There was once a good deal of rivalry between the medical staff of the Universities and the extra-mural schools of medicine. On one occasion, a University professor, wishing to make fun at the expense of a distinguished member of the non-university school, told a story of a man who consulted a famous surgeon as to constant pains in the head. The surgeon pronounced that the complaint could be completely cured by the removal of the brain and the excision of some diseased parts. The man consented to the operation, and was told to come back in ten days, when the renovated brain would be ready for him. The ten days elapsed, however, and gradually grew into three weeks without the patient having returned. At the end of that time the surgeon met him on the street, and anxiously enquired why he had never re-appeared. The man answered that, since the operation, he had obtained a government appointment, and thought that as he was getting on very well without the brain, he had better remain as he was. A titter of course went through the audience, in the midst of which the extra-mural lecturer, against whom the tale was pointed, rose and calmly said, ‘May I enquire of the speaker whether the crown appointment in question was a University professorship?’ The laugh was thus most effectively turned the other way.
A medical professor having been appointed Physician to Queen Victoria, the announcement of this honour was written up on the black-board of his class-room just before the hour of lecture. A wag among the students, seeing this notice, wrote in large letters underneath it—‘God save the Queen!’
It is not unusual for medical men to have two practices, one in this country, and one abroad. A man may attend a circle of patients during the summer in London, at Harrogate or in the north of Scotland, and another circle during the winter on the Riviera, in Italy or in Egypt. One able physician, for example, had an excellent practice for half of the year at Nairn and for the other half in Rome. He was on a friendly footing with Sir William Gull, whose patients, worn out with the distractions of London, were sent up to him to be looked after in the salubrious climate of the Moray Firth. A lady resident of Nairn, who believed herself to be far from well, and to be suffering from some complaint which the local doctor did not understand, insisted upon going to London and consulting Sir William Gull. That eminent physician diagnosed her case and prescribed; ‘What you chiefly require, madam,’ he said, ‘is to live for a time in a dry bracing climate. There is one place which I am sure would suit you admirably, and that is Nairn in the north of Scotland.’
DOCTORING IN THE HEBRIDES
One of the difficulties of life among the smaller islands of the Hebrides has long been the inadequacy of medical attendance. A stranger who first enters the region, and realises from some painful experience what are the conditions of the people in this respect, may be forgiven if at first he may be inclined to think that the authorities, whose duty it should be to provide such attendance, share the opinion of Churchill that—
The surest road to health, say what they will,
Is never to suppose we shall be ill.
Most of those evils we poor mortals know
From doctors and imagination flow.
It must be remembered, however, that many of the islands are too small, and many of the districts too thinly inhabited to provide work for a resident practitioner, even if the funds for his salary were readily procurable. All that has hitherto been attempted is to place a doctor in some central position whence, commanding as wide an area as he can be supposed able to undertake, he may be ready to proceed to any case where his services may be required. But the distances are sometimes considerable, and the weather often stormy, so that for days at a time no boat can pass from one island to another. Even under the most favourable skies, it often happens that when a message arrives, urgently requesting the attendance of the medical man, he is found to be engaged with another serious case in an island some leagues distant, from which he may not be expected to return for some days. An instance which happened a few years ago in the little island of Canna will illustrate this feature of social life in the Inner Hebrides.