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Would you ask, Who is the greatest tyrant of modern days? Mr. O'Connell
will tell you--Nicholas, or Es-partero. An Irish Whig member will
reply, Dan himself. An _attaché_ at an embassy would say, Lord
Palmerston,--“'Tis Cupid ever makes us slaves!” A French _deputé_ of the
Thiers party will swear it is Louis Philippe. Count D'Orsay will say,
his tailor. But I will tell you it is none of these: the most pitiless
autocrat of the nineteenth century is--the President of the College of
Physicians.
Of all the unlimited powers possessed by irresponsible man, I know of
nothing at all equal to his, who, _mero motu_, of his own free will and
caprice, can at any moment call a meeting of the dread body at
whose head he stands, assemble the highest dignitaries of the
land--archbishops and bishops, chancellors, chief barons, and chief
remembrancers--to listen to the minute anatomy of a periwinkle's
mustachios, or some singular provision in the physiology of a crab's
breeches-pocket: all of whom, _luto non obstante_, must leave their
peaceful homes and warm hearths to “assist” at a meeting in which, nine
cases out of ten, they take as much interest as a Laplander does in the
health of the Grand Lama, or Mehemet Ali in the proceedings of Father
Mathew.
By nine o'clock the curtain rises, displaying a goodly mob of medical
celebrities: the old ones characterised by the astute look and searching
glance, long and shrewd practice in the world's little failings ever
confers; the young ones, anxious, wide awake, and fidgetty, not
quite satisfied with what services they may be called on to render in
candle-snuffing and crucible work; while between both is your transition
M. D.--your medical tadpole, with some practice and more pretension,
his game being to separate from the great unfeed, and rub his shoulders
among the “dons” of the art, from whose rich board certain crumbs are
ever falling, in the shape of country jaunts, small operations, and
smaller consultings. Through these promiscuously walk the “_gros
bonnets_” of the church and the bar, with now and then--if the scene be
Ireland--a humane Viceroy, and a sleepy commander of the forces. Round
the room are glass cases filled with what at first blush you might
be tempted to believe were the _ci-devant_ professors of the college,
embalmed, or in spirits; but on nearer inspection you detect to be
a legion of apes, monkeys, and ourangoutangs, standing or sitting in
grotesque attitudes. Among them, pleasingly diversified, you discover
murderers' heads, parricides' busts in plaster, bicephalous babies, and
shapeless monsters with two rows of teeth. Here you are regaled with
refreshments “with what appetite you may,” and chat away the time, until
the tinkle of a small bell announces the approach of the lecture.
For the most part, this is a good, drowsy, sleep-disposing affair of an
hour long, written to show, that from some peculiarity lately discovered
in the cerebral vessels, man's natural attitude was to stand on his
head; or that, from chemical analysis just invented, it was clear, if we
live to the age of four hundred years and upwards, part of our duodenum
will be coated with a delicate aponeurosis of sheet iron.
Now, with propositions of this kind I never find fault. I am satisfied
to play my part as a biped in this breathing world, and to go out of it
too, without any rivalry with Methuselah. But I'll tell you with what
I am by no means satisfied,--nor shall I ever feel satisfied--nor do I
entertain any sentiment within a thousand miles of gratitude to the man
who tells me, that food--beef and mutton, veal, lamb, &c.--are nothing
but gas and glue. The wretch who found out the animiculas in clean
water was bad enough. There are simple-minded people who actually take
this as a beverage: what must be their feelings now, if they reflect
on the myriads of small things like lobsters, with claws and tails,
all fighting and swallowing each other, that are disporting in their
stomachs? But only think of him who converts your cutlet into charcoal,
and your steak into starch! It may stick to your ribs after that, to
be sure; but will it not stick harder to your conscience? With what
pleasure do you help yourself to your haunch, when the conviction is
staring you in the face, that what seems venison is but adipose matter
and azote? That you are only making a great Nassau balloon of yourself
when you are dreaming of hard condition, and preparing yourself for the
fossil state when blowing the froth off your porter.
Of latter years the great object of science would appear to be an
earnest desire to disenchant us from all the agreeable and pleasant
dreams we have formed of life, and to make man insignificant without
making him humble. Thus, one class of philosophers labour hard to prove
that manhood is but monkeyhood--that a slight adaptation of the tail
to the customs of civilized life has enabled us to be seated; while the
invention of looking-glasses, bear's grease, cold cream, and macassar,
have cultivated our looks into the present fashion.
Another, having felt over our skulls, gravely asserts, “There is a _vis
à tergo_ of wickedness implanted in us, that must find vent in murder
and bloodshed.” While the magnetic folk would make us believe that we
are merely a kind of ambulating electric-machine, to be charged at
will by the first M. Lafontaine we meet with, and mayhap explode from
over-pressure.
While such liberties are taken with us without, the case is worse
within. Our circulation is a hydraulic problem; our stomach is a mill--a
brewing vat--a tanner's yard--a crucible, or a retort. You yourself, in
all the resplendent glory of your braided frock, and your decoration
of the Guelph, are nothing but an aggregate of mechanical and chemical
inventions, as often going wrong as right; and your wife, in the pride
of her Parisian bonnet, and robe _à la Victorine_, is only gelatine and
adipose substance, phosphate of lime, and a little arsenic.
Now, let me ask, what remains to us of life, if we are to be robbed of
every fascination and charm of existence in this fashion? And again--has
medical science so exhausted all the details of practical benefit to
mankind, that it is justified in these far-west explorations into the
realms of soaring fancy, or the gloomy depths of chemical analysis?
Hydrophobia, consumption, and tetanus are not so curable that we can
afford to waste our sympathies on chimpanzees: nor is this world so
pleasant that we must deny ourselves the advantage of all its illusions,
and throw away the garment in which Nature has clothed her nakedness.
No, no. There was sound philosophy in Peter, in the “Tale of a Tub,” who
assured his guests that whatever their frail senses might think to the
contrary, the hard crusts were excellent and tender mutton; but I see
neither rhyme nor reason in convincing us, that amid all the triumphs of
turtle and white bait, Ardennes ham and _pâté de Strasbourg_, our food
is merely coke and glue, roach, lime, starch, and magnesia.