The bruit de rape and the bruit de scie
And the bruit de diable are all combined;
How happy Bouillaud would be,
If he a case like this could find!
Now, when the neighboring doctors found
A case so rare had been descried,
They every day her ribs did pound
In squads of twenty; so she died.
Then six young damsels, slight and frail,
Received this kind young doctor's cares;
They all were getting slim and pale,
And short of breath on mounting stairs.
They all made rhymes with "sighs" and "skies,"
And loathed their puddings and buttered rolls,
And dieted, much to their friends' surprise,
On pickles and pencils and chalk and coals.
So fast their little hearts did bound,
The frightened insects buzzed the more;
So over all their chests he found
The rale sifflant and the rale sonore.
He shook his head. There's grave disease,—
I greatly fear you all must die;
A slight post-mortem, if you please,
Surviving friends would gratify.
The six young damsels wept aloud,
Which so prevailed on six young men
That each his honest love avowed,
Whereat they all got well again.
This poor young man was all aghast;
The price of stethoscopes came down;
And so he was reduced at last
To practise in a country town.
The doctors being very sore,
A stethoscope they did devise
That had a rammer to clear the bore,
With a knob at the end to kill the flies.
Now use your ears, all you that can,
But don't forget to mind your eyes,
Or you may be cheated, like this young man,
By a couple of silly, abnormal flies.