Clergymen and Doctors: Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches. — John Shaqi
Clergymen and Doctors: Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.Anonymous
History
Clergymen and Doctors: Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.
Anonymous
Clergy; Medicine -- Anecdotes; Medicine -- Humor; Pastoral theology -- Anecdotes; Physicians
Sir G. Staunton related a curious anecdote of old Kien Long, Emperor of
China. He was inquiring of Sir George the manner in which physicians
were paid in England. When, after some difficulty, his Majesty was made
to comprehend the system, he exclaimed, "Is any man well in England,
that can afford to be ill? Now, I will inform you," said he, "how I
manage my physicians. I have four, to whom the care of my health is
committed: a certain weekly salary is allowed them, but the moment I am
ill, the salary stops till I am well again. I need not inform you that
my illnesses are usually short."
JOHN HUNTER ROUTING THE ROUT.
Mr. Jeaffreson, in his amusing _Book about Doctors_, tells a good story
about the great anatomist, John Hunter. "His wife, though devoted in
her attachment to him, and in every respect a lady worthy of esteem,
caused her husband at times no little vexation by her fondness for
society. She was in the habit of giving enormous routs, at which
authors and artists, of all shades of merit and demerit, used to
assemble to render homage to her literary powers, which were very far
from commonplace. Hunter had no sympathy with his wife's poetical
aspirations, still less with the society which those aspirations led
her to cultivate. Grudging the time which the labours of practice
prevented him from devoting to the pursuits of his museum and
laboratory, he could not restrain his too irritable temper when Mrs.
Hunter's frivolous amusements deprived him of the quiet requisite for
study.... Imagine the wrath of such a man, finding, on his return from
a long day's work, his house full of musical professors, connoisseurs,
and fashionable idlers--in fact, all the confusion and hubbub and heat
of a grand party, which his lady had forgotten to inform him was that
evening to come off! Walking straight into the middle of the principal
reception-room, he faced round and surveyed his unwelcome guests, who
were not a little surprised to see him--dusty, toil-worn, and grim--so
unlike what 'the man of the house' ought to be on such an occasion. 'I
knew nothing,' was his brief address to the astounded crowd--'I knew
nothing of this kick-up, and I ought to have been informed of it
beforehand; but, as I have now returned home to study, I hope the
present company will retire.' Mrs. Hunter's drawing-rooms were speedily
empty."
ANTICS OF THE FANATICS.
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