For the benefit of all young virgins afflicted like Julia Dodd, here are
the Doctor's prescriptions:--
FOR MISS DODD.
Rx Pil: Hydrarg: Chlor: Co:
singuml: nocte sumend:
Decoc: Aloes Co: 3j
omni mane
viii. Sept. J. S.
-------
FOR MISS DODD.
Rx Conf: Sennae.
Potass: Bitartrat.
Extr: Tarax: a a 3ss
Misft: Elect:
Cujus sum: 3j omni mane.
xviii. Sept. J. S.
-------
Id: Anglie reddit: per me Carol: Arundin:
The same done into English by me. C. R.
FOR MISS DODD.
1. O Jupiter aid us!! Plummer's pill to be taken every night, 1 oz.
compound decoction of Aloes every morning.
8th Sept. J. S.
FOR MISS DODD.
2. O Jupiter aid us!! with Confection of Senna, Bitartrate of Potash,
extract of Dandelion, of each half an ounce, let an electuary be mixed;
of which let her take 1 drachm every morning.
18th Sept. J. S.
-------
“Quite the courtier,” said Mrs. Dodd, delighted. Julia assented: she
even added, with a listless yawn, “I had no idea that a skeleton was
such a gentlemanlike thing; I never saw one before.”
Mrs. Dodd admitted he was very thin.
“Oh no, mamma; 'thin' implies some little flesh. When he felt my pulse,
a chill struck to my heart. Death in a black suit seemed to steal up to
me, and lay a finger on my wrist: and mark me for his own.”
Mrs. Dodd forbade her to give way to such gloomy ideas; and expostulated
firmly with her for judging learned men by their bodies. “However,” said
she, “if the good, kind doctor's remedies do not answer his expectations
and mine, I shall take you to London directly. I do hope papa will soon
be at home.”
Poor Mrs. Dodd was herself slipping into a morbid state. A mother
collecting Doctors! It is a most fascinating kind of connoisseurship,
grows on one like Drink; like Polemics; like Melodrama; like the
Millennium; like any Thing.
Sure enough, the very next week she and Julia sat patiently at the
morning levee of an eminent and titled London surgeon. Full forty
patients were before them: so they had to wait and wait. At last they
were ushered into the presence-chamber, and Mrs. Dodd entered on the
beaten ground of her daughter's symptoms. The noble surgeon stopped her
civilly but promptly. “Auscultation will give us the clue,” said he,
and drew his stethoscope. Julia shrank and cast an appealing look at
her mother; but the impassive chevalier reported on each organ in turn
without moving his ear from the key-hole: “Lungs pretty sound,” said he,
a little plaintively: “so is the liver. Now for the----Hum? There is no
kardiac insufficiency, I think, neither mitral nor tricuspid. If we find
no tendency to hypertrophy we shall do very well. Ah! I have succeeded
in diagnosing a slight diastolic murmur; very slight.” He deposited the
instrument, and said, not without a certain shade of satisfaction that
his research had not been fruitless, “The heart is the peccant organ.”
“Oh, sir! is it serious?” said poor Mrs. Dodd.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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