An Irishman called in great haste upon the doctor, saying,—
“O, dochter—be jabers, me b’y Tim has swallowed a mouse.”
“Then, Paddy, be jabers, let your boy Tim swallow a cat.”
The Old Lady and the Pump.
One can readily conceive the utility of a warm bath—even a cold water bath, if the bather is robust—or a steam bath, a vapor, or a sun bath; but the advantage of the absurdity which the nineteenth century has introduced from antiquity, viz., the dry cupping, or pumping treatment, is not so self-evident.
An old lady, suffering from “rheumatism, and a humor of the blood,” was persuaded to visit a “pump-doctor’s” rooms.
“What’s that hollow thing for?” she nervously inquired.
“That is a limb-receiver,” replied the polite operator. “If the disease is in the limb, we enclose it within this; the rubber excludes the air, and to this faucet we affix the pump, and remove the air from the limb.”
“Yes, yes; but I thought air was necessary to health; besides, I don’t see how that is going to cure the limb. Does it add anything to, or take anything from the limb?” she inquired.
“Well—no—yes; that is, it draws the disease out from that part.”