Doctrines and maxims, good or bad, flow abroad from a public teacher as from a fountain, and his faulty lessons may become the indirect source of incalculable mischief and suffering to hundreds who have never even heard his name.--_Sir Thomas Watson._
Physicians vary their prescriptions to give the disorder an opportunity of choosing for itself.--_Lacon._
As Mr. Crowe was surgeon to the hospital, every new experiment and each fresh result was religiously tried upon a human subject. Being a man grateful for any little services his assistant rendered him, he repaid him in various ways, one of the most valued rewards being the privilege of trying "any new drug you may take a fancy to upon any of my patients, Mr. Mole." None of Mr. Mole's services went unrecognised, and the acknowledgment was not costly to the professor. The sufferers in the wards where his beds were located would not have seen the matter in precisely the same light had it been explained to them, but Mr. Crowe was really generous--with other people's pain!
"I wish to investigate," said one of his dressers, "the presence of lithic acid in the blood of rheumatic patients. May I blister one or two of your patients, Mr. Crowe?"
"Oh, certainly," said the obliging physiologist; "only you must take precautions to let the patient imagine you are doing it for his benefit, and be careful the nurses don't see what you are about--nurses are getting so 'cute now-a-days. With these provisos, you are free to roam at large, my friend, over the bodies of any of my clinics."
Several poor men and women broke out in great blisters the following morning, the serum from which was carefully collected and evaporated in the laboratory for pretty crystals of lithic acid. "They look very nice if carefully mounted; but mind you place a black circle round the covering glass, it shows 'em up better. Grumbled a bit, did she? She must have the battery again if she is intractable."
Jack Murphy, a merry, reckless little dog as we know, used to tell a droll story of his first bit of skin-grafting in the wards.
"Graft him," said Mr. Mole. "Don't know how? Oh, you just snip bits of skin off his arm and pop 'em on the raw surface of the burnt leg, and in a few days you'll find 'em growing like watercress all over the shop. Perfectly simple. One of the grandest discoveries of modern surgery."