The Æsculapian Labyrinth Explored; Or, Medical Mystery Illustrated

by William Taplin

You have nobly and skilfully slipped your neck out of the collar, and left all the credit of killing (as you really ought to do) to your superior, whose diploma entitles him to the preference; and, vice versa, should you perceive the patient and family become dupes to your affected sincerity, and that you are daily raising yourself in their estimation, erect a structure of professional applause upon the basis of their credulity; insinuate every possible degree of self praise, and set the advice of a physician in the most contemptible point of view.—Affect unlimited attachment to the interest of your patient, and say, “you would recommend much better advice than your own, if you could do it with a conscientious consistency; but it had ever been an opinion of yours (which was still unaltered) if the apothecary could not plunder a family sufficiently, the better method would be to adopt a consultation, when it might be done to a certainty.”

This open manner of dealing instantly enhances you in the estimation of patient and friends, and you will consequently stand so high in opinion that you may proceed deliberately in your spoils without interruption, for where there are no daily fees (swallowed up in the vortex of the college) your more trifling depredations will not be considered as matters of medical magnitude or imposition.

In all kinds of inferior practice render every look, every thought and action, subservient to your general intent of personal rank and pecuniary consequence; it must be your particular study to inculcate every idea in the lower class, of your great penetration and abilities; by your minute investigations, cross-examinations, and applicable nods of significance (implying the most extensive knowledge) you will discover remote symptoms, that once explained to the complaining patient, will give them reason to believe (which they very readily do) you are a supernatural agent; and one fool of this denomination, who firmly believes you know the state of his health by the wrinkles in his forehead, or the cloud in his urine, will soon infect a whole county with the certainty of your infallible qualifications. This opinion once founded, the effect is absolutely incredible, an instance of which may be found in various parts of England, but more particularly in a very large and populous town, not forty miles west of the metropolis, where fools from every part of the county are constantly driving (their pockets laden with chamber-lye) to a famous inspector of urinals, vulgarly denominated a piss-pot doctor, who, to magnify the report of his incredible skill and penetration, has adopted a certain method to impose upon the minds of the multitude, and prey upon the little pecuniary collections they can make, to become the dupes of his villainy and their own infatuation.

The mode of imposition, I shall explain in a fact as communicated by one of his most intimate friends, and leave the story itself to applaud his ingenuity:—He has (in a very respectable habitation) a small private room, to which every patient or messenger is conducted (upon a plea that the doctor is not at home, or is particularly engaged) here an emissary (as if casually) asking certain questions, hears the whole story, examines the urine, and descends to particulars—the doctor is in the adjoining apartment (calculated by a thin partition and certain openings, invisible to the unsuspecting visitor) where he minutely hears the entire conversation; the necessary secrets being obtained, he makes his appearance with the most commanding aspect; at this awful ceremony, the fascinated patient almost feels the effect of ANIMAL MAGNETISM; the approach of so much wisdom deprives him for a moment of speech, and the poor devil undergoes a kind of temporary annihilation. An instance of this occurred not long since, when a country fellow having journeyed twelve miles to the doctor with a bottle of his wife’s chrystal stream, communicated the necessary particulars to the agent, when the doctor, in possession of the secret, made his appearance.—“Well, friend!”—“I have brought your honour my wife’s water, she could not rest any longer without your device.”—“Your wife’s water—very well—let me see!—aye, I perceive she has bruised her shoulder.”—“Yes, Sir, she has indeed.”—“By this water (it is perfectly clear) she has fallen down stairs.”—“Yes, your honour!”—“She is not injured in any other part by the fall?”—“Only complains a little at the bottom of her belly, your honour.”—“Well, she fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom, I see?”—“No, your honour, she had gone down two steps before she fell.”—“Indeed! why then you have not brought me all her water.”—“No, your honour, there was a little the bottle would not hold.”—“Why then, sirrah, the two stairs are left behind.“——This circumstance, (of a thousand that might be quoted) is sufficient to demonstrate the ridiculous credulity of the multitude in all matters of quackery, and leaves us to lament, that the ignorance of one class, should become so wretched a prey to the deliberate villainy of another.

The long experience you have had, in charging and posting your accompts, under different masters of equal judgment and experience, leaves little room for instruction under that head; it may however not prove inapplicable to remind you, it is no matter how incoherent or unintelligible the writing is, provided your figures are bold and conspicuous; so long as you can convince them how much they have to pay, it is a total matter of indifference to you, how much they have received.

There is one caution however exceedingly necessary to be advanced, to prevent your becoming subject to a reproof given by the celebrated Dean Swift to his apothecary, for presuming to be handsomely paid for the confidence of putting himself upon an equality with his superiors. This is the impropriety of letting the word ”visits“ constitute a part of your charge, instead of the more modest term of ”journeys,“ or ”attendance.“

The Dean having been afflicted with a long and severe fit of illness, requested, soon after recovery, the apothecary’s bill; which having perused, and finding a sum total very much beyond his expectation, he proceeded to dissection, and perceiving almost every third article to announce the honour of a ”visit,” at five shillings each, he satirically adopted the following plan to punish Mr. Emetic, for what the Dean considered a piece of consummate assurance.—Having required his attendance to receive his demand, he paid down a certain sum of money, which the mortified apothecary continued to tell over, and repeatedly compare with the figures denoting the sum total; but still continuing to tell and compare, without seeming to get at all nearer the point of satisfaction, the Dean, in compassion to the confusion he visibly laboured under, observed, as he did not seem to be perfectly clear in his arrangement of the accompt, he would set him right.—If he would but deduct the amount of the “visits” from the sum total of his bill, he would find it exactly right; for being now pretty well recovered, he intended paying him his “visits” again one at a time.

You will now naturally conclude every instruction that can be possibly necessary, has been submitted to your consideration, for the promotion of your prosperous and profitable career through the medical journey of life; it is not so; for although we have gone through the usual forms of sickness, to either recovery or death, there is still one remark necessary, to the completion of consistency, in your professional character. It is a few observations, in derision of that truly contemptible burlesque upon propriety, in following the corps of your patient to the grave; a folly originating in ignorance, and established by custom; a circumstance so truly ridiculous and farcical, that it did not escape the penetration and sarcastic wit of our Aristophanes of the present century, who attacked it with the full force of his satire, in the description given by a taylor, in one of his celebrated comedies, who says, “as he was going home to a customer with a pair of breeches under his arm, he perceived his neighbour Gargle, the apothecary, following a corps to the grave,—so says he, Master Gargle, I see you are going home with your work too.” The justice of this remark renders the circumstance so truly ridiculous, that it is a matter of admiration, how any man of the most common understanding can ever submit to an indignity so truly laughable. It certainly bears the appearance of your not being content with preying upon the property of the deceased, during their last hours of sublunary affliction, but you meanly pursue their very remains to the grave, and obtain a paltry hatband and gloves, at the expence of decency and discretion. Exclusive of this very striking obstacle, there is one of equal weight in the scale of your professional reputation—it certainly can add none to the eminence of your character, that the contents of the coffin was publickly known to be a subject of your skill and experimental practice.

You will certainly experience some difficulty in evading a compliance with many requests, made to you for this purpose; but I would recommend it to you to encounter displeasure, rather than become the dupe of so great an absurdity. To inculcate by example, what I have strongly recommended in precept, you may be assured, that I have, during my long practice, retained so great an aversion to this inconsistency of character, that I rendered myself totally incapable of compliance, by never having in possession a suit of mourning; this resource has always proved my never failing friend, when no other apology would be accepted; and by never seeming to recollect the want till a few hours before the funeral, a written apology has always proved a respectable substitute, to which there was no alternative.

Having descended to the very minutiæ of a long, extensive, and successful practice, to form your mind, and regulate your manners in every professional transaction of your life, I cannot doubt, but rules so directly consonant to your personal interest and reputation, will receive every assistance from your unerring consistency and perseverance, conveying a perfect corroboration of the gratitude you feel, for the intrinsic worth of so liberal and friendly a communication.