XIII.
TRAVELLING DOCTORS.
“His fancy lay to travelling.”—L’Estrange.
PUBLIC CONFIDENCE(?).—THE EYE OF THE PUBLIC.—A BAD SPECIMEN.—“REMARKABLE TUMOR.”—“THE SINGING DOCTOR.”—CAUGHT IN A STORM.—BIG PUFFING.—A SPLENDID “TURNOUT.”—WHO WAS HE?—A SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE.—THE “SPANKING DOCTOR.”—A FAIR VICTIM.—LOOSE LAWS.—DR. PULSEFEEL.—IMPUDENCE.—A FIDDLING DOCTOR.—AN ENCORE.—“CHEEK.”—VARIOUS WAYS OF ADVERTISING.
One might say, with some propriety, that these characters—travelling doctors—should have been classed under the heading of our first chapter, as “humbugs;” but if we should put all under that head that belong there, O, where would the chapter end? As “all is not gold that glitters,” so neither, on the other hand, is there anything so bad that no virtue can be found in it. No heart is so utterly depraved as to prevent any good thought or deed from emanating therefrom, though sometimes the good is quite imperceptible to us short-sighted mortals.
As the majority of physicians “turned” out of our medical colleges, or of those in practice in our cities, are unfit to have intrusted to their care the health and lives of our families, friends, or ourselves, so the majority of travelling doctors are to be reckoned equally untrustworthy; no more so.
If the blessed Saviour should return to earth, and travel from town to city, as he did eighteen hundred years ago, healing the sick, I really think there would be a less number believing in him now than then. Less gratitude for his marvellous cures there could not be; for then some of the miserable wretches, whom he healed free of charge, did not so much as return him thanks. This may be said of some of our patients at this day.
Let a medical man of ever so great reputation travel, and he is lost. A band of angels, on a healing mission, would stand no chance with a people who only expect humbugs to visit them. The Shakspearian inquiry would at once and repeatedly be put,—
“How chance it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways!”
Let us view a few travelling doctors through the public eye:—