The physiology of the London medical student, and curiosities of medical experience / by "Punch".

  • Smith, Albert, 1816-1860.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physiology of the London medical student, and curiosities of medical experience / by "Punch". Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    of his companions, and beginning to feel that he is behind the other chaps (a new man's term) m knowledge of the world, he yields to the attraction held out; not because he at first thinks it will give him pleasure so to do, but be- cause it will put him on a level with those who have been, on the same principle as our rambling compatriots go to Switzerland and the Rhine. His Mentor is ready in the shape of a third-season man, and under his protecting in- fluence he sallies forth. The theatres have concluded; every carriage, cab, and coach 'nhired in their vicinity is in motion ; venders of trotters and ham-sandwiches are in full cry ; the bars of the proximate retail establishments are crowded with thirsty gods ; ruddy chops and steaks are temptingly dis- played in the windows of the supper-houses, and the turnips and carrots in the freshly-arrived market-carts ap- pear astonished at the sudden confusion by which they are surrounded. Amidst this confusion the new man and his friends arrive beneath the beacon which illumines the en- trance of the tavern. He descends the stairs in an agony of anticipation, and feverishly trips up the six or eight succeeding ones to arrive at the large room. A song has just concluded, and he enters triumphantly amidst the thunder of applause, the jingling of glasses, the imperious vociferations of fresh orders, and an atmosphere of smoke that pervades the whole apartment, like dense clouds of incense burning at the altar of the genius of conviviality. The new man is at first so bewildered, that it would take but little extra excitement to render him perfectly un- conscious as to the probability of his standing upon his occipito-frontalis or plantar fascia. But as he collects his ideas, he contrives to muster sufficient presence of mind to order a Welsh rabbit, and in the interim of its ar- rival earnestly contemplates the scene around him. There is the room which, in after life, so vividly recurs to him, with its bygone souvenirs of mirth, when he is sitting up all night at a bad case in the mud cottage of a pauper union. There are its blue walls, its wainscot and its pil- lars, its lamps and ground-glass shades, within which the gas jumps and flares so fitfully; its two looking-glasses, that reflect the room and its occupants from one to the other in an interminable vista. There also is Mr. Rhodes, bending courteously over the backs of the visiters' chairs,