4.—OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE FIRST SEASON PASSES.
From the period of our last Chapter our friend commences to adopt the attributes of the mature student. His notes are taken as before at each lecture he attends, but the lectures are fewer, and the notes are never fairly transcribed; at the same time they are interspersed with a larger proportion of portraits of the lecturer, and other humorous conceits. He proposes at lunch-time every day that he and his companions should “go the odd man for a pot;” and the determination he had formed at his entry to the school, of working the last session for all the prizes, and going up to the Hall on the Thursday and the College on the Friday without grinding, appears somewhat difficult of being carried into execution.
It is at this point of his studies that the student commences a steady course of imaginary dissection: that is to say, he keeps a chimerical account of extremities whose minute structure he has deeply investigated (in his head), and received in return various sums of money from home for the avowed purpose of paying for them. If he really has put his name down for any heads and necks or pelvic viscera at the commencement of the season, when he had imbibed and cherished some lunatic idea “that dissection was the sheet-anchor of safety at the College,” he becomes a trafficker in human flesh, and disposes of them as quickly as he can to any hard-working man who has his examination in perspective.
He now assumes a more independent air, and even ventures to chalk odd figures on the black board in the theatre. He has been known, previously to the lecture, to let down the skeleton that hangs by a balance weight from the ceiling, and, inserting its thumb in the cavity of its nose, has there secured it with a piece of thread, and then, placing a short pipe in its jaws, has pulled it up again. His inventive faculties are likewise shown by various diverting objects and allusions cut with his knife upon the ledge before him in the lecture-room, whereon the new men rest their note-books and the old ones go to sleep. In vain do the directors of the school order the ledge to be coated with paint and sand mixed together—nothing is proof against his knife; were it adamant he would cut his name upon it. His favourite position at lecture is now the extremity of the bench, where its horse-shoe form places him rather out of the range of the lecturer’s vision; and, ten to one, it is here that he has cut a cribbage-board on the seat, at which he and his neighbour play during the lecture on Surgery, concealing their game from common eyes by spreading a mackintosh cape on the desk before them. His conversation also gradually changes its tone, and instead of mildly inquiring of the porter, on his entering the school of a morning, what is for the day’s anatomical demonstration, he talks of “the regular lark he had last night at the Eagle, and how jolly screwed he got!”—a frank admission, which bespeaks the candour of his disposition.
Careful statistics show us that it is about the end of November the new man first makes the acquaintance of his uncle; and observant people have remarked, as worthy of insertion in the Medical Almanack amongst the usual phenomena of the calendar—“About this time dissecting cases and tooth-instruments appear in the windows, and we may look for watches towards the beginning of December.” Although this is his first transaction on his own account, yet his property has before ascended the spout, when some unprincipled student, at the beginning of the season, picked his pocket of a big silver lancet-case, which he had brought up with him from the country; and having, pledged it at the nearest money-lender’s, sent him the duplicate in a polite note, and spent the money with some other dishonest young men, in drinking their victim’s health in his absence. And, by the way, it is a general rule that most new men delight to carry big lancet-cases, although they have about as much use for them as a lecturer upon practice of physic has for top boots.
Thus gradually approaching step by step towards the perfection of his state, the new man’s first winter-session passes; and it is not unlikely that, at the close of the course, he may enter to compete for the anatomical prize, which he sometimes gets by stealth, cribbing his answers from a tiny manual of knowledge, two inches by one-and-a-half in size, which he hides under his blotting-paper. This triumph achieved, he devotes the short period which intervenes before the commencement of the summer botanical course to various hilarious pastimes; and as the watch and dissecting-case are both gone, he writes the following despatch to his governor—
LETTER No. II.—(Copy.)
MY DEAR FATHER,—You will, I am sure, be delighted to learn that I have gained the twenty-ninth honorary certificate for proficiency in anatomy which you will allow is a very high number when I tell you that only thirty are given. I have also the satisfaction of informing you that the various professors have given me certificates of having attended their lectures very diligently during the past courses.
I work very hard, but I need not inform you that, with all my economy, I am at some expense for good books and instruments. I have purchased Liston’s Surgery, Anthony Thompson’s Materia Medica, Burns and Merriman’s Midwifery, Graham’s Chemistry, Astley Cooper’s Dislocations, and Quain’s Anatomy, all of which I have read carefully through twice. I also pay a private demonstrator to go over the bones with me of a night; and I have bought a skeleton at Alexander’s—a great bargain. This, when I “pass,” I think of presenting to the museum of the hospital, as I am under great obligations to the surgeons. I think a ten-pound note willl clear my expenses, although I wish to enter to a summer course of dissections, and take some lessons in practical chemistry in the laboratories with Professor Carbon, but these I will endeavour to pay for out of my own pocket. With my best regards to all at home, believe me,
Your affectionate son,
JOSEPH MUFF.