“Come along, my dear friend; there is no visiting an hospital for the insane without coming across a lunatic,—a medical practitioner without discretion is worse.”
The local physician was left standing alone on the lawn.
He shortly afterwards went home.
If you wish to anger him now you need only talk about brain “sells.”
At the same meeting it was my privilege to be presented to a really great London physician. He was the medical gentleman who was consulted by a special correspondent on his return from making a tour with the Marquis of Lome, when the latter became Viceroy of Canada. The special correspondent had left for Canada on the very day that he arrived in England from the Cape, having gone through the Zulu campaign, and he had reached the Cape direct from the Afghan war. After about two years of these experiences he felt run down, and acting on the suggestion of a friend, lost no time in consulting the great physician.
On learning that the man was suffering from a curious impression of weariness for which he could not account, but which he had tried in vain to shake off, the great physician asked him what was his profession. He replied that he was a literary man—that he wrote for a newspaper.
“Ah, I thought so,” cried the great physician. “Your complaint is easily accounted for. I perceived in a moment that you had been leading a sedentary life. That is what plays havoc with literary men. What you need just now is a complete change—no half measures, mind you—a complete change—a sea voyage would brace you up, or,—let me see—ah, yes, Margate might do. Try a fortnight at Margate.”
I am bound to say that it was another doctor who, when a naval captain who had been in charge of a corvette on the South Pacific station for five years, went to him for advice, gravely remarked,—