“Two votes safe!” said I, as I regained the lobby, “and now for old 'Roots,' as the professor of Mat. Med. was familiarly called by the class—he's deaf, but thinks no one knows it but himself. I'll talk low, and he won't know whether I am answering correctly or not.”
“Take a seat, Mr. Tensas. How are you to-day? I suppose you are ready for being examined? What is calomel?” All this being said sotto voce.
“A drug, sir, that may be called the right bower of quackery, and the four aces of medical murder; referred to by Shakspeare when he said, 'Throw physic to the dogs,' and specifically mentioned by him, though a typo graphical error has somewhat obscured it, evidencing its antiquity and universal administration at his time in the lines, 'Be thou as pure as ice, as chaste as snow, thou shalt not escape Calumel.'”
I spoke in a whisper, but moved my lips as if vociferating.
“Right, Mr. Tensas; but you need not holler so as to alarm the college; I am not deaf. What is the usual dose in the South?”
“Half a pound for an infant, and the quadrature of the stomach's circle for a grown negro!”
“What are its specific effects upon the system?”
“The free use of coffins, spit-boxes, mush-and-milk, and the invention of new oaths with which to curse the doctor!”
“What diseases is it usually given in?”
“In all, and some others, from want of a clean shirt to the death-rattle!”