A Gourmand Physician
Dr. George Fordyce, the anatomist and chemical lecturer, was accustomed to dine every day, for more than twenty years, at Dolly’s chop-house, in Queen’s Head Passage, Paternoster Row. His researches in comparative anatomy had led him to conclude that man, through custom, eats oftener than nature requires, one meal a day being sufficient for that noble animal, the lion. He made the experiment on himself at his favourite dining-house, and, finding it successful, he continued the following regimen for the above term of years.
At four o’clock, his accustomed dinner hour, he entered Dolly’s chop-house, and took his seat at a table always reserved for him, on which were instantly placed a silver tankard full of strong ale, a bottle of port-wine, and a measure containing a quarter of a pint of brandy. The moment the waiter announced him, the cook put a pound-and-a-half of rump-steak on the gridiron; and on the table some delicate trifle, as a bonne bouche, to serve until the steak was ready. This delicacy was sometimes half a broiled chicken, sometimes a plate of fish; when he had eaten this, he took a glass of his brandy, and then proceeded to devour his steak. We say devour, because he always ate as rapidly as if eating for a wager. When he had finished his meat, he took the remainder of his brandy, having, during his dinner, drunk the tankard of ale, and afterwards the bottle of port.
The Doctor then adjourned to the Chapter Coffee-house, in Paternoster Row, and stayed while he sipped a glass of brandy and water. It was then his habit to take another at the London Coffee-house, and a third at the Oxford, after which he returned to his house in Essex Street, to give his lecture on chemistry. He made no other meal till his return next day, at four o’clock, to Dolly’s.
Dr. Fordyce’s intemperate habits sometimes placed his reputation, as well as the lives of his patients, in jeopardy. One evening he was called away from a drinking-bout, to see a lady of title, who was supposed to have been taken suddenly ill. Arrived at the apartment of his patient, the Doctor seated himself by her side, and having listened to the recital of a train of symptoms, which appeared rather anomalous, he next proceeded to examine the state of her pulse. He tried to reckon the number of its beats; the more he endeavoured to do this, the more his brain whirled, and the less was his self-control. Conscious of the cause of his difficulty and in a moment of irritation, he inadvertently blurted out, “Drunk, by Jove!” The lady heard the remark, but remained silent; and the Doctor having prescribed a mild remedy, one which he invariably took on such occasions, he shortly afterwards departed.
At an early hour next morning he was roused by a somewhat imperative message from his patient of the previous evening, to attend her immediately; and he at once concluded that the object of this summons was either to inveigh against him for the state in which he had visited her on the former occasion, or perhaps for having administered too potent a medicine. Ill at ease from these reflections, he entered the lady’s room, fully prepared for a severe reprimand. The patient, however, began by thanking him for his immediate attention, and then proceeded to say how much she had been struck by his discernment on the previous evening; confessed that she was occasionally addicted to the error which he had detected; and concluded by saying that her object in sending for him so early was to obtain a promise that he would hold inviolably secret the condition in which he found her. “You may depend upon me, madam,” replied Dr. Fordyce, with a countenance which had not altered since the commencement of the patient’s story; “I shall be silent as the grave.”
This story has also been told of Abernethy; but to Dr. Fordyce belongs the paternity.