The Æsculapian Labyrinth Explored; Or, Medical Mystery Illustrated. William Taplin
great knowledge and “blessing your honour,” strengthen the force of your judgment by charitably obtruding a pecuniary corroboration into the hand of your afflicted patient, as a confirmation of your unbounded skill in the (miraculous) cure of every disease to which the human frame is incident. By such political practice, you insure the recital of your services with extacy, and your name reverberates from one end of the metropolis to the other.
Your person and place of residence, being by these means universally known, and your name become in a proportional degree popular, let your plan and mode of behaviour be instantly changed; it will be now necessary
“You “assume a” hurry “if you have it not,”
Take care to be so exceedingly engaged with patients of the first class and eminence, that “it is with difficulty you procure time sufficient for the common purposes and gratifications of nature.” No paupers whatever can be admitted to your presence without a written recommendation from nobility, or characters of the first fortune; this will insure you no farther intrusion from a class originally introduced for your particular purpose; that effected, they may now be permitted to fall into the back ground of the picture; from whence they were brought for no other motive than the promotion of your personal interest and professional emolument.
It becomes your particular care to be always in a hurry; let your chariot (if you can fortunately raise one) upon job, be at the door regularly by nine in the morning; to prove how very much you are attached to the duties of your profession, and how anxiously you have the salubrity of your patients at heart.—Omit no one circumstance that can contribute to a shew of being perpetually engaged. Letters written by yourself, and messengers of your own dispatching, cannot be seen at your doors too frequently; the chariot should be as repeatedly ordered—remember to leave home by one way, and return by another, and equally in haste; all these stratagems are considered peculiar privileges of the College of Wigs, and are well worthy your attention and constant practice. You need hardly be told, the superficial and unthinking part of mankind are ever caught by appearances; what proportion they bear to other distinctions, need not in the present instance be at all ascertained.
Having laid down rules (that should be rigidly persevered in) for the regulation of your public character, I shall now advert to the strict line of conduct it will be proper for you to adopt in your personal transactions upon all professional emergencies.
When called to a patient upon the recommendation of the family apothecary, you are to consider him one of your best friends, and pay court to him accordingly; on the contrary, if you are engaged upon the spontaneous opinion of the patient, or his relatives, you have every reason to conclude the abilities of the apothecary are held in very slender estimation, and you may safely venture to display as much of your own consequence and superiority, as circumstances will admit.
After the awkward ceremony of your first appearance is over, and matters a little adjusted, take great care to be upon your guard; indulge in a variety of significant gestures, and emphatical hems!—and hahs! proving you possessed of singularities, that may tend to excite ideas in the patient and surrounding friends, that a physician is a superior part of the creation.——Let every action, every word, every look, be strongly marked, denoting doubt and ambiguity; proceed to the necessary enquiries of “what has been done in rule and regimen, previous to your being called in?” hear the recital with patience, and give your nod of assent, lest you make Mr. Emetic, the apothecary, your formidable enemy, who will then most conscientiously omit to recommend the assistance of such extraordinary abilities on any future occasion.—Take care to look wisdom in every feature; speak but little, and let it be impossible that little should be understood; let every hint, every shrug be carefully calculated to give the hearers a wonderful opinion of your learning and experience.—In your half-heard and mysterious conversation with your medical inferior, do not forget to drop a few observations upon—“the animal œconomy”—“circulation of the blood”—“acrimony”—“the non naturals”—“stricture upon the parts”—“acute pain”—“inflammatory heat”—“nervous irritability,” and all those technical traps that fascinate the hearers, and render the patient yours ad libitum.
To the friends or relatives of the diseased, (as the case may be) you seriously apprehend great danger; but such apprehension is not without its portion of hope; and you doubt not, but a rigid perseverance in the plan you shall prescribe, will reconcile all difficulties in a few days, and restore the patient (whose recovery you have exceedingly at heart) to his health and friends; that you will embrace the earliest opportunity to see him again, most probably at such an hour, (naming it) in the mean time you are in a great degree happy to leave him in such good hands as Mr. Emetic, to whom you shall give every necessary direction, and upon whose integrity and punctuality you can implicitly rely.
You then require a private apartment for your necessary consultation and plan of joint depredation upon the pecuniary property of your unfortunate invalid, which you are now going seriously to attack with the full force of physic and finesse. You first learn from your informant what has been hitherto done without effect, and determine accordingly how to proceed; but in this, great respect must be paid to the temper, as well as the constitution and circumstances, of your intended prey; if he be of a petulant and refractory disposition, submitting to medical dictation upon absolute compulsion, as a professed enemy to physic and the faculty, let your harvest be short, and complete as possible. On the contrary, should a hypochondriac be your subject, with the long train of melancholic doubts, fears, hopes, and despondencies, avail yourself of the faith implicitly placed in you, and regulate your proceedings by the force of his imagination; let your prescription (by its length and variety) reward your jackall for his present attention and future services.—Take care to furnish the frame so amply with physic, that food may be unnecessary; let every hour (or two) have its destined appropriation—render all possible forms of the materia medica subservient to the general good—draughts—powders—drops, and pills, may be given (at least) every two hours; intervening apozems, or decoctions, may have their utility; if no other advantage is to be expected, one good will be clearly ascertained, the convenience of having the nurse kept constantly awake, and if one medicine is not productive of success, another may. These are surely alternatives well worthy your attention, being admirably calculated for the promotion of your patient’s cure and your own reputation.
Having written your long prescription, and learnt from Mr. Emetic every necessary information, you return to the room of your patient, to prove your attention, and renew your admonitions of punctuality and submission;—then receiving your fee with a consequential air of indifference, you take your leave; not omitting to drop an additional assurance, that “you shall not be remiss in your attendance.” These, Sir, are the instructions you must steadily pursue, if you possess an ardent desire to become eminent in your profession—opulent in your circumstances—formidable to your competitors, or a valuable practitioner to the Company of Apothecaries, from whom you are to expect the foundation of support. A multiplicity of additional hints might be added for your minute observance; but such a variety will present themselves in the course of practice, that a retrospective view of diurnal occurrences will sufficiently furnish you with every possible information for your future progress; regulating your behaviour, by the rank of your patients, from the most pompous personal ostentation, to the meanest and most contemptible servility.
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