Medical Life in the Navy. Stables Gordon
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myself, and never felt so much the better of anything.
Euston Square Terminus at last; and the roar of great London came surging on my ears, like the noise and conflict of many waters, or the sound of a storm-tossed ocean breaking on a stony beach. I leapt to the platform, forgetting at once lady and baby and all, for the following Tuesday was to be big with my fate, and my heart beat flurriedly as I thought “what if I were plucked, in spite of my M.D., in spite of my C.M., in spite even of my certificate of virtue itself?”
Chapter Two.
Doubts and Fears. My First Night in Cockneydom
What if I were plucked? What should I do? Go to the American war, embark for the gold-diggings, enlist in a regiment of Sepoys, or throw myself from the top of Saint Paul’s? This, and such like, were my thoughts, as I bargained with cabby, for a consideration, to drive me and my traps to a quiet second-rate hotel – for my purse by no means partook of the ponderosity of my heart. Cabby did so. The hotel at which I alighted was kept by a gentleman who, with his two daughters, had but lately migrated from the flowery lands of sunny Devon; so lately that he himself could still welcome his guests with an honest smile and hearty shake of hand, while the peach-like bloom had not as yet faded from the cheeks of his pretty buxom daughters. So well pleased was I with my entertainment in every way at this hotel, that I really believed I had arrived in a city where both cabmen and innkeepers were honest and virtuous; but I have many a time and often since then had reason to alter my opinion.
Now, there being only four days clear left me ere I should have to present myself before the august body of examiners at Somerset House, I thought it behoved me to make the best of my time. Fain – oh, how fain! – would I have dashed care and my books, the one to the winds and the other to the wall, and floated away over the great ocean of London, with all its novelties, all its pleasures and its curiosities; but I was afraid – I dared not. I felt like a butterfly just newly burst from the chrysalis, with a world of flowers and sunshine all around it, but with one leg unfortunately immersed in birdlime. I felt like that gentleman, in Hades you know, with all sorts of good things at his lips, which he could neither touch nor taste of. Nor could I of the joys of London life. No, like Moses from the top of Mount Pisgah, I could but behold the promised land afar off; he had the dark gates of death to pass before he might set foot therein, and I had to pass the gloomy portals of Somerset House, and its board of dread examiners.
The landlord – honest man! little did he know the torture he was giving me – spread before me on the table more than a dozen orders for places of amusement, – to me, uninitiated, places of exceeding great joy – red orders, green orders, orange and blue orders, orders for concerts, orders for gardens, orders for theatres royal, and orders for the opera.
Oh, reader, fancy at that moment my state of mind; fancy having the wonderful lamp of Aladdin offered you, and your hands tied behind your back I myself turned red, and green, and orange, and blue, even as the orders were, gasped a little, called for a glass of water, – not beer, mark me, – and rushed forth. I looked not at the flaming placards on the walls, nor at the rows of seedy advertisement-board men. I looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, but made my way straight to the British Museum, with the hopes of engaging in a little calm reflection. I cannot say I found it however; for all the strange things I saw made me think of all the strange countries these strange things came from, and this set me a-thinking of all the beautiful countries I might see if I passed.
“If, gracious heavens!” thought I. “Are you mad, knocking about here like a magnetised mummy, and Tuesday the passing day? Home, you devil you, and study!”
Half an hour later, in imagination behold me seated before a table in my little room, with the sun’s parting beams shemmering dustily in through my window, surrounded with books – books – books medical, books surgical, books botanical, books nautical, books what-not-ical; behold, too, the wet towel that begirts my thoughtful brow, my malar bones leaning on my hands, my forearms resting on the mahogany, while I am thinking, or trying to think, of, on, or about everything known, unknown, or guessed at.
Mahogany, did I say? “Mahogany,” methinks I hear the examiner say, “hem! hem! upon what island, tell us, doctor, does the mahogany tree grow, exist, and flourish? Give the botanical name of this tree, the natural family to which it belongs, the form of its leaves and flower, its uses in medicine and in art, the probable number of years it lives, the articles made from its bark, the parasites that inhabit it, the birds that build their nests therein, and the class of savage who finds shelter beneath its wide-spreading, if wide-spreading, branches; entering minutely into the formation of animal structure in general, and describing the whole theory of cellular development, tracing the gradual rise of man from the sponge through the various forms of snail, oyster, salmon, lobster, lizard, rabbit, kangaroo, monkey, gorilla, nigger, and Irish Yahoo, up to the perfect Englishman; and state your ideas of the most probable form and amount of perfection at which you think the animal structure will arrive in the course of the next ten thousand years. Is mahogany much superior to oak? If so, why is it not used in building ships? Give a short account of the history of shipbuilding, with diagrams illustrative of the internal economy of Noah’s ark, the Great Eastern, and the Rob Roy canoe. Describe the construction of the Armstrong gun, King Theodore’s mortar, and Mons Meg. Describe the different kinds of mortars used in building walls, and those used in throwing them down; insert here the composition of gunpowder tea, Fenian fire, and the last New Yankee drink? In the mahogany country state the diseases most prevalent among the natives, and those which you would think yourself justified in telling the senior assistant-surgeon to request the surgeon to beg the first lieutenant to report to the commander, that he may call the attention of your captain to the necessity of ordering the crew to guard against.”
Then, most indulgent reader, behold me, with these and a thousand other such questions floating confusedly through my bewildered brain – behold me, I say, rise from the table slowly, and as one who doubteth whether he be not standing on his head; behold me kick aside the cane-bottomed chair, then clear the table with one wild sweep, state “Bosh!” with the air and emphasis of a pasha of three tails, throw myself on the sofa, and with a “Waitah, glass of gwog and cigaw, please,” commence to read ‘Tom Cwingle’s Log.’ This is how I spent my first day, and a good part of the night too, in London; and – moral – I should sincerely advise every medical aspirant, or candidate for a commission in the Royal Navy, to bring in his pocket some such novel as Roderick Random, or Harry Lorrequer, to read immediately before passing, and to leave every other book at home.
Chapter Three.
A Feline Adventure. Passed – Hooray! Conversation of (not with) Two Israelitish Parties
Next morning, while engaged at my toilet – not a limb of my body which I had not amputated that morning mentally, not one of my joints I had not exsected, or a capital operation I did not perform on my own person; I had, in fact, with imaginary surgical instruments, cut myself all into little pieces, dissected my every nerve, filled all my arteries with red wax and my veins with blue, traced out the origin and insertion of every muscle, and thought of what each one could and what each one could not do; and was just giving the final twirl to my delicate moustache, and the proper set to the bow of my necktie, when something occurred which caused me to start and turn quickly round. It was a soft modest little knock – almost plaintive in its modesty and softness – at my door. I heard no footfall nor sound of any sort, simply the “tapping as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door; simply that and nothing more.”
“This,” thought I, “is Sarah Jane with my boots: mindful girl is Sarah Jane.” Then giving voice to my thoughts, “Thank you, Sally,” said I, “just leave them outside; I’ll have Finnon haddocks and oatcake for breakfast.”
Then, a voice that wasn’t Sally’s, but ever so much softer and more kitten-like in tone, replied, —
“Hem! ahem!” and presently added, “it is only me.” Then the door was pushed slightly open, while pressing one foot doubtfully against it I peeped out, and to my surprise perceived the half of a little yellow book and the whole of a little yellow face with whiskers at it, and an expression so very like that of a one-year-old lady cat, that I remained for a little in momentary