The reader must admit that diplomas were cheap honors, when one was granted to a dog! A young English gentleman, for the sport of the thing, paid the price of a medical diploma soon after Dr. Meyersbach’s was granted, and had it duly recorded in the archives of the college (Erfurth) as having been awarded to Anglicus Ponto.
“And who was Anglicus Ponto?”
“None other than the gentleman’s dog—a fine mastiff.”
But this question was not asked till too late to prevent the joke. It had the good effect, however, to raise at once the price of degrees.
Dr. Sydenham published several medical works, copies of which are now extant, but his pretensions to skill availed him but little in time of need. His prescriptions—some of them, at least—were very absurd, and during his latter years, while enjoying a lucrative practice, and possessing the utmost confidence of the bon ton, he suffered excruciating pains from the gout, which, with other complications, ended his days. “Physician, heal thyself.”
DR. ANGLICUS PONTO.
Dr. Blackmore, an aspirant to medical fame, applied to Dr. Sydenham, while residing in Pall Mall, with the following inquiry:—
“What is the best course of study for a medical student?”
“Read Don Quixote,” was Sydenham’s reply. “It is a very good book. I read it yet.” I find this in a biographical dictionary of 1779. While some biographers endeavor to pass this off as a joke, it is a well-known fact that the doctor was a sceptic in medicine, and those who knew him best believe that he meant just what he said.