Claudere quæ cœnas Lactuca solebat avorum,
Die mihi cur nostras inchoat illa dapes.
Columella thus describes its properties:
Jamque salutari properet Lactuca sapore
Tristia quæ relevet longi fastidia mori.
This belief in its narcotic qualities induced the ancients to esteem it as an aphrodisiac: the Pythagoreans had therefore named it ευνουχιον; and Eubulus calls it the food of the dead, mortuorum cibum. Venus covered the body of her beloved Adonis with lettuce-leaves to calm her amorous grief; and vases, in which they were planted, were introduced in the Adonian festivals. Galen, who had faith in its powers, called it the herb of sages, and in his sleepless nights sought its influence by eating it at supper. It was also frequently put under the pillow of the rich to lull them to repose. Its cooling qualities were so much dreaded by the Roman gallants, that its use was abandoned; but Augustus’s physician, Antonius Musa, having calmed by its prescription his master’s uneasiness in a hypochondriac attack, lettuce recovered its popularity: a statue was erected to the doctor, and salad once more became the fashion, although the prejudices against it could not be removed. Lobel informs us that an English nobleman, who had long wished for an heir, but in vain, was blessed with a numerous family by leaving off this Malthusian vegetable.
MEDICAL FEES.
Such is the perversity of our nature, that the remuneration given with the greatest reluctance is the reward of those who restore us, or who conscientiously endeavour to restore us to health. The daily fees, it is true, are not handed with regret, for the patient is still suffering; but if they were to be allowed to accumulate to a considerable amount, they would be parted with, with a lingering look. The lawyer’s charges for a ruinous litigation, the architect’s demands for an uncomfortable house, are freely disbursed, though if exorbitant they may be taxed; but the doctor’s—a guinea a visit!—is sheer extortion. ‘Send for the apothecary: the physician merely gives me advice; the apothecary will send me plenty of physic: at any rate I shall have something for my money.’
To what can this unjust, this illiberal feeling be attributed? Simply to vanity and pride. Illness and death level all mankind. The haughty nobleman, who conceives himself contaminated by vulgar touch, can scarcely bring himself to believe that he is placed upon the same footing as a shoe-black. All prestiges of grandeur and worldly pomp vanish round the bed of sickness; and the suffering peer would kneel before the humblest peasant for relief. Then it is that money would be cheerfully lavished to mitigate his sufferings. But how soon the scene is changed! The patient is well, thrown once more in the busy vortex of business or of pleasure. He had been slightly indisposed; his natural constitution is excellent: the doctors mistook his case; thought him very ill, forsooth; but nature cured him.
Could the ambitious mother admit for one moment that her daughter had been seriously ill?—a sick wife is an expensive article! If her medical attendant unfortunately hinted that the young lady had been in danger, he is considered a busy old woman, exaggerating the most trifling ailment to obtain increase of business; in fact, a dangerous man in a family where there are young persons—to be provided for. Nor can we marvel at this. No one likes to be considered morally or physically weak, excepting hypochondriacs, who live upon groans, and feel offended if you tell them that they do not look miserable. The soldier will describe the slightest wound he received in battle as most severe and dangerous; a feeling of pride is associated with the relation. The bold hunter will boast of a fractured limb; the accident showed that he was a daring horseman. Nay, the agonizing gout is a fashionable disease, which seems to proclaim good living, good fellowship, and luxury: it is, in short, a gentlemanly disease. But the slow ravages of hereditary ailments, transmitted from generation to generation with armorial bearings, the development of which may be averted by proper care, or hurried on by fashionable imprudence! how difficult even to hint to a family the presence of the scourge, when, through the transparent bloom of youth and beauty, our experienced eye reads the fierce characters of death in the prime of years. The aerial coronet floats in fond visions before the doting mother’s ambitious eyes. A man would be a barbarian, nay, a very brute, to deprive the darling girl of the chances of Almacks, the delights of the pestiferous ball-room, or the galaxy of court or opera!
To attend the great is deemed the first stepping-stone to fortune, and patronage is considered as more than an equivalent of remuneration. Too frequently does the physician placed in that desirable situation forget what Hippocrates said of the profession. “The physician stands before his patient in the light of a demi-god, since life and death are in his hands.”