be employed to display an attracting uniformity in the disposition of
your apparatus, for the _claptrap_ of public approbation; and though
that great investigator of human nature has beautifully portrayed
“_a beggarly account of empty boxes_,” yet they become immediately
necessary to your present purpose; it not being his business to explain
the folly and extravagance of your placing any thing of consequence
there, before you was experimentally convinced you should have occasion
for its use. Let there be a _profusion of appearance_; the _shell_
of a shop is not very expensive, and druggists are so numerous, that
you may be expeditiously supplied whenever circumstances require
it.—The bottles (being transparent) become more immediately in need
of _something_ in each, particularly a few of those articles (as
hartshorn, lavender, &c.) that are in common request. The lower drawers
(within reach) may be labelled with _obsolete titles_, and in each
placed various paper parcels of _bran_ or _saw-dust_, to avoid a chance
of the sarcasm upon the faculty by a countryman, who happened to be
left alone some time in the shop of an apothecary, and whose curiosity
being excited by the great _number of drawers_, was powerfully prompted
to open one labelled “_Thus_,” which finding _empty_, he was induced
to try a second, _still the same_; a third, _the same also_.—Oh! oh!
says he, “I see plain enough how it is, they are all _Thus_.” Your
shop being at length finished in a stile modern and striking, let a
green silk curtain (with brass rods and rings) be affixed to your
window; it is an excellent method of conveying an idea of internal
mystery, and inspiring proportionate external curiosity. Let no paltry
diffidence appear in the board over your door, announcing your name and
qualifications; there are great numbers that can’t distinguish _small
letters_ at a distance, to avoid which inconvenience, let the capitals
be as conspicuous as the canvas figures at a country puppet-shew.
“Thus far before the wind;” and being (as it is natural to conclude)
not greatly engaged, it becomes your immediate attention to wait
personally upon the different overseers of the surrounding parishes,
and give them most forcibly to understand, they have been for many
years the subjects of imposition; but you having more _honesty_ than
the whole body of the faculty, will undertake to _farm_ the medical
superintendance of the _poor_, at half the annual sum it has ever cost
the inhabitants before. This political stroke will excellently answer
both your purposes, for overseers in general care not how little they
pay; and you being professionally callous to the tears of poverty and
distress, care not how little you give for their money.
_Tartar emetic_—_Pulv. contray._ c.—_Pulv. nitri_, and _Pulv.
jalapii_—are medicines admirably calculated for the constitutions of
the poor; and thirty or forty shillings a year in those articles, will
be sufficient for the consumption of _five_ or _six_ parishes; with the
additional advantage of rendering _vials_ unnecessary, a consideration
of some consequence, when it is remembered they are now double their
former price. These parochial connections will be productive of
advantage in more ways than one, for as the unhappy paupers will be
constantly seen at your door, it will afford all the appearance of
sudden popularity.
Ostentatious parade, and personal consequence, must be your leading
traits, and never lost sight of; _a couple of horses_ will contribute
largely to these objects; not that you are expected to degrade the
dignity of your profession, by riding, like Hughes or Astley, _two at
a time_, but their appearance will constitute an admirable shew of
business in being rode _alternately_; and as most young men who have
not been long their own masters, are fond of displaying their persons
on the _outside of a horse_, you may exultingly not only “feed fat”
the propensity, but the general run of your mechanical neighbours (who
see no farther than the tips of their noses, and are ever caught by
appearances) will erroneously suppose you are visiting some of the
first characters in the county. As it will be now highly derogatory for
you to stain your hands with any menial services, procure speedily a
_journeyman_ (alias assistant) to enhance your own weight; if there is
at present nothing for him to do, the curtain, before recommended, will
obscure his indolence from the prying eye of public curiosity.
No part of the faculty having ever been remarkable for the regularity
or fervency of their _devotions_, your presence at church will
consequently not be expected (particularly after the impressions you
have made of being perpetually engaged) unless you politically appear
there at two or three different times, merely for the convenience
of being called out _by your own direction_, at the still and most
awful part of the service; a circumstance that will tell much to your
advantage with every superannuated _old woman_ in the parish. Take
particular care that your horse is constantly brought to your door on
the sabbath day, just as the neighbours are passing to church, and
there paraded some time previous to your appearance, which to every
weak mind will have its effects; and be equally careful to measure the
steps of your _horse_, by the hands of your _watch_, so that whether
your journey is accidentally long, or intentionally short, you return
just at the moment of their dismission from the religious conventicle.
In passing the whole body of inhabitants, be strictly careful of your
self consequence—a bow of _significant respect_ to two or three of
the _superiors_, may be applicable and consistent—but no familiarity
with, or knowledge of, the multitude; the greater your _ostentation_
and _indifference_, the more _servile_ will be their _admiration_ and
_respect_.
By no means form any hasty or inconsiderate matrimonial connection;
you will derive many advantages at first from a life of _celibacy_;
there are always a variety of juvenile females in the country (as well
as the metropolis) who considering themselves _every way qualified_
to constitute _doctor’s ladies_, will most industriously _throw_
themselves in your way upon every occasion, that their personal
attractions may not escape your observation. To families where there
are daughters, nieces, or cousins, who _conceive_ themselves ripe for
the _gordian knot_, you may assure yourself of being called in a short
time; for as you are such “a charming man” in your appearance, (and so
admirably _fitting_ for a husband) there can’t be the least reason to
doubt your professional qualifications.
You may perhaps start some doubts, (or conscientious qualms may arise)
how these appearances are to be supported in the infancy of business,
without any great personal property to sanction or justify the attempt;
in such diffidence you perfectly display, not only your pusillanimity,
but want of knowledge and experience; for certainly out of the
above description of females, who will constantly pay court to your
consequence, and by a _thousand modes_ solicit your attention, surely
some one of the _best possessions_ may be obtained, whose _fortune_,
and advantage of family connection, may answer your most sanguine
expectations: but should _fate_ conspire against you in both _business
and marriage_, you will have the consolation of having made _a bold
push_, and failing in the attempt, you only become a fashionable
adventurer, and gratefully pay your creditors _nothing in the pound_.
Having gone through a chain of circumstances and instructions,
necessary for the support of your _public_ appearance, it will be
naturally expected I shall revert to the modes of behaviour that are to
constitute your _private_ character, in the professional transactions
that you conclude will daily occur. First, let it be your constant
observance to be equally reserved and difficult of access—whenever
your opinion is required, even in your own shop, appear there with
tedious reluctance, as if privacies of the utmost consequence prevented
your earlier attendance; this will not only add to your medical weight,
but raise your reputation for _good breeding_ and intercourse with the
polite world; for it is universally known, none but the inferior orders
are introduced to each other without ceremony; it would be therefore
highly ridiculous in you to practise a mode of behaviour in use only
with the lowest classes of mankind.
Never leave home without letting your horse be held long enough at the
door to be observed by the surrounding neighbours; the most trifling
indication of business is a point in your favour, and ought by no
means to be omitted. By the invariable good effect of which rule, no
messenger whatever should arrive from the country for medicines, but he
must be detained _as long as possible_; his preparations should never
be ready when called for; on the contrary, his horse should be hung
or held at the door for half an hour at least; a double advantage is
derived from this necessary caution—the horse at the door will prove a
striking object to the public, and the messenger will assure the family
you attend, that, nothing but your great hurry occasioned the delay in
his return.
It will be strictly proper for you, upon all occasions, to preserve
the most inflexible serenity of countenance, even to extreme gravity;
and this injunction becomes the more immediately necessary, as there
are a vast variety of unexpected causes for laughter, to which you
will be open, in the frequent applications of unpolished rustics, for
your _great opinion_ and assistance. One class will “beg the favour
of you to _subscribe_ for their complaints;” another “hopes you won’t
be offended, but he is come to _insult_ you upon his case;” these
instances are so exceedingly common, that you will often meet with
them, where they are least expected. There now lives _an alderman_, in
a very capital town and place of _royal residence_, who, a few years
since, labouring under an _epidemic_ complaint, was told that symptoms
were alarming, and a _glyster_ was unavoidably necessary; to which
representation he expostulated, begging the apothecary “to lay aside
his intention, and give him any thing to _take inwardly_, but for
_God’s sake_, to have no _cutting_ and _slaying_.”—Another of the same
_learned body corporate_ (for they have both kissed the K—g’s hand)
said “he bore the severity of his complaint with more patience, now he
was _manured_ to it.”
To prove the frequency of these accidental slips, it is impossible
to resist the present temptation of introducing a few more, that
occur to memory in the present recital. A lad upon the borders of
Northamptonshire, being sent in the night to a medical practitioner
at Banbury, and calling him out of bed, told him, “he must come
immediately to his mistress, for she had got a _Vistula_!”——“Where?
_In ano?_” “No, Zir, in the next parish to’t.”
In an excursion to Surrey, I was solicited in a parish near Chertsey,
to give my advice to a master carpenter there, who had been a long
time indisposed; but my prescription having had the desired effect,
and the poor man getting abroad, he very gratefully declared to all
his friends, “I was the _best musician_ that ever came into the
country.”—In the county of Berks, an elderly woman came to consult me
upon the bad state of her daughter’s health; and after animadverting
upon symptoms, told me _in a whisper_, “that her daughter was to have
been married to a young man some time since; but something happening to
break it off, she really believed _’twas nature turned inward in her_.”
Paying a visit, in my earlier days, to the lady of a good old country
alderman of a borough in Hertfordshire, she, after many aukward
apologies for the indelicacy of the subject, tremblingly told me,
“she had been very uneasy for some days, with a violent heat in
her _firmament_.”—By way of suppressing those risible emotions in
my disposition I have before described, I, for a moment, changed
the subject, by enquiring the health of her husband; to which she
replied, with thanks, “he was exceedingly well, but gone to make an
_exerescence_ into the country;” plunged deeper in difficulty, and
nearer the _laugh_ than before, which was now become hard to suppress,
I applied myself to her snuff-box, then on the table, and passing a few
encomiums on its neatness, she said, it was very much admired, being a
_gypsey’s pimple_ set in _pinch-gut_.
You will, no doubt, be now prepared for such unexpected misapplication
of words, such _sublimity of expression_, and regulate the rigidity
of your _frontal_ muscles accordingly; when called to a patient, let
your personal address and behaviour be modelled entirely by the state
of his _property_; if he is _your superior_ in rank and condition,
every action of yours must denote it most strikingly;—you _approach_
with _respect_—you _dictate_ with _submission_—your mildness and
_affected penetration_ must be perceptible in all your enquiries,
making the most scrupulous observations how far you seem to gain upon
the _credulity_ and good opinion of your subject, taking leave with
all those attracting expressions of tenderness and sympathy, (highly
tinctured with respect) that may give your patient a favourable idea of
the _integrity_, it can never be your _interest_ to possess.
On the contrary, when your advice and assistance is required to a
patient, whose feelings are equally wounded by bodily affliction and
the barbed arrow of adversity, you may safely reverse the whole mode of
behaviour, and put into practice your personal pride, even to perfect
impudence. This will be in many respects a consistency of conduct;
it will be convincing them, as you have nothing to hope from their
_affluence_, you have certainly nothing to fear from their _poverty_.
Let what will be the condition of your patient, you are not to act as
some few conscientious practitioners do, explaining what you conceive
to be the nature of the case, original cause of complaint, or from what
operation you expect expeditious relief; this may be the best practice
with those unfashionable formal old fellows, who received their medical
instructions near half a century since, and pique themselves upon what
they call their _integrity_; but it will be perfectly _illiberal_
in you, who have received a more modern, and polished education.
Ambiguity, and true medical mystery, will be your best guide upon every
occasion; by not naming the case, or _cause of complaint_, you can
never be accused of having _mistaken_ it; and by letting the property
of the medicine you administer remain a matter of secrecy with all but
yourself, you reserve the incontrovertible power of saying, “it has had
the _very effect_ you _intended_,” whether it operates by _vomit_,
_stool_, _urine_, _perspiration_, or _sleep_: these are precautions a
_wise_ man always takes, a _fool_ never, and may be deemed something
similar to the conduct of Bayes’s troops in the Rehearsal, who, the
_warlike_ messenger said, “were stealing a march in _stilts_.”
During the indisposition of your patient, ’tis your duty to think
much more of the emolument that will arise from the _protraction_ of
his case, than the _expedience_ of his cure. You must have it ever in
mind, that he has paid you the the greatest compliment one man can
possibly pay another on earth; he has placed an implicit confidence,
and entrusted you with the care of his constitution and the key of
his cash; in fact, he has put both his _life_ and _property_ into
your hands; and the respect you owe to _self-preservation_ renders
it necessary you make the most of _both_. Let your attachment to
his health and interest be demonstrated by the frequency of your
attendance; it will be impossible for you to give a greater proof of
your _disinterested_ friendship, than by your large and constant
supplies of different medicines; too great a quantity, too great a
variety cannot be introduced; they all tend to a promotion of your
emolument, and the sum total of your bill will be considered _a
striking proof_ of your _merit_ and assiduity.
If you find the family and friends not perfectly satisfied with your
conduct, that there is the least coolness and discontent perceptible,
or symptoms of present or approaching danger, strongly recommend the
presence of a _better opinion_ in the form of a physician; this will
prove an exertion of the soundest policy—double the quantity of
medicines will be thrown into _his_ prescription for the promotion of
_your_ interest, an act that the present danger will amply justify, and
should the unhappy victim be doomed
“To pass that bourne,
From whence no traveller returns,”
You have nobly and skilfully slipped your neck out of the collar, and
left all the credit of _killing_ (as you really ought to do) to your
superior, whose _diploma_ entitles him to the preference; and, _vice
versa_, should you perceive the patient and family become dupes to your
affected sincerity, and that you are daily raising yourself in their
estimation, erect a structure of professional applause upon the basis
of their _credulity_; insinuate every possible degree of self praise,
and set the advice of a physician in the most contemptible point of
view.—Affect unlimited attachment to the interest of your patient,
and say, “you would recommend much better advice than your own, if you
could do it with a conscientious consistency; but it had ever been an
opinion of yours (which was still unaltered) if the apothecary could
not plunder a family _sufficiently_, the better method would be to
adopt _a consultation_, when it might be done to a _certainty_.”
This open manner of dealing instantly enhances you in the estimation
of patient and friends, and you will consequently stand so high in
opinion that you may proceed deliberately in your _spoils_ without
interruption, for where there are no _daily fees_ (swallowed up in the
_vortex_ of the college) your more trifling depredations will not be
considered as matters of medical magnitude or imposition.
In all kinds of inferior practice render every look, every thought
and action, subservient to your general intent of personal rank and
pecuniary consequence; it must be your particular study to inculcate
every idea in the lower class, of your great penetration and abilities;
by your minute investigations, cross-examinations, and applicable
nods of significance (implying the most extensive knowledge) you will
discover remote symptoms, that once explained to the complaining
patient, will give them reason to believe (which they very readily do)
you are a supernatural agent; and one _fool_ of _this denomination_,
who firmly believes you know the state of his health by the _wrinkles_
in his _forehead_, or the _cloud_ in his _urine_, will soon infect a
whole county with the certainty of your infallible qualifications.
This opinion once founded, the effect is absolutely incredible, an
instance of which may be found in various parts of England, but more
particularly in a very large and populous town, not forty miles west
of the metropolis, where _fools_ from every part of the county are
constantly driving (their pockets laden with _chamber-lye_) to a famous
inspector of _urinals_, vulgarly denominated a _piss-pot doctor_, who,
to magnify the report of his incredible skill and penetration, has
adopted a certain method to impose upon the minds of the multitude, and
prey upon the little pecuniary collections they can make, to become the
dupes of _his villainy_ and their own _infatuation_.
The mode of imposition, I shall explain in a fact as communicated by
one of his most intimate friends, and leave the story itself to applaud
his ingenuity:—He has (in a very respectable habitation) a small
private room, to which every patient or messenger is conducted (upon
a plea that the _doctor_ is not at home, or is particularly engaged)
here an emissary (as if casually) asking certain questions, hears the
whole story, examines the urine, and descends to particulars—the
_doctor_ is in the adjoining apartment (calculated by a thin partition
and certain openings, invisible to the unsuspecting visitor) where he
minutely hears the entire conversation; the necessary secrets being
obtained, he makes his appearance with the most commanding aspect;
at this awful ceremony, the fascinated patient almost feels the
effect of ANIMAL MAGNETISM; the approach of so much wisdom deprives
him for a moment of speech, and the _poor devil_ undergoes a kind of
temporary annihilation. An instance of this occurred not long since,
when a country fellow having journeyed twelve miles to the doctor
with a bottle of his wife’s _chrystal stream_, communicated the
necessary particulars to the agent, when the doctor, in possession of
the secret, made his appearance.—“Well, friend!”—“I have brought
your honour my wife’s water, she could not _rest any longer_ without
your _device_.”—“Your wife’s water—very well—let me see!—aye,
I perceive she has _bruised her shoulder_.”—“Yes, Sir, she has
indeed.”—“By this water (it is perfectly clear) she has _fallen
down stairs_.”—“Yes, your honour!”—“She is not injured in any other
part by the fall?”—“Only complains a little at the _bottom of her
belly_, your honour.”—“Well, she fell from the top of the stairs to
the bottom, _I see_?”—“No, your honour, she had gone down two steps
before she fell.”—“Indeed! why then you have not brought me _all her
water_.”—“No, your honour, there was _a little_ the bottle would not
hold.”—“Why then, sirrah, the _two stairs_ are left behind.“——This
circumstance, (of a thousand that might be quoted) is sufficient to
demonstrate the ridiculous credulity of the multitude in all matters
of quackery, and leaves us to lament, that the ignorance of one class,
should become so wretched a prey to the deliberate villainy of another.
The long experience you have had, in charging and posting your
accompts, under different masters of equal judgment and experience,
leaves little room for instruction under that head; it may however not
prove inapplicable to remind you, it is no matter how incoherent or
unintelligible the _writing_ is, provided your _figures_ are _bold_ and
_conspicuous_; so long as you can convince them how much they _have to
pay_, it is a total matter of indifference to you, how much they have
_received_.
There is one caution however exceedingly necessary to be advanced, to
prevent your becoming subject to a reproof given by the celebrated Dean
Swift to his apothecary, for presuming to be handsomely paid for the
confidence of putting himself upon an equality with his superiors. This
is the impropriety of letting the word ”_visits_“ constitute a part
of your charge, instead of the more modest term of ”_journeys_,“ or
”_attendance_.“
The Dean having been afflicted with a long and severe fit of illness,
requested, soon after recovery, the apothecary’s bill; which having
perused, and finding a sum total very much beyond his expectation, he
proceeded to _dissection_, and perceiving almost every _third article_
to announce the honour of a ”_visit_,” at five shillings each, he
satirically adopted the following plan to punish _Mr. Emetic_, for what
the Dean considered a piece of consummate assurance.—Having required
his attendance to receive his demand, he paid down a certain sum of
money, which the mortified apothecary continued to tell over, and
repeatedly compare with the figures denoting the _sum total_; but still
continuing _to tell and compare_, without seeming to get at all nearer
the point of satisfaction, the Dean, in compassion to the confusion he
visibly laboured under, observed, as he did not seem to be perfectly
clear in his arrangement of the accompt, he would set him right.—If
he would but deduct the amount of the “visits” from the sum total of
his bill, he would find it exactly right; for being now pretty well
recovered, he intended _paying_ him his “_visits_” again _one at a
time_.