The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.Crabtre, Addison Darre
History
The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.
Crabtre, Addison Darre
Medicine -- Anecdotes; Quacks and quackery
His cap had fallen on the ground, and his dark, curling hair fell
clustering over his extended arm, as his head rested upon it. He had
seemingly fallen asleep the night before, for his thin summer clothes were
on his person, and his basket, yet filled with the fragments of broken
feasts, remained untouched at his feet. I placed my hand upon his
beautiful head; it was icy cold. Quickly brushing back the fallen ringlets
from his face, the unmistakable evidence of death met my gaze.
He had apparently fallen asleep weeping, for a tear-drop lay frozen
between the long lashes that fringed the eyelids.
I raised the stiffened body of the ill-fated youth, and tearing away the
thin sleeve from his left arm, I distinctly discovered the letters 'H. T.'
thereon.
Deserted, famished, and frozen, death had claimed the darling, lone boy
before he knew a mother's love!
This sad tale is taken from "_Scenes in Northern Practice by Dr. Dewees_,
N. Y."--_Scalpel_, 1855. (And like all the stories herein, it has the
merit of being true to the letter.)
THE TERRIBLE CALLER.
It was about half past nine in the morning.
My office door suddenly opened, and looking up from my writing, I saw,
standing in the passage-way, a very tall man, in a long white frock,
reaching to his knees, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a slouched hat set
back on his head, his face painted or bedaubed with some white substance,
and his eyes gleaming upon me most intensely!
There he stood, looking almost fiercely upon me, while he held the
door-knob with his left hand, and grasped with his right a long
carving-knife, which was thrust through his belt.
"Are you the doctor?" he shouted with excitement.
"I am the doctor," I replied, calmly awaiting my fate.
He instantly stepped inside the room, when close behind him was revealed
the form of a very short man, who held a Kossuth hat in one hand, while
with a handkerchief in the other, he stanched the blood that had evidently
been flowing pretty freely from his head.
"This man has cut himself very bad on the head; big iron wheel come down
on him: can you fix him up?" asked the first. This accounted for his
excited manner. But how about the bedaubed face and the huge knife?
[Illustration: A MORNING CALLER.]
I examined the wound, only through the scalp, less than three inches in
length; and washing away the surplus clotted blood, I clipped off the
hair, and soon secured the edges of the gaping wound by taking a stitch or
two through the scalp.
While so doing, the young man rolled his eyes up to his tall
companion,--who had explained that they were cooks at Young's Hotel, and
that the spit wheel and shaft used for turning meat had fallen eight feet;
by which the assistant had barely escaped being killed,--and with a
commendable show of thought for his employer's interest, rather than his
own comfort or safety, he anxiously exclaimed,--
"Jim, do you think that gentleman's 'order,' what I had in the spit, is
overdone yet?"
AN IRISH SCENE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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