East Anglia: Personal Recollections and Historical AssociationsRitchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
History
East Anglia: Personal Recollections and Historical Associations
Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
East Anglia (England)
Perhaps one of the noted physicians of my boyhood was Mr. Stebbing. ‘He
was once,’ writes Mr. Glyde, ‘called in to see one of the Ipswich
Dissenting ministers, who had taken life very easily, and had grown
corpulent. After examining the patient and hearing his statement as to
bodily state, he replied: “You’ve no particular ailment; mind and keep
your eyes longer open, and your mouth longer shut, and you will do very
well in a short time.”’ On another occasion a raw and very poor-looking
young fellow called upon him for advice. The doctor told him to go home
and eat more pudding, adding, ‘That’s all you want; physic is a very good
thing for one to live by, but a precious bad thing for you to take.’ One
of the Ipswich characters of my boyhood, of whom Mr. Glyde has preserved
an anecdote, was old Tuxford, the veterinary surgeon. He used to declare
that he never took more than one meal a day—a breakfast; but when asked
of what that consisted, he said, ‘A pound of beefsteak, seven eggs, three
cups of tea, and a quartern of rum.’ It may also be mentioned that
before Mrs. Garrett Anderson was born, Ipswich had a lady physician in
the person of Miss Stebbing, daughter of the doctor to whom I have
already referred. ‘She was,’ says one who knew her well, ‘a woman of
general education, with more than ordinary tact and discernment, combined
with the true womanly power of analyzing and observing. She had good
physical powers, and, like her worthy father, was somewhat pungent in her
remarks and eccentric in her habits. She entered the ranks as a medical
practitioner during her father’s life. The benefit of his advice so
aided her perceptive powers as to make her quite an expert in various
ways, and she continued to practise long after his decease, occasionally
attending males as well as females. Her knowledge of midwifery caused a
large number of ladies to engage her services.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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