisti_, everything that appertains to this disease. Nothing can
be more learnedly, judiciously, and ingeniously conceived, thought,
imagined, than what you have delivered on the subject of this disease,
either as regards the diagnostic, the prognostic, or the therapeutic;
and nothing remains for me to do but to congratulate this gentleman
upon falling into your hands, and to tell him that he is but too
fortunate to be mad, in order to experience the gentle efficacy of the
remedies you have so judiciously proposed. I approve them in toto,
_manibus et pedibus descendo in tuam sententiam_. All I should like to
add is to let all his bleedings and purgings be of an odd number,
_numero deus impare gaudet_, to take the whey before the bath, and to
make him a forehead plaster, in the composition of which there should
be salt--salt is a symbol of wisdom; to whitewash the walls of his
room, to dissipate the gloominess of his mind; _album est
disgregativum visas_; and to give him a little injection immediately,
to serve as a prelude and introduction to those judicious remedies,
from which, if he is curable, he must receive relief. Heaven grant
that these remedies, which are yours, Sir, may succeed with the
patient according to our wish!
MR. POUR. Gentlemen, I have been listening to you for the last hour.
Are we acting a comedy here?
1ST PHY. No, Sir; we are not acting a comedy.
MR. POUR. What does it all mean? What are you about with this
gibberish and nonsense of yours?
1ST PHY. Ah! Insulting language! A diagnostic which was wanting for
the confirmation of his disease. This may turn to mania.
MR. POUR. (_aside_). With what kind of people have they left me here.
(_He spits two or three times._)
1ST PHY. Another diagnostic: frequent expectoration.
MR. POUR. Let us cease all this, and go away.
1ST PHY. Another: anxiety to move about.
MR. POUR. What is the meaning of all this business? What do you want
with me?
1ST PHY. To cure you, according to the order we have received.
MR. POUR. Cure me?
1ST PHY. Yes.
MR. POUR. S'death! I am not ill.
1ST PHY. It is a bad sign when a patient does not feel his illness.
MR. POUR. I tell you that I am quite well.
1ST PHY. We know better than you how you are; we are physicians who
see plainly into your constitution.
MR. POUR. If you are physicians, I have nothing to do with you; and I
snap my fingers at all your physic.
1ST PHY. H'm! h'm! This man is madder than we thought.
MR. POUR. My father and mother would never have anything to do with
remedies; and they both died without the help of doctors.
1ST PHY. I do not wonder if they have begotten a son who is mad. (_To
the_ 2ND PHYSICIAN) Come, let us begin the cure; and, through the
exhilarating sweetness of harmony, let us dulcify, lenify, and pacify
the acrimony of his spirits, which, I see, are ready to be inflamed.
(_Exeunt._)