“You can’t be at Bedford Row” (where Abernethy resided) “at nine, then?”
“Yes, sir, I can.”
“To-morrow morning, then.”
“Yes, sir; thank you.”
The pupil was punctual. Dr. Abernethy made a very careful examination of his nose, found nothing of the nature of polypus, made the pupil promise never to look into his nose again, and he, in after years, said, that there never was anything the matter.
Dr. Abernethy never took a fee from a student, brother doctor, nor full fee from a clergyman. His great labors seemed to be in the hospitals, and on his resignation as surgeon to St. Bartholomew, he presented for its use five hundred dollars. He never neglected his poor hospital patients for the richer ones outside.
One morning, on leaving his house for a visit to the hospital patients, some one wished to detain him, when he exclaimed, in terms more earnest than elegant,—
“Private patients may go to the devil” (or elsewhere, another reports), “but the poor fellows in the hospital I am bound to care for.”
To poor students whose funds were “doubtful,” he presented free tickets to his college lectures, afterwards showing them marked attention.
Everybody has heard of his rude kindness to a young fashionable miss, whom her mother took to Abernethy for treatment. It is said that the doctor ran a knife under her belt, in presence of the mother, instantly severing it, and exclaiming,—