Chapter Thirty Seven.
Valid reasons for invaliding—The patient cured in spite of himself—And a lecture on disease in general, with a particular case of instruments as expositors.
At length the important day arrived on which the survey did assemble. The large table in the cabin was duly littered over with paper and medical books, and supplied with pens and ink. Three post-captains in gallant array, with swords by their sides, our own captain being one, and three surgeons with lancets in their pockets, congregated with grave politeness, and taking their chairs according to precedency of rank, formed the Hygeian court. A fitting preparation was necessary, so the captains began to debate upon the various pretensions of the beautiful Phrynes of Cork—the three medical men, whether the plague was contagious or infectious, or both—or neither. At the precise moment when Captain Reud was maintaining the superiority of the attractions of a blonde Daphne against the assertions of a champion of a dark Phyllis, and the eldest surgeon had been, by the heat of the argument, carried so far as to maintain, in asserting the non-infectious and non-contagious nature of the plague, that you could not give it a man by inoculating him with its virus, the patient, on whose case they had met to decide, appeared.
In addition to the green shade, our doctor had enwrapped his throat with an immense scarlet comforter; so that the reflection of the green above, and the contrast with the colour below, made the pallor of his face still more lividly pale. He was well got up. Captain Reud nodded to the surgeons to go on, and he proceeded with his own argument.
Thus there were two debates at this time proceeding with much heat, and with just so much acrimony as to make them highly interesting. With the noble posts it was one to two, that is, our captain, the Daphneite, had drawn upon him the other two captains, both of whom were Phyllisites. When a man has to argue against two, and is not quite certain of being in the right either, he has nothing for it but to be very loud. Now men, divine as they are, have some things in common with the canine species. Go into a village and you will observe that when one cur begins to yelp, every dog’s ear catches the sound, bristles up, and every throat is opened in clamorous emulation. Captain Reud talked fast as well as loud, so he was nearly upon a par with his opponents, who only talked loud.
At the other end of the table the odds were two to one, which is not always the same as one to two; that is, the two older surgeons were opposed to the youngest. These three were just as loud within one note—the note under being the tribute they unconciously paid to naval discipline—as the three captains. Both parties were descanting upon plagues.
“I say, sir,” said the little surgeon, who was the eldest, “it is not infectious. But here comes Dr Thompson.”
Now the erudite doctor, from the first, had no great chance. Captain Reud had determined he should not be invalided. The two other captains cared nothing at all about the matter, but, of course, would not be so impolitic as to differ from their superior officer—an officer, too, of large interest, and the Amphytrion of the day; for when they had performed those duties for which they were so well fitted, their medical ones, they were to dine on the scene of their arduous labours. The eldest surgeon had rather a bias against the doctor, as he could not legally put M.D. against his own name. The next in seniority was entirely adverse to the invaliding, as, without he could invalide too, he would have to go to the West Indies in the place of our surgeon. The youngest was indifferent just then to anything but to confute the other two, and prove the plague infectious.
“But here comes Dr Thompson—I’ll appeal to him,” said non-infection; but the appeal was unfortunate, both for the appealer and the doctor. The latter was an infectionist; so there was no longer any odds, but two against two, and away they went. Our friend in the wide coat forgot he was sick, and his adversaries that they had to verify it; they sought to verify nothing but their dogmas. They waxed loud, then cuttingly polite, then slaughteringly sarcastic and, at last, exceeding wroth.
“I tell you, sir, that I have written a volume on the subject.”
“Had you no friend near you,” said Dr Thompson, “at that most unfortunate time?”
“I tell you, sir, I will never argue with anyone on the subject, unless he have read my Latin treatise ‘De Natura Pestium et Pestilentiarum.’”
“Then you’ll never argue but with yourself,” said the stout young surgeon.
Then arose the voices of the men militant over those of the men curative.
“The finest eye,” vociferated our skipper, “Captain Templar, that ever beamed from mortal. Its lovely blue, contrasted with her white skin, is just like—”
“A washerwoman’s stone-blue bag among her soapsuds—stony enough.”
Here the medical voices preponderated, and expressions such as these became distinct—“Do you accuse me of ignorance, sir–r–r?”
“No, sir–r–r. I merely assert that you know nothing at all of the matter.”
In the midst of this uproar I was walking the quarter-deck with the purser.
“What a terrible noise they are making in the cabin,” I observed. “What can they be doing?”
“Invaliding the surgeon,” said the marine officer, who had just joined us, looking wise.
“Doubted,” said the purser.
“What a dreadful operation it must be,” said a young Irish young-gentlemen (all young gentlemen in the navy are not young), “but, for the honour of the service, he might take it any how, for the life of him.”
“The very thing he is trying to do,” was the purser’s reply.
But let us return to the cabin, and collect what we can here, and record the sentences as they obtain the mastery, at either end of the table.
“Look at her step,” said a captain, speaking of his lady.
“Tottering, feeble, zig-zag,” said a surgeon, speaking of one stricken with the plague.
“Her fine open, ivory brow—”
“Is marked all over with disgusting pustules.”
“Her breath is—”
“Oh, her delicious breath!”
“Noisome, poisonous, corruption.”
“In fact, her whole lovely body is a region of—”
“Pestilent discolorations, and foul sores.”
“And,” roared out Captain Templar, “if you would but pass a single hour in her company—”
“You would assuredly repent of your temerity,” said the obstinate contagionist.
This confusion lasted about a quarter of an hour, a time sufficient, in all conscience, to invalide a West Indian regiment.
“Well, gentlemen,” said Captain Reud, rising a little chafed, “have you come to a conclusion upon this very plain case? I see the doctor looks better already—his face is no longer pale.”
“I tell you what,” said the senior surgeon, rising abruptly with the others, “since you will neither listen to me, to reason, nor to my book, though I will not answer for the sanity of your mind, I will for that of your body. My duty, sir, my duty, will not permit me to invalide you.”
“Never saw a healthier man in my life,” said the second surgeon.
“Never mind, doctor,” said the third, “we have fairly beaten them in the argument.”
The gallant captains burst out into obstreperous laughter, and so the survey was broken up, and the principal surgeons declared that our poor doctor was in sound health, because they found him unsound in his opinions.
The three surgeons took their departure, the eldest saying with a grim smile to Thompson, “It may correct some errors, and prepare you for next invaliding day. Shall I send you my book, ‘De Natura Pestium et Pestilentiarum?’”
The jolly doctor, with a smile equally grim, thanked him, and formally declined the gift, assuring him “that at the present time, the ship was well stocked with emetics.”
Now, the good doctor was a wag, and the captain, for fun, a very monkey. The aspirant for invaliding sat himself down again at one end of the table, as the captains did at the other. Wine, anchovies, sandwiches, oysters, and other light and stimulating viands were produced to make a relishing lunch. Captain Reud threw a triumphant and right merry glance across the table on the silent and discomfited doctor. The servant had placed before him a cover and glasses unbidden.
“Bring the doctor’s plate,” said the captain. The doctor was passive—the plate was brought, filled with luxuries, and placed directly under his nose. The temptation was terrible. He had been fasting and macerating himself for eight or nine days. He glared upon it with a gloomy longing. He then looked up wistfully, and a droll smile mantled across his vast face, and eddied in the holes of his deep pock-marks.
“A glass of wine, doctor?” The decanter was pushed before him, and his glass filled by the servant. The doctor shook his head and said, “I dare not, but will put it to my lips in courtesy.”
He did so, and when the glass reached the table it was empty. He then began gradually to unwind his huge woollen comforter, and when he thought himself unobserved, he stole the encumbrance into his ample coat-pocket. He next proceeded to toss about, with a careless abstraction, the large masses of cold fowl and ham in his plate, and, by some unimaginable process, without the use of his knife he contrived to separate them into edible pieces. They disappeared rapidly, and the plate was almost as soon empty as the wine-glass.
The green shade, by some unaccountable accident, now fell from his eyes, and, instead of again fixing it on, it found its way to the pocket, to keep company with the comforter. Near him stood a dish of delicious oysters, the which he silently coaxed towards his empty plate, and sent the contents furtively down his much wronged throat.
The other gentlemen watched these operations with mute delight; and, after a space, Captain Templar challenged him to a bumper, which was taken and swallowed without much squeamishness. The doctor found that he had still a difficult task to play; he knew that his artifice was discovered, and that the best way to repair the error was to boldly throw off the transparent disguise. The presence of the two stranger captains was still a restraint upon him. At length he cast his eyes upon Captain Reud, and putting into his countenance the drollest look of deprecation mingled with fun, said plaintively, “Are we friends, Captain Reud?”
“The best in the world, doctor,” was the quick reply, and he rose and extended his open hand. Doctor Thompson rose also and advanced to the head of the table, and they shook hands most heartily. The two other captains begged to do the same, and to congratulate him on his rapid convalescence.
“To prove to you, doctor, the estimation in which I hold you, you shall dine with us, and we’ll have a night of it,” said the skipper.
“Oh! Captain Reud, Captain Reud, consider—really I cannot get well so fast as that would indicate.”
“You must, you must. Gentlemen, no man makes better punch. Consider the punch, doctor.”
“Truly, that alters the case. As these dolts of surgeons could not fully understand the diagnostics of my disease, I suppose I must do my duty for the leetle while longer that I have to live. I will do my duty, and attend you punctually at five o’clock, in order to see that there be no deleterious ingredients mingled in the punch.” Saying which he bowed and left the cabin, without leaning on the shoulder of either of his assistants.
But he had yet the worst ordeal to undergo—to brave the attack of his messmates—and he did it nobly. They were all assembled in the ward-room; for those that saw him descend, if not there before, went immediately and joined him. He waddled to the head of the table, and when seated, exclaimed in a stentorian voice, “Steward, a glass of half-and-half. Gentlemen, I presume you do not understand a medical case. Steward, bring my case of pistols and the cold meat. I say, you do not understand a medical case.”
“But we do yours,” interrupted two or three voices at once.
“No, you don’t; you may understand that case better,” shoving his long-barrelled Manton duellers on to the middle of the table. “Now, gentlemen—I do not mean to bully—I am only, God help me, a weak civil arm of the service,”—and whining a little—“still very far from well. Now I’ll state my case to you, for your satisfaction, and to prevent any little mistakes. I was lately afflicted with a sort of nondescript atrophy, a stagnation of the fluids, a congestion of the small blood-vessels, and a spasmodic contraction of the finitesimal nerves, that threatened very serious consequences. At the survey, two of the surgeons, ignorant quacks that they are, broached a most ridiculous opinion—a heterodox doctrine—a damnable heresy. On hearing it, my indignation was so much roused, that a reaction took place in my system, as instantaneous as the effects of a galvanic battery. My vital energies rallied, the stagnation of my fluids ceased, the small blood-vessels that had mutinied returned to their duty; and I am happy to say, that, though now far from enjoying good health, I am rapidly approaching it. That is my case. Now for yours. As, gentlemen, we are to be cooped up in this wooden enclosure for months, perhaps years, it is a duty that we owe to ourselves to promote the happiness of each other by good temper, politeness, mutual forbearance, and kindness. In none of these shall you find me wanting, and to prove it, I will say this much—singular cases will call forth singular remarks; you must be aware that if such be dwelt on too long, they will become offensive to me, and disturb that union which I am so anxious to promote. So let us have done with the subject at once—make all your remarks now—joke, quiz, jeer, and flaunt, just for one half hour,”—taking out his watch, and laying it gently on the table—“by that time I shall have finished my lunch, which, by-the-by, I began in the cabin; there will be sufficient time for you to say all your smart things on the occasion; but if after that I hear any more on the subject, by heavens, that man who shall dare to twit me with it, shall go with me to the nearest shore if in harbour—or shoot me, or I him, across the table at sea. Now, gentlemen, begin if you please.”
“The devil a word will I ever utter on the matter,” said Farmer, “and there’s my hand upon it.”
“Nor I.”
“Nor I.”
And every messmate shook him heartily by the hand, and by them the subject was dropped, and for ever. That evening Dr Thompson made the captain’s punch, having carefully locked up in his largest tea-chest his invaliding suit.
Whatever impression this anecdote may make on the reader, if it be one injurious to the doctor, we beg to tell him, that he proved a very blessing to the ship,—the kind friend, as well as the skilful and tender physician, the promoter of every social enjoyment, the soother of conflicting passions, the interceder for the offending, and the peace-maker for all.