The Young Physician

by Francis Brett Young

“I know it,” said Edwin.

“Do you? I supposed it was merely a medical curiosity. Latin, he thought, would be useful to me in other ways. You see, like many of the old medical practitioners that spent their lives in the lanes, he was very interested in botany: not scientific botany—just the identification and botanical names of the flowers that blossomed year by year in the hedges. In the early summer he would drive home with the bottom of the dogcart tangled with flowers that he had picked while he walked the pony up some hill; and he would pitch them over to me and tell me to learn the names of them. It wasn’t very difficult; for in the surgery shelves there was a fine set of Ann Pratt with excellent illustrations. And sometimes he would come home with a small insect of some kind in a pillbox and arrange it under the microscope on the table under the dispensary window; and he’d say, ‘Wonderful . . . wonderful!’ not because he’d made any biological observations, but just because it revealed a lot of unsuspected detail.

“It was a favourite trick of his to show his patients a sample of their own blood corpuscles under the microscope too. ‘There they are,’ he’d say, ‘like a pile of golden guineas, and if you had a millionth part as many guineas as you have of these in your body, you’d be the richest man in England.’ This sort of thing used to impress his patient’s tremendously. And he knew it. I suppose it gave them confidence in him; though he didn’t need any superstitious aids of this kind. The whole history of his life as a doctor should have been enough to make them trust him. Still, I suppose it was the old tradition of the medicine man who dealt in curious magic. His common sense and the craftsmanship that he had won by experience were his real guarantees.

“He was extraordinarily practical in everything except money matters. In these, even I could have taught him a good deal. It was a pathetic sight to see him making out his bills. He always put off the evil day, with the result that they were only sent out about once in three years. I don’t suppose doctors can afford to be like that in these days. . . . But then, what was the use of money to him? All his tastes were simple and inexpensive. He was unmarried. During all the years that I was with him he never took a holiday, unless it were to go to Taunton and buy a new horse. I do not think there are many of his kind left.

“You can see, though, what a huge difference he made to my life. If I hadn’t gone to live with him at Axcombe, I might still have been a miner—if there are any miners left on Mendip—or perhaps a gardener like your Uncle Will. And where would you have been, Eddie? He was careful, and I think very wisely careful, not to turn my head. ‘Ambition,’ he would say to me, ‘is all very well in moderation. But don’t be too ambitious, John. Happiness is more important in this life than success, and very few men have a full share of both. Still, you’re a sharp lad, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get on in the world and be happy too if you don’t expect too much.’ As time went on we began to talk a little about my future. ‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry,’ he used to say. ‘You’re young, and there’s plenty of time ahead of you.’

“Of course it would be ridiculous to suppose that I hadn’t ambitions. Naturally enough, I had determined to be a doctor like my master. The small things that I did for him convinced me that it would be an easy matter. When he was out in the country people who had walked in from remote villages would ask me to prescribe for them, and sometimes, with an immense sense of importance, I would do so. It wasn’t difficult. He ran his practice, to all intents and purposes, on three stock mixtures and half a dozen pills. But I shall never forget one evening when one of my father’s fellow workmen from Highberrow came in with a raging toothache, and I, being anxious to show off, volunteered to take the tooth out for him. I remember I showed him a microscopic sample of his own blood as a preliminary. But when I came to take out the tooth I made a mess of it. He was a tremendous big fellow with jaws like steel, and though I pulled hard enough to move him in the chair, I only succeeded in breaking the tooth and making the pain worse. I got my head well smacked for my trouble, and decided that whatever else I were to be, I wouldn’t risk dentistry as a career.

“‘There’s no reason,’ the doctor would say, ‘why you shouldn’t make a good chemist in time.’ Of course that seemed a very small thing to me; and yet . . . think what I might have been! I was sixteen, just your own age, Eddie, when he died. Of course he killed himself, as many doctors do, with work. People make a great fuss when a missionary in some outlandish country lays down his life, as they call it, for his flock. But country doctors are doing that every month in the year all over England—I don’t mean the social successes in Harley Street—and from what I’ve seen of it their widows can’t count on much gratitude.

“It was a hard winter . . . the year eighteen sixty-seven . . . and there happened to be a great deal of illness in the hills. We were worked pretty hard, both of us, but the doctor had no chance of taking a rest: he was the only medical man living within ten miles: and in the end he, too, caught a heavy cold, and had to go on working through it. In the end he had to give up. It was pneumonia; and the last thing he did was to write a letter asking a consultant in Bristol to come down and see him. He was a kindly man, but I suppose Dr. Marshall was to him only a case. The old fellow refused to have any one but me to nurse him. ‘John and I understand each other,’ he said.

“It was a terrible battle: to see a great strong man like that fighting for breath. They didn’t give oxygen in those days. It went on for four days and on the fifth, or rather in the middle of the night—he called to me faintly, and I found him lying on his back breathing more softly, very pale and drenched with sweat. ‘This is the crisis . . . fifth day . . .’ he said. He told me to cover him with all the blankets I could find, to give him some brandy, and to take his temperature. It was a funny job for a boy. I had never seen a great man suddenly go weak like that. His temperature had fallen below normal. ‘Ah . . .’ he said. ‘I thought so. . . . Brandy. . .’

“But he couldn’t take it himself. ‘You’ve got to be the doctor now, John,’ he said. There wasn’t any more fight left in him. All that day he hardly spoke at all, but at night he called me to his side and told me to make a bonfire of all the books and the bills we’d been making out the week before. ‘I shan’t want any more money,’ he said. ‘But you will . . . a little. . . . I’ve seen to that. You’re a good lad. Don’t aim too high. And don’t think too much about money. Money is the root of all evil. . .’