THE YOUNG NOVELIST'S GUIDE TO MEDICINE
Chloroform. Invaluable to writers of sensational stories. Every high-class fictionary criminal carries a bottle in his pocket. A few drops, spread on a handkerchief and waved within a yard of the hero's nose, will produce a state of complete unconsciousness lasting for several hours, within which time his pockets may be searched at leisure. This property of chloroform, familiar to every expert novelist, seems to have escaped the notice of the medical profession.
Consumption. The regulation illness for use in tales of mawkish pathos. Very popular some years ago, when the heroine made farewell speeches in blank verse, and died to slow music. Fortunately, however, the public has lost its fondness for work of this sort. Consumption at its last stage is easily curable (in novels) by the reappearance of a hero supposed to be dead. Two pages later the heroine will gain strength in a way which her doctors—not unnaturally—will describe as "perfectly marvellous." And in the next chapter the marriage-bells will ring.
Doctor. Always include a doctor among your characters. He is quite easy to manage, and invariably will belong to one of these three types: (a) The eminent specialist. Tall, imperturbable, urbane. Only comes incidentally into the story. (b) Young, bustling, energetic. Not much practice, and plenty of time to look after other people's affairs. Hard-headed and practical. Often the hero's college friend. Should be given a pretty girl to marry in the last chapter. (c) The old family doctor. Benevolent, genial, wise. Wears gold-rimmed spectacles, which he has to take off and wipe at the pathetic parts of the book.
Fever. A nice, useful term for fictionary illnesses. It is best to avoid mention of specific symptoms, beyond that of "a burning brow," though, if there are any family secrets which need to be revealed, delirium is sure to supervene at a later stage. Arthur Pendennis, for instance, had fictional "fever," and baffled doctors have endeavoured ever since to find out what really was the matter with him. "Brain-fever," again, is unknown to the medical faculty, but you may safely afflict your intellectual hero with it. The treatment of fictionary fever is quite simple, consisting solely of frequent doses of grapes and cooling drinks. These will be brought to the sufferer by the heroine, and these simple remedies administered in this way have never been known to fail.
Fracture. After one of your characters has come a cropper in the hunting-field he will be taken on a hurdle to the nearest house: usually, by a strange coincidence, the heroine's home. And he will be said to have sustained "a compound fracture"—a vague description which will quite satisfy your readers.