“Nonsense,” he urged. “Do you good. I’ve just had one myself. Can’t say more than that, excepting that I am ready to have another. Won’t you really? Pity. Should never waste an opportunity. Which way are you going?”
It seemed that we were going the same way for some distance and we accordingly set off together.
“So you’ve flopped out of the nest,” he remarked, looking me over, “at least so I judge by the adult clothes that you are wearing. Are you in practice in these parts?”
“No,” I replied, “I am doing a locum. Only just qualified, you know.”
“Good,” said he. “A locum’s the way to begin. Try your ’prentice hand on somebody else’s patients and pick up the art of general practice, which they don’t teach you at the hospital.”
“You mean bookkeeping and dispensing and the general routine of the day’s work?” I suggested.
“No, I don’t,” he replied. “I mean practice; the art of pleasing your patients and keeping your end up. You’ve got a lot to learn, my boy. Experientia does it. Scientific stuff is all very well at the hospital, but in practice it is experience, gumption, tact, knowledge of human nature, that counts.”
“I suppose a little knowledge of diagnosis and treatment is useful?” I suggested.
“For your own satisfaction, yes,” he admitted, “but for practical purposes a little knowledge of men and women is a good deal better. It isn’t your scientific learning that brings you kudos, nor is it out-of-the-way cases. It is just common sense brought to bear on common ailments. Take the case of an aurist. You think that he lives by dealing with obscure and difficult middle and internal ear cases. Nothing of the kind. He lives on wax. Wax is the foundation of his practice. Patient comes to him as deaf as a post. He does all the proper jugglery—tuning-fork, otoscope, speculum, and so on, for the moral effect. Then he hikes out a good old plug of cerumen, and the patient hears perfectly. Of course, he is delighted. Thinks a miracle has been performed. Goes away convinced that the aurist is a genius; and so he is if he has managed the case properly. I made my reputation here on a fish-bone.”
“Well, a fish-bone isn’t always so very easy to extract,” said I.