A Book About Doctors

by John Cordy Jeaffreson

This Lithopædus Senonensis story is not without its companions. A prescription, in which a physician ordered extract, rad valer., and immediately under it, as an ingredient in the same mixture, a certain quantity of tinctura ejusdem, sorely perplexed the poor apothecary to who it was sent to be dispensed. Tinctura ejusdem! What could it be! Ejusdem! In the whole pharmacopoeia such a drug was not named. Nothing like it was to be found on any label in his shop. At his wits' end, the poor fellow went out to a professional neighbour, and asked, in an off-hand way, "How are you off for Tinctura Ejusdem? I am out of it. So can you let me have a little of yours." The neighbour, who was a sufficiently good classical scholar to have idem, eadem, idem at his tongue's end, lamented that he too was "out of the article." and sympathizingly advised his confrère, without loss of time, to apply for some at Apothecaries' Hall. What a delightful blunder to make to a friend, of all the people in the world! The apothecary must have been a dull as well as an unlettered fellow, or he would have known the first great rule of his art—"When in doubt—Use water!" A more awkward mistake still was that made by the young dispenser, who, for the first time in his life, saw at the end of a prescription the words pro re natâ. What could they mean? pro re natâ! What could pro re natâ have to do with a mixture sent to a lady who had just presented her husband with an heir. With the aid of a Latin Dictionary, the novice rendered pro re natâ "for the thing born." Of course. Clearly the mixture was for the baby. And in a trice the compound to be taken by an adult, as circumstances should indicate a necessity for a dose, was sent off for the "little stranger."

May not mention here be made of thee, ancient friend of childhood, Roland Trevor? The whole country round, for a circle of which the diameter measured thirty fair miles, thou wert one of the most popular doctors of East Anglia. Who rode better horses? Who was the bolder in the hunt, or more joyous over the bottle? Cheery of voice, with hearty laughter rolling from purple lips, what company thou wert to festive squires! The grave some score years since closed over thee, when ninety-six years had passed over thy head—covering it with silver tresses, and robbing the eye of its pristine fire, and the lip of its mirthful curl. The shop of a country apothecary had been thy only Alma Mater; so, surely, it was no fault of thine if thy learning was scanty. Still, in the pleasant vales of Loes and Wilford is told the story of how, on being asked if thou wert a believer in phrenology, thou didst answer with becoming gravity, "I never keep it, and I never use it. But I think it highly probable that, given frequently and in liberal doses, it would be very useful in certain cases of irregular gout."

Another memory arises of a country doctor of the old school. A huge, burly, surly, churlish old fellow was Dr. Standish. He died in extremely advanced age, having lived twenty-five years in the present century. A ferocious radical, he was an object of considerable public interest during the period of political excitement consequent on the French Revolution. Tom Paine, the Thetford breeches-maker of whom the world has heard a little, was his familiar friend and correspondent. It was rumoured throughout the land that "government" had marked the doctor out for destruction.

"Thar sai," the humbler Suffolk farmers used to gossip amongst themselves, "thar sai a picter-taikin chap hav guv his poortright to the King. And Billy Pitt ha'sin it. And oold King Georgie ha' swaren as how that sooner nor later he'll hav his hid" (i. e. head).

The "upper ten" of Holmnook, and the upper ten-times-ten of the distance round about Holmnook, held themselves aloof from such a dangerous character. But the common folk believed in and admired him. There was something of romance about a man whom George III. and Billy Pitt were banded together to destroy.

Standish was a man of few words. "Down with the bishops!" "Up with the people!" were his stock sentiments. He never approached nearer poetry than when (yellow being then the colour of the extreme liberal party in his district) he swore "there worn't a flower in the who' o' crashun warth lookin' at but a sunflower, for that was yallow, and a big un."

The man had no friends in Holmnook or the neighbourhood; but every evening for fifty years he sate, in the parlour of the chief inn, drinking brandy-and-water, and smoking a "churchwarden." His wife—(his wooing must have been of a queer sort)—a quiet, inoffensive little body, sometimes forgot she was but a woman, and presumed to have an opinion of her own. On such occasions Standish thrashed her soundly with a dog-whip. In consequence of one of these castigations she ran away from her tyrant. Instead of pursuing her, Dr. Standish merely inserted the following advertisement in the county paper:—

"Dr Standish to all whom it may concern.—Dr Standish's wife having run away, he wants a housekeeper. Dr Standish doesn't want good looks in a woman: but she must know how to hold her tongue and cook a plain joint. He gives ten pounds. Mrs Standish needn't apply—she's too much of a lady."

But poor Mrs. Standish did apply, and, what is more, obtained the situation. She and her lord never again had any quarrel that obtained publicity; and so the affair ended more happily than in all probability it would have done had Sir Creswell Creswell's court been then in existence. Standish's practice lay principally amongst the mechanics and little farmers of the neighborhood. Much of his time was therefore spent in riding his two huge lumbering horses about the country. In his old age he indulged himself in a gig (which, out of respect to radical politics, he painted with a flaring yellow paint); but, at the commencement of the present century, the by-roads of Suffolk—now so good that a London brougham drawn by one horse can with ease whisk over the worst of them at the rate of ten miles an hour—were so bad that a doctor could not make an ordinary round on them in a wheeled carriage. Even in the saddle he ran frequent risk of being mired, unless his horse had an abundance of bone and pluck.

Standish's mode of riding was characteristic of the man. Straight on he went, at a lumbering six miles an hour trot—dash, dosh, dush!—through the muddy roads, sitting loosely in his seat, heavy and shapeless as a sack of potatoes, looking down at his brown corduroy breeches and his mahogany top-boots (the toes of which pointed in directly opposite directions), wearing a perpetual scowl on his brows, and never either rising in his stirrups or fixing himself to the saddle with his knees. Not a word would he speak to a living creature in the way of civil greeting.