Having fixed upon your intended spot for embarkation, let every thought be employed to display an attracting uniformity in the disposition of your apparatus, for the claptrap of public approbation; and though that great investigator of human nature has beautifully portrayed “a beggarly account of empty boxes,” yet they become immediately necessary to your present purpose; it not being his business to explain the folly and extravagance of your placing any thing of consequence there, before you was experimentally convinced you should have occasion for its use. Let there be a profusion of appearance; the shell of a shop is not very expensive, and druggists are so numerous, that you may be expeditiously supplied whenever circumstances require it.—The bottles (being transparent) become more immediately in need of something in each, particularly a few of those articles (as hartshorn, lavender, &c.) that are in common request. The lower drawers (within reach) may be labelled with obsolete titles, and in each placed various paper parcels of bran or saw-dust, to avoid a chance of the sarcasm upon the faculty by a countryman, who happened to be left alone some time in the shop of an apothecary, and whose curiosity being excited by the great number of drawers, was powerfully prompted to open one labelled “Thus,” which finding empty, he was induced to try a second, still the same; a third, the same also.—Oh! oh! says he, “I see plain enough how it is, they are all Thus.” Your shop being at length finished in a stile modern and striking, let a green silk curtain (with brass rods and rings) be affixed to your window; it is an excellent method of conveying an idea of internal mystery, and inspiring proportionate external curiosity. Let no paltry diffidence appear in the board over your door, announcing your name and qualifications; there are great numbers that can’t distinguish small letters at a distance, to avoid which inconvenience, let the capitals be as conspicuous as the canvas figures at a country puppet-shew.
“Thus far before the wind;” and being (as it is natural to conclude) not greatly engaged, it becomes your immediate attention to wait personally upon the different overseers of the surrounding parishes, and give them most forcibly to understand, they have been for many years the subjects of imposition; but you having more honesty than the whole body of the faculty, will undertake to farm the medical superintendance of the poor, at half the annual sum it has ever cost the inhabitants before. This political stroke will excellently answer both your purposes, for overseers in general care not how little they pay; and you being professionally callous to the tears of poverty and distress, care not how little you give for their money.
Tartar emetic—Pulv. contray. c.—Pulv. nitri, and Pulv. jalapii—are medicines admirably calculated for the constitutions of the poor; and thirty or forty shillings a year in those articles, will be sufficient for the consumption of five or six parishes; with the additional advantage of rendering vials unnecessary, a consideration of some consequence, when it is remembered they are now double their former price. These parochial connections will be productive of advantage in more ways than one, for as the unhappy paupers will be constantly seen at your door, it will afford all the appearance of sudden popularity.
Ostentatious parade, and personal consequence, must be your leading traits, and never lost sight of; a couple of horses will contribute largely to these objects; not that you are expected to degrade the dignity of your profession, by riding, like Hughes or Astley, two at a time, but their appearance will constitute an admirable shew of business in being rode alternately; and as most young men who have not been long their own masters, are fond of displaying their persons on the outside of a horse, you may exultingly not only “feed fat” the propensity, but the general run of your mechanical neighbours (who see no farther than the tips of their noses, and are ever caught by appearances) will erroneously suppose you are visiting some of the first characters in the county. As it will be now highly derogatory for you to stain your hands with any menial services, procure speedily a journeyman (alias assistant) to enhance your own weight; if there is at present nothing for him to do, the curtain, before recommended, will obscure his indolence from the prying eye of public curiosity.
No part of the faculty having ever been remarkable for the regularity or fervency of their devotions, your presence at church will consequently not be expected (particularly after the impressions you have made of being perpetually engaged) unless you politically appear there at two or three different times, merely for the convenience of being called out by your own direction, at the still and most awful part of the service; a circumstance that will tell much to your advantage with every superannuated old woman in the parish. Take particular care that your horse is constantly brought to your door on the sabbath day, just as the neighbours are passing to church, and there paraded some time previous to your appearance, which to every weak mind will have its effects; and be equally careful to measure the steps of your horse, by the hands of your watch, so that whether your journey is accidentally long, or intentionally short, you return just at the moment of their dismission from the religious conventicle. In passing the whole body of inhabitants, be strictly careful of your self consequence—a bow of significant respect to two or three of the superiors, may be applicable and consistent—but no familiarity with, or knowledge of, the multitude; the greater your ostentation and indifference, the more servile will be their admiration and respect.
By no means form any hasty or inconsiderate matrimonial connection; you will derive many advantages at first from a life of celibacy; there are always a variety of juvenile females in the country (as well as the metropolis) who considering themselves every way qualified to constitute doctor’s ladies, will most industriously throw themselves in your way upon every occasion, that their personal attractions may not escape your observation. To families where there are daughters, nieces, or cousins, who conceive themselves ripe for the gordian knot, you may assure yourself of being called in a short time; for as you are such “a charming man” in your appearance, (and so admirably fitting for a husband) there can’t be the least reason to doubt your professional qualifications.
You may perhaps start some doubts, (or conscientious qualms may arise) how these appearances are to be supported in the infancy of business, without any great personal property to sanction or justify the attempt; in such diffidence you perfectly display, not only your pusillanimity, but want of knowledge and experience; for certainly out of the above description of females, who will constantly pay court to your consequence, and by a thousand modes solicit your attention, surely some one of the best possessions may be obtained, whose fortune, and advantage of family connection, may answer your most sanguine expectations: but should fate conspire against you in both business and marriage, you will have the consolation of having made a bold push, and failing in the attempt, you only become a fashionable adventurer, and gratefully pay your creditors nothing in the pound.
Having gone through a chain of circumstances and instructions, necessary for the support of your public appearance, it will be naturally expected I shall revert to the modes of behaviour that are to constitute your private character, in the professional transactions that you conclude will daily occur. First, let it be your constant observance to be equally reserved and difficult of access—whenever your opinion is required, even in your own shop, appear there with tedious reluctance, as if privacies of the utmost consequence prevented your earlier attendance; this will not only add to your medical weight, but raise your reputation for good breeding and intercourse with the polite world; for it is universally known, none but the inferior orders are introduced to each other without ceremony; it would be therefore highly ridiculous in you to practise a mode of behaviour in use only with the lowest classes of mankind.
Never leave home without letting your horse be held long enough at the door to be observed by the surrounding neighbours; the most trifling indication of business is a point in your favour, and ought by no means to be omitted. By the invariable good effect of which rule, no messenger whatever should arrive from the country for medicines, but he must be detained as long as possible; his preparations should never be ready when called for; on the contrary, his horse should be hung or held at the door for half an hour at least; a double advantage is derived from this necessary caution—the horse at the door will prove a striking object to the public, and the messenger will assure the family you attend, that, nothing but your great hurry occasioned the delay in his return.
It will be strictly proper for you, upon all occasions, to preserve the most inflexible serenity of countenance, even to extreme gravity; and this injunction becomes the more immediately necessary, as there are a vast variety of unexpected causes for laughter, to which you will be open, in the frequent applications of unpolished rustics, for your great opinion and assistance. One class will “beg the favour of you to subscribe for their complaints;” another “hopes you won’t be offended, but he is come to insult you upon his case;” these instances are so exceedingly common, that you will often meet with them, where they are least expected. There now lives an alderman, in a very capital town and place of royal residence, who, a few years since, labouring under an epidemic complaint, was told that symptoms were alarming, and a glyster was unavoidably necessary; to which representation he expostulated, begging the apothecary “to lay aside his intention, and give him any thing to take inwardly, but for God’s sake, to have no cutting and slaying.”—Another of the same learned body corporate (for they have both kissed the K—g’s hand) said “he bore the severity of his complaint with more patience, now he was manured to it.”