St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical StudentBerdoe, Edward
General
St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student
Berdoe, Edward
Medical students -- Fiction
his spirit card is not reduced, or even taken away altogether. You
could not manage St. Bernard’s on its present lines without alcohol.
The medical school would not have a chance with it. Let us follow, say,
Thomas Smith from St. Giles to the hospital. He has inflammation of the
lungs, is very weak and ill, has been badly fed and cannot in his own
home obtain proper care and nursing. His clergyman kindly gives him a
letter for the hospital. He is advised to be at the out-patient
department at one o’clock. To make sure, the poor fellow’s cab is there
by half-past twelve; the great waiting-hall is already filling. The
physician of the day arrives a little after two. About three, if he is
lucky, Smith’s turn will come. He is not sorry. It was weary waiting,
sitting upright on a hard bench in a great noisy, draughty room, with
many distressing and painful sights around him; and when the kind,
gently speaking physician tells his wife to strip him to the waist, he
begins to think he is going to be cured straight off by some of the
superabundant medical force surrounding him.
There are many interesting clinical features in Tom Smith’s case, and
the doctor lectures long and learnedly to the score of good-natured,
athletic young gentlemen whom he has just been informed are “sucking
doctors.” They have all come provided with stethoscopes, and after
the examining physician has thoroughly thumped, pummelled, and
“auscultated” poor Smith’s chest, back and front, as many of the
aforesaid young men who are invited, or who can be induced to interest
themselves, “have their go” at the patient, and are very kindly and
patiently shown precisely where the mischief is, and what is the exact
stage of its progress; but all this could not be got through without an
ounce or two of brandy in a drop of water, in a measure glass that
stands handy. And everybody having quite done, with many remarks, such
as, “You see the point I was driving at, Mr. Dobbs?” or, “You are quite
convinced my theory of pneumonia is correct, Mr. Murphy?” poor,
shivering, sick and faint Tom Smith is sent up to the wards to bed,
under the care of an entirely fresh physician, physician’s assistant,
clinical clerks, and students of the in patient department.
None of those men who have spent so much time over the case, will
probably ever see it again. Smith’s cards, papers, and books having all
been duly made out, signed and registered, he is conducted, say, to
Magdalen ward, where he is put to bed and made comfortable. If he has
brought any tea and sugar with him, he can have a cup; but these things
are luxuries not provided by the charity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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