THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE LONDON MEDICAL STUDENT.
8.—OF THE EXAMINATION AT APOTHECARIES’ HALL.
The last task that devolves upon our student before he goes up to the Hall is to hunt up his testimonials of attendance to lectures and good moral conduct in his apprenticeship, together with his parochial certificate of age and baptism. The first of these is the chief point to obtain; the two last he generally writes himself, in the style best consonant with his own feelings and the date of his indenture. His “morality ticket” is as follows:—
(Copy.)
“I hereby certify, that during the period Mr. Joseph Muff served his time with me he especially recommended himself to my notice by his studious and attentive habits, highly moral and gentlemanly conduct, and excellent disposition. He always availed himself of every opportunity to improve his professional knowledge.”
(Signed)
According to the name on the indenture.
The certificate of attendance upon lectures is only obtained in its most approved state by much clever manoeuvring. It is important to bear in mind that a lecturer should never be asked whilst he is loitering about the school for his signature of the student’s diligence. He may then have time to recollect his ignorance of his pupil’s face at his discourses. He should always be caught flying—either immediately before or after his lecture—in order that the whole business may be too hurried to admit of investigation. In the space left for the degree of attention which the student has shown, it is better that he subscribes nothing at all than an indifferent report; because, in the former case, the student can fill it up to his own satisfaction. He usually prefers the phrase—“with unremitting diligence.”
And having arrived at this important section of our Physiology, it behoves us to publish, for the benefit of medical students in general, and those about to go up in particular, the following
CODE OF INSTRUCTIONS
TO BE OBSERVED BY THOSE PREPARING FOR EXAMINATION AT THE HALL.
- Previously to going up, take some pills and get your hair cut. This not only clears your faculties, but improves your appearance. The Court of Examiners dislike long hair.
- Do not drink too much stout before you go in, with the idea that it will give you pluck. It renders you very valiant for half an hour and then muddles your notions with indescribable confusion.
- Having arrived at the Hall, put your rings and chains in your pocket, and, if practicable, publish a pair of spectacles. This will endow you with a grave look.
- On taking your place at the table, if you wish to gain time, feign to be intensely frightened. One of the examiners will then rise to give you a tumbler of water, which you may, with good effect, rattle tremulously against your teeth when drinking. This may possibly lead them to excuse bad answers on the score of extreme nervous trepidation.
- Should things appear to be going against you, get up a hectic cough, which is easily imitated, and look acutely miserable, which you will probably do without trying.
- Endeavour to assume an off-hand manner of answering; and when you have stated any pathological fact—right or wrong—stick to it; if they want a case for example, invent one, “that happened when you were an apprentice in the country.” This assumed confidence will sometimes bother them. We knew a student who once swore at the Hall, that he gave opium in a case of concussion of the brain, and that the patient never required anything else. It was true—he never did.
- Should you be fortunate enough to pass, go to your hospital next day and report your examination, describing it as the most extraordinary ordeal of deep-searching questions ever undergone. This will make the professors think well of you, and the new men deem yon little less than a mental Colossus. Say, also, “you were complimented by the Court.” This advice is, however, scarcely necessary, as we never know a student pass who was not thus honoured—according to his own account.
All things being arranged to his satisfaction, he deposits his papers under the care of Mr. Sayer, and passes the interval before the fatal day much in the same state of mind as a condemned criminal. At last Thursday arrives, and at a quarter to four, any person who takes the trouble to station himself at the corner of Union-street will see various groups of three and four young men wending their way towards the portals of Apothecaries’ Hall, consisting of students about to be examined, accompanied by friends who come down with them to keep up their spirits. They approach the door, and shake hands as they give and receive wishes of success. The wicket closes on the candidates, and their friends adjourn to the “Retail Establishment” opposite, to go the odd man and pledge their anxious companions in dissector’s diet-drink—vulgo, half-and-half.
Leaving them to their libations, we follow our old friend Mr. Joseph Muff. He crosses the paved court-yard with the air of a man who had lost half-a-crown and found a halfpenny; and through the windows sees the assistants dispensing plums, pepper, and prescriptions, with provoking indifference. Turning to the left, he ascends a solemn-looking staircase, adorned with severe black figures in niches, who support lamps. On the top of the staircase he enters a room, wherein the partners of his misery are collected. It is a long narrow apartment, commonly known as “the funking-room,” ornamented with a savage-looking fireplace at one end, and a huge surly chest at the other; with gloomy presses against the walls, containing dry mouldy books in harsh, repulsive bindings. The windows look into the court; and the glass is scored by diamond rings, and the shutters pencilled with names and sentences, which Mr. Muff regards with feelings similar to those he would experience in contemplating the inscriptions on the walls of a condemned cell. The very chairs in the room look overbearing and unpleasant; and the whole locality is invested with an overallishness of unanswerable questions and intricate botheration. Some of the students are marching up and down the room in feverish restlessness; others, arm in arm, are worrying each other to death with questions; and the rest are grinding away to the last minute at a manual, or trying to write minute atomic numbers on their thumb-nail.
The clock strikes five, and Mr. Sayer enters the room, exclaiming—“Mr. Manhug, Mr. Jones, Mr. Saxby, and Mr. Collins.” The four depart to the chamber of examination, where the medical inquisition awaits them, with every species of mental torture to screw their brains instead of their thumbs, and rack their intellects instead of their limbs,—the chair on which the unfortunate student is placed being far more uneasy than the tightest fitting “Scavenger’s daughter” in the Tower of London. After an anxious hour, Mr. Jones returns, with a light bounding step to a joyous extempore air of his own composing: he has passed. In another twenty minutes Mr. Saxby walks fiercely in, calls for his hat, condemns the examiners ad inferos, swears he shall cut the profession, and marches away. He has been plucked; and Mr. Muff, who stands sixth on the list, is called on to make his appearance before the awful tribunal.
REGULARLY CALLED IN—AND BOWLED OUT.
Dr. Demosthenes &c. &c. &c. &c. Bedford, who has lately broken out in a new place, has been accused by the lieges of the Borough of having acted in a most unprofessional manner; in short, with having lost his patience. He, Dr. Demosthenes &c. begs to state, the only surgical operation he ever attempted was most successful, notwithstanding it was the difficult one of amputating his “mahogany;” and he further adds, the only case he ever had is still in his hand, it being a most obstinate
CARD CASE.