The other servants now began to make merry with Tom White. One asked him, how he liked purgatory?—another, if he’d “stop thieving,” after that judgment on him?—a third, what more could Father Cahill do for him? Doctor Butler said but little: he assumed great gravity, and directed “that the whipper-in should sit up stiff for seven days and nights, by which time the juices would be dried on him; after that he might lay down, if he could.”
This indeed was a very useless permission, as the patient’s tortures were now only in their infancy. So soon as the charge got cold and stiff in the nitches and fancy figures upon his back, he nearly went mad; so that for a few days they were obliged to strap him with girths to the head of his bed to make him “stay easy;” and sometimes to gag him, that his roars might not disturb the company in the dining parlour. Wallace the piper said that Tom’s roarings put him quite out: and an elderly gentleman who was on a visit with us, and who had not been long married to a young wife, said his bride was so shocked and alarmed at the groans and “pullaloes” of Tom White, that she could think of nothing else.
When the poor fellow’s pains had altogether subsided, and the swathing was off, he cut one of the most curious figures ever seen: he looked as if he had a stake driven through his body; and it was not till the end of four months that Mr. Butler began to pour sweet oil down his neck, between his back and the charge, which he continued to do daily for about another month, till the charge gradually detached itself, and broken-backed Tom was declared cured: in truth, I believe he never felt any inconvenience from his fall afterward.
This mode of cauterising the people was then much practised by the old farriers, often with success; and I never recollect any fatal effects happening in consequence.
The farriers’ rowelling also was sometimes had recourse to, to prevent swellings from coming to a head: and I only heard of two fatalities arising herefrom; one, in the case of a half-mounted gentleman at Castle Comber, who died of a locked jaw; and another, in that of a shopkeeper at Borris, in Ossory, who expired from mortification occasioned by a tow and turpentine rowell being used to carry off an inflammation.
THE RIVAL PRACTITIONERS.
Dr. Fletcher, Dr. Mulhall, and the author’s father—Interesting particulars of a medical consultation—Family recollections—Counsellor, afterward Judge Fletcher—First meeting between him and the author—Catching a Tartar—Sam Doxy of the Derrys—Breaks his neck in riding to a Turnpike-Board dinner—Pronounced dead by Mr. Knaggs, the apothecary—That eminent practitioner’s judgment disputed by Lieut. Jerry Palmer—The apothecary proceeds to show that the patient must, or at least ought to be, dead—An incision, and its consequences—Lieut. Palmer’s successful mode of treatment—Recovery of the corpse.
In addition to my preceding illustrations of the former state of medicine and surgery in Ireland, I cannot omit a couple of convincing proofs of the intuitive knowledge possessed by Irish practitioners in my early days. They present scenes at which I was myself present, and one of which was the most distressing I had witnessed, while the other was more amusing at its conclusion than any operation I ever saw performed by any, either of the farriers or colloughs of Ireland.
Doctor Knaggs, the hero of the second incident, was a tall, raw-boned, rough, dirty apothecary; but he suited the neighbours, as they said he had “the skill in him,” and was “mighty successful.” Sam Doxy, his patient, was, on the contrary, a broad, strong, plethoric, half-mounted gentleman. He had his lodge, as he called it, in the midst of a derry (a bog), drank his gallon of hot punch to keep out the damp, and devoured numerous cock turkeys, and cows that were past child-bearing, to keep down the potsheen. Every neighbour that could get to him was welcome, and the road was seldom in a fit state to permit their going away again quickly.
The first of these anecdotes I still relate with some pain, though forty-five years and more have of course blunted the feeling I experienced on its occurrence; and as I shall soon be in the same situation myself as the parties now are, I can, comparatively speaking, look lightly on an event which, in youth, health, and high blood, was quite chilling to my contemplation.