I therefore went in search of Dr. Sangrado, and brought him to the
house.... The licentiate having promised to obey him in all things,
Sangrado sent me for a surgeon, whom he named, and ordered him to take
from my master six good porringers of blood, as the first effort, in
order to supply the want of perspiration. Then he said to the surgeon:
"Master Martin Omnez, return in three hours and take as much more; and
repeat the same evacuation to-morrow. It is a gross error to think
that blood is necessary for the preservation of life; a patient cannot
be blooded too much; for as he is obliged to perform no considerable
motion or exercise, but just only to breathe, he has no more occasion
for blood than a man who is asleep--life, in both, consisting in the
pulse and respiration only." The doctor having ordered frequent and
copious evacuations of this kind, he told us that we must make the
canon drink warm water incessantly; assuring us that water, drank in
abundance, was the true specific in all distempers whatever.... We set
about warming water with all despatch; and as the physician had
recommended to us, above all things, not to be too sparing of it, we
made my master drink for the first dose two or three pints, at as many
draughts. An hour after we repeated it, and returning to the charge,
from time to time, overwhelmed his stomach with a deluge of water, the
surgeon seconding us, on the other hand, by the quantity of blood
which he drew from him. In less than two days the old canon was
reduced to extremity.
Blood-letting, as an expedient of the healing art, has happily gone out
of fashion; but Dr. Sangrado's other master secret, the therapeutic
drinking of hot water, has been rehabilitated in our days. We sincerely
hope that none of our hot-water-drinking readers will let Le Sage laugh
them out of countenance in holding to their habit--if it really does
them good!
Gil Blas is promoted to be servant, and then professional assistant, to
the famous Dr. Sangrado. Gil Blas and the doctor's maid were warned by
their master against eating much, but, now, however, Gil Blas shall
himself again resume the part of narrator:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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