England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
‘MR. KNIGHT BELL (M.R.C.S.) exhibited a wax preparation of the interior
of a gentleman who in early life had inadvertently swallowed a door-key.
It was a curious fact that a medical student of dissipated habits, being
present at the _post mortem_ examination, found means to escape
unobserved from the room, with that portion of the coats of the stomach
upon which an exact model of the instrument was distinctly impressed,
with which he hastened to a locksmith of doubtful character, who made a
new key from the pattern so shown to him. With this key the medical
student entered the house of the deceased gentleman, and committed a
burglary to a large amount, for which he was subsequently tried and
executed.
‘THE PRESIDENT wished to know what became of the original key after the
lapse of years. Mr. Knight Bell replied that the gentleman was always
much accustomed to punch, and it was supposed the acid had gradually
devoured it.
‘DR. NEESHAWTS and several of the members were of opinion that the key
must have lain very cold and heavy upon the gentleman’s stomach.
‘MR. KNIGHT BELL believed it did at first. It was worthy of remark,
perhaps, that for some years the gentleman was troubled with a
night-mare, under the influence of which he always imagined himself a
wine-cellar door.
‘PROFESSOR MUFF related a very extraordinary and convincing proof of the
wonderful efficacy of the system of infinitesimal doses, which the
section were doubtless aware was based upon the theory that the very
minutest amount of any given drug, properly dispersed through the human
frame, would be productive of precisely the same result as a very large
dose administered in the usual manner. Thus, the fortieth part of a
grain of calomel was supposed to be equal to a five-grain calomel pill,
and so on in proportion throughout the whole range of medicine. He had
tried the experiment in a curious manner upon a publican who had been
brought into the hospital with a broken head, and was cured upon the
infinitesimal system in the incredibly short space of three months. This
man was a hard drinker. He (Professor Muff) had dispersed three drops of
rum through a bucket of water, and requested the man to drink the whole.
What was the result? Before he had drunk a quart, he was in a state of
beastly intoxication; and five other men were made dead drunk with the
remainder.
‘THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether an infinitesimal dose of soda-water
would have recovered them? Professor Muff replied that the twenty-fifth
part of a teaspoonful, properly administered to each patient, would have
sobered him immediately. The President remarked that this was a most
important discovery, and he hoped the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen
would patronize it immediately.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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