HARRYING OUR HAKIMS.
[A medical journal suggests that all candidates for Medical Degrees should be required to give proof of good handwriting, in order to put an end to indistinct prescriptions.]
A few additional requirements, we believe, have been under consideration, of which the following are a sample:—
All candidates for the M.B. Degree to be able to count up to fifty. Candidates who are more than fifty not to count.
Nobody to become a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons until he has mastered Simple Addition and Compound Fractures.
Members of the Royal College of Physicians will henceforth be expected to know their Weights (with boots off) and Measures (round the waist). Troy weight only. "Scruples" not allowed. Good knowledge of Multiplication Table indispensable for dispensers.
No candidate to be accepted for a Degree unless he either has a good "bedside manner," or undertakes to develop one as soon as possible.
Any candidate to be at once ploughed unless he can answer all the following questions:—
1. What would you do if asked to hold a consultation with a practitioner whom you have every reason to suppose an incapable quack?
2. If a good paying patient, suffering from no ailment whatever, called you in with a view to getting a week's holiday at the seaside by medical orders, how would you reconcile a desire to oblige that pardonable weakness with a strict regard for veracity?
3. When the parents of a large family, who do their duty manfully by calling you in about twice a week, and from whom therefore you derive a not inconsiderable proportion of your income, object to have an infant vaccinated at the proper time, because they erroneously consider it to be unfit for the operation, which would you feel inclined to strain—friendship, or the law?
4. Do you believe in Influenza?
5. Have you ever seen a Microbe?
6. "In the multitude of visits there is safety." Comment on this declaration. How many visits do you think a common catarrh will support? Give reasons.
7. What is the etiquette about Red Lamps?
"HORSE AND 'RYDER'".—Last week, on the 15th, as was reported in the Globe, and elsewhere, "a humble crossing-sweeper," named RYDER, stopped a runaway cab-horse (a great rarity this, too) just as he was about to descend headlong the steps of the Duke of York's column, and so saved the two passengers, who, we hope, in consideration of what he has done for their lives, have settled something hansom upon him for his life. If not, the proposition is here made, and after the prop comes the RYDER.
GHOSTLY COUNSEL.—Prizes are being offered for "Good Ghost Stories." This may mean Stories of Good Ghosts; but supplying the hyphen and supposing that the requirement is for "Good Ghost-stories," then Mr. Punch makes a present of a good title to any sanguine amateur who may compete. Let him call his story, "A Ghost of a Chance." And Mr. Punch wishes he may get it!
PENNY FOOLISH.—Somebody has published a penny A B C of Theosophy. To the appeal of this Occult A B C the enlightened public will probably be D E F.
"QUI DORT, DÎNE," ET "QUI DÎNE, DORT."—A man who "goes nap" at dinner, is pretty safe to go nap immediately after it.