’When patients comes to I, I physics, bleeds, and sweats ’em; Then, if they choose to die, What’s that to I? I lets ’em.’
Everyone has heard, and has a story to tell, of Dr. John Abernethy (b. 1764, d. 1831), so we do not know whether in telling our stories of him we shall be able to tell the reader anything new; but as he was a medical eccentricity, we cannot omit him from our portrait gallery. But let us premise that if we call him eccentric we refer to his manners only, in which he did not take after his chief instructor, Sir Charles Blick, who was a fashionable physician of the extra-courteous school. In scientific knowledge Abernethy greatly excelled all his colleagues, though he got less fame by that than by his oddities. When he had made up his mind to marry he wrote off-hand to a lady a note of proposal, saying that he was too busy to attend in person, but he would give her a fortnight for consideration. His irritable temper at times rendered him very disagreeable with patients and medical men who consulted him. When the latter did so, he would walk up and down the room with his hands in his pockets and whistle all the time, and end by telling the doctor to go home and read his (Abernethy’s) book. On being asked by a colleague whether a certain plan he suggested would answer, the only reply he could obtain was: ’Ay, ay, put a little salt on a bird’s tail, and you will be sure to catch him.’ He could hardly be induced to give advice in cases which appeared to depend on improper diet. A farmer of immense bulk came from a distance to consult him, and having given an account of his daily meals, which showed an immense amount of animal food, Abernethy said: ’Go away, sir; I won’t attempt to prescribe for such a hog!’ A loquacious lady he silenced by telling her to put out her tongue; she having done so, ’Now keep it there till _I_ have done talking,’ said Abernethy. A lady having brought her daughter, he refused to prescribe for her, but told the mother to let the girl take exercise. Having received his guinea, he gave the shilling to the mother and said: ’Buy the girl a skipping-rope as you go along.’ When the late Duke of York consulted him, he stood whistling with his hands in his pockets, and the Duke said: ’I suppose you know who I am?’ ’Suppose I do,’ was the uncourtly reply, ’what of that?’ To a gentleman who consulted him for an ulcerated throat, and wanted him to look at it, he said: ’How dare you suppose that I would allow you to blow your stinking, foul breath in my face!’ But sometimes he met a Tartar. A gentleman who could not succeed in getting the doctor to listen to his case, suddenly locked the door, put the key into his pocket, and took out a loaded pistol. Abernethy, alarmed, asked if he meant to murder him. No, he only wanted him to listen to his case, and meant to keep him a prisoner till he did. The patient and the surgeon afterwards became great friends. The Duke of Wellington having insisted on seeing him out of his usual hours, and abruptly entering his room, was asked by the doctor how he got in. ’By that door,’ was the reply. ’Then,’ said Abernethy,’ I recommend you to make your exit by the same way.’ He refused to attend George IV. until he had delivered his lecture at the hospital, in consequence of which he lost a royal appointment. To a lady who complained that on holding her arm over her head she felt pain, he said: ’Then what a fool you must be to hold it up!’ He was fond of calling people fools. A countess consulted him, and he offered her some pills, when she said she could never take a pill. ’Not take a pill! What a fool you must be!’ was the courteous reply.