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. — John Shaqi
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
"O! ah! indeed! I am rejoiced to learn it. Give me your hand, sir," he
exclaimed, rising and reaching his enormous palm across the table. "I am
rejoiced, as I said before, to meet a brother."
"A _brother_!" I repeated, with unfeigned surprise and disgust.
"Yes, a brother! I, too, am a doctor. I have the honor," etc., for the
next ten minutes, while I hastened to finish my supper.
His last interrogation was what a college boy would call a "stunner."
"_Do you think, sir, that the Fillopian ducks are the same in a male as
they are in a female?_"
[Dr. S., a quack living in Winsted, Conn., once said to an educated
physician, that he sometimes found difficulty in introducing a female
catheter on account of the "prostrate" (meaning _prostate_) gland,--which
exists only in the male!]
I saw him once after the above interesting interview. He entered the drug
house of Rust, Bird, & Brother, Boston, just as I was about to go out. I
could not refrain from turning my attention towards him, as I recognized
his stentorian voice.
"Have you got any _Bonyset arbs_?" was all I waited to hear. I
subsequently learned that he was known in Vermont and part of New York
State by the _sobriquet_ of "Dr. Pusbelly."
The following story respecting "Dr. Pusbelly," related in my hearing by a
stage-driver, is in perfect keeping with the character of the man, as he
impressed me in my first interview at the country hotel.
DR. PUSBELLY.
One sunny day in autumn I had occasion to take a long journey "away down
in Maine," when and where there was no railroad. I was seated on the
outside of a four-horse stage-coach, with three or four other passengers,
one of whom was a lady, who preferred riding in that elevated station to
being cramped up inside the coach with eight persons, besides sundry
babies, a poodle dog, and a parrot.
"Sam," our driver, was a sociable fellow, full of pleasant stories,--and
Medford rum, though he was considered a perfectly safe Jehu. The greatest
drawback to his otherwise agreeable yarns was his habit of swearing.
Notwithstanding the presence of the lady, he would occasionally round his
periods and emphasize his sentences with an expletive which had better
have been omitted.
"Can't you tell a story just as well without swearing, Sam?" I inquired.
"O, no; it comes second natur. Why, cap'n, everybody swears sometimes. And
that reminds me--Git up, Jerry" (to the horse). "There was an old doctor,
Pill--Pilgarlic, I called him, on account of his pills, and the strong
effluvia from his cataract mouth. He was up round Champlain, where I drove
before the d--d railroads ruined the great stage business. Well, he was as
religious as a cuss,--that ain't swearin', is it, cap'n? Well, he came
round there pill-peddling, you see, and in order to make the old women
believe in his (expletive) medicines--"
"Don't swear, Sam. You can tell the story better without. Come, try,"
interrupted a passenger, with a twinkle of fun in his expressive eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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