Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography | Page 6

great bunch of seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin,"
is the most carefully finished portrait. Such, exactly, were the Family
Physicians of my youth. They always dressed in shiny black,--trousers,
neckcloth, and all; they were invariably bald, and had shaved upper lips
and chins, and carefully-trimmed whiskers. They said "Hah!" and
"Hum!" in tones of omniscience which would have converted a
Christian Scientist; and, when feeling one's pulse, they produced the

largest and most audibly-ticking gold watches producible by the
horologist's art. They had what were called "the courtly manners of the
old school"; were diffuse in style, and abounded in periphrasis. Thus
they spoke of "the gastric organ" where their successors talk of the
stomach, and referred to brandy as "the domestic stimulant." When
attending families where religion was held in honour, they were apt to
say to the lady of the house, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made";
and, where classical culture prevailed, they not infrequently remarked--
Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops.
By the way, my reference to "the domestic stimulant" reminds me that
on stimulants, domestic and other, this school of Physicians relied with
an unalterable confidence. For a delicate child, a glass of port wine at
11 was the inevitable prescription, and a tea-spoonful of bark was often
added to this generous tonic. In all forms of languor and debility and
enfeebled circulation, brandy-and-water was "exhibited," as the phrase
went; and, if the dose was not immediately successful, the brandy was
increased. I myself, when a sickly boy of twelve, was ordered by a
well-known practitioner, called F. C. Skey, to drink mulled claret at
bedtime; and my recollection is that, as a nightcap, it beat bromide and
sulphonal hollow. In the light of more recent science, I suppose that all
this alcoholic treatment was what Milton calls "the sweet poyson of
misuséd wine," and wrought havoc with one's nerves, digestion, and
circulation. It certainly had this single advantage, that when one grew
to man's estate, and passed from "that poor creature, small beer," to the
loaded port and fiery sherry of a "Wine" at the University, it was
impossible to make one drunk. And thereby hangs a tale. I was once
writing the same sentiment in the same words for a medical journal,
and the compositor substituted "disadvantage" for "advantage,"
apparently thinking that my early regimen had deprived me of a real
happiness in after-life.
Such were the Doctors of my youth. By no sudden wrench, no violent
transition, but gently, gradually, imperceptibly, the type has
transformed itself into that which we behold to-day. No doubt an
inward continuity has been maintained, but the visible phenomena are

so radically altered as to suggest to the superficial observer the idea of a
new creation; and even we, who, as Matthew Arnold said, "stand by the
Sea of Time, and listen to the solemn and rhythmical beat of its waves,"
even we can scarcely point with confidence to the date of each
successive change. First, as to personal appearance. When did doctors
abandon black cloth, and betake themselves (like Newman, when he
seceded to the Church of Rome) to grey trousers? Not, I feel pretty sure,
till the 'seventies were well advanced. Quite certainly the first time that
I ever fell into the hands of a moustached Doctor was in 1877.
Everyone condemned the hirsute appendage as highly unprofessional,
and when, soon after, the poor man found his way into a Lunatic
Asylum, the neighbouring Doctors of the older school said that they
were not surprised; that "there was a bad family history"; and that he
himself had shown marked signs of eccentricity. That meant the
moustache, and nothing else. Then, again, when was it first recognized
as possible to take a pulse without the assistance of a gold chronometer?
History is silent; but I am inclined to assign that discovery to the same
date as the clinical thermometer, a toy unknown to the Doctors of my
youth, who, indeed, were disposed to regard even the stethoscope as
new-fangled. Then "the courtly manners of the old school"--when did
they go out? I do not mean to cast the slightest aspersion on the
manners of my present doctor, who is as polite and gentlemanlike a
young fellow as one could wish to meet. But his manners are not
"courtly," nor the least "of the old school." He does not bow when he
enters my room, but shakes hands and says it's an A1 day and I had
better get out in the motor. Whatever the symptoms presented to his
observation, he never says "Hah!" or "Hum!" and he has never once
quoted the Bible or Horace, though I have reason to believe that he has
read both. Then, again, as a mere matter of style, when did