Parish doctors / [Charles Dickens].

  • Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Date:
[1857]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Parish doctors / [Charles Dickens]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    images of their Lares, or household gods, in dog-skin. In the present day, even the very smallest dogs are to be found cherished as household deities. Gunar, a Swedish tyrant, once upon a time, to inflict shame on his subjects, set a dog over them to be their king, and gave the dog bad ministers, in order that the public might be well plagued in his name. It also hap- pened that when the people of Drontheim had slain the son of Oisten, Prince of Upland, Oisten bade them choose whether they would have for their king his slave Taxe, or his dog Saer. The Drontheimers chose to be ruled by Saer the First, because they hoped to make a good dog of him, and to enjoy much liberty under his chain. Saer had not long been seated on the throne before he was enchanted by his subjects, and became the wisest monarch of his time, having, it is recorded, as much wisdom as three sages. He also became able to talk, in every three words of a sen- tence—barking two and speaking one—very distinctly. This story ought not to be doubted. For was not the famous shepherd’s dog, of Weis- senfels, taught by a boy who pinched his throat and put fingers into his mouth until he had learnt to speak words like a man,—and did not an Austrian travel through Holland in the year seventeen hundred and eighteen, who could say his—or rather our— alphabet, except only the letters, L, M, N ? Read Drechsler, on the Speech of Brutes. Among the old Franks, Suabians and Saxons, a dog was held in small esteem, nevertheless, and indeed, for that cause, he was not seldom set over the highest nobles of the land. If a great dignitary had, by broken faith disturbed peace in the realm, a dog was put upon his shoulders by the emperor. To carry a dog for a certain distance was, in the time of Otto the First, and after it, one of the severest punishments inflicted on unruly princes. Nobles of lower rank carried, in- stead of the dog, a chair—peasants, a plough- wheel. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa went to be crowned by the Pope in Italy; and, when upon his way, found that there was murderous- strife between Hermann, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and the Archbishop Arnold of Mayence. By this quarrel the banks of the Rhine were stained with much blood. After his return, therefore, Barba- rossa called a Diet at Worms, before which he cited both the disputants. They appeared, each expecting that his adversary was to be discomfited. The emperor, having heard the case, ordered the Count Palatine and ten counts, his allies, to march over the border, each with a dog, upon his back; the other nobles concerned in the quarrel were to take the same march of a German mile, carrying stools, and the peasantry to go after with plough wheels. The clergy were condemned to suffer a like punishment; but, saving their reverence, it was allowed to be performed for them by proxy. Soon after the year twelve hundred, Gerhard, a lord in Querfurt, had with other nobles fallen upon a pious man, Deacon of Ma^tTebuf^. cathedral, as he journeyed on tWhighway, ahd deprived him of his eyes. y^^pempHEfliilipNined this Ger- hard very^eavihj^anc^madeNhim walk at the head 4i five hlmd^u of his Knights from the spot in which th^utrage was committed to the gate of Mqjgdeburg jdathedral, each man withVdog upon his sWulders. The ancieSt^ersian^r^mbolised Ormazd, their god, in the form of a dog ; for, to a nomade race, there is no animal so dear, no type of a Divine watchfulness so true, as the protector of the herd. A thousand lashes was the punishment for maiming any able dog, and it was capital offence to kill one. The sight of a dog by dying men was said to'cbihfort them with bo dings of the conquest of all evil and of their immortal - pea^e. UTrr times the Persians held it to be a good token for the dead if a dog approachejd the corpse and ute from between the lips a bit of bread that had been placed there; but, if no dog would approach the body, that waslield to be a sign of evil for the soul. : .... , 2 4* PAEISIIDGCTQRS. I have been always in'iove with my pro- fession, although she has hot used, me well in return, and my father before me was enamoured of the same lady, who jilted him also ; yet both of us were ever content with wearing her initials F. R. C. S., and of cutting and slashing in her name, nor have we ever taken up with hydropathy, homoeopathy, or any other fair enslaver of the faculty for a single hour. My father had a small country practice among people of the better sort, and, as soon as I was old enough, I used to accompany him upon his rounds, waiting patiently in his gig sometimes for hours, at this or that rich man’s door, for which he would reward me—when he took the reins again—by detailing the particular case. I protest I knew more about surgery at ten years’ old than some of my future hospi- tal companions were possessed of at twenty. I was not quite twelve when I performed an exceedingly difficult operation for compound comminuted fracture of the left leg of our parrot, the result of a cataleptic seizure. I amputated the cat’s tail, which the bird had bitten through, with the like success ; the little quadruped’s feet were simply but origi- nally placed in a walnut-shell for my greater security, the operating-table was our kitchen- dresser, and our bread-knife the humble instrument of relief. My favourite toys were anatomical specimens, and I remember being earnestly desirous of putting my young bro- ther, of three days’ old, into a large bottle, which was my especial treasure, and of then j