All About Doctors
There be many kinds of Doctors; allopathic—homœpathic—and mongrel. Luckily every family swears by its own, and believes in no salvation beyond his dictum. There is your fashionable Doctor who lives in a fine house; rides to his “cases” with a servant in livery; utterly eschews all gutter localities, and never troubles himself to go out when his head aches, or in bad weather. His manner of drawing off his gloves is pompous and impressive. Nurse in the corner sinks down into her slippers, utterly quenched by it. While he warms his hands silently at the fire, he is impressing all present with an idea of his immense profundity. This done, he fixes his eyes on the ceiling, and counts his patient’s pulse; then comes the tongue examination; after which he relapses into another profound contemplation of the ceiling; during which time every tick of the clock seems solemn as fate. Then follows the cabalistic writing; a dead letter to everybody but this Grand Mogul and the apothecary. The gloves are then drawn on, and bowing to the thin air, our elegant Doctor delivers himself again into the care of his liveried servant.
Then there is your old-fashioned Doctor; whose patients “will have him,” though he has wanted gradually to leave off practice for several years, in favor of new aspirants. The cut of his coat is a matter that don’t affect his practice. He smiles blandly as the other Doctor, with the liveried servant, drives past, while he trudges independently on foot, and mentally shakes his head at “new fashions.” He is civil without regard to externals. A baby is a baby to him, whether it comes into the world with a nice wardrobe ready for its back, or the contrary. He is perfectly willing to tell a man who places his stomach in his hands what he is going to put into it, and what he expects it to do to him. He is interested philanthropically, as well as scientifically, in the most minute symptom of the most ordinary patient, who is encouraged by the sympathetic magnetism of his voice and eye to “tell him just how he feels.” He scribbles no unnecessary recipes for his own benefit, or the apothecaries’; and speaks so cheerfully when he leaves, that the sick man half doubts, after all, if anything is the matter with him.
Then there is your young, new-fledged Doctor, who gives physic as a little boy touches off a firecracker, rather uncertain whether it will blow him, or his neighbor, or both, sky-high.
Then there is your Ladies’ Doctor, “the handsome creature,” who lifts his eyes with well-acted astonishment that these dear beings can endure a pain, or an ache, and still live; who says just what they want him to, in the way of prescribing “little journeys” and savory messes; and coaxes all their little troubles over their lips till they are more astonished at themselves than the Doctor is at them.
Then there is your blunt pop-gun Doctor, who has no time nor inclination for nonsense, and jerks out his opinion as he would a mouthful of tobacco; and they who don’t like it, are welcome to move out of the way. Who feels your pulse, and pronounces you a prospective dead man, or woman, as coolly as if the intelligence concerned you no more than himself.
Then there is the eccentric Doctor, who advertises himself by some peculiarity of costume, like knee-breeches, or cocked hat, or long, flowing hair, and is never better pleased than when everybody is saying: “Who can that be?”
Then there is your celebrated Surgeon, who has long since bade good-by to his own nerves, and who looks at every man, woman, and child with a view to their “cutting up.” When about to commence an operation before a class of gaping students, mark the gleaming, circling flourish of his pet-knife in the air, before descending upon his chloroform-bound victim! The operation properly and deftly performed, his part is done. The Almighty is responsible for the rest.
Finally, and lastly, it is all very nice to laugh at Doctors when one is sound and well; but let a good smart pain come, and none so ready, as those who do so, to send a telegraphic summons for their speedy appearance. With this substantial proof of their power, let them snap their fingers at criticism and be jolly.
How to Put the Children to Bed.—Not with a reproof for any of that day’s sins of omission or commission. Take any other time but bedtime for that. If you ever heard a little creature sighing or sobbing in its sleep, you could never do this. Seal their closing eyelids with a kiss and a blessing. The time will come, all too soon, when they will lay their heads upon their pillows lacking both. Let them then at least have this sweet memory of a happy childhood, of which no future sorrow or trouble can rob them. Give them their rosy youth. Nor need this involve wild license. The judicious parent will not so mistake my meaning. If you have ever met the man or the woman whose eyes have suddenly filled when a little child has crept trustingly to its mother’s breast, you may have seen one in whose childhood’s home “Dignity” and “Severity” stood where Love and Pity should have been. Too much indulgence has ruined thousands of children; too much Love not one.