The Royal College of Surgeons.

Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Royal College of Surgeons. 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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    known voice of Antonio, my guide, for he it was who headed the party. “ Why, then, I’ll say all my days, Inglese, that you bear a charmed life. Few who cross the Paso ” But I did not hear the rest of the Indian’s speech, for now, for the first time, I too grew faint and giddy, and realised the terrible strain on mind and body which the excitement of peril had enabled me to maintain, and, though I aided in lifting Miss Trevor’s almost insensible form from the snow, I can remember nothing more until I found myself lying on the bed in a guest-chamber of the convent, while a bearded monk, in brown robe and rope girdle, was warming something in a pip- kin over a brazero of glowing charcoal. “ Drink this, Englishman! ” said the good-natured Capuchin, as he poured the hot wine into a large silver cup, embla- zoned with the armorial bearings of some Spanish viceroy of long ago; “ drink this, and then get to sleep again, if you can. Nothing like it when once you are warm and sheltered. Yes, yes,” he added, with a smile, as he anticipated my question, “the young lady, too, is well, and asleep, too, I daresay. Heretics or not, you and she are welcome here, cavalier! ” I have little more to relate. Of the re- mains of the unfortunate persons who fell over the rock of El Paso, no trace was ever found, although, at Miss Trevor’s urgent entreaty, a long and painful search wa3 instituted among the glens below. But so wild and broken was the ground, and so intersected by snowdrifts, torrents, and thorny thickets, that from the first the Indian miners and herdsmen despaired of success, and, as I have said, the bodies were never recovered. So soon as my beautiful charge had regained strength enough to enable her to travel, I accom- panied her to the city of Santiago, where her father’s sister resided, and there, be- neath her aunt’s roof, I left her to mourn for the dear ones whom she was never more to behold. But our parting was not for long. I became a frequent visitor to Santiago, and was a frequent guest in the house of Ellen Trevor’s aunt. There, after a while, I told her my love, and thence I led my bride to the altar, if I may use so high-flown an expression concerning the Consular Office, with its white - washed walls placarded with an- nouncements of wreck and salvage, and other matters interesting to mariners, where we were married. THE ROTAir-COLLEGE OF SURGEONS. If I am not mistaken, it was the author of Pelham who, commenting on the discovery of a pair of loaded dice at Pompeii, remarked that, if some of the virtues are modern, all the vices are ancient. I will not, however, undertake to say that the world is more virtuous than of old, as I well know that, if I hazarded that hypothesis, I should bring my learned friend, Professor Gleichgewicht, down upon me at once with his world-famed demonstration that blackguardism in man is a constant quantity varying from age to age only in its phenomenal or outward seeming, but remaining unchanged in its diabolical essence. Keeping clear, how- ever, of the professor, I may, I think, risk the supposition that we improve in the faculty of appreciation, and in some few instances render honour where honour is due. It is true that this faculty is rather widespread than centred in the regions whence flow collars and crosses, stars and garters, and that these ornaments are rarely bestowed upon those who add to the health and happiness of the world; but this official neglect is, in the case of the medical profession, almost compen- sated by the rank conceded to it in mo- dern society. It was otherwise in the good old times. It is true that certain learned doctors were mentioned only with bated breath and a hasty glance over the shoulder, but these awful personages were reverenced in proportion rather to their supernatural power than their professional skill. It is very doubtful, indeed, whether they ever really cured anybody, being, for the most part, too busy with the stars to find time to study the products of our globe, and they showed a curious inca- pacity when brought face to face with the black death and other forms of epidemic disease which, following in the track of war and famine, contributed in no slight degree to thin the population of England in its “ merrie ” days. The ancient phy- sician—we may take it for granted—was at least as dangerous as the majority of diseases, but his humbler brother, the “ chirurgeon,” seems to have been useful enough. It must be recollected that, in the “ merrie ” period referred to, there was plenty of need of the surgeon’s art, and comparatively little for that of the physician. Taking into account the big wars and little wars, crusades, rebellions, the free exercise of the “ right of private :iF