The Young Physician

by Francis Brett Young

He led Edwin behind the green baize curtain at the back of his desk, disclosing a set of shelves and a counter stained with the rings of bottles and measuring glasses. At the end of the counter was a sink into which a tap with a tapered nozzle dripped dismally. One drawer held labels, another corks, a third a selection of eight-ounce, four-ounce, and two-ounce bottles. At the back of the counter stood a row of Winchester Quarts, of indefinite contents, labelled with the Roman numerals from one to nine. Dr. Harris swabbed the swimming counter with a rag that was already saturated with medicines.

“You can learn all you want in five minutes,” he said. “There’s no time for refinements in this sort of practice. These big bottles are all stock mixtures, and whatever they teach you in your universities, I can tell you that these nine mixtures will carry you through life. There you are . . . Number One: White Mixture. Number Two: Soda and Rhubarb. Number Three: Bismuth. You have to go easy with Number Three: Bismuth’s expensive. Number Four: Febrifuge . . . Liquor Ammond Acet: and that. Number Five: Iron and Mag:Sulph. And so on. . . . Number Nine: Mercury and Pot:Iod . . . you know what that’s for,” with a laugh, “we use a lot of that here. Now you’ve one ounce of each stock mixture to an eight-ounce bottle, and a two-tablespoonful dose. I used to put them up in six-ounce bottles; but if you give them eight ounces they think they’re getting more for the money: they don’t realise they’re getting eight doses instead of twelve, and that’s their lookout, isn’t it? Same proportions for children and infants, only you use the four and two-ounce bottles instead, with dessert-spoon and teaspoonful doses. Simple, isn’t it? But you want to simplify if you’re going to make money in these days. Now, is that quite clear?”

“Quite clear.”

“Well, then, when a patient comes in I have a look at him—with my experience you can tell in a moment—and I give you a slip of paper behind the curtain. Like this. ‘Mrs. Jones. No. 5. T.D.S.’ Mrs. means an eight-ounce bottle. One ounce of Number Five stock mixture. One tablespoonful three times a day. Then, if I put ‘4tis horis’ instead of ‘T.D.S.,’ it means a tablespoonful every four hours; but I only do that when I see they can afford to get through the bottle more quickly. You’ll find powders in that drawer. Antifebrin—it’s cheaper than phenacetin and caffein. And calomel for children. Then, as I was saying, while I have a look at the patient and ask him one or two questions you make up the medicine.”

“Suppose, when you’ve had a talk to him, you change your mind about the treatment.”

“I never change my mind. There’s no time for that,” said Dr. Harris. “And if I did we could change the medicine next time. But you needn’t worry about the treatment: that’s my part of the business. Why”—and the little man expanded—“I shouldn’t wonder if we got through as many as a hundred patients in a couple of hours, the two of us together. Now, are you ready?”

He left Edwin behind the curtain and rang his bell. A patient entered, and as soon as the doctor had said good-evening to her the prescription was passed behind the curtain and Edwin proceeded to fill a bottle from one of the Winchester Quarts. This business went on monotonously for another hour. Edwin dispensed mechanically in a kind of dream. He never saw a single patient; but little scraps of conversation showed him that most of them were suffering from the evils of poor housing and a sedentary life. It consoled him to think that most of the mixtures that he dispensed were relatively harmless. Sometimes, by an access of solicitude and deference in the doctor’s voice, he could gather that the patient was of a higher social degree, and he smiled to find, in these cases, that the mixture was invariably prescribed in four-hourly doses.

All the men, it appeared, were judged to be in need of White Mixture or Rhubarb: all the women demanded Iron and Mag:Sulph: all the children were treated with a treacly cough mixture or calomel powders. In the space of an hour he must have dispensed at least forty bottles of medicine, and towards the end of the evening he noticed that Dr. Harris became even more perfunctory in his examinations—if such a word were ever justified—and that signs of irritation began to show themselves in his voice. At last the waiting-room bell rang twice, and no patient appeared.

“That’s the lot,” said Dr. Harris, appearing from behind the curtain. “I think I’ll have a wash.” It was the first time that he had washed his hands in the whole of the evening. “Well, you see what it’s like,” he said, “I think I’ll have a nip of whisky.” He produced a vitriolic bottle from a cupboard and mixed some whisky with water in a medicine-measure.

“A good average day,” he said. “Three pounds ten.” He shovelled the silver from the drawer into a leather bag that weighed down his coat pocket. “That takes a lot of making at a shilling a time. Well, how do you like it?”