CHAPTER X.

“Then—Bloody vomit.

“And after that nothing can save you, not even I; and if I could I would not, and so farewell.”

Even Denys changed colour at threats so fervent and precise; but Gerard only gnashed his teeth with rage at the noise, and seized his hard bolster with kindling eye.

This added fuel to the fire, and brought the insulted ancient back from the impassable door, with his whisking train.

“And after that—Madness!

“And after that—Black vomit!

“And then—Convulsions!

“And then—That cessation of all vital functions the vulgar call ‘death,’for which thank your own Satanic folly and insolence. Farewell.” He went. He came. He roared: “And think not to be buried in any Christian churchyard, for the bailiff is my good friend, and I shall tell him how and why you died:felo de se! felo de se!Farewell.”

Gerard sprang to his feet on the bed by some supernatural gymnastic power excitement lent him, and, seeing him so moved, the vindictive orator came back at him fiercer than ever, to launch some master-threat the world has unhappily lost, for as he came with his whiskingtrain and shaking his fist, Gerard hurled the bolster furiously in his face and knocked him down like a shot, the boy’s head cracked under his falling master’s, and crash went the dumb-stricken orator into the basket, and there sat, wedged in an inverted angle, crushing phial after phial. The boy, being light, was strewed afar, but in a squatting posture, so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the smaller howling. But soon the doctor’s face filled with horror, and he uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled with wonderful agility for one of his age.

He was sitting on the hot coals.

They had singed the cloth, and were now biting the man. Struggling wildly but vainly to get out of the basket, he rolled over with it sideways, and lo! a great hissing; then the humane Gerard ran and wrenched off the tight basket, not without a struggle. The doctor lay on his face groaning, handsomely singed with his own chafer, and slaked a moment too late by his own villainous compounds, which, however, being as various and even beautiful in colour as they were odious in taste, had strangely diversified his grey robe, and painted it more gaudy than neat.

Gerard and Denys raised him up and consoledhim. “Courage, man, ’tis but cautery; balm of Gilead—why, you recommended it but now to my comrade here.”

A curious specimen of medical treatment came to light when Philip, Duke of Burgundy, lay sick at Bruges. He was a doughty warrior this Earl of Holland, as he was sometimes called, and wealthy withal, so the best advice was secured.

“Now, paupers got sick and got well as Nature pleased, but woe betided the rich,” says the novelist, “in an age when for one Mr. Malady killed, three fell by Dr. Remedy.

“The duke’s complaint, nameless then, is now called diphtheria. He was old and weak, so Dr. Remedy bled him.

“The duke turned cold—wonderful!

“Then Dr. Remedy had recourse to the arcana of science.

“Ho! This is grave. Flay me an ape incontinent, to clap him to the duke’s breast! Officers of state ran septemvious, seeking an ape to counteract the blood-thirsty tomfoolery of the human species.

“But an ape could not be found.

“Then Dr. Remedy grew impatient, and bade flay a dog.

“A dog is next best to an ape; only it must be a dog all of one colour.

“So they flayed a liver-coloured dog and clapped it, yet palpitating, to their sovereign’s breast; and he died.”

Thus ended Philip the Good.

Theapothecary of romance is almost invariably pale and lean, with head nearly destitute of hirsute covering, and a man of retiring habits and sad demeanour. This is perhaps because he gets little chance to make the wherewithal to make him fat, and has few opportunities to seek enjoyment and recreation.

Dickens’ chemist, whom he describes in his pathetic little storyThe Haunted Man, is no exception to this rule. “Who could have seen his hollow cheek, his sunken, brilliant eye; his black-attired figure, indefinably grim, although well knit and well proportioned; his grizzled hair hanging like tangled seaweed about his face,—as if he had been through his whole life a lonely mark for the chafing and beating of the great deep of humanity—but might have said he looked like a haunted man?

“Who could have observed his manner—taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy, shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never,with a distraught air of reverting to a bygone place and time, or of listening to some old echoes in his mind—but might have said it was the manner of a haunted man?

“Who could have heard his voice—slow-speaking, deep and grave, with a natural fulness and melody in it which he seemed to set himself against and stop—but might have said it was the voice of a haunted man?

“Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part library and part laboratory,—for he was, as the world knew far and wide, a learned man in chemistry, and a teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of aspiring ears and eyes hung daily,—who that had seen him there, upon a winter night, alone, surrounded by his drugs and instruments and books; the shadow of his shaded lamp, a monstrous beetle on the wall, motionless among a crowd of spectral shapes raised there by the flickering of the fire upon the quaint objects around him; some of these phantoms (the reflection of glass vessels that held liquids) trembling at heart like things that knew his power to uncombine them, and to give back their component parts to fire and vapour;—who that had seen him then, his work done and he pondering in his chair before the rusted grate and red flame, moving his thin mouth as if in speech, but silentas the dead, would not have said that the man seemed haunted and the chamber too?”

In thePickwick Papersthe author describes in one of his happiest veins, the troubles of a chemist who is suddenly called to serve on a common jury—to try indeed the celebrated case of “BardellversusPickwick”.

“‘Answer to your names, gentlemen, that you may be sworn,’ said the gentleman in black.

“‘Richard Upwitch.’

“‘Here,’ said the greengrocer.

“‘Thomas Groffin.’

“‘Here,’ said the chemist.

“‘Take the book, gentlemen. You shall well and trulytry——’

“‘I beg this court’s pardon,’ said the chemist, who was a tall, thin, yellow-visaged man, ‘but I hope this court will excuse my attendance.’

“‘On what grounds, sir?’ said Mr. Justice Stareleigh.

“‘I have no assistant, my lord,’ said the chemist.

“‘Then you ought to be able to afford it, sir,’ said the judge reddening, for Mr. Justice Stareleigh’s temper bordered on the irritable, and brooked not contradiction.

“‘I know Ioughtto do, if I got on as well asI desired, but I don’t, my lord,’ answered the chemist.

“‘Swear the gentlemen,’ said the judge peremptorily.

“The officer had got no further than the ‘You shall well and truly try’ when he was again interrupted by the chemist.

“‘I am to be sworn, my lord, am I?’ said the chemist.

“‘Certainly, sir,’ replied the testy little judge.

“‘Very well, my lord,’ replied the chemist in a resigned manner. ‘Then there’ll be murder before this trial’s over: that’s all. Swear me if you please, sir.’ And sworn the chemist was before the judge could find words to utter.

“‘I merely wanted to observe, my lord,’ said the chemist, taking his seat with great deliberation, ‘that I’ve left nobody but an errand boy in my shop. He is a very nice boy, my lord, but he is not acquainted with drugs; and I know that the prevailing impression in his mind is, that Epsom salts means oxalic acid, and syrup of senna, laudanum. That’s all, my lord.’ With this, the tall chemist composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and, assuming a pleasant expression of countenance, appeared to have prepared himself for the worst.”

This little sketch shows the disabilities thechemist laboured under before he was exempted from jury service, and the intimate knowledge Dickens had of almost every phase of life on which he wrote.

InOliver Twisthe gives us an instance of prompt prescribing on the part of the parochial doctor’s assistant and dispenser, related by Bumble.

Mr. Bumble betakes himself to the undertaker’s shop to arrange for the funeral.

“‘Bayton,’ said the undertaker looking from the scrap of paper to Mr. Bumble; ‘I never heard the name before.’

“Bumble shook his head as he replied, ‘Obstinate people, Mr. Sowerberry—very obstinate. Proud, too, I’m afraid, sir.’

“‘Proud, eh?’ exclaimed Mr. Sowerberry with a sneer. ‘Come, that’s too much.’

“‘Oh, its sickening,’ replied the beadle; ‘antimonial, Mr. Sowerberry!’

“‘So it is,’ acquiesced the undertaker.

“‘We only heard of the family the night before last,’ said the beadle; ‘and we shouldn’t have known anything about them then, only a woman who lodges in the same house made an application to the parochial committee for them to send the parochial surgeon to see a woman as was very bad. He had gone out to dinner, buthis ’prentice (which is a very clever lad) sent ’em some medicine in a blacking bottle off hand.’

“‘Ah, there’s promptness,’ said the undertaker.

“‘Promptness indeed!’ replied the beadle. ‘But what’s the consequence; what’s the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir? Why, the husband sends back word that the medicine won’t suit his wife’s complaint, and so she shan’t take it—says she shan’t take it, sir! Good, strong, wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish labourers and a coal-heaver only a week before. Sent ’em for nothing, with a blacking bottle in, and he sends back word that she shan’t take it, sir!’”

The great satirist, inPendennis, gives us a brief sketch of the apothecary of the Georgian era in the early life of John Pendennis, who in the city of Bath practised as an apothecary and surgeon, “attending gentlemen in their sickrooms, and ladies at the most interesting periods of their lives, and condescending to sell a brown-paper plaister to a farmer’s wife across the counter, or to vend tooth-brushes, hair-powder,and London perfumery”. How he eventually merged into John Pendennis, Esq., of Fairoaks, Clavering, with a “family pride,” is it not described with the pen of inimitable genius in the pages of the story?

Inhis novel entitledJaphet in Search of a Father, Captain Marryat introduces to us that eccentric apothecary, Mr. Phineas Cophagus; and although the character is doubtless exaggerated to some extent, it forms an amusing picture of the practising apothecary in the early part of this century.

Japhet, who is taken in hand and apprenticed to the worthy practitioner, describes the shop looking upon Smithfield Market, with its usual allowance of green, yellow, and blue bottles. All the patent medicines in the known world were kept in stock, even to the all-sufficient medicine for mankind of Mr. Euony. The shop was large, and at the back part there was a most capacious iron mortar with a pestle to correspond.

The proprietor himself, we are told, might have been forty-five years of age. “He was of middle height, his face was thin, his nose very much hooked, his eyes small and piercing, witha good-humoured twinkle in them. His mouth was large and drawn down at one corner. He was stout in his body, and carried a considerable protuberance before him, which he was in the habit of patting with his left hand complacently. But although stout in his body, his legs were mere spindles, so that in his appearance he reminded you of some bird of the crane genus.

“He dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, white cravat, and high collar to his shirt; blue cotton-net pantaloons and Hessian boots, both fitting so tight that it appeared as if he was proud of his spindle shanks. His hat was broad-brimmed and low, and he carried a stout black cane with a gold top in his right hand, almost always raising the gold top to his nose when he spoke.

“The apothecary’s assistant, Brookes, was a tall, fresh-coloured, but hectic-looking young man, and, with the ubiquitous Timothy, who took out the medicine, formed the staff of the establishment.”

Japhet’s introduction to the rudiments of the profession was to pound up some drugs in the big iron mortar, which he did with a will until the perspiration ran down him in streams. He hadn’t been many months in the shop before he was left in charge with Timothy, who, aftercudgelling his brains as to how they shall make a little money on their own account, agrees with Japhet to physic any one who comes in the shop.

The story is related by Japhet asfollows:—

“An old woman soon came in, and addressing Timothy, said that she ‘wanted something for her poor grandchild’s sore throat’.

“‘I don’t mix up the medicines, ma’am,’ replied Timothy; ‘you must apply to that gentleman, Mr. Newland, who is behind the counter; he understands what is good for everybody’s complaints.’

“‘Bless his handsome face—and so young, too! Why, be you a doctor, sir?’

“‘I should hope so,’ replied I. ‘What is it you require—a lotion or an embrocation?’

“‘I don’t understand those hard words, but I want some doctor’s stuff.’

“‘Very well, my good woman; I know what is proper,’ replied I, assuming an important air. ‘Here, Timothy, wash out this phial very clean.’

“‘Yes, sir,’ replied Timothy very respectfully.

“I took one of the measures, and putting in a little green, a little blue, and a little white liquid from the medicine bottles generally used by Mr. Brookes, filled it up with water, poured the mixture into the phial, corked, and labelled ithaustus statim sumendus, and handed it over to the old woman.

“‘Is the poor child to take it, or is it to rub outside?’ inquired the old woman.

“‘The directions are on the label; but you don’t read Latin?’

“‘Deary me, no! Latin! and do you understand Latin? What a nice clever boy!’

“‘I should not be a good doctor if I did not,’ replied I. On second thoughts I considered it advisable and safer that the application should beexternal, so I translated the label to her:haustus, rub it in;statim, on the throat;sumendus, with the palm of the hand.”

Their next effort at doctoring is humorously described by the novelist in the followingwords:—

“An Irish labourer, more than half-tipsy, came in one evening and asked whether we had such a thing as was called ‘A poor man’s plaister’. ‘By the powers, it will be a poor man’s plaister when it belongs to me; but they tell me that it is a sure and sartain cure for the thumbago, as they call it, which I’ve at the small of my back, and which is a hinder to my mounting up the ladder; so as it’s Saturday night, and I’ve just got the money, I’ll buy the plaister first, and then try what a little whisky inside will do.The devil is in’t if it won’t be driven out of me between the two.’

“We had not that plaister in the shop, but we had blister plaisters, and Timothy, handing one to me, I proffered it to him. ‘And what may you be after asking for the same?’ inquired he.

“The blisters were sold at a shilling each, when spread on paper, so I asked him eighteen-pence, that we might pocket the extra sixpence.

“‘By the powers, one would think that you had made a mistake, and handed me the rich man’s plaister instead of the poor one’s. It’s less whisky I’ll have to drink, any how; but here’s the money, and the top of the morning to ye, seeing as how it’s jist getting late.’

“Timothy and I laughed as we divided the sixpence. It appeared that after taking his allowance of whisky the poor fellow fixed the plaister on his back when he went to bed, and the next morning found himself in a condition not to be envied. It was a week before we saw him again, and, much to the horror of Timothy and myself, he walked into the shop when Mr. Brookes was employed behind the counter. Timothy perceived him before he saw us, and pulling me behind the large mortar, we contrived to make our escape into the back parlour,the door of which we held ajar to hear what would take place.

“‘Murder and turf!’ cried the man, ‘but that was the devil’s own plaister you gave me here for my back, and it left me as raw as a turnip, taking every bit of my skin off me entirely, forbye my lying in bed for a whole week and losing my day’s work.’

“‘I really do not recollect supplying you with a plaister, my good man,’ replied Mr. Brookes.

“‘Then by the piper that played before Moses, if you don’t recollect it, I’ve an idea that I shall never forget it. Sure enough, it cured me, but wasn’t I quite kilt before I was cured?’

“‘It must have been some other shop,’ observed Mr. Brookes. ‘You have made a mistake.’

“‘Devil a bit of a mistake, except in selling me the plaister. Didn’t I get it of a lad in this same shop?’

“‘Nobody sells things out of this shop without my knowledge.’

“The Irishman was puzzled—he looked round the shop. ‘Well, then, if this a’n’t the shop, it was own sister to it.’”

“Like all embryo apothecaries,” says Japhet, “I carried in my appearance, if not the look ofwisdom, most certainly that of self-sufficiency, which does equally well with the world in general. My forehead was smooth and very white, and my dark locks were combed back systematically and with a regularity that said, as plainly as hair could do, ‘The owner of this does everything by prescription, measurement, and rule’. Altogether I cut such a truly medical appearance that even the most guarded would not have hesitated to allow me the sole conduct of a whitlow, from inflammation to suppuration, and from suppuration to cure, or have refused to have confided to me the entire suppression of a gumboil.

“Such were my personal qualifications at the time I was raised to the important office of dispenser of, I may say, life and death.”

FOOTNOTES:[1]Etc. is probably a directionad lib.for the doctor speaking the formulæ.[2]Hanbury’sNotes on Chinese Materia Medica.[3]Lilly’sAutobiography, 1774.[4]The Egyptian magical texts show that hair, feathers, the serpent’s skin, and “the blood of the mystic eye,” were used as charms of protecting or destroying power. This very probably denotes what is known as the charm of dragon’s blood, which is still employed as a potent love charm or philtre, the blood being now typified by the red resin of this name.[5]Bullen’sGovernmente of Health. 1558.[6]William Coles,Adam in Eden. 1657.[7]Lib.viii., c.ii., 5.[8]Now in the possession of Mr. E. W. Cox, to whom we are indebted for the sketch.[9]Hamlet, acti., scenev.[10]Paris,Pharmacologia, p. 294.[11]Romeo and Juliet, actv., scenei.[12]Cymbeline, scenevi.[13]HenryVI., partiii., actii., sceneiii.[14]Pericles, actiii., sceneii.[15]Othello, actv., sceneii.[16]King Lear, actiii., sceneiv.[17]HenryIV., partii., acti., sceneii.[18]HenryVI., actv., sceneiv.[19]Comedy of Errors, activ., scenei.[20]Two Gentlemen of Verona, actii., sceneiv.[21]Lucrece,v., 76.[22]King HenryIV., partii., activ., sceneiv.[23]King HenryIV., parti., actii., sceneiv.[24]King HenryIV., partii., actv., sceneiii.[25]Othello, acti., sceneiii.[26]Love’s Labour’s Lost, actv., sceneii.[27]Hamlet, activ., scenev.[28]Winter’s Tale, activ., sceneiii.[29]Othello, actiii., sceneiii.[30]Romeo and Juliet, activ., sceneiii.[31]All’s Well that Ends Well, actii., sceneiii.[32]Macbeth, actv., sceneiii.[33]Winter’s Tale, activ., sceneiv.[34]Hamlet, activ., scenev.[35]Winter’s Tale, activ., sceneiii.[36]Macbeth, actv., sceneiii.[37]Love’s Labour’s Lost, actv., sceneii.[38]Sonnets, verses 118, 119.[39]The Faerie Queen, booki., cantox.[40]The Faerie Queen, bookvi., cantovi.[41]The Faerie Queen, booki., cantoi.[42]The Faerie Queen, bookii., cantovi.[43]The Faerie Queen, bookii., cantovii.[44]Shepherd’s Calendar—July.[45]Ben Jonson’sFox, actii., scenei.

[1]Etc. is probably a directionad lib.for the doctor speaking the formulæ.

[2]Hanbury’sNotes on Chinese Materia Medica.

[3]Lilly’sAutobiography, 1774.

[4]The Egyptian magical texts show that hair, feathers, the serpent’s skin, and “the blood of the mystic eye,” were used as charms of protecting or destroying power. This very probably denotes what is known as the charm of dragon’s blood, which is still employed as a potent love charm or philtre, the blood being now typified by the red resin of this name.

[5]Bullen’sGovernmente of Health. 1558.

[6]William Coles,Adam in Eden. 1657.

[7]Lib.viii., c.ii., 5.

[8]Now in the possession of Mr. E. W. Cox, to whom we are indebted for the sketch.

[9]Hamlet, acti., scenev.

[10]Paris,Pharmacologia, p. 294.

[11]Romeo and Juliet, actv., scenei.

[12]Cymbeline, scenevi.

[13]HenryVI., partiii., actii., sceneiii.

[14]Pericles, actiii., sceneii.

[15]Othello, actv., sceneii.

[16]King Lear, actiii., sceneiv.

[17]HenryIV., partii., acti., sceneii.

[18]HenryVI., actv., sceneiv.

[19]Comedy of Errors, activ., scenei.

[20]Two Gentlemen of Verona, actii., sceneiv.

[21]Lucrece,v., 76.

[22]King HenryIV., partii., activ., sceneiv.

[23]King HenryIV., parti., actii., sceneiv.

[24]King HenryIV., partii., actv., sceneiii.

[25]Othello, acti., sceneiii.

[26]Love’s Labour’s Lost, actv., sceneii.

[27]Hamlet, activ., scenev.

[28]Winter’s Tale, activ., sceneiii.

[29]Othello, actiii., sceneiii.

[30]Romeo and Juliet, activ., sceneiii.

[31]All’s Well that Ends Well, actii., sceneiii.

[32]Macbeth, actv., sceneiii.

[33]Winter’s Tale, activ., sceneiv.

[34]Hamlet, activ., scenev.

[35]Winter’s Tale, activ., sceneiii.

[36]Macbeth, actv., sceneiii.

[37]Love’s Labour’s Lost, actv., sceneii.

[38]Sonnets, verses 118, 119.

[39]The Faerie Queen, booki., cantox.

[40]The Faerie Queen, bookvi., cantovi.

[41]The Faerie Queen, booki., cantoi.

[42]The Faerie Queen, bookii., cantovi.

[43]The Faerie Queen, bookii., cantovii.

[44]Shepherd’s Calendar—July.

[45]Ben Jonson’sFox, actii., scenei.

Back Cover

Transcriber’s noteA few errors in punctuation were corrected silently. Also the following changes were made, on page52 “furnance” changed to “furnace” (seizing his red-hot tongs from the little furnace in which)76 “Teragrammaton” changed to “Tetragrammaton” (Tetragrammaton + Adonai)234 “the” added (centre of the cover)273 “Lanfen” changed to “Lafeu” (Lafeu.Go to, sir, you were beaten in Italy)278 “Spencer” changed to “Spenser” (Edmund Spenser was born in London).Otherwise the original was preserved, including unusual or inconsistent spelling and hyphenation, and possible errors in quotes from other books.

Transcriber’s note

A few errors in punctuation were corrected silently. Also the following changes were made, on page52 “furnance” changed to “furnace” (seizing his red-hot tongs from the little furnace in which)76 “Teragrammaton” changed to “Tetragrammaton” (Tetragrammaton + Adonai)234 “the” added (centre of the cover)273 “Lanfen” changed to “Lafeu” (Lafeu.Go to, sir, you were beaten in Italy)278 “Spencer” changed to “Spenser” (Edmund Spenser was born in London).

Otherwise the original was preserved, including unusual or inconsistent spelling and hyphenation, and possible errors in quotes from other books.

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