From The St. James Magazine.
CITY ASPIRATIONS.
Oh, not in the town to die!
With its restless trampling to and fro,
And its traffic-hubbub above, below,
And the whirling wheels that hurry by.
And the chimney forests, blacken'd and high—
Oh, mercy! not in a town to die!
In a town I may live, and strive, and toil,
And grow a part of the living turmoil;
A cog-wheel in a machine of men.
Turning to labor again and again,
Doing my work with the multitude,
With a spirit wean'd, and a heart subdued,
Pausing sometimes, in a moment of ease,
To yearn and sigh for a meadow breeze,
For the whispering rustle of summer trees,
And the dreamy murmur of golden bees,
And the field-path margined by many a flower.
And the village church with its grey old tower;
Yet still, for sake of my babes and thee.
Sweet wife, I may work courageously;
May bide in a town, and with iron will
Go laboring on in the hubbub still.
Where the wheels of the man-machine ever spin,
Money, and money, and money, to win.
But to die in a town, in turmoil and smoke,
'Mongst houses, and chimneys gaunt and high.
When the silken cord of the soul is broke,
Methinks the vapors so heavy would lie.
It scarce could soar, as it should, to the sky.
Oh, live as I may, to brook it I'll try—
But, mercy! not in a town to die!
From The Month.
THE FACULTY OF PARIS IN THE TIME OF MOLIÈRE.
In a former number we gave a slight sketch of the laws and etiquettes of the old French Medical Faculty. The state of things there described was already on the wane when Molière dealt it a blow, from the effects of which it never recovered. But there is one characteristic of the position of the medical body which is inherent in its very nature, and is likely to be as enduring as the world itself, allowing for the modifications of varying times and changing manners. So long as our poor humanity shall be subject to disease and death, so long will medicine and its scientific administration be esteemed a necessity. Some, indeed, judge both to be well-nigh unmitigated evils; but at any rate, if evils, they are necessary evils; and even the greatest railers at the doctor and his drugs are pretty sure to send for him in the hour of danger, lean on him for hope, and swallow his potions. The medical man thus obtains an exceptional position. He is introduced into the sanctuary of the family, sees us in our unguarded moments, receives our confidence, and often wins our friendship. He never comes as a judge or a censor. We feel at our ease with him. Our esteem for him is personal, and independent of all considerations of rank or fortune. He is a stranger to all the conflicting interests which divide parties from each other, and can visit persons of all shades of opinion and of views the most opposite, whether of religion or politics, without causing the shadow of an offense. From all this it results that the doctor is often admitted to the closest intimacy by men occupying the highest positions. Hence the footing of quasi-equality accorded, often to the obscure son of AEsculapius, raised by his profession to a post of dignity and benevolent authority, which, while it obtains for him consideration and respect, clashes in nothing with the social importance of the patient. It was so, in a certain degree, in the seventeenth century, when classes were divided much more widely than at present, and reverence for birth and rank much stronger; and we have numerous instances of the friendship subsisting between doctors and the highest in the land.
It is true that the medical faculty did actually number amongst its members men who had undoubted claims to nobility; and we find from Larroque's Traité de la Noblesse that doctors, as distinguished from apothecaries and surgeons, were held not to derogate from their rank by the practice of medicine. But further, the medical profession was held to confer a species of nobility; for of nobility there were reckoned to be three sorts—nobility of race, nobility of royal concession, and personal nobility, such as in peculiar cases we find conferred on the whole bourgeoisie of certain towns. This distinction offended no one, as it expired with its recipient, on whom while living it conferred many practical advantages, such as exemption from taxation. In Paris this circumstance was of small moment, because, as members of the university, the doctors enjoyed all manner of immunities. But in the provinces it was different. In the south of France, in particular, these privileges were energetically claimed on the ground of the honor of the profession, and they were traditionally referred to Roman times. Montpellier [{682}] was full of these reminiscences of the past, and in Dauphiné the nobility of the doctors was even transmitted from father to son. At Lyons it was remembered that Antonius Musa had cured the Emperor Augustus, and had received a gold ring for himself and his successors in the art. "Accipe annulum aureum, in signum nobilitatis ab Augusto et Senatu Romano medicis concessae," were the words used in the aggregation of a doctor by the college of that city.
The misfortune was that there must of necessity be some contrast between this theoretical nobility and the practical life of the physician. He must, if he would gain his living, go from house to house indiscriminately, and receive his pay from all classes, like the butcher or the baker. The doctors endeavored to smooth over this anomaly by affecting considerable state. They might be seen threading the streets of Paris mounted on mules, in large wigs and with ample beards. The mule gave an almost episcopal air. "The beard is more than half the doctor," says Toinette, in the Malade Imaginaire, When the fashionable Guénaut took to a horse, it raised quite a scandal, which Boileau has commemorated:
"Guénaut, sur son cheval, en passant m'éclabousse."
Many, not satisfied with this degree of state, paid their visits in the long magisterial robe, with scarlet hose and band, the famous rabat, to which Pascal wittily alludes when he says, "Who could place any confidence in a doctor without a rabat?" Not only were the doctors careful to uphold their dignity by these forms, but the Paris Faculty was extremely jealous in maintaining its exclusive position. Its members not merely refused, as was natural, to meet in consultation any of the host of quacks with which the capital swarmed, and who found frequent access to the houses of the great lords and ladies, often as sceptical in regard to orthodox practitioners as they were credulous in the extreme of the pretensions of these heretical interlopers, but they likewise stood aloof from men as respectable as themselves—the honorable doctors of Montpellier, of whom perhaps a few words anon. In the meantime we will take a hasty glance at the members of the Paris Faculty apart from their official life; for they were men after all, and did not always figure in wig and gown. They must have had their private as well as public existence; but it is a more difficult task to obtain a sight of them en déshabille.