TCTTiW SO 3STOVBI.S.
THE JEWELS OF PRINCE DE JANVILLE. By
Almhain.
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LUCY CARTER : A Love Story of Middle Class Life. By
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THE SPORT OF CIRCUMSTANCES. By Louis E.
Armstrong. .1 vol. 3s. 6d.
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bis dialogue, which is mostly neat, lively, unaffected, and appropriate."—Saturday
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A SWALLOW'S WING. By Charles Hannan. 1 vol. 3/6.
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reader breathless."—Literary World.
CAUGHT BY THE TIDE. By Alison L. Garland. 1vol. 3/6-
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I SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. \
" A wild romance of the preternatural kind . . • !
told in a direct, business-like fashion."—Spectator. j
" Originality of design, artistic neatness of con-
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recommend a story.''—Illustrated London News.
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I World.
" He is fond of tracing the rose-strewn career of
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LONDON:
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.,
Paternoster Square.
BERNARD'S.
A KEY TO "ST. BERNARD'S,"
entitled
DYING SCIENTIFICALLY:
H 1ke£ to St Bernards
Is now ready, Paper Boards i/. Cloth, 1/6.
The following are a few Extracts from PRESS
OPINIONS which appeared on the publica¬
tion of "St. Bernards" in September, 1887.
" A story with a purpose, written very much in earnest.
There is much that is good and useful in this."—Athenceum.
" A powerfully written work. . . . There is a ring of sincerity
in the author's manner which will have weight with a large circle of
readers."—Mornitig Post.
" The main theme of the book is an attack on the management of
the Great Hospitals, by one who has had means of knowing their
procedure intimately."—Pall Mall Gazette.
"A terrible indictment of the medical profession. . . . The
book is written with great ability and it cannot be ignored. It must
be answered if possible."—British Weekly.
" Even if it can be shown that St. Bernard's is in some respects
unjust, the book is one which should certainly be read by everyone
entering on the study of medicine."—Chemist and Druggist.
" If this book represents, even approximately, what goes on in our
great teaching hospitals, we have amongst us a monster iniquity that
closely rivals the Vivisecting Institutions of unenviable notoriety. That
St. Bernard's is a deliberate libel, we cannot believe."—Spectator.
"The book is likely to make some stir not only in the medical
world, but among all who subscribe to the funds of the great London
Hospitals."—The Lady.
" If half that he says is true, then the Hospital System is a crying
disgrace to our civilization."—Whitehall Review.
london : swan sonnenschein and co
ST. BERNARD'S
THE ROMANCE OF A MEDICAL STUDENT
BY
AESCULAPIUS SCALPEL
" Ars Longa Vita Brevis."
Parolles: Right; as 'twere a man assured of an
Lafeu : Uncertain life, and sure death !
—All's Well that Ends Well.
FOURTH EDITION.
LONDON:
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1888.
S Cowan & Co., General Printers, Perth.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The First ok October
CHAPTER II.
The School of Anatomy
CHAPTER III.
In Students' Lodgings
CHAPTER IV.
His Prentice Hand
CHAPTER V.
The Beadle and the Theatre
CHAPTER VI.
Jack Murphy's Party
CHAPTER VII.
Nurse Podger
CHAPTER VIII.
Amongst the Out-patiknts
CHAPTER IX,
' Walking the Hospital "...
vi Contents.
CHAPTER X.
The New Morality
CHAPTER XI.
Tea and Anarchy ...
CHAPTER XII.
" Send for Father O'Grady "
CHAPTER XIII.
" The Soothing Idea of God "
CHAPTER XIV.
The Sacred Whole of Man
CHAPTER XV.
Science and Fashion
CHAPTER XVI.
Sowing Wild Oats
CHAPTER XVII.
The Lost Leader ...
CHAPTER XVIII.
An Epicure of Pain
CHAPTER XIX.
An Apt Pupil
CHAPTER XX.
The Professor at his Work
CHAPTER XXI.
"Taken In"
CHAPTER XXII.
How Els worth Came to Himself ...
Contents. vii
CHAPTER XXIII. PAGB
Tn Exile ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 117
CHAPTER XXIV.
The School of Humanity ... ... ... ... ... 153
CHAPTER XXV.
" What's Become of Waring ?" ... ... .. ... 157
CHAPTER XXVI.
Sister Agnes Revolts ... ... ... ... ... ](>4
CHAPTER XXVII.
" Another Patient, Sister !" ... ... ... .. 167
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Dr. Stanford with His Pupils ... ... .. ... 172
CHAPTER XXIX.
An Ideal Physician ... ... ... ... ... 176
CHAPTER XXX.
Sister Agnes Leaves St. Bernard's ... ... ... 1S5
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Gospel at Wokk ... ... ... ... ... 188
CHAPTER XXXII.
The Rise of Nightingale Hospital.., ... . . .. 198
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Mrs. Podger becomes a Sybil ... ... .. ... 201
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Mr. Crowe Parleys with the Evil One ... .. .. 206
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Hobby of Dr. Sones ... ... ... ... . 214
viii Contents.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Mr. Crowe at Granada
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Mildred Lee
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Unearthed
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Mildred Finds Her Work ...
CHAPTER XL.
" Shod with Wool ! "
CHAPTER XLI.
The Triumph or Mr. Mole
CHAPTER XLIL
The Bacillus of Love
CHAPTER XLIII.
Dr. Sones Succeeds
CHAPTER XLIV.
An Infant River ...
L'Envoi
ST. BERNARD'S.
CHAPTER I.
the first of october.
" Homines ad deos null& re proprius accedunt qu&m salutem homini-
bus dando."
Having selected medicine as a profession, the usual day for a
man to enter on a course of study at one of our great medical
schools is the first of October. The almanack tells us this is
the feast of St. Remigius, the day on which Cambridge term
begins and pheasant shooting commences. Neither of these
interesting facts, however, explains the opening of the medical
schools on the day in question; nor is it explained by the cir¬
cumstance that this period is the anniversary of the institution
of the order of merit for Folly, created at Cleves in the year of
our Lord 1381; nor by what good old Thomas Fuller tells us
of the holding of Lawless Courts, or Curia de Domino Rege
Dicta sine Lege on Kingshill at Rochford in Essex; though
some non-medical antiquaries, holding the learned profession of
medicine in low esteem, have pretended that a day sacred to
folly and lawlessness is peculiarly appropriate for the com¬
mencement of the curriculum of a medical student. We will
not, like the ancient philosopher of whom Montaigne speaks,
seek for learned and obscure explanations when our serving
maid can offer us a simple one, but will state at once that the
medical schools open at this season of the year because the
weather being now cool, corpses set apart for dissection keep
a
2
St Bernards.
well! Thus did scholastic speculation vanish before the timely
discovery of the legend, Bill Stumps, his X mark. This day of
high festival at all the hospitals to which medical schools are
attached is celebrated in various ways. An inaugural address,
given by one of the staff, has long been the custom at the
most famous of these ; and 011 such occasions the freshman is
usually staggered by the picture of the awful responsibilities
he has undertaken, and made aware that he has devoted his
life and energies to the loftiest, noblest, and worst paid calling
he could have possibly selected. He is assured that he will be
a benefactor to humanity of the highest type, but must expect
neither gratitude, wealth, nor elevation to the peerage; that
although
" The learn'd physician, skilled our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public weal,"
he will, if he join the Army Medical Service, be looked down
upon as only a superior kind of camp follower; that, as Dr.
Abernethy used to say, if he does not claim his fees "while the
tears are about," he stands a good chance of losing them—so
prone is an ungrateful country and a forgetful client to ignore
the doctor when the danger is over. Notwithstanding all
these drawbacks, however, he is assured he will find in the
commendation of his own conscience an ever-sufficient reward
for his devotion to suffering humanity. AU successful profes¬
sional men talk more or less of this pessimistic cant, like the
Chancery judge who addressed a batch of newly admitted
barristers-at-law in these terms : " Gentlemen, I cannot con¬
gratulate you on the profession which you have chosen. It is
one in which very few succeed, and most of those who succeed
wish they had failed." The fact is, with professions and busi¬
ness, as with wives, men get just as much success as they
deserve. These sentiments produce on the newly entered
pupils their profoundest effect, but they are totally lost on the
older ones, Avho declare them all humbug, and only intended
to gull the public who will read them in the daily papers.
The First of October.
3
Many of the seats are always filled by medical men who were
educated in the hospital and school attached, who like to hear
these time-honoured sentiments, reminding them of the happy
period when they entered their Alma Mater with an enthusi¬
asm long since damped by contact with the harsh world with¬
out. After the address, the prizes won by the successful
students are usually distributed, and the teaching staff dine to¬
gether, and the students go off to make a night of it, and show
their new companions a little life about town.
On this particular first of October with which the present
history is concerned, Harrowby Elsworth affiliated himself to
the old and honoured medical school attached to St. Bernard's
Hospital, London—an hospital of high reputation, with a great
and renowned school of medicine. He had distinguished him¬
self at Oxford, and had selected his profession with the deter¬
mination to do well in it, as he had done with all he had
hitherto put his hand to.
He was a tall, slim fellow, standing six feet one in his stock¬
ings, so dark in the complexion that he might have passed for
a native of Southern Europe. Although rather an Apollo
amongst men, his graceful bearing and manly carriage were
not the characteristics that gave him a passport at first hand
to every one he met. It was the full, deep, earnest, clear, and
honest eye, by which you could look into his soul. At a glance
you took this in; there was no mistaking that, in the hand¬
some young fellow who confronted you, there dwelt a spirit as
brave, strong, and well braced as the frame that held it.
He had long since lost his mother-—so long ago that he
could but just recall her image as that of a tall, fair, delicate,
blue-eyed woman, who had left her heart on his lips on the day
she died.
His father was a retired Indian officer, who had seen much
service, and had greatly distinguished himself in the Indian
Mutiny. He had been severely wounded, and returned to
England. Having recruited his health after several years' stay
4
St. Bernard's.
in Cheltenham, he went back to the scenes of his former
victories to occupy himself with investigations concerning the
ancient literature of the Hindoos. He soon became so com¬
pletely engrossed in this work, in which he hoped to cover
himself with no less glory than in his campaigns, that he de¬
termined not to trouble himself with his native country or its
affairs till he was able to announce to the learned societies of
Europe the full fruition of his labours. He was a good man,
and had been a kind and generous father, but became so en¬
wrapped in his musty literature as to be practically dead to
his duties to his only son, who, with all his kinsmen and friends
of his fatherland, had become of very much less importance to
him than the Sanskrit poem he had just discovered hidden in
an image of a cross-legged Buddha serenely contemplating his
epigastrium. So it having been finally settled that Harrowby
was to be made a doctor, Major Els worth arranged with his
agents in England to pay the necessary fees, and settled on his
son a siim of <£300 a year for life, so that he might be free to
pursue his own calling untroubled by the smaller anxieties of
life till his profession should afford him a more ample subsist¬
ence. All these matters having been finally concluded, at the
expense of much distraction from the Mahabharata research,
the old gentleman felt disburdened of a long-standing load
which had often impeded the even tenor of his work, and once
more settled down to the classic heroes of Indian song and the
legends of his mythic age. He felt that Harrowby was off his
hands, and gave him very plainly to understand that, pending
the completion of his great work on the Origin of the Mahab¬
harata Poems, he must have no disturbing communications
requiring any reply from him. Acting upon these hints, Har¬
rowby very rarely troubled his father with any letters, and still
more rarely had any replies to them. He made up his
mind that when he had done all the work at the hospital
he wanted to do, he would go out to his father, and spend
a year or two with him before finally settling down to
practice.
CHAPTER II.
the school of anatomy.
Foremost in the regal class
Nature has broadly severed from her mass
Of men . . .—Browning.
Elsworth entered the profession of medicine with a large stock
of a commodity just now rather out of fashion with our young
men. This limp and degenerate age seems unable to supply
our youth with backbone enough to make them enthusiasts
about anything beyond dress, the Opera Comique, and the
quality of their tobacco. They adopt a profession without at
all intending it shall absorb them; they consider it a sign of
weakness to show a consuming interest in great subjects, and
their energies are frittered away on the most trivial concerns.
How many men enter the Church, not as though Heaven-sent
messengers, but as affording them a pleasant way of getting on
in life ! As for a message to mankind or a call from God, it
would be too much in the way of the Methodists and Salvation
Army people to be consistent with their notions of propriety.
What they have to offer the world may be taken or left with¬
out interfering in the least with their peace of mind. Hence
so many empty churches, while our courts and alleys are full
of folk perishing for lack of knowledge which nobody is suffici¬
ently interested to impart, except in a perfunctory manner.
It may be all very well for good Mr. Spurgeon to be consumed
with desire to save souls; that sort of thing may be consistent
with life in the " region of the three D's " (Dirt, Dissent, and
6
St. Bernard ''s.
Dulness), over the water. But fancy anybody in Pall Mall or
the Row being " so dreadfully in earnest, don't you know !"
Such being too commonly the case with the Church, what
cau be expected of medicine 1 Inaugural addresses and the
classic poets notwithstanding, it is rather too mucb, they say,
to expect fellows in the nineteenth century to live up to an
ideal guild of St. Luke. Now, by a beautiful instance of the
law of compensation ever active in Nature, just as men are
voting enthusiasm bad form, women are taking up the work
men are too limp and too selfish to perform, and the spectacle
is presented to the eye of hundreds of noble, clever, earnest,
indefatigable women coming forward to fill the places which
men decline, and leaving work more congenial to their habits
and tastes, because men lack the energy and sympathy re
quired to effect the necessary reforms. The salt of the earth
is now fast becoming a feminine compound.
But the man of our story was a true man, not a nineteenth
century sham; he had his enthusiasms and was not ashamed
of them, was a sentimentalist if you will, and was proud of the
title. He had an idea that no good had ever been wrought in
this world except by enthusiasts and sentimentalists. He felt
that sentiment was thought sublimed, and enthusiasm the
holy fire that exalted it; his prayer was to be classed with the
band of workers who had helped their world; and when he
decided to enter the portals of a great hospital, it was not to
make his account with fame, to exploit the poor and suffering
for his own advancement, but just simply to have the satisfac¬
tion day by day of having, by even ever so little, diminished
the awful sum of human misery. It was a perfectly contempt¬
ible ideal, an absurdly insufficient goal to nineteen-twentieths
of the men who that day had enrolled their names in the books
of the hospitals of the kingdom; but it was just simply his
ideal and Ms goal, and he thought no other profession would
help him to attain these like medicine. "The parson," he
used to say, "sees men at their best, the lawyer at their
The School of Anatomy.
7
worst, but the doctor as they are. I will be a doctor." Now
of all things which Elsworth was not, least was he a prig; so
that he had no idea of the very unusual nature of the impetus
that was driving him on a medical career. He thought, in
his ingenuous way, that such impulses moved his fellow-aspir¬
ants. This sentiment was to be modified.
In what a world he found himself! He had several friends
on the staff, and some half-dozen of his fellow-students were
more or less known to him; but to what others was he
introduced ! In a couple of hundred young men one looks for
variety, one expects that some will be heedless, vain, indolent,
or vicious, while others are earnest, industrious, and true.
But who were these men he saw to-day, and how came they to
adopt the sacred ministry of healing, the work of the great
Physician Himself ?
Bough, rowdy, vulgar, and decidedly unintellectual as many
of them appeared, with all the characteristics of the fast man
about town, the profession they had chosen to follow seemed
likely to suffer at their hands, if these men were fair samples.
It has long been the habit of society to view with great
leniency the peculiarly Bohemian manners and customs of
medical students. The very term has become the symbol for
rollicking rowdyism that would be tolerated in no other class.
Their boisterous mirth, rude violence, and disregard of the
ordinary proprieties of civilized existence have become recog¬
nised as their appropriate conduct, partly no doubt because
their lugubrious occupation at the schools needs relaxation of
a pronounced kind, and especially perhaps that as they must
when in actual practice become the gravest and most "respect¬
able " of men, it must be permitted to them to compress into
their student life the follies, the riotousness, and the highly
flavoured pleasures that must suffice for the rest of their
mundane existence.
Be this as it may, it is certain that from the patient in the
hospital ward to the magistrate on the bench, conduct that
would be considered in other men as intolerable and worthy of
8
St. Bernards.
the severest punishment is in their case lightly passed over.
On the part of the public at large, and on behalf of the men
themselves, this is a great error, and has its foundation in a
wrong conception, both of the work the students have to do
and the sort of relaxation it requires. On behalf of the suffer¬
ing humanity soon to become dependant upon such men for
their help in sickness, a revolution in such a false system of
education is no less urgently demanded. Unpleasant as the
work of the dissecting, post-mortem rooms, and hospital wards,
may seem to the outside world, its daily recurrence makes it
so familiar to all engaged in it that it very soon ceases to be
any more unpleasant than many other occupations. The men
who take real interest in their work very speedily forget or do
not recognise any of its disagreeables, while those who do
not acquire this real interest in their occupation become mere
hangers-on at the schools, and grow rowdy for want of better
employment. The real students, with their hearts in business,
do not seek or take such methods of unbending the bow ; for
the rest it should not be permitted them to insult their noble
calling by behaviour that would disgrace savages in unex¬
plored tracts of equatorial Africa.
The sooner a more common-sense theory of medical student
life is adopted by the public, the better for the world and the
men themselves.
Young Elsworth, then, was not altogether pleased with what
he saw of his future companions, and it took him but a short
time after his entry at the schools to see that not more than
half of the men by whom he was surrounded would be for
him even tolerable class mates.
The opening festival was over, and early in the following
week he began the work of dissecting. He had previously be¬
spoke of the College beadle what is known as " a part," for be
it known to the outside world that a well conditioned corpse
having no friends to claim it after death in the hospital or
workhouse which saw its owner's last moments, is by the
The School of 'Anatomy.
9
Anatomy Act permitted, under certain legal restrictions, to be
used for dissection. To preserve it for the length of time it
will require for some six or eight men daily working at it to
unravel all its mysteries of muscle, nerve, artery, and vital
organs, its blood vessels are injected by an ingenious process
by the dissecting room porters with a preservative fluid which,
permeating every part of the body, keeps it fairly fresh and
arrests decay till the scalpel of the young anatomist has revealed
all it has to teach.
Let us enter into the dissecting room of St. Bernard's, and
see how our future doctors learn to deal with the ailments our
flesh is heir to. It is a spacious chamber, some fifty feet long
by thirty feet wide ; its floor is slate, cold, and non-absorbent;
its walls half-way up of the same impervious material; it has
no windows, but is lighted by a glass roof and many gas jets
for dark days. On either side are eight strong tables, on each
of which lies a corpse. Round each table are several heavy,
well-made stools ; they need be heavy. They are often subject
to rough usage at the hands of their occupants when not en¬
gaged in more scientific work.
On this first of October, all the " subjects," as they are
technically called, are untouched by the knife; in a few days
they will scarcely be recognisable as having ever been our
brothers and sisters of the mortal life. The busy scalpel of
the anatomy student will be engaged on every limb and
feature in " getting out," as it is termed, his " part." Then
the observant eye of a man of science would see how fearfully
and wonderfully we are made. The Psalmist could have had
but a faint idea how much his beautiful phrase conveyed.
Here are displayed for us the exquisite sets of muscles and tendons
that enable us to move our hands and arms. This part shows
the nerve and blood supply of the leg, and that one the
machinery by which we smile, laugh, or express our wonder and
surprise. Here is a man at work seeking to unfold the marvel¬
lous convolutions of the brain, while at another table one has
10
St. Bernard's.
got down to the articulations of the foot, and is showing the
pulleys and joints that enable us to walk. The art of anatomi¬
cal dissection consists in freeing the muscles, tendons, arteries,
veins, and nerves from th§ surrounding fat and connective
tissue which in the living body preserves and covers them.
It is absolutely necessary that the student should not only
know from books, but actually see with his own eyes, and for a
long period attentively observe the origin and course of every
nerve, artery, and vein which in the whole body is capable of
being dissected out. He must know the exact position of all
the muscles, how they move the bones, how they extend or flex
the limbs, what nerves supply them with motive power, and
how that nerve takes its course from the brain or spinal cord.
The number of complications is so great that nothing but
patient tracing out with forceps and scalpel for himself will
ever teach a man anatomy.
As an accurate knowledge of this science is the foundation oi
all medical learning, it is not to be wondered at that the
medical schools and examining bodies insist on a very long and
careful training in the practical part of this study. So indis¬
pensable is it that the schools have never scrupled to obtain
subjects for dissection when popular prejudice stinted the
supply, by foul means when fair did not avail. No questions
were asked in the old days, before the passing of the Anatomy
Act, how the " subject " was procured ; enough that it "was on
the table for the uses of science. Whether murder had brought
it there, or the visitation of the graveyard by the body-snatcher,
nobody concerned in teaching or learning anatomy cared a
jot.
In one famous school there was a private trap through which
the corpse was pushed into the porter's room, he passing the
money out to the persons who delivered the body, and holding
no communication with the body-snatcher, or even seeing his
face. Things, however, are different now, and the workhouses
are permitted to send the bodies of friendless and unclaimed
The School of Anatomy.
II
paupers, whom nobody owns or cares to bury, for the purposes
of dissection.
Dissection and the making of 'a post-mortem examination,
though often confounded in the public mind, differ materially.
Dissection consists in minutely tracing out all the important
structures of the limbs, body, and vital organs, and thus it
takes several weeks' hard work to get through a whole subject;
while a post-mortem examination is the labour of an hour or
two, and consists in examining and noting the pathological
conditions of the internal organs, with a view merely to dis¬
covering the cause of death. An adult subject is worth about
£5 when properly prepared for research. Each arm and leg,
the half of the head, the chest, and the rest of the trunk, was
charged to the student requiring it at St. Bernard's, 12s. 6d.,
and he was expected to make good use of his opportunity.
Every portion removed by his scalpel was carefully gathered up
by a porter, and every night and morning placed in a coffin in
the vaults below. When a coffin is filled with this minutely
divided humanity, it is sent to a cemetery and buried as " our
brethren and sisters departed." The provisions of the Anatomy
Act forbid the taking of any portion of the subjects out of the
schools ; nevertheless more than one ardent student whom we
see in the room will finish his work on the hand or the foot at
his own lodgings, to the horror and disgust of his landlady if
she catches him at it.
Some men never make good dissectors; they can cram up(
what they want for their examinations without the infinite pains
required for a beautiful " preparation " such as is being made
at this table on our right for the college museum. It is an
arm, and every muscle stands out clean and clear, every artery
is seen with its vermilion wax injection running its sharply de¬
fined course, and anastomosing with its neighbouring vessels.
Here are the nerves like silver threads, becoming, like the
blood supply, smaller as they reach the fingers, till they are
lost in their terminations at the tips. It requires a man with
12
St. Bernard's.
a special genius, and the gift of an infinite capacity for taking
pains, to do work like this, and many take a pride in doing it.
Bound this table on the left is a group of junior students,
listening to the demonstrator, who is lecturing on the muscles
of the chest, or thorax as it is called, and asking each of his
auditors in turn some question to test his knowledge, and ex¬
plain his difficulties if he have any.
The coloured diagrams round the walls, and the illustrations
in the text-books used, serve to complete our acquaintance with
the matter in hand, and its daily repetition fixes it in the
memory. The men do their work in great linen blouses or
aprons with sleeves. Most of them smoke, and the dissecting-
room certainly is one place from which the most violent anti-
tobacco agitator would hardly wish to banish it, if he knew how
it mitigates its awful odours. When the morning is over, and
the men have taken their lunch (they eat sandwiches at their
work without the least fastidiousness), few of them return for
any more work in that place unless they chance to be very in¬
dustrious. There are some few men who, in their first and
second year, dissect on every available opportunity; for
anatomy cannot be crammed, and can only be mastered by this
persistent business of the scalpel. Occasionally a visitor will
drop in to look round at the work going on; some general
practitioner who has been at the school in his early days, to
refresh his memory on some point, or to rekindle for a few
moments the lost enthusiasm in such studies. Often they tell
good stories of the difficulties they had in the olden time of
procuring bodies. One old fellow who had been a demonstrator
in that room, told one day how, on one occasion some fifty years
before, he had been urging the beadle to provide more subjects.
" Can't get you a fresh 'un before this day week, sir," replied
the man. " You see, sir, it is my mother-in-law. She only
died last night. She will be buried on Thursday. We'll have
her up the same night, and she'll be ready next morning for
you."
The School of Anatomy.
13
And then he related how the body-snatchers went to Bow
Cemetery, then almost out in the country, and " resurrected "
the poor woman, stripped her of her shroud (to take which was
felony), put her in a light cart, and drove off with her. On
either side of the Bow road at that time were fields ; it was
very dark and lonely. When half-way towards their destina¬
tion they feared they were closely pursued, and to avoid a
capture they cast the body out into the ditch, and made off
with all haste. Next morning there was a report of a horrible
murder. An inquest followed, and an open verdict was returned,
name and cause of death unknown.
Close by the hospital there dwelt an aged man with his
daughter in genteel poverty, a learned and serious person, who
seemed to have known better days. His conversation was
charming, and his society was much sought after, but seldom
accorded. He kept himself apart from his neighbours, and
held no more intercourse with them than was necessary for the
amenities of life. But he was on good terms with the St.
Bernard's staff, often strolled through the dissecting-room and
the museum, and was generally present in the operating theatre
when anything of special interest was " on the table."
There was considerable mystery about this man, Dr. Bobert
Day by name ; but the hospital people knew his antecedents,
and thought much the more of him on account of them. In¬
deed, most medical folk considered him a hero and a martyr of
science, though nobody took the least trouble to help him in any
more substantial way. Many years ago Dr. Robert Day had
been professor of anatomy at a great school of medicine. He
was an author of celebrity, and his works were text books in
the hands of all the students. He had been implicated in the
Burke and Hare scandal, had been proved to have availed him¬
self of the services of these murderers to procure him subjects
for dissection at his school of anatomy. The murderers having
been detected in their horrible business, and having met their
fate, the attention of the populace was forcibly directed to Dr.
14
St. Bernard's.
Robert Day and his dealings with the criminals. Had he been
caught when the attack was made on his residence, he would
have speedily been lynched. As it was, his house was wrecked,
his furniture destroyed, his costly library set on fire, and he
had to fly the town to escape personal violence. He was long
in hiding, a ruined man, subsisting as a medical coach under
an assumed name, till after some years, when the storm had
passed over, and the new Anatomy Act had set the popular
mind at rest, he was able to declare himself amongst his pro¬
fessional brethren, but they were always shy of him, and,
though in private they let him see they thought none the
worse of him for his complicity in " subject" getting, it was
impossible to put him forward, or do him any very material
service. They could not be hard on him. They had all pro¬
fited by his research; all had learned their anatomy more or
less from his books. It was little to them how he came by his
knowledge. His more fortunate brethren in the kiudred
sciences now do not scruple to use methods to obtain their
objects which, if fully laid bare to the inspection of the lay and
ignorant public, would perhaps be considered only slightly less
objectionable. But then the lay public is so unreasonable.
They demand to be cured instantly of all the ailments that
afflict them, and object to give up their mothers, their children,
or their friends, and indeed even their cats and dogs, on whose
living bodies the necessary experiments can be duly tried.
This is naturally irritating to the scientific mind ; it feels it is
expected to make bricks without straw ; and the straw, in the
shape of clinical and physiological material, must be had some¬
how, so they protest.
CHAPTER III.
in students' lodgings.
Heroes mischievously gay,
Lords of the street, and terrors of the way,
Flush'd as they are with folly, youth, and wine.
—Johnson.
Throw physic to the dogs ! A pipe—cheroot—
Pilot—and life-preserver—voila tout!
A little lecture now and then to boot,
A school or hospital to bustle thro',
A few hard terms— on easy terms—to keep,
Then brown stout, billiards, half-slew d and sleep !
—Cmikshank's Almanack.
Lindsay Street, where Elsworth took lodgings, was an old
thoroughfare at the back of the hospital grounds, and was
largely occupied by lodging-houses, in which those students
boarded who desired to be handy for their work, and have
their fellow-students near neighbours. It was a dull and a
grimy old place, but it had many conveniences, and was quite
historic as a residence for young medicos,—indeed, it was
always held to be a kind of precinct of the hospital. The
landladies were for the most part elderly widows with no
encumbrances; those who had husbands kept them out of the
way, and the students, if they paid up promptly, did pretty
much as they liked in their diggings. It has often been a
subject of wonder what becomes of the husbands of lodging-
house-keeping ladies in the daytime, so seldom do they show
their faces to the lodgers. Perhaps the most plausible
suggestion is that they spend their time hearing the trials in
i6
St. Bernard's
the law courts, or the police cases. It must be some such
persons who are able to devote so much leisure to these matters.
Mrs. Harper occupied Number 15 in this street of students'
lodgings, and was one of the oldest and best-known inhabitants.
She was a widow, her late husband having been for twenty
years night porter at St. Bernard's) and she was sister to the
famous Podger. A sharp woman of business, with a keen eye
to the pence, she did well at her business, and made an excellent
income out of the rooms. Her life had been spent amongst
medical men, and not even Podger herself was happier at her
work than Mrs. Harper " doing for her gents," as she always
called it. Her rooms were decidedly frowzy, and her furniture,
which had been picked up at auctions, and was very mixed,
was rather dilapidated. What wondei-, considering the treat¬
ment it received from those who used it! The front parlour,
with bedroom at the back, was just now occupied by Jack
Mahoney, a merry little fellow, full of good nature, witty,
smart at learning, and mad for sprees. " He was always up to
his tricks," his landlady said, but she didn't mind 'em, not she,
not even when he brought home that steak for his tea, and
bade her cook it, and then laughed till his sides must have
split, as he told her what it was, and where it came from.
"And my new frying-pan spoiled as cost me two-and-ninepence
in the Row last week; and as for the plates, and the knives
and forks, I sha'n't use 'em agen, you may keep 'em, and I
shall put 'em all down in the bill. I wonder when you'll ever
leave off your tricks ; a nice sort of doctor you'll make ! I call
it sickening—I do." But Harper, like her sister Podger at the
hospital, could be settled. " Hang it all! " cried Mahoney, as
he put his feet on the mantel-board, and roared again, "it's
worth a whole shopful of crockery to have sold Harper like
that. 0 Jane, sister of the immortal Podger, and you to be
bad by a latissimus dor si; you, who declared you knew your
anatomy as well as we did. 0 Jane ! 0 Jane ! you'll never
pass your * final,' not even in your winding sheet! "
In Students' Lodgings.
17
" Go on with your impidence, Mr. Mahoney ; it was the new
girl as was had, not me; I am too old a bird to be caught a
second time. Mr. Redway served me that trick once, and I
never forgave him—well, at least, not for some time after."
All this was great fun for Mahoney and his pal Murphy on
the other side of the fireplace, and they laughed consumedly,
for they knew the worthy dame had been sold that time. But
a glass of whisky, which she would not drink before them, but
declared she would take the last thing at night, as a precaution
against spasms, soothed her down, and a promise of a brace of
pheasants out of the next hamper of game from home, sent
her to the kitchen in a good humour. She could not be angry
with the boy long together. He paid well, and her sister
Podger loved him as her own son. Her first floor was occupied
by two students, Rice and Higgins. They were both of
Mahoney's set, lively boys all. Sons of wealthy parents, they
had usually money enough to squander; but there were times
when funds sank low, and they were reduced to amazing shifts
to extract the needful amusement which every succeeding night
demanded. The ups and downs of the life they led might
serve to prepare them for the vicissitudes of the future, and to
accustom them to the readiness of resource which is so
characteristic of all medical men. To-night they would be
feasting at a West-end restaurant, and drinking costly brands
of champagne; to-morrow, as likely as not, would find them
supping on a few pennyworth of fried fish, and drinking porter
out of a pewter pot. It was all the same to them, even if it
were not more congenial to be associated with rowdies in a
Whitechapel bar-room, than to be dining with their equals in
civilised society.
Mrs. Harper, as we said, was not at all particular in the
matter of larks, though she was rather annoyed when she went
into Mr. Murphy's sitting-room one morning to lay the break¬
fast, and saw, over the fireplace in front of her new looking-glass,
a great black board, painted in large white letters, "To be Let
B
i8
Si. Bernard's.
or Sold, this desirable semi-detached Villa Residence. For
cards to view, apply Buggins & Son, 113 Great Mowbray
Street, E.C."
She knew at once this was one of the trophies of last night's
spree. Knockers and bell-handles, brass plates of moderate
size, stolen from milliners' and dressmakers' doors—to these
there could be no objection ; but sign-boards, barbers' poles,
doctors' lamps (for even the profession was not sacred from the
attacks of " the boys "), were " dead agen her rules," as she
was always insisting, because, being so big, they could hardly
be got into the house without exciting observation, and perhaps
might bring discredit on the hospital.
"Look here, Mr. Murphy, I have told you over and over
again, I can't have them things in my house. You will be
caught like Mr. Hodder was when he stole the big gold coffee
pot from over the grocer's door, and a bobby as didn't know
him, and wouldn't take no bribe, run him into Bow Street,
and if he hadn't been the son of a i lember of Parliament, and
known to the beak, he'd 'a had to 'a gone to jail, he would;
for the grocer was mortal angry, as he had had twTo coffee pots
and a bell handle stole the winter before, and he always
suspected the students. No! I draws the line at things like
this. I have too much respect for you, and the character of
my house, to harbour the likes of 'em, so don't do it." Not
even " a toothful of summat short," as Murphy phi'ased it,
could appease the good woman. " No, bell-handles and sich is
good enough sport," she persisted, "for anybody. I have
nothing to say agen them; you gents must have your larks,
and bell-handles and knockers goes in your pockets, but I
draws the line at these here ; take it away. Stay, I'll put it in
the cellar. Why, the taxes, or the gas, or the water rate
might see it, and give information. They're none of 'em any
too fond of you boys, and they are quite equal to it." And so
with much regret, Murphy gave up his "Desirable Villa
Residence," merely extorting a promise that it might appear
In Students Lodgings.
19
on the mantel for one night only—the " trophy supper" he
was to give at the end of the winter session, when he was to
exhibit his museum of stolen curiosities to his companions in
the midnight revels.
Murphy was very proud of his museum. He had twenty-
nine brass and iron knockers, fifty-seven bell-handles, fourteen
brass door-plates, three small and very neat Royal Arms, gilt
and coloured, one pretty figure of a Scotchman in Highland
costume taking a pinch of snuff, several gilt carved wood letters,
which once formed parts of names over shop doors, and this
latest acquisition, the " Villa Residence " board. Everything
was neatly labelled and numbered, and a register kept, record¬
ing in the most methodical manner the story of its capture.
Many hair-breadth escapes were recalled by a glance at some of
these treasures ; and to hear little Jack Murphy tell some of
the stories connected with them was a treat that many a
freshman yearned for with all his heart. Most of the men
would rather have had the honour of which this stolen hard¬
ware was the symbol than all the medals and certificates of
honour the hospital could bestow. Their friends sent them to
earn these latter—that was task-work ; their own. inclination
and Bohemian instincts urged the acquisition of bell-handles
and door-knockers—in this was danger, and their love of
surmounting it was gratified. They'had yet to learn the nobler
outlets for sentiments that have made the name of Englishman
a proud distinction, especially in the practice of a profession 011
which they have shed so much glory.
CHAPTER IV.
his 'prentice hand.
Knowledge after all, is not the greatest thing in life ; it is not the " be-
all and the end-all" here. Life is not science. The moral nature of
man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. Goodness,
lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice are worth all the talents in the
world.—O. H. Lewes.
The comfort or the misery of many families may probably hang upon
the notions that each of you will carry from this place.—Sir Thomas
Watson.
But Lindsay Street was not wholly inhabited by the idlers.
There were many men who led solitary lives at their lodgings,
and worked night and day at books or bed side. Some took
portions of their subjects home to dissect, and the back gardens
at their lodgings were often used as places of sepulture for
brains, hands, or as Tom Hood sings,—
" Those little feet that used to look so pretty.
There's one I know in Bunhill Row, the other's in the City."
Maternity cases were attended by the junior students at the
homes of the patients within a radius of two miles of the
hospital. This served to bring them into direct contact with
the poor, and familiai'ized them with scenes of the most horrible
destitution in the filthiest and lowest slums of the metropolis.
The young men were usually favourites with the people, who
are always taken with the free and easy, the good-humoured
and generous behaviour of medical students, anxious to improve
their own knowledge of work which will be of the greatest
His 'Prentice Hand.
21
importance to them in their future career, and glad to render
their—sometimes very far from skilled—services to uncom¬
plaining poverty, with a view to getting their papers signed for
the colleges, which demand a definite amount of this work to
be performed while in connection with their medical school.
It was hourly enforced upon them that such was their only
chance of the free and unrestricted use of human " material"
for acquiring this sort of information. Their blunders, their
negligences, would not count against them whilst in a state of
pupilage. A great city, a poverty-stricken population, a
benevolent public, and the custom of their profession, had
placed at their disposal an immense amount of raw material,
unbounded facilities for picking up knowledge, and the deft
use of mysterious and complicated instruments. This skill,
this dexterous use of the tools of their art, would shortly
enable them to earn a handsome living. Let, then, every
moment be devoted to obtaining that knowledge at the cost of
ignorant and uncomplaining patients who would only see in
their attentions the desire of a charitable young gentleman to
help them, just as the visiting lady and the clergyman helped
them efficiently. Let, then, every day and every case enable
them to use more skilfully, under such clinical conditions, those
tools the awkward use of which would inevitably be detected
in the higher walks of their art to which they are progressing.
Such is the admirable way in which the highest skill and
wisdom of medicine is combined with the attempts of the
novices to attain it in the practice of the hospitals, that the
shortcomings and feeble efforts of the learners are glorified and
ennobled by the brilliant successes of the teachers, till the
mistakes are lost sight of in the dazzling triumphs of their
achievements. It is like the Catholic doctrine of works of
supererogation. St. Francis Xavier was so much better than
he had any occasion to be, that he had a fund of merit at his
disposal for helping the deficiencies of those who fell short in
their good works.
22
St. Bernard's.
A great surgeon achieves a brilliant success in an operation
which sends a man away from the wards to his own home
restored in health and limbs to his family and his work. It is
the hospital which gets the credit, and the credit is sufficient
to atone for many of the maimings and other unfortunate
terminations of a score of cases, which are looked upon as
failures, not of much greater consequence than Beau Brummel's
cravats cast aside on his dressing-table. It will not do to be
too hard on the failures. Even Professor Holloway did not
publish them. The advertisements of quack and royal surgeon
are alike in this respect at least, that they do not go into any
such unnecessary details !
But oh, the spoiled cravats! condemned to drag out a
wretched existence because they had the misfortune to be not
only ignorant, and poor, and powerless, but waste material used
by St. Bernard's in the attempt to make of any person able to
pay its fees a competent healer of diseases. Not enough was
it that they were born into a hard and cruel world, heavily
handicapped by feeble frames and badly developed brains,
without education or any of the means of lifting themselves
from the slough of their environments, but it was also required
of them by our advanced civilization that they should yield up
their poor bodies, which were enough like better people's frames
for the purpose, to become "teaching stuff" for classes at a
medical school.
It was in Lindsay Street, and with Mrs. Jemima White, that
Elsworth went to lodge. He had abundant strength of mind,
and it was little to him that his fellow-boarders were a rather
noisy set. He had full control of himself, and did not permit
them to influence him unduly in the matter of sprees. He
settled down steadily to his work, and did not find his friends
interfere with him much when they saw his tastes were not
quite their own; on the contrary, they rather respected him
for his diligence, in which there was not the least element of
the prig. As for his religion,—for Elsworth came to St.
His 'Prentice Hand.
23
Bernard's deeply imbued with the religious spirit,—they smiled
at him when he talked of it, which was but seldom, as who
should say, " Poor innocent! you will outgrow all that quickly
here, and find faith and the scalpel, dogma and the microscope,
go ill together! "
Yet they knew very well that several of their best men were
earnest, faithful Christian soflls, who found high scholarship and
the deepest devotion to their profession accord extremely well
with the doctrines they professed. Still, the prevailing tone of
the place, of students and of teachers alike, was not in accord
with religious feeling. The school atmosphere was prejudicial
to the cultivation of the Christian sentiment; and whatever
godliness was taken in by the first-year's man had usually lefc
him long before he left St. Bernard's ; for there was a new
goddess, whose culture was daily in the ascendant, and St.
Bernard's was one of her sacred places. Here she was wont to
be honoured, and the supreme Cod in the newer worship was
forgotten. Her glory so far outshone His that the men never
named Him, except in their expletives, nor was He in any of
their thoughts. It was not held so much an error to believe in
the God of the Bible and the Creator and Sustainer of the
world, as an amiable weekness, a mark of defective education,
a lay feebleness of mind, excellent in subscribers to and
governors of hospitals, good also for patients as helping to
teach them submission, not bad at all for sisters and nurses for
a similar reason ; but for medical men, the true high priests of
science, utterly inconsistent with their training and their
mental attitude, which was the demand for—facts ! ever facts !
and still more facts ! Christianity in a medical man meant an
imperfect medical man; one who had been arrested in his
development,—a sort of spina bifida case, or a microcephalic
idiot; want of lime in the bones, defective iron and phos¬
phorus ; excellent condition for a subscriber, wofully defective
in a user. For it was discovered that the completely developed,
the men full of lime, iron, and phosphorus, the men of robust
24
St. Bernard's.
intellect and of the full standard, did not, as a rule, subscribe
anything to anything, least of all to hospitals. Hospital con¬
tributors all went to church, and read their Bibles, and then
wrote cheques Q.E.D. ; whereas they, the persons for whose
benefit chiefly all these cheques were signed, did neither,
because they were above such weaknesses, as became Fellows of
Royal Colleges and Bachelors of Science.
It required, therefore, no small amount of courage for a
St. Bernard's man to profess Christianity there. He might don
a philosophical religion of Humanity, profess an eclectic faith
compounded of Buddhism and George Eliot, with a dash at
Renan, because downright Bradlaugh and Besantism was vulgar
and slightly fusty; but he must denounce priestcraft and
other worldism, as became all true followers of medicine, and.
emancipated souls baptized into the spirit of the age.
Elsworth took lodgings in Lindsay Street, just opposite Mrs.
Harper's house. He soon became attached to little Murphy for
his genial disposition and cheerful heart, and it was not long
before he found some attraction in the lively company surround¬
ing him. His own landlady was serious and prim, and rigor¬
ously excluded the fast set of men at the hospital. " What
suited Mrs. Harper wouldn't suit her," she used to say ; " and
if medical students couldn't behave themselves like other folk,
she wouldn't have anything to do with 'em." So it was only
quiet men who went to live at Mrs. White's—men who kept
good hours, and didn't kick up rows in their rooms; " she
wouldn't have it at no price." She went to the little Baptist
chapel in Bethesda Court, hard by, and was a good, worthy
woman, who made all about her the better for the faith she
professed; and though her grammar was defective, and her
notions erode, her religion made, as Rowland Hill remarked,
" even her cat the better for it," for her feline companion never
drank her lodgers' brandy, nor smoked their cigars, " nor took
aoght that wasn't his'n." She kept her rooms, as became a
good Baptist, beautifully clean; and a man who wanted to read
His 'Prentice Hand.
25
hard, and be quiet at his work, found it a privilege to be cared
for by Mrs. White. Here, when not at the schools, Elsworth
was almost always to be found; and human bones were scattered
grimly about the room. A valuable microscope, with a large
cabinet of preparations and sections, and a well-stocked bookcase
of works of anatomy and physiology, gave the sitting-room a
learned aspect, which of itself seemed to repress the rising de¬
sire of any young visitor to invite the occupant to " a shindy."
CHAPTER Y.
the beadle and the theatre.
'Tis part of my proud fate
To lecture to as many thick-skulled youths
As please, each day, to throng the theatre.
—Browning ('' Paracelsus ").
0 Youth and Joy, your airy tread
Too lightly springs by Sorrow's bed ;
Your keen eye-glances are too bright,
Too restless for a sick man's sight.
— Keble.
Old Jeremiah Home was the beadle of the medical school at
St. Bernard's. He had held the post now for nearly thirty
years, and his father held it before him. He and his family
lived on the premises, and the post was generally understood to
be a lucrative one. His motto was, " Nothing for nothing, and
very little for a halfpenny." He was a portly man, very digni¬
fied in his manner towards the younger students, who were
kept at arm's-length by him for purposes they well understood.
He was not hard on them for their mischief, their breach of
rules, their neglect of work, or any of their shortcomings, only
they had to understand, if they wanted his aid, they must tip him
well and tip him often. And this they did, and so Jerry Home
" waxed fat and kicked ; " and even the professors themselves
somehow came to recognise that the beadle was a not less im¬
portant factor in the school than one of themselves. He could
restore order when they individually or collectively repeatedly
The Beadle and the Theatre.
27
failed. A word from him would reduce the most refractory to
his senses, when the threats and the preaching of the teachers
fell on deaf ears. His business was to see that the theatres and
class-rooms were duly arranged for lectures. He had to provide
a proper supply of subjects for dissection, to prepare them and
allot them in due order. But his most important duty, and
the one which gave him the whip hand over all the men, was to
register their attendance at lectures, and so make or mar their
prospects of being duly " signed up " at the end of the session.
By the rules of the examining bodies at "the Hall" or the
Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, a student must attend a
certain proportion of all the lectures delivered in his school
before his papers can be received and himself duly entered as a
candidate for the necessary legal examinations which he must
pass before he can get his diploma or certificate to practice
Mr. Home's conscience was elastic; and if a sufficient numbef
of half-crowns and shillings were flying about, he could always
see and register the presence of a man in the theatre at lecture
who was probably at home in bed half a mile away. As every¬
body voted lectures a great bore, especially those which began
at 8 or 9 o'clock on a winter's morning, this was a great com
venience. The lecturers poured forth their wisdom to a scant
attendance at such times, and Mr. Home's half-crowns grew
and multiplied.
At all the lectures it was the duty of the beadle and his
assistant to occupy a convenient post, in view of the whole
auditory, so that he could mark the individual attendance and
detect those engaged in larking during the progress of the
lecture. Under such circumstances it was a task to the ingen¬
uity of the boys to let off" crackers without detection, or shy
potatoes and cabbages at the botany lecturer for purposes of
classification. The pundits themselves usually took the inter¬
ruptions in a good-humoured way, doubtless reflecting that
medical science has, from immemorial time, been imparted—in
the British Isles, at least—under similar difficult conditions j
28
St. Bernard's.
so these being recognised as conditions, they had to yield to the
inevitable with the best grace they might. But as they looked
to the beadle to keep order by means they knew him to possess,
it was incumbent on Mr. Home, now and then, to "espy"
somebody, usually one out of favour with him temporarily,
either from being deep in his debt or from having wounded his
dignity. When a scape-goat or two had been thus caught, they
had to pass an unpleasant quarter of an hour in the private
room of the warden, and give assurances of better behaviour
under threats of expulsion or suspension of schedules. The
patience of the lecturers was admirable; they bore most in¬
terruptions with exemplary meekness, but they always resented
pea-shooting as disturbing to the exact thinking and speaking
necessary in treating scientific subjects. The botany lecturer,
indeed, was a pattern of amiability. Not even a potato plump
against his snowy shirt front, or a cabbage flop on his manu¬
script, disturbed him much or drove him into strong language.
" Ah, thanks ! yes, my young friend, that tuber is the Solarium
tuberosum,; it is a good specimen, but a little out of order.
We have not yet reached the Solanacece. Will the young
gentleman who has thus rather roughly drawn my attention to
his specimen kindly tell me the characteristics of that order,
and name the principal medicinal plants belonging to it? You,
sir, I think it was, who forwarded me the example; Mr. ,
Mr. , your name escapes me for the moment. I mean the
gentleman with an ecchymosis under his left eye." The gentle¬
man with the ecchymosis knew as much about the order in
question as his bull terrier knew of astronomy; and amid the
uproarious laughter of his class-mates, ever ready for a diversion
of interest, on being pressed by the lecturer to exhibit his
knowledge of the potato tribe, was fain to confess that he knew
little more about the species than he saw of them on the dinner-
table. He began to wish he had not thrown that tuber, and
the laugh was well turned against him as the lecturer scored
several neat points in dealing with him. This was one of the
The Beadle and the Theatre.
29
recognised and old-established methods of defence adopted by
the persecuted teachers, and a good example of the survival of
the fittest theory. The chair could really only be held by de¬
velopment of such defence, and the ingenuity of the students
in organizing new systems of attack had to be met by improve¬
ment in their repulse. It was armour-plating versus guns, and
the armour-plating generally saved the ship. Professor Letts
would have been a lost man one morning at the chemistry
lecture had he not caught the man who threw the lighted squib
on the lecture table, where it fizzed and bobbed amongst his
neatly fixed-up apparatus for an hour with the gases. " You,
sir !" he cried, in his determined, assertive manner that always
commanded and secured respect; " you, sir, you squib-thrower,
come forward to the black-board ! You are going up for your
preliminary science; give me the chemical formula for that ex¬
plosive. We are considering nitrogen this morning; you shall
give the audience the benefit of your, doubtless, complete
knowledge of your favourite gas. Nitrogen is your favourite
gas, is it not, Mr. Albery 1" Now poor Albery had to maintain
a reputation for chemistry on a very slender basis, and withal
was a nervous man ; and being all the while unmercifully
twitted by Mr. Letts, his symbols got mixed, and he returned
to his seat feeling that the squib itself was not more completely
" bust up " than he. One of the best retorts was made by the
professor of anatomy, who, entering the theatre for lecture one
afternoon, found that the skeleton, which always hung on a
stand near the lecturer's table, had been removed from its
frame and placed on one of the benches in the auditorium, and
was seated in a free and easy manner, with a long clay pipe
in its ghastly jaws, and a pewter pot in its left hand. Dr.
Hawkes took in the situation at a glance, and said, " Gentle¬
men, I miss our old friend the skeleton from its accus¬
tomed place, and perceive it in a new character seated
amongst you. We shall, this afternoon, go on with oui
remarks on the vertebral column, and I have no doubt mj
30
St. Bernard d.
address will be as useful to its empty cranium as it will be to
those by which it is surrounded."
It was many a long day before that trick was played again.
The worst attacks were always made on poor young Dr.
Harburne, who held the chair of Materia Medica. He was not
equal to dealing with them, and took the matter to heart so
much that he soon retired. He was a most able physician,
and the more studious of the men did their utmost to repress
the disturbances, which were so frequent as to make it imposs¬
ible for anybody to learn anything or to gain the least benefit
from the very valuable course of lectures on this important
subject. He often left the theatre, finding it impossible with
his meek and gentle manner, and his lack of any power of
retort or ability to make reprisals, to continue his address.
" Come back, papa," they would cry; " we are good now ! "
He knew the ringleaders, but he was too amiable and patient
to expose them. " Ah, gentlemen," he said one day in the lull
of a storm of interruption, " the day will come when you will
be standing helpless by the bedside of some loved one whom you
would give your own lives perhaps to save, and will be power¬
less by reason of opportunities you are wasting now ! I do not
envy your reflections then. I pardon you now ; your punish¬
ment will come later !" Poor fellow ! he died in harness, a
victim to his long years of hard work in toxicology. In a fit
of depression he swallowed prussic acid, just after leaving the
profession an exhaustive treatise on its uses !
Such were the lectures at St. Bernard's, and so passed the
time which should have been spent in acquiring information
for which the prescribed four years' course was all too short to
gather. No wonder that so many men hold hospital lectures
to be almost useless, and attend them no more frequently than
they are obliged, when they are generally only occasions of
childish amusement. It was not the idle and dissipated who
neglected these opportunities—too often these mustered in
force for the sake of the fun. It was the best men, who felt
The Beadle and the Theatre. 31
that their own rooms and their books could better assist their
progress.
Jerry Horne was an accomplished photographer, and used to
do many strange and interesting things with his camera. He
would get a collection of skeletons from the museum, and
arrange them in novel aud curious attitudes. One scene was
a ball-room, all the dancers being skeletons ; another was an
inquest, with coroner, witnesses, and jurymen, all skeletons;
another an operating theatre, with a skeleton surgeon and
assistants, a skeleton patient and spectators. But the favourite
subject with the students was the skeleton lecturer, with
a skeleton audience larking and otherwise neglecting the
business for which they had assembled. The boys bought all
these drolleries, and horrified and even appalled their mammas
and sisters when they went home, by exhibiting them in a gay
and easy manner, thus manifesting their indifference to and
contempt of death and the ultimate destiny of man.
Elsworth often thought of the lines Louis XIV. was fond of
quoting from Racine :—
" Mon Dieu, quelle guerre cruelle !
Je trouve deux homines en moi."
One of these two men within him was doomed to perish,
which should it be 1 The wild follies of his companions had a
strange fascination for him, and daily he seemed getting spirit¬
ually harder and more engrossed with unworthy pursuits. He
was full of fun, and there seemed such drollery to be got out
of upsetting policemen, leaping closed toll-gates without paying,
and such-like pranks, that the lofty purposes with which he
entered seemed like the blossoms in spring, which yield to the
first frosty night after their appearance. Of course he could
have held on his way had he been firmer, but the majority of
the better-hearted men were so given to these sprees that he
seemed to be merely finding his natural level in joining with
them.
32
Si. Bernard's.
Dr. Day often invited Elsworth to spend an evening with
him at his lodgings. The great anatomist was not a man of
one book, but of world-wide reading and information. Nothing
wras too small for him to notice, no subject too deep for him to
study : he lived to know. There was a charm about the old
man, and the calm philosophic way he bore his reverses com¬
manded the respect of all who knew his story. There was one
subject on which he was impervious to argument: he would
never admit that it concerned him in the least how the sub¬
jects for dissection had come into his hands. " If people like
to use dynamite and the knife to advance their political pro¬
jects, what has that to do with the leaders of the party who
profit by their actions 1 Is it not an infamous calumny to
accuse them of being the associates of murderers ? My work
was to teach anatomy. I did not kill people, I did not employ
those who did. If the greed of money prompted men to do
improper things, how could I be held responsible for them
simply because I paid liberally and asked no questions 1"
He cared nothing for the healing art; his speciality was the
dead subject. The only true use in living, he seemed to think,
was to provide the anatomist with good subjects for his table.
The man had not lived in vain who had served Eobert Day
with his frame. He was an atheist, a dogmatic atheist, in¬
terested not merely in denying the God of the Bible, but in
proving the impossibility of the existence of any Supreme
Being at all. Hence the melancholy of the man. His daughter
shared his views, for she worshipped her father, and he had
taken care she should learn nothing of religion from her in¬
fancy. They took pains to imbue Elsworth with their opinions ;
not that they vulgarly scoffed at his faith, but as propagandists
of " the religion of Man " they declared it their duty to wage
war against that of God. The learning of the old man and his
daughter tempted our student to many a discussion with
them; he thought if his faith would not stand a little argu-
The Beadle and the Theatre. 33
racnt it was not worth much. An orange tree grows and
bears fruit in the open air in the South, but soon sickens and
dies in an English garden. It was rash of Els worth to subject
his faith to such a test. He was doing what has proved fatal
to many a youthful mind.
0
CHAPTER VI.
jack murphy's party.
Wine and youth are fire upon fire,—Fielding.
Idleness, the cushion upon which the devil chiefly reposes.—Burton.
Firmly screwed upon the door
Doth the lion-knocker frown.
To-night its reign of noise is o'er ;
Courage, boys, we'll have it down 1
Long its strength defied
Every dodge we tried ;
But its nuts no more shall bear it,
From the hinge to-night we'll tear it.
—CruikshanFs Almanack.
Jack Murphy gave his party. The winter session was nearly
over, and in a few days the students would be all dispersed to
the bosoms of their families. For several days past their
spirits had been rising, and their fun even at lecture and in
the wards was scarcely restrained within moderate bounds.
Work was kept up with difficulty, and many of the men were
leaving daily. Eight of the choicest spirits of the school
turned up on the appointed night. There was not one of them
who had not borne the brunt of battle, and won his spurs on a
contested field. There was big, heavy Tom Lennard. He was
the hero of the smash-up at the Chelsea Alcazar, a not very
reputable, but much patronized, place of entertainment, with
an open-air dancing platform. There was a fdte one summer
night there, and an attack on the place was organized by the
Jack Murphy's Party. 35
young medicos of the hospital. The police knew nothing of
the proposed attempt, and their numbers were too few to
interfere much with their destructive sport. After satisfying
their vengeance for some affront they had previously suffered
at the hands of the proprietors, they marched through the
town in the small hours of the morning, shouting, bellowing,
and singing at the top of their alcoholized voices, and upset¬
ting everybody and everything that came in their way. At
the houses on either side of their path they threw stones, half
bricks, and other missiles, to the terror and alarm of the peace¬
ful inhabitants, and the danger of any sick person who might
be in them. A large brickbat, hurled by the powerful hand of
Tom Lennard, fell plump on the bed of an old gentleman who
lay dying, and his friends were naturally very angry with the
perpetrators of such dastardly violence. The destroying army
of young gentlemen roughs passed on, leaving behind them
very distinct traces of the wreck they had wrought. There
were loud outcries against the police, and the whole business
made a great stir in the press. Somehow, Tom Lennard's
conduct was discovered by the authorities of his hospital; he
was then at St. Luke's, but was expelled with the loss of all
his fees. It was felt that he had somewhat exceeded the
natural hilarity of an embryo surgeon, and he was advised to
migrate. He migrated to St. Bernard's, where he had reason
to hope the tone of the governing body was less severe. This
exploit, and the fact that he was at least a confessor, if not a
martyr, in the cause of student life, made him immensely
popular with his fellows, and *he was always in request when
anything was "on." Tom was a splendid specimen of the
muscular student, if student it were correct to term him. He
was never known to study anything, con amore, but practical
jokes, billiards, football, and midnight revelry. He did fairly
well at the examinations by coaches and hard cramming. He
was magnificent at "tips" for remembering needful points.
All the nerves, arteries, origin ai,d insertion of muscles; in-
36
St Bernard's.
fectious diseases, their symptoms and treatment; everything
medical and surgical that any examiner had been ever known
to ask a question about was by this ingenious fellow reduced
to a simple formula of catch words, constituting an original
system of artificial memory. Everybody who wanted a good
tip for anatomical or other difficulties went to Lennard, and
came away with a cabalistic arrangement of ludicrous words,
that to most men were more difficult to remember than the
facts they were intended to represent. To himself, however,
they must have been amazingly useful, as he certainly did pass
his exams., and it is no less certain that he seldom did any
work, and never really understood what he did manage to get
through. He was full of good nature, and always ready to
"help any lame dog over a stile," as he called it; so the needy
men went to him when they wanted to borrow; and the help¬
less idiots who could not learn in the ordinary way, but resorted
to royal roads and short cuts, got his tips, and made so mixed
and bungling a use of them, that this patent method frequently
completed the downfall of those who essayed to bend Ulysses'
bow.
There was Tim Finnigan, "a broth of a bhoy," from the
wilds of Galway, all fun and frolic, but good at learning, and
witty as ever trod a bog or broke a head. It was he who led
the raid on the Statuary Exhibition near Queen's College one
Saturday night, and carried the great nude gods and goddesses
into the adjoining churchyard ; so that when the good folk
went to early mass, they were confronted by Yenuses and
Apollos, impudently airing themselves \mder the trees by the
pathway, " mit nodings on." The maiden lady, whose parlour
window overlooked the churchyard, was horrified when she
came down to breakfast that Sunday morning, to see a dreadful
great plaster man unblushingly staring at her in the undraped
similitude of a Greek athlete. The church was served by an
order of French religious, and the agony of the poor fathers at
the shocking display, rivalling the groves of Blarney, outside
Jack Murphy s Party.
37
their monastic church was painful to behold. Tim Finuigan
was present when they discovered the exhibition on their
premises, and he declared he never afterwards could believe
that a Frenchman had any sense of humour. Poor Tim was
discovered to have been the hero of this freak, and that was
why he left Queen's College and turned up at St. Bernard's.
The maiden lady who had caught the vision of the athlete
thought expulsion a punishment all too light for him.
There was "Darkey " Dobbs; he was not christened Darkey,
his swarthy complexion was the cause of his nickname. He
had great mechanical ability, which he brought to bear on his
practical jokes. His rapid knack of getting brass plates off
doors and railings, his skill at wrenching knockers and bell-
handles without alarming the owners, made him an indispen¬
sable companion of a night's fun. It was Darkey who invented
the celebrated coffee-stall joke. Four fellows hired a "growler"
early one winter's morning in the main road by the hospital.
Three of them got out of the cab and called for coffee, and
treated cabby; and while the attention of the stall-keeper was
arrested in serving his new customers, the fourth occupant of
the vehicle quietly got out, and, unperceived by anybody, tied
a long cord to one of the posts of the stall and connected it
with the shafts. Cabby remounted, his fares discharged him
and decamped, and he drove off dragging the stall behind the
vehicle, upsetting all the cups and platters, and wrecking the
whole concern. It was said that the stall-keeper's language
was " not of a kind to adorn any Sunday-school book;" when
the rope was cut, and the damage calculated, he found to his
great grief that a pound would not cover it. It was a good
deal for the poor fellow to lose, but the amusement to the
perpetrators of the joke was immense, and " the greatest good
of the greatest number " was one of the articles of a creed they
firmly held.
Then there was "Camel" Campbell, called "Camel" on
account of his humpy shoulders, though he was christened
38
Si. Bernard's.
Horace. He was the hero of a droll adventure in Great Titch-
field Street. Passing through that thoroughfare early one
Sunday morning with four or five stalwart fellows of the same
kidney, they found a groggy old gentleman who could not gain
admittance to his house because his wife had bolted the door,
and his latch-key did not avail him. What did Camel and his
mates do but in a moment pick him up, and, swinging him
backwards and forwards two or three times to get a good
impetus, shoot him feet foremost like a bolt from a catapult,
smash through the parlour window, where he landed on the
table amidst the crash of broken glass, and the disintegrated
bust of Psyche that erstwhile beamed upon the street from
under a handsome shade. Not one of them was caught; they
dispersed by different routes, and got clear away before the
leaden feet of the policeman had brought him on the scene.
It must not for a moment be supposed that all, or even the
majority, of the men were as much devoted to boisterous
amusements as those we have been describing. The quiet,
hard workers found means to keep themselves aloof from such
revelling, though even they, under the charm of the influence
the leading spirits exercised over the generous, light-hearted
youths who compose the majority of medical students, some¬
times abandoned themselves to the spirit of devilry which
often broke loose when the day's work was over.
Very hard workers, who went in for the greater prizes and
scholarships, were obliged to live at a distance from the place,
that they might be under the less temptation to this sort of
thing.
The assembled guests were in high spirits to-night. Though
they had done very little of the work they were supposed to
have got through, and had attended scarcely half of the
lectures they ought to have heard, they had succeeded in
getting their papers signed ; and, with but two exceptions,
they had as much credit given them on their schedules for
honest work as if they had been the iqost assiduous and
Jack Murphy's Party. 39
conscientious of students. So they sang their songs and
retold their stories, drank their beer, smoked their tobacco,
played nap, and laughed and talked as only youngsters full of
life and spirits can who lead the Bohemian life of a medico.
Lennard was inclined to be sentimental and romantic,
"What adventures," said he, "we should hear if the corpses in
that dissecting-room over yonder could tell their histories !
Unclaimed all of them ! Think what that means. How low
one must sink when nobody comes forward to ask the parish
to bury you at its own expense ! Let me conjure up a history
for you of the seven subjects on the tables where we have
been at work to-day. I will begin at my own, where I am
' doing my leg.'"
" Ah ! I am glad you said ' doing.' I should have demurred
to 4 dissecting,' had you said that," threw in Murphy.
Disregarding the interruption, Lennard went on : " This
old man—not so very old, about sixty I should say—has good
features and toil-worn hands; was, let us say, an unfrocked
parson: fell into bad ways, family disowned him; left his old
associates, or they left him ; gradually sank lower and lower ;
sold little things in the street; lived at threepenny lodging-
houses ; got ill; taken into the parish infirmary ; died, and
came here. Think of all he must have gone through ! How
he would remember his happy youth at school, at Oxford, his
ordination, his good aspirations, the society he mixed in, and
the remorse that embittered his life. This sort of thing is
common enough. That woman on the next table, with the
spinal fracture, a tight-rope dancer in her early days ; used to
delight the habitues of Old Vauxhall; one night fell and
broke her back. Folk soon got tired of helping her. Her
husband made her happy, and was good to her; till, in old
age, he died, and she was left bedridden and without means.
Even the church folk got tired of the case. She went into the
workhouse, died, and so came here. All this as likely as not.
Think of those long years of suffering ! From the last dazzling
40
Si. Bernard's.
lights and gaiety of Vauxhall, to the gradually beworsening
room where she lay a cripple for so many years, while her
husband did his best to cheer her, and make her as easy as he
could. Behind her is a coloured woman not more than forty.
How came she here 1 A stranger from beyond the seas, know¬
ing nothing of our language, brought here by friends who held
out hopes of gain and pleasure, and then left her sick and
dying in St. George's Workhouse, down by the London
Docks."
" Oh ! hang it all, Lennard ! " cried Mahoney ; " you are
preaching like a teetotal orator. Confound it, we can't stand
the whole seven of 'em. That's enough ! Why, what could
the old parson want more than to give a medical school like ours
his ' body of divinity' 1 He has preached a better sermon in the
hands of Professor Sturge than he ever did at church, and his
illustrations are much more telling, I dare say; and he makes
no reservations now. I can imagine nothing more honourable
than to devote one's body to a dissecting-room out of mere
gratitude to a science that has helped us in life. But this is
a dismal strain we are in. Give us your song, Williams ; dear"
old Albert Smith's ' Student's Alphabet.'"
Williams laid aside his pipe, and took a pull at the tankard
of ale on the mantel board, and began :—
THE STUDENT'S ALPHABET.
Oh, A was an Artery, tilled with injection ;
And B was a Briek, never caught at dissection.
C were some Chemicals—Lithium and Borax ;
And D was the Diaphragm, flooring the thorax
Chorus.
Fol de rol lol,
Eol de rol lay,
Fol de rol, tol de rol, tol de rol lay.
E was an Embryo in a glass case ;
Ajul F a Foramen that pierced the skull's base.
Jack Murphy s Party.
41
G was a Grinder who sharpen'd the tools ;
And H means the Half-and-half drunk at the schools
Fol de rol lol, etc.
I was some Iodine, made of sea-weed ;
J was a Jolly Cock, not used to read.
K was some Kreosote, much over-rated ;
And L were the Lies which about it were stated.
Fol de rol lol, etc.
M was a Muscle—cold, flabby, and red ;
And N was a Nerve, like a bit of white thread.
O was some Opium a fool chose to take ;
And P were the Pins used to keep him awake.
Fol de rol lol, etc.
Q were the Quacks, who cure stammer and squint;
R was a Raw from a burn, wrapped in lint.
S was a Scalpel, to eat bread and cheese ;
And T was a Tourniquet, vessels to squeeze.
Fol de rol lol, etc.
U was the Unciform bone of the wrist;
V was the Vein which a blunt lancet missed.
W was Wax, from a syringe that flowed ;
X was the 'Xaminers, who may be blowed !
Fol de rol lol, etc.
Y stands for You all, with best wishes sincere ;
And Z for the Zanies who never touch beer.
So we've got to the end, not forgetting a letter;
And those who don't like it may grind up a better.
Fol de rol lol, etc.
One of the party, a Mr. Randall, a second year's man, was
very groggy, and it was rather unlucky that he was called out
to a maternity case in the midst of all this enjoyment. Not
that he took it to heart much, indeed he went with alacrity.
He had to prove attendance on fifty cases before he could
compete for the Obstetric prize, and as this would bring his
42
St. Bernard's.
number up to forty-three, it was important not to miss it; so
he left the company with many ribald jokes aimed at him, and
was soon in attendance on the unfortunate woman whose life,
and that of her babe, were entrusted to his care. The young
man meant well, but he would have been less scandalous to
the assembled matrons had he been sober. It seemed, how¬
ever, so natural for a hospital student to be slightly elevated,
and the class of medical men who sent their boozy unqualified
assistants to look after their poorer clients had so familiarized
them with vinous doctors, that he got a better reception than
he deserved. Sometimes very terrible accidents arose in this
way, but nothing ever came of the investigations that followed.
The staff of the hospital, with their great names and solemn
opinions, were always at the service of the students to extricate
them from a difficulty; and had they amputated a patient's
head while serving their hospital, there were plenty of good
men with a string of letters to their names, who would have
been found to swear at the inquest that the treatment was
justified on high medical authority under the circumstances.
This is called medical esprit de corps, and it is born, bred, and
educated in our great medical schools.
Under the aegis of this protection there is very little that a
student cannot do with a live or a dead human subject. Nice
for the subject, especially if a live one! The interesting object
of Mr. Randall's attendance on the evening in question re¬
covered her health, and ultimately died a natural death.
After Randall had started, Dobbs was called upon to tell a
story. He was good at this sort of thing ; had written several
capital tales for the press, and was generally suspected of being
engaged upon a medical novel.
"Well, lads," said he, after mixing himself a whisky and soda,
" I will tell you a true story to-night. I don't think any of
you know it, save perhaps one or two. I don't always feel in
the vein for telling it, but to-night I do. So here goes.
" It was one day towai*ds the end of November, four years
Jack Murphy s Party.
43
ago, when the great fog lasted three whole days and nights
without lifting. London was in total darkness, save for the
feeble ghostly glimmer the gaslights gave here and there.
There were few men about the place, but I was working hard
for a prize and could not leave town—every spare moment was
passed in the dissecting-room. On the afternoon of the day I
refer to, two or three fellows came bothering me to go and
play billiards with them. They were half screwed, and I was
occupied with my work and didn't want their company. So as
soon as I got rid of them I took my ' part' down to the vaults
below, where the coffins are kept waiting for the weekly visit
of the undertaker. I lit the gas, and soon got absorbed in my
work. It must have been about four o'clock when I went be¬
low, because the fellows who had been bothering me had just
left the Anatomy Lecture, and nobody knew of my having done
so at all. When one gets interested in the brachial plexus, the
flight of the hours isn't noticed, and I was first recalled to the
fact that it was closing time at the schools by hearing the
heavy slam of the great iron door at the top of the steps lead¬
ing down to the vaults. Dropping my scalpel with a rush, I
made for the staircase, and in real terror of being locked in for
the night, shouted to be let out. No answer came; all I could
hear was the banging of more doors, fainter and fainter, as
they were more distant; and then, hearing the thud of the
great outer door, knew I was imprisoned for the night, with no
chance of escape. When I returned to my vault, of course the
gas was turned off—the porters had seen to that—and I was in
total darkness. I had a box of vestas in my pocket I had for¬
tunately bought of an urchin as I came in, and luckily had
plenty of tobacco. Lighting a match, I began to explore the
place more carefully than I had done. I did not look for any
means of getting out, as I knew there were none; but I was
very anxious not to spend the night in darkness. On a shelf
over the door there were a lot of bottles and jars, containing
the various fluids used in preserving the subjects. To my
44 5/. Bernard's.
great delight there was a big bottle of oil, and then I knew I
was all right for a light. This was something, at all events.
Knocking a large glass bottle to bits, I managed to make the
bottom of it into a fairish sort of lamp ; and then, with a few
slices of cork and some of my wax matches, I rigged up two
very decent floating wicks, and set them alight. The glimmer
was faint, and served rather to increase the gloominess of the
place, and exhibited- my sleeping apartment in a rather un¬
pleasant aspect."
" Why didn't you burn the door 1" asked Elsworth. " They
always did that in Dumas' tales."
" How could he when it's iron, you donkey ? Shut up; it
seems you never do any quiet dissections," said a young house
surgeon.
" There was the body of a newly imported subject, that had
just been got ready for use upstairs, lying in ghastly whiteness
on a coffin lid in the middle of the place. I noticed that its
right arm was attached to a rope and pulley in the ceiling, and
had been left in that position when the beadle had injected his
preservative fluid into the arteries. The weight which acted
as counterpoise was lying on a heap of old rags on the edge of
the table. I did not like the look of the raised arm; it seemed
pointing at me in a nasty ghostly sort of way, and I pulled it
down. Then exploring further, I came upon a great store of
tow and old sacking, and with these I made up a tidy sort of
bed on a wide shelf, and determined when bedtime came to try
and get some sleep. I was downright mad when I thought of
my jolly little fire at my diggings, and the kidneys and stout I
had ordered for supper. I wasn't in much of a humour for
reading, and had nothing to read with me except my Gray's
Anatomy. I hadn't light enough to dissect, or would have
kept at it all night. I could hear the clock of St. Andrew's
tolling out the lazy hours—how long they seemed ! At nine
I couldn't stand it any more, and lay down on my shelf, and
Covering myself with the sacks tried to go to sleep. It was
Jack Murphy s Party.
45
past ten before I dropped off; my bed was most uncomfortable,
and my pillow too low—a low pillow always makes me dream
so. I rested badly, and soon awoke. As I lay thinking and
praying for morning, I became aware of a peculiar low moaning
noise, as of some creature in great pain in a distant corner, as
it seemed. Listening with the intensified sense that such cir¬
cumstances arouse, I heard, in addition to the moans, a regular
clank of some machine working like a bellows, and then I re¬
membered that on the day before I had been trying some ex¬
periments on two dogs in the next vault. To one I had given
curare, and had to keep his respiration going by Paul Bert's
beautiful little machine, invented for the purpose ; the other
dog had been horribly mangled by Crowe, and ought to have
been killed, but there was a question of the bile duct on which
I hadn't completely satisfied myself, and he told me to take the
animal below, and I am ashamed to say I had forgotten the
poor little beggar."
"Was that the rough little terrier which followed Dr. Arnold
in the Laboratory when he was starving 1 I have heard him
laugh at the misplaced confidence of the brute," said Elsworth.
" The very animal," replied the story-teller.
" But, I say, you had no licence, you know !" said Wilks, a
shy, curate-looking freshman, who belonged to several humani¬
tarian societies, and thought all this very dreadful.
The roar of laughter with which the delicious joke was re¬
ceived made poor Wilks blush to the roots of his hair, as one of
the audience cried :
" Licence be hanged ! Do you think we care for the fan¬
atics who impede our work 1 Let them show themselves at
St. Bernard's ! Crowe has one, because it looks well to the
public; but don't you peach, Wilks, or you'll do for yourself.
Go on."
"Now when I was at work on the physiology part of the
business, I never thought of the cruelty, but now it all came
upon me horribly. My position was bad enough, but these
46
St. Bernard's.
poor dogs—animals, like ourselves—they were in cruel agony
without food or water. I was only not on a feather bed, that
was all; they were dying in awful torment. I thought my
imprisonment was all arranged by a higher Power, to let me
know what I was doing ; and God knows I suffered shame and
mental distress that night. I fell asleep at last, though the
moans and the clockwork worked themselves into my dreams.
All at once a loud noise aroused me. I started up, and to my
unutterable horror, saw the arm of the corpse on the coffin lid
slowly rising, and pointing its rigid hand at me in the dim
light. I am no coward, as you know ; but my heart was in
my mouth as I stared with starting eyeballs at the ghastly ob¬
ject. and then I saw what had happened. The counterpoise of
the pulley had slipped down, and dragged up the right arm of
the corpse. It was the falling of the weight on the floor of
the vault that awoke me. Just then the clock struck three,
and I left the arm pointing its stiff fingers at me and went to
sleep again—' to sleep, to dream.' I dreamt • that two awful-
looking burkers had brought a subject in, had taken their gold
from the place where it lay ready for them, and had caught sight
of me. 'Why, Bill,' said one, ' here's a chance; let us smother
this bloke, and he'll be worth another five-pun-note to us ! '
' Right you are, Tom !' said the other. And they proceeded
to carry out their diabolical plans, when I awoke. Horrible
night-mare ! I shudder now when I think of it."
" Rather creepy, I must say," said little Murphy.
"Well, I could not sleep any more after that, and lay a-
medltating. After all, I thought, why shouldn't I have been
murdered and given up to science, as I had done with those
wretched dogs in the next room ? Did not the same Power
frame their bodies as mine1? Were not the processes Nature so
lovingly and carefully carried on in their sensitive little frames
just as beautiful and well adapted as those which went on in
me? I repented, my lads, that night, and I have never spoken
to Crowe since, and have done with that sort of work."
Jack Murphy s Party. 47
" Ah ! you are a sentimentalist," they cried; " but tell 113
how you got out."
" Oh, I got through the night somehow—an end comes to
everything sooner or later; but the scoundrelly porters were
later than usual that morning before they opened the place.
Jim, the sweeper, was in a beastly funk, and implored me not
to tell anybody, because it was his place to look round the
vaults before closing; but he says the fog had got into him,
and the other porter had asked him to go and have some hot
spiced ale with him, and he was anxious he should not change
his mind."
It was getting late, and Mrs. Harper knocked at the door
with " Time ! gentlemen ; time ! " Of course she was asked in
and invited to have a toothful.
"As my spasms was just a-comin' on, strange to say, gentle¬
men, as up the stairs I came, I don't mind if I do. Just a
thimbleful; no, Mr. Murphy ! not a drop beyond the pretty
part, and cold I'll have it to-night. It does me most good
when the liquor is strong. Here's your very good 'ealth,
gentlemen, and may you all have lots of practice when you've
done with the 'orspital; and what's more, lots of fees, and good
'uns."
"Well done, missus," said all the men; "you could not
have wished us anything better."
" And now, gentlemen, I thank you for your kindness, but
shut up my house I must; so I hope you will pardon me if I
ask you to clear out. Oh ! lawks, Mr. Murphy; I 'opes to
goodness the perlice won't see this blessed board, nor these
knockers and things. I chops up that there ' Similar—attached
Willa Residence' to-morrow for the fires. I said you should
have it for your party, but no more of it—not if I knows it.
Now, gents ! Good-night! good-night!" And she got rid of
them, and they went rollicking homo.
CHAPTER VII.
nurse podger.
A gentleman who in a duel was rather scratched than wounded, sent
for a chirurgeon, who, having opened the wound, charged his man with
all speed to fetch such a salve from such a place in his study.
" Why ? " said the gentleman, " is the hurt so dangerous ? "
"Oh, yes," answered the chirurgeon; "if he returns not in poste
haste, the wound will cure itself."—Thos. Fuller.
Now being from Paris but recently,
This fine young man would show his skill;
And so they gave him, his hand to try,
A hospital patient extremely ill.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Mrs. Sarah,Podger was receiving-room nurse at St. Bernard's,
and one of the most important officials of the charity. The re-
ceiviug-room is immediately within the main door of the
hospital, and when an accident or other case of emergency is
brought in, the patient is taken straight to this waiting hall.
He first encounters Mrs. Podger, who is on the alert, having
been summoned by the bell the gate porter rings when the
case passes his lodge.
Mrs. Podger is at least fifty years old, is short, stout, and
good-tempered. Her face is florid ; she is not a convert to
Blue Ribbonism; to use her own expression, she " leaves all
that there rot to the sisters and fine ladies who play at nussin'."
She is of the good old school, "before all these fads and
fooleries was got up;" she "don't hold with none of 'em11
Nurse Podger.
" and don't you go for to tell me," she used to say, when ques¬
tioned, "as nussin' can be properly done on milk and water.
Milk-and-water nussin' is all very well for them as ain't got
nothin' the matter with 'em, but folks as has to be treated at
St. Bernard's is too serious bad to get on with teetotal notions.
Teetotal is all very well for the mumps ; but lor' bless yer, my
dear, how are yer goin' to nuss a capital hoperation on tea,
leastways not without a drop of somethin' in it 1"
Mrs. Podger is first of all the obsequious and humble servant
of the house governor, the resident staff, and the doctors
attached to the charity. To these she is a very dragon of
virtue and propriety. To them she protests against all larks
on the part of the young students, and is never seen to smile
at them in their presence. The hospital and the good of the
patients is her sole love and desire. Not Jerusalem was holier
to the Jew than St. Bernard's to Mrs. Podger, when any of
these were in her presence. But her heart was with the
boys, and her pockets in that lavender print, gown found its
account in keeping well in with them. " The boys," as she
used to call the students, who were always lounging about the
receiving-room, waiting for somebody to fall off a scaffold, or
get run over, boasted that Podger could teach them more than
all the staff put together. Where was the man who had not
learned his practical surgery at Podger's hands 1 Did he shine
in his bandaging, it was Podger who had taught him to make
those neat, smooth turns. How would that " foreign body in
the eye," as was designated the bit of coke dust in the
governor's organ of vision, have been extracted just now by the
house surgeon of the day, if Podger had not given him that
gentle nudge and that knowing look and told him exactly what
to do, and let him have all the credit of doing it 1 If Podger
liked the students, they on their part found Podger indispens
able to them. Without her the receiving-room was the house
without the mistress—the whole business went wrong. Now
Podger was capital for the students, and well deserved all her
jj
50
St. Bernard''s.
tips and all her drops of gin and whisky; but you would not
have appreciated Podger at her proper value had you tumbled
off an omnibus, and been carried to her place of business, say at
five o'clock, when the staff was dining, or at ten, when the
house surgeon of the week had his little card party in his
rooms. Well, yes, it would have been all right if the friend
who went with you had " exhibited," say, half an ounce of
silver coinage for application to the palm of Podger's hand,
right or left; otherwise you would have- been placed on that
black leather couch in the corner there under the shelf of lint
and tow, and you would have been weary waiting in that
receiving-room, counting the various form of splints hanging
round it, and listening to the groans of other sufferers waiting
till dinner was over, or the game of cribbage finished, for your
wounds and bruises to be attended to.
At a card-party, say, in the house surgeon's room, her
manner was much appreciated. A knock. " Come in ! "
" Accident sir ! " " Oh, bother, Podger, what a fidget you are 1"
" Well, sir, it wasn't me as caused it; there's three of 'em, for
the matter of that, and they have been here about half-an-hour,
and I thought as you'd like to know." " Fifteen two, and a
pair's four, and his nob ! Now, Podger, wet your whistle, old
girl; here, have a toothful, and tell them you have called the
doctors, and they are all in the wards over a bad case, but are
coming to see them directly." "Bless you, sir," says Podger,
having bobbed a curtsey, "I told 'em that when they came in.
Here's your very good 'ealth, gentlemen, and long life and
plenty of practice for you all." And she returns to the
receiving-room refreshed in spirit and better able to contend
with the grumbling of the unhappy victims it contained. She
would have dressed their wounds, and sent them all off pack¬
ing about their business, but it was against the rules, grave
scandals having arisen from this " unqualified treatment." Not
but that the work would have been often done quite as well as
if the students, to the number of say eight or nine, had all had
Nurse Podger.
51
" a go " at it, and with infinitely less discomfort and even agony
to the patient; but it was "agin' the rules," as she declared
" ' cos why 1 it didn't seem proper for 1 a nuss ' to set broken
limbs; besides, it pervented the boys from gettin' t the ex¬
perience ' they paid for." She was very anxious they should
avail themselves of every opportunity that arose to improve
themselves. No member "of the staff was more interested
than she in the pass list of the College of Surgeons ; she felt it
as a reproach against her teaching when any of them failed,
and on the eve of a " Pass Exam." or a " Final College," she
spared the patients in the receiving-room 110 agony as long as
any one of the men " going up," could extract useful informa¬
tion about fracture, dislocation, or the adjustment of a splint.
" Now, stop that there row, young man; it's all for your
good! The doctors is a-settin' of your leg, and if you 'oiler
like that, you'll make 'em nervous. You may thank yer stars
there's 'orspitals for poor sufferers like yourself to come to, and
have so many kind gents to make yer all right agen." And
the old girl would wink at the boys, give them all a good
chance with the case ; and when everybody had quite done, and
had got all their points, the poor suffering wretch was sent into
the wards, there to undergo as many further examinations as
the pursuit of knowledge demanded. Did he scream, she bade
him desist; did he struggle, she called another and a stronger
nurse to her assistance ; did he rebel yet, a porter or two came
in to reduce him to order. Chloroform was not often resorted
to, it had an element of risk; and ether was too troublesome
to be given unnecessarily. The house surgeons always prided
themselves on an air of nonchalance and dignity; they were
never in a hurry; it was undignified and unprofessional to be
anything but perfectly calm under any circumstances. To
speak loftily, in measured tones, and with studied stand-offish¬
ness, was no less necessary than the binaural stethoscope they
never appeared without, the gold spectacles or eye-glass they
usually affected, and the patronising manner they adopted to-
52
St. Bernard's.
wards the men with whom they had been fellow-students, whose
larks and escapades they had shared in with equal relish, but
who, not having yet attained the dignity of membership of the
College of Surgeons, and the still greater honour of house
surgeon to St. Bernard's, were no longer their companions, nor
participants in their enjoyments.
They all comported themselves as became members of the
staff of a great hospital; they would not have been of much
use in any of the ordinary sicknesses that require the aid of
the experienced general practitioner or family doctor, wrho is so
serviceable in our every-day troubles and infirmities : they paid
no attention to colds, measles, and the mumps ; they aspired
to greater things, and occupied themselves with eye diseases,
maladies of the brain, or the higher surgery. Attend you in
your attack of the gout? Oh, dear no! any fool of a G.P. (slang
for general practitioner) could do that, or your nurse might
manage the case. But trephine you, resect your knee-joint, or
do a gastrotomy upon you,—they were burning with enthusiasm
for nothing less. So they all told each other they meant to be
operating surgeons, speciality men, consulting physicians ; they
would all go to live and practise in Saville Row, or the neigh¬
bourhood of Cavendish Square. "Work for half-crowns like
the miserable family doctors in the high-road outside ? Not if
they knew it! " They were born to send cases to the Lancet,
to read papers at Congresses, to edit the Journal of Psychopathy,
or arouse the medical world by their work on " Diseases of the
Upper Eyelid." Poor beggars ; in ten years' time seven-tenths
of them would be toiling up rotten staircases, or groping in coal
mines, visiting patients at an average of nine-pence-halfpenny a
head, or holding parish appointments, and doing Friendly
Societies' work at half that rate; while of the other three-tenths,
one would be starving in two gloomy rooms in a West End
square, the second might make his fortune by marrying a rich
wife, and the other work his way to distinction late in life by
an ultimate succession to the permanent staff of his own hospital.
Nurse Podger. 5 3
Now and then he might be luckier still; he might start a
special Hospital for Diseases of the Upper Eyelid, and so work
his way to eminence and emolument. Of course all these men
were supremely scientific. What was pain (in other people), if
science could be advanced ? What was suffering (in patients),
if anything could be added to the sum of our knowledge as to
the causes of their suffering 1 To cure the disease, to cut short
the malady—ah, no, too often that was to extinguish alike the
discomfort and the interesting course of phenomena that
accompanied it. The true patient, the typical client, was he
who—devoured by fever or disfigured by disease—asked for
nothing better than to be well watched by observant medical
eyes, while the " expectant treatment" (i.e., the letting the
disease severely alone) did its work. To the objection that a
man may die while the expected cure does not arrive, what more
Dbvious than the answer, " But see what a brilliant paper for
the Journal is the outcome of it all 1" Somehow, Podger
vaguely saw all this. Podger recognised that all the " cases "
were but " cases." She knew that Mr. Graves was getting up
statistics on broken legs, and was well aware that Mr. Brand
was hard at work on a treatise on " Burns and the Cayenne
Pepper Treatment." Now this was in no way objectionable to
Podger; she, indeed, could cure burns beautifully with her lint
and cotton wool, and soothing unguents; " But, lor bless you !
my dear sir," she would say, " if you likes to pepper 'em on the
chance of making a discovery, I ain't the nuss as 'ud stand in
your way of your doing something singular to get yerself a
name. So pepper 'em, I say. Thank the Lord it ain't me nor
mine as you are a-operatin' on. What makes 'em come to the
'orspital at all, I says, if they are a-goin' to find fault with the
treatment?" So Podger co-operated bravely with all the science
of the day ; she would have flayed the broken-backed bricklayer
alive if the staff had ordered it, and said it was scientific treat¬
ment. She knew very well the chief object of St. Bernard's
existence, and above all, she knew her place. Oh, but she was
54 .S7. Bernard's.
an artful and motherly old woman ! the true daughter of the
receiving-room; the inheritor of all its traditions, and the heiress
of a large legacy of hospital tricks. She had such wheedling
ways. " You ! only an ignorant carpenter, good enough, per¬
haps, at joists, and flooring, and staircases, what was your
opinion against the learned, clever, charitable young surgeon,
who wanted to take your leg off, and all for nothing 1 Shame
on you, sir, to suggest ' practice, practice, all for practice, like
making me plane up deals when I was a 'prentice.' Have it
off like a brave Englishman, and don't make a fuss about a
paltry broken leg." What could a man say under the circum¬
stances ? What Podger said to the house surgeon of the day,
who had bribed her to get him the operation, was: " It's all
right, Mr. Esmarch; he's a-goin' to have it done, so take
him while he is in the humour;" and Mr. Esmarch did; and the
theatre bell rang to assemble the men for the operation, and
Mr. Esmarch rushed off to his books to read up " legs," and
take notes for his first "flap operation." Oh, Podger could
manage it when she gave her mind to it. Was it not truly an
invaluable Podger?
CHAPTER VIII.
amongst the out-patients.
Some persons will tell you, with an air of the miraculous, that they
recovered although they were given over; whereas they might with
more reason have said, they recovered becduse they were given over.
—Lacon.
Mosca. And then, they do it by experiment,
For which the law not only doth absolve them,
But gives them great reward, and he is loath
To hire his death so.
Corbaccio. It is true, they kill
With as much license as a judge.
—Ben Jonson.
While engaged during their first year at the medical school
dissecting, learning their bones, and listening to lectures on
physiology, the students were encouraged to attend the out¬
patient department of the hospital. Hundreds of poor suffer¬
ing folk attend at noon daily to consult the physicians and
surgeons on the staff'. Very arduous is the work these gentle¬
men perform. Many hours a week are given by them gratuit¬
ously for this purpose, and half their lives may be said to be
passed here or in the wards. Such of them as in addition are
lecturers at the school receive fair but not very liberal fees, but
the purely hospital work is without monetary reward. Yet the
appointments are eagerly sought for by medical men, because
of the publicity and private practice which are sure to follow a
successful hospital practitioner; and above all, on account of
the great number of rare and interesting cases which occur in
56
St. Bernard's
hospitals, giving great scope for the trying of new remedies,
new apparatus and modes of treatment, new operations and
new methods of dealing with obscure forms of disease. Every
inducement is held out for sick folk to attend the out-patient
department of a large hospital. The great majority of the cases
may present no new feature, but there will certainly be a fair
proportion of strange and curious maladies, inviting the atten¬
tion of the penetrative skill of some member of the staff. You
see, you are sick of some grievous disorder which your family
doctor fails to cure. You demand to see some specialist who
has had larger experience of your class of case. He sends for
such a one who has passed half his life hunting up this malady
in its every phase ; it is reasonable he should know more about
it than the man who has to attend to everything that comes in
his way. It is, therefore, very well worth the while of the
aspirant to "consulting practice " to spend every spare moment
where he can see most cases. This is the way the hospital
pays him for his services. He attends a hundred cases which
cannot interest him, because of their frequency; the hundred
and first is a variant of the peculiar complaint on which he is
writing his great monograph. And there are ways by which
every one of the hundred others may be made to contribute
their quota of information. If you have not suffered from the
complaint forming the subject of the monograph, you will be
lucky if you escape exhibiting the genesis of the disease or one
of its stages for clinical purposes.
The out-patient departments of the great general hospitals
stand more in need of reform than perhaps any of the charitable
institutions of our time. To the contributors and subscribers
they appear, doubtless, to be the one great means of affording
poor persons the highest medical and surgical advice, and the
best medicines and appliances free of charge. The poor believe
this, the well-to-do middle classes, and even the rich believe it.
The out-patient department day after day is thronged by several
hundreds of men, women, and children, who so there at noon
Amongst the Out-Patients.
57
and wait hour after hour, often till five o'clock in the evening,
for an interview with the physician or surgeon who, between
the hours of two and four, will probably see one hundred cases.
Well-dressed women and men, whose aspect proves them to be
at least above the necessity of obtaining medical assistance
gratuitously, occupy the time of the staff, and deplete the re¬
sources of the hospital in respect of valuable drugs to the extent
of many thousands of pounds' worth annually in London alone.
Vast numbers of patients attend who are suffering from trifling
ailments which need but the simplest home remedies for their
cure. On the other hand, children and adults of both sexes go
week after week to the out-patient department, when every
time they leave their room for the purpose, the exposure, the
necessary fatigue, the long waiting in draughty and over
ventilated rooms, does them more harm than any medical treat¬
ment they can receive, under such circumstances, can do good.
All this happens within the perfect knowledge of the staff, who,
so far from discountenancing the system, encourage the patients
to attend regularly, and seldom dissuade them till the last clays
of the poor creatures' existence. The reasons for such policy
held to be paramount are these :
First; the greater the number of patients who seek the aid
of the charity, the greater claim the committee can make on
the purses of the charitable.
Again ; the greater the number of the cases in hand day
after day, the more chance there is of getting hold of rare and
interesting complaints for their own notes and statistics ; and
for clinical teaching for their students, who attend the out¬
patient department with great assiduity. But even the simplest
and least complicated case has its uses for demonstration to
the students. Here is a case of commencing phthisis ; there is
one still more advanced; another is in the last stage ; and all
afford good opportunities for demonstrating a multitude of
points useful for the tyros in medicine to know. A half-dead
woman, with lungs far advanced in the destructive changes of
58
Si. Bernard''s.
pulmonary consumption, applies for treatment. She is examined
with care and kindness by the physician, who, having satisfied
himself as to the nature and progress of the disease, makes the
requisite notes of her case, and hands her over to his class for
perhaps a dozen more fatiguing examinations. She has been
waiting probably two or three hours for the interview, for
another hour or more she must be stethoscoped, percussed,
pounded and pummelled, while the students are picking up
from her emaciated and wasting frame the elements of their
profession. Nobody at the hospital supposes for a moment
they can do her any good, but she offers herself in her ignorance,
day after day, a sacrifice on the altar of science, that her
abnormal breathing sounds, and other phenomena of disease
may teach young men how to earn a respectable living. Then,
again, there are a vast number of minor operations, for the
performance of which, by novices, the out-patient departments
afford peculiar facilities. How much it adds to the terror,
nervous apprehension, shame and mental distress of the
patients, who cannot but feel often how greatly their trouble
and risks are increased by their performances as school experi¬
ments, can be readily imagined. No doubt medical men do as
much work for nothing as other professional men, but certainly
not more—not nearly so much as clergymen, for instance.
Yet, the hospitals do not pay their staff for all the time and
labour devoted to its work. How, then, are they paid 1 In
the first place, their 'students are constantly going into practice
on their own account; they will require well-known and trusted
consultants and operators to assist them in difficult cases
occurring in well-to-do and affluent families; they will introduce
them in this way to lucrative practice, ever increasing if they
are skilful men. Every one of their students, therefore,
becomes an agent for their success. Even the patients who
have received benefit will often be able to recommend to richer
relatives or friends, masters or mistresses—as in the case of
workpeople or servants—the doctor who has helped them to a
Amongst the Out-Patients.
59
cure. It is in this way the great practices of the greatest men
attached to the hospitals have all been founded and maintained.
That they should devote themselves to the interests of their
pupils is, then, of the first importance, as, in a few years, the
kindnesses shown to them will be coming back in a steady flow
of guineas.
At the close of the second winter session, the men are
expected to be ready for the first professional examination at
the College of Surgeons, in anatomy and physiology. It is the
desire of both teachers and the hospital itself, that as large a
proportion as possible of the students shall present themselves
for examination at the regular time, as the credit of the school
depends on the proportion of passes. Every effort is made to
urge the men on, and the teaching staff take the utmost pains
to perfect the knowledge of their pupils, and thoroughly
instruct them in the subjects they will be required to know.
They hold test examinations, and send the men up in batches;
those of most promise go up first, while the backward ones are
detained till the last efforts have been put forth to fit them for
the day of trial. Elsworth was sent up in the first batch, and
passed creditably. Having thus proved that he had a sufficient
knowledge of the rudiments of his work, he was at once per¬
mitted to act as a dresser or surgeon's assistant in the wards of
the hospital proper. This is the first bit of promotion which
the successful student obtains. The nurses could do pretty
well all the work he has to do, as far as the dressing goes; but
this is purposely left to him, that he may pick up instruction
and experience.
CHAPTER IX.
" walking the hospital."
We easily forget our faults when they are known only to ourselves.
—La Rochefoucauld.
Doctor. Is it not natural to die ? Then if a dozen or two of my
patients have died under my hands, is not that natural ?
Lisette. Very natural, indeed.—Mrs. Jnchbald.
And if you die,
Why then you lie
Stretched on the bed of honour.—Dibdin.
Early the following morning, Elsworth presented himself to
young Dr. Wilson, the house surgeon in charge of the wards
under the chief care of the surgeons, to whom he was appointed
dresser.
Hitherto he had done no practical work in the wards at all.
It was against the regulations for any student to be a dresser
in the surgical wards till he had passed his primary or first
professional examination, at the end of his second winter session.
He had opportunities of learning the countless little details
of minor surgery in the out-patient departments day by day,
but now he was to be introduced to a very different kind of
work. He would have some forty or fifty patients to study
and report upon, to watch the progress of their maladies, or
the processes of their cure, to dress the wounds, bandage, apply
the remedies ordered by the house surgeon, or the surgeon-in-
chief, and himself perform such operations as in their discretion
he might be entrusted with. Everybody must have a beginning,
and upon whom can one begin surgery so well as an hospital
" Walking the Hospital"
61
patient 1 Your dentist began upon somebody; he did not
acquire without practice that nice skill, that rapidity, almost
amounting to sleight of hand, by which he jerks out your
offending molar, before you are half aware he has begun.
To be sure, he had a long course on sheeps' heads from the
butchers, and then at the hospital or dispensary, he tugged
away at the mouths of poor children, or men and women of
low degree, who could not afford the chemist's shilling, or the
still cheaper barber's fee, and who, getting the job done for
nothing, could not reasonably complain of the several bungling
attempts with the wrong instruments applied in the wrong
way, and often to the wrong tooth.
" I say, young man," said a poor carpenter to an hospital
novice, after the fifth attempt to lug out his grinder had been
fruitlessly made. " Do they pay you here by time or by the
job 1"
Even your hair-dresser must have cut somebody's hair for
the first time. You may be sure it was not a duke's. " We
alius begins on children's at the Workhus schools," was the
answer of a master barber to an inquiry as to the method of
learning the art. Here, then, were fifty live subjects, all
human, at the mercy of our new dresser. That young black¬
smith with the broken rib thinks he is here simply to get it
mended. He will think so in a fortnight's time, but the
officials know better; the mended rib is a mere contingency.
The butcher lad in the corner bed has compression of the brain.
He shall be cured, if possible. Meanwhile, he shall make
himself useful to those who want to investigate the latest
theory of " localisation of brain functions."
He shall be trephined—that is to say, a round hole shall be
neatly cut in his cranium, and the brain exposed at the injured
part; and while the organ of the mind is open to the view, are
there not many pretty ideas to be discoursed of, and various
experiments awaiting trial 1 Are there not galvanic batteries
at hand 1 Is not the man at their mercy ? He has ether or
62
St. Bernard's.
chloroform, and able men of science about him; and, if they
don't cure him, they will doubtless get information that will
enable them to cure some much more important personage!
It is not enough to have done all this on a monkey ; it needs a
man before you can be quite sure. Ultimately they will do it
with safety to a gentleman, a duke, a royal prince, and the
successful operation will make somebody's fortune. So as every
rising surgeon carries a royal surgeon's baton in his instrument
bag, have at the butcher!
The house surgeon " went round " with our new dresser, and
explained the nature of each case in very brief terms, and in a
perfunctory manner. It was his duty to instruct his dressers,
and he did it after a fashion; but he was not paid to do any¬
thing of the sort, and, with the young and partially-educated,
there is often a sort of contempt for those who know just a
little less than they do. The scorn felt and expressed by the
Board School child who knows decimals, for his companion just
beginning vulgar fractions, is nothing to the sense of superiority
assumed by a house surgeon appointed a few weeks since, and
aged twenty-three, towards his unqualified dressers, who cannot
go up for examination for another six months. And the dresser,
in his turn, looks down from his exalted post on those late
companions of his who failed at the primary, and have not yet
achieved the right to handle cases in the wards.
Elsworth was shown a number of beds, of the occupants of
which he was required to write complete family histories,
going into the minutest details, as practice in note-taking.
He was called on to carry out, with the assistance of the
nurses, daily, all the directions as to the dressings and bandag¬
ing required by the nature of the case; and was encouraged to
avail himself, while doing so, of any and every means that
would assist him in the acquisition of his art, so far as it was
consistent with the regular treatment of the patient, and was
not calculated to alarm him or make him think it was not
actually connected with his cure. Our house surgeon was
" Walking the Hospital."
63
going in for ophthalmology, and he never missed an oppor¬
tunity of dropping belladonna into every patient's eyes, and
taking stock of his retina with the ophthalmoscope. Whether
you had cracked your skull or broken your leg, fractured a rib
or sprained your ankle, your eyes must be examined minutely,
on the chance of something pretty turning up to show the
professor of ophthalmology. Dr. Wilson was such an enthusiast
011 eyes that one day, happening to pass through one of the
out-patient wards, he caught sight of a working man in whose
visual organs he instantly detected something of interest.
Immediately he had him under a lamp, and set to work making
sketches of the morbid appearances in the retina, explaining to
the other students the beautiful things to be seen therein.
Now the patient had not come about his eyes, but being
troubled with indigestion, wanted a bottle of medicine to cure
it; and he was naturally surprised that for three mortal hours
eighteen young gentlemen should be examining his eyes, which
wanted no treatment but the sight of a little more weekly pay;
and marvelled that no questions should be asked him about
the ailment which caused him discomfort. He was still more
amazed when, as evening drew on, one after another went
awray, and nobody prescribed anything for him at all! How¬
ever, one of the resident staff saw him before the place was
closed, and he had a bottle of " house mixture," and went
away more satisfied, but still wondering at the singular ways
of doctors.
Let us go round the wards with Dr. Wilson and our hero,
his new assistant.
Here is a middle-aged woman, evidently having but a short
time to live, yet this afternoon Dr. Wilson says his chief pro¬
poses to perform upon her a capital operation. He has not the
least hope it can save her life, but the chance of performing
such an operation arises but seldom; and it is but just and
kind to the house surgeon, who wants all the practical work
he can get, to let him assist. So the woman and her friends
64
St. Bernard''s.
are duly pressed to consent that this—" the only means of
saving her life"—shall forthwith be done. To this end all the
nurses are instructed to urge her. At last she submits. She
will be carried to the operating theatre, and this chance of
instruction will fall to Dr. Wilson's hands ; for, as soon as the
chloroform has effected its work, he will take the place of the
chief, and " do his first strangulated hernia." Dr. Wilson is
jubilant—slightly nervous, for it is very grave work. It is
utterly unjustifiable work, Elsworth thinks, but dare hardly
express his thoughts except by a timid question or two. He
knows he must steel himself to plenty of such matters, that
his turn will come and that he would not like to leave St.
Bernard's without doing just as much himself. But his heart,
for all that, misgives him.
" Might he warn the patient of her imminent danger 1"
" On no account! It might cause her to revoke her con¬
sent ; might, at any rate, depress her, and hasten the
catastrophe."
In the next bed is an elderly woman with a contused side.
That is a slight matter. It was not for that she was taken in,
but in her examination in the out-patients' department it was
discovered that she had a peculiarly interesting bony growth
on her leg that would make a very neat and pretty operation.
So a bed was found for her, and daily and increasing pressure
put upon her to have this queer growth removed. It was no
inconvenience or annoyance to her at all. She was past middle
life, and she had been told by her family doctor there was not
the slightest occasion for operative interference; but everybody
at St. Bernard's wanted just such a case to try a new method of
treatment recently invented in Vienna, and the chief surgeon
was eager to do the operation, and all concerned were charged,
as they loved him, not to let it slip. That also was to come
off this afternoon.
The next bed is occupied by a girl, the subject of a rare and
very interesting skin affection. No active treatment has yet
" Walking the Hospital!' 65
been suggested, as it is much too pretty to spoil by any
attempt at cure just yet. Several surgeons are expected from
other hospitals to see it, so she has an ounce of peppermint
water three times a day and full diet, and the cure is post¬
poned till a sufficient number of interested people have seen it.
Drawings must be made ; the artist to the hospital could not
attend for a week to come; then there were photographs to be
taken, and it would never do to spoil anything so effective by
commencing a cure. So "repeat the mixture," till science
has done with the first part of the case, and therapeutics can
step in.
"That woman, you will perceive," said the surgeon, "has a
squint. She came in with a fracture of the arm, but with a
little more pressure she will let us operate on the ocular de¬
formity. I like doing squints. By the way, there is a woman
dying in the next ward who has a perfectly charming optic
neuritis. You ought to see that. Don't examine it very often,
as it hurts her dreadfully, and she can't live much longer; but
the case is perfectly typical. I am going to sketch it this
evening. One don't like to hurt folks if it can be avoided, but
this is much too good to miss. She grumbles a bit at being
disturbed, and I fear suspects all this is no part of her treat¬
ment ; but I order her a glass of wine before I begin, and she
likes that."
They next enter one of the male wards, and Dr. Wilson
draws Elsworth's attention to a man in articulo mortis. " He
can scarcely live till the next morning," says he ; " but if you
are interested in phthisis, take your stethoscope and have a
quarter of an hour overhauling his posterior thorax. There
are some sounds to be heard that with careful auscultation are
quite typical, and one very rarely gets them so distinct. Don't
be too long at him, as turning him over on his face exhausts
him so much, and we have examined him a good deal lately,
poor devil!" Elsworth was obliged to assume a look of eager
interest in the proposed investigation, for the sake of pleasing
£
66
St. Bernard''s.
his instructor, but he resolved that the auscultation, as far as
he was concerned, should at least not distress the poor sufferer.
How any human being could find it in his heart to disturb the
last moments of his patient with investigations of "cavernous
breathing," " rales," and " pectoriloquy " puzzled our hero ;
but then, this was his first day in his new office ; he had much
to learn yet.
" Come into this room, Elsworth. See here is a case on
which I am trying a rather singular experiment. I have kept
this man for the past seventy hours sitting up to his waist in a
bath of cold water, as you see. He has all his meals in this
position, and sleeps and reads without removal from his tub."
" Does he like it 1"
"Well, I can't say he does; but the experiment is a very
interesting one, and I am getting up a good paper on it. I
shall not keep him in much longer, for I have nearly completed
my investigations. This is the best case on which I have tried
the treatment. I have lost three others, but I think this one
will do well."
And thus the days went by. To a man who loved his work
as our hero loved it, there was hourly something fresh to
interest and excite speculation. But the atmosphere of the
place was beginning to tell upon him. The utterly reckless,
matter-of-course way in which experiments were tried upon the
occupants of the beds; tried by everybody concerned, from
the chief to the dresser; tried by the performance of operations
of terrible gravity on those who, at longest, had but a few
weeks to live; down to the snipping off little mites of skin
from the arms of one person to "graft" on the wounds of
another, had tended to blunt Elsworth's fine sense of humanity
and lower his ideal. Not that anybody about the place ever
suggested that all this was wrong; nobody, except now and
then a patient or his friends, expressed any objection to a
course so fraught with information and dexterity of hand. It
all seemed the most natural thing possible, and the hospital
" Walking the Hospital."
67
system as perfect as could be imagined. Outside " some
sentimentalists, weak-brained lords and hysterical women," as
they were termed by the men of science, were making a noise
over these very things—were threatening to withdraw their
subscriptions, indeed; but nothing ever came of their agitation,
and the greater public was too well convinced of the perfection
of the system to interfere with it.
" How is a medical man to learn his business if he does not
pick it up at the hospital 1" asked a noble lord of a friend the
other day. The reply was a sensible one. " I don't know,
but I fancy these confounded Socialist fellows will put a stop
to all this sort of thing before the world is much older."
Quite so. The mob did not like Marie Antoinette's carriages
to run over them in the streets of Paris just because they were
only canaille. Our Radical friends have not found out just
yet how we run over them scientifically. When they do, be
sure they will find their remedy.
CHAPTER X.
the new morality.
Our mistress is a little given to philosophy: what disputations
shall we have here by-and-by !—Oil Bias.
They add up nature to a nought of God
And cross the quotient.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Voili de l'erudition.—Les Femmes Savantes.
Dr. Day had introduced Elsworth to a rather singular society,
founded by himself and daughter, in the West End of town,
and much frequented by medical, literary, musical, and
artistic young folk of " advanced " views. One of its members,
Arthur Devaux, was a rising physician at the hospital, and his
sister Linda soon became impressed with the attentions of
young Elsworth, and they met frequently and studied many
things together. Both were addicted to philological research ;
Linda worked at Anglo-Saxon in the library of the British
Museum, and, as Elsworth had pronounced tastes in that
direction, they were much thrown together. Her father was
an artist of French extraction, and, sharing his daughter's
tastes for comparative languages and dialects, they found the
young doctor a welcome addition to their family circle. Basque,
and Cal6, the dialect of the gipsies of Spain, were just now
occupying some of their attention, and the whole history and
customs of the latter interesting people had taken hold of
The New Morality.
69
young Elsworth to the extent of making him desirous to visit
them as soon as his hospital work would permit. Such studies
had by no means interfered with his professional duties, but had
assisted them by relaxing the mind when wearied with the
strain of long-continued effort in one direction. Philology was
one of his modes of unbending the bow, and a latent Bohem-
ianism gave him a strange sympathy with a gipsy's life. Have
not a large proportion of the solemn and respectable folk
dwellers in our great cities a taint of this same disorder?
Would not that calm, awe-inspiring judge upon the bench,
when the fit is on him, like to pitch off his wig and crimson
robe, and betake him to a Bedouin's life, if it were possible 1
Is it too much to imagine there may possibly be a bishop or
two who now and again have to smother a temptation, just the
least spice of a desire, say, to doff apron and shovel hat, and
have a season or two in a quiet, well-ordered sort of way,
where Mrs. Grundy could not find them 1 Certes, we have
known more than a dozen doctors who have neat broughams,
and whose manner of entering them is dignified and becoming;
who wear well-cut clothes, spotless linen, and the shiniest of
hats; who speak in measured tones, and look the very imper¬
sonations of propriety ; who yet are so heartily sick of your
tongues and pulses, your livers and your hearts, your pills and
potions, and your horrible stair-climbing, that were it not for
the overpowering sense of duty to Mrs. Leech and the little
Leeches, they would long ere now have been off out of walled
cities, and away from the galling proprieties of civilisation,
and betaken themselves to the forest, the moor, and the
mountain.
Our Society met every Sunday evening for social intercourse
and amusement; combined with the propagation of their
advanced ideas. They were all free men and women, that is to
say, they had got rid of old-world superstitions, and had de¬
throned God, setting up Science and the Nineteenth Century
in His place. They were a perfectly proper and well-conducted
70
vSV. Bernard's.
set of people, who, though very revolutionary over tea and
biscuits, defending Nihilism, dynamite mission work, and the
loosening of mental fetters and actual bricks and mortar
generally, would not have rashly upset even a box of crackers,
or exploded a match in an unguarded manner. They were
well dressed, spoke in subdued society tones, and conducted
themselves exactly as other people, only they persisted in
letting everybody know how extremely they disapproved of
God.
The young ladies were for the most part accompanied by
their highly respectable mammas or papas, who did not seem
in the least alarmed at their daughters' sympathy with the
violent doings of " men struggling for freedom;" or at the
indifference to continued existence on this ill-conducted planet
manifested by the young creatures in bewitching evening
toilettes who were under their tutelage. The mammas and
papas had heard it all before, and knew just what it meant; it
made them rather proud, perhaps, when they saw a blushing
young curate confronted for the first time with such advanced
sentiments, but even the curate got over bis alarm when he
found how very harmless it all was, and how when the girls
married they became just as reactionary as such people usually
are when they realize that they have any responsibilities. For
the most part the mammas seemed to act on the suggestion of
one of the lights of their school of thought, who maintained
that it was " the duty of parents to obey their children in all
things;" reversing the Mosaic command, as being suitable for
the governance of a nomadic tribe of Eastern people who had
little or no science, but not a fit code of behaviour for the
highly educated and well-convoluted brains of nineteenth-
century children. Their mammas looked up to their offspring
with a touching pride and awe—they had, from their superior
height, been able to overlook and despise the lower ground on
which their parents stood. The parents, indeed, still felt in
their nerves—however much they might affect to disregard—
The New Morality. 71
the potent influence of the old creeds—they could not relegate
to the limbo of discarded stage properties all the articles of the
Christian faith in which they had been nurtured, but this their
sons and daughters could and did; and they admired their
superior attainments and often wished they had at their
tongues' ends those caustic and supercilious answers to the
objections of the orthodox which came so readily from the lips
of their children. It was they who would set the world right
on all those points; it was they who would be able to forego
prayer without that constantly recurring sense of desolation
and orphanhood. It was they who would let the world see
how Christ was to be estimated at perhaps a lower standard
than Confucius, and certainly as the inferior of Buddha. It
was they who would one day explode the Sermon on the
Mount, and substitute for it the New Morality, summed up in
the motto, "Every one for himself, and the devil take the
hindmost." It had not been quite decided what word to sub¬
stitute for devil, but it would be something like " reversion to
original type," "degradation of species," "retrogression," or
some such scientific term. Meanwhile the word devil was used
not as implying any theological assent to the personality of
unpleasantness, but as a mere phrase like " Good-bye," which
originally, of course, was " God be with ye," now cut short, or
topped and tailed, as cooks prepare radishes. The inner
schools of this society were at the time we write of engaged in
preparing a list of phrases which advanced people should not be
permitted to use,—an index expurgatorius, in which were
already placed " Good-bye ! " " Adieu ! " " Good gracious ! "
" Bless me !" " Mercy on us ! " " Faith ! " " Oh law ! " (though
some were for retaining this), " Heaven send us," " Providential
escape ! " and all ejaculations and expressions having their rise
in "fables and lying deceits."
The use of the " big, big D." and similar exclamations, was
inhibited for gentlemen, not merely 011 account of vulgarity,
but because such words implied some latent belief in super-
72
St. Bernard's.
stitious dogmas, as Dr. Newman argues that the terrible
language used by the Tuscans and Neapolitans is an evidence
of the complete orthodoxy of their faith,—just as "By our
Ladye," subjected to an abbreviating process, is in the modern
vernacular of the vulgar, a relic of Mariolatry, of which even
our enfranchised and much voting mechanics have not yet
divested themselves.
CHAPTER XI.
tea and anarchy.
Opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they
invariably descend into low ones.—Lcicon.
Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best,
Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.—Boje.
You share not with us, and exceed us so,
Perhaps, by what you're mulcted in, your hearts
Being starved to make your heads.
—Elizabeth B. Browning,
It was Elsworth's third year at the hospital. He had taken
several gold medals and scholarships ; and so, to outward appear¬
ance, had done well. But he was not as he was when he
entered. He was sowing what he called his " wild oats," for¬
getting the reaping of the crop that one day would have to be
considered. He had not abandoned his faith, but it had ceased
to influence his life. The thing he came for he had not won.
He defended Christianity still when he heard it attacked ; but
this was because he thought it honourable to take the side of
the weakest in every argument, and partly because the set who
were so severe upon it were a perky, superficial, insincere lot of
folk, that, above all thiDgs, wanted taking down. Christianity
might be false, he argued, but it could not be such a tissue of
absurdities as these people maintained.
One summer's night, about this time, the society was
assembled to hear an address by a well known atheist pro¬
pagandist, on marriage. Mr. Edgar Adams he was called. He
was a singular-looking man; he was tall, lean, and hungry-
looking, with long, dank, black hair, and a complexion such as
74
St. Bernard's.
poor people get who work in lead factories, and let it im¬
pregnate their systems. His dress was untidy, not to say
greasy; his vast display of shirt front looked as if it had done
duty in gas-light more than once before. Altogether, he was
an unwholesome looking object, and, as a seafaring youth
present declared, " it seemed as if a good holystoning down
was what he wanted." It did not surprise you the least when
he advocated the destruction of Czars and despots generally,
and talked with enthusiasm of the great French Revolution,
with his starting eye-balls, and his thin, claw-like hands
nervously twitching, expressing his eagerness to assist in the
work of another Robespierre. He declared he would " abolish
all property, especially that in a wife. The origin of the
marriage superstition was pagan and suicidal, for marriage is
the suicide of love. When the law no longer supplies husband
or wife with a cage, each will take care of holding what has
been won. Chastity and modesty are merely conventional
ideas, having their origin in utility." He declared that till
Christianity was finally abolished, the real progress of the
world could not be continued. " What is called the virtue of
humility was never known—not even the word for it—by the
Greeks and Romans ; that is the great barrier in the path of
modern man. Humility was invented by priests to hold man
in slavery." He, ended by reciting a poem of Shelley's
denouncing tyrants and despots, and was much applauded.
The rooms of the society are well-filled to-night, and all the
chief attractions in force. The people who could lead con¬
versation, and who had strong opinions, and were able to put
them cleverly, had assembled. The habitues had all some
distinguishing trait, some particular socialistic or anti-religious
fad; no two exactly agreed on anything, except that it was of
the first importance to smash up existing beliefs. Hinduism,
Confucianism, Judaism, Buddhism, were all held to be much
better than Christianity as systems of religious thought, b\it
that was because they were all impossible 'for our age the one
Tea and Anarchy.
75
thing that was possible, that had established itself by renovat¬
ing society and redeeming the world, must be crushed and cast
out, because it was not the outcome of the age of steam and the
electric light. There was scarcely anybody in the room who
did not owe his or her character and virtuous environment
entirely to a Christian training, which had made them decent
members of society, and which they were anxious to requite by
proving its incapacity to be any longer a suitable moral system
for our age. A curious and a priggish set of imperfectly
educated and vain people ; mostly young, impracticable, and
unversed in the wants and remedies of a work-a-day world. It
is worth while to be introduced to these typical folk, who are
bent on substituting some of their nostrums to take the place
of the old religion when it dies of age.
There was a tall, dark-eyed girl on the lounge in the corner
—Miss Mardall. She was a designer of high art tapestry; was
lean, sallow, handsome in the aesthetic sense, not more than
twenty-five, and a disciple of Schopenhauer and Hartmann.
She grouped her wild flowers to make the most delightfully
artistic patterns for her fabrics; but in their forms, their
colours, their odours, she recognised nothing but the grossest
and most material adaptation to the necessities of their existence
and diffusion. Their colours meant nothing but distinguishing
characteristics to aid in their fertilisation ; their odours served
to attract insects to brush so much pollen from their stamens
and their pistils; their exquisite forms and intricacies of
structure meant so many difficult passages the bees would
have to knock against, and so disseminate so much fructifying
material. And thus all the floral gems of the fields and woods
were, in this nineteenth-century girl's eyes, so many machines
for making so much vegetable material for the furtherance of
the animal world; and if they had any of the qualities one
chose to term beauty, it was simply the beauty of adaptation
of means to end. She was much too clever to be a poet, and
was utilitarian and material to the last degree. Adelaide-
J6 St. Bernard s.
Rowland, her friend, sitting next to her, under the picture of
the storming of the Bastille, went even further. Her pessimism
was so pronounced that she thought it a mistake to continue
to exist. She had 110 desire that the human or any other race
should continue to exist; did not in the least see anything in
the world worth working for, except to get food, lodging, and
warmth; and declared that at the very first great reverse in
her life she would decline to exist any more. As she immedi¬
ately, however, demanded some tea, and took a wedge of very
substantial cake, it was evident the great reverse had not as
yet overtaken her. She was but nineteen, and was as proud
of her pessimism (in an elegant robe just from Paris) as she
recently was of her last new doll, with practicable eyes, and
power to say "mamma." Her talk of "declining to exist"
was only alarming to one at the first introduction to her; "when
you came to know her well, and love her," you knew how to
discount this sort of talk, and you simply asked her to have
a little more cake and another cup of tea. That gentleman on
her left in a brown velvet coat, with long hair, is a poet. He
admires Nihilism, and thinks all authority wants dynamiting.
Sounds dreadful to hear him, but he is really extremely harm¬
less. His father is high in the General Post Office, and this
young man is reading for the Bar. He will be all right when
he is called ; at present he is a supporter of Mr. Parnell. By-
and-bye he will come into a row of little weekly properties in
the suburb of Stratford-by-Bow, and he will collect the rents
and neglect the sanitary arrangements with most landlord-like
regularity. His sister is that pretty little fair girl in the
corner by the grand piano. She writes stories about despotism
and the dawn of freedom's day. She looks kind, but is a terror
to her younger sisters and her sick brother, who often wish
that freedom's day was really just going to begin, and who
know a great deal more about the practical working of despotism
in an eight-roomed villa than she does, despite the strongly
flavoured literature she devours.
Tea and Anarchy.
77
That tall, grave, reverend-looking party who has just entered
is the socialist leader, James D'Arcy. Humanity in the ab
stract is all he lives and works for. No concrete embodiment
of the mammal, genus Homo, was ever the better in the
smallest degree for knowing him, many specimens were very
much the worse ; but that is neither here nor there. He never
wrote "humanity" with a little h, and always spelled "man"
with a big M. What more could be expected of him 1 His
was the work of a reformer, a leader of progress; petty details
were for petty men. James D'Arcy had to live for the age,
and live well too. It was such an unworthy, priest-ridden age
withal, and " so dressed up in the tattered shreds of creeds
outworn " (as he loved to express it at a Sunday morning Pro¬
gress Club Lecture to " boot finishers " down Hoxton way), that
the age ought to consider itself honoured by giving its best to
support him in his journey through it right comfortably, or it
would not even be worthy to be spelled by him with a capital
A. And, as the age did want to be so distinguished from still
more besotted and priest-ridden times, it rose to the occasion,
and Mr. D'Arcy lived in clover. He entered the room accom¬
panied by a little, unwholesome, saturnine, beetle-browed
friend, Professor Melton. The professor looked as if he agreed
with Isabella the Catholic, who set a penalty on bathing after
the conquest of the Moors in Spain. Mr. Melton was lecturer
on physiology at the Institute of Natural Science, and his
laboratory was close by. It was seldom he permitted himself
much relaxation, but felt it incumbent on him to aid in every
scheme for liberating the minds of young people from reverence
for the sacredness of days or devotion to religious exercises.
So he had consented to promote the interests of this little
society by his occasional presence. He was soon the centre of
a group of talkers, and his talk was on the extinction of
pauperism.
" In a renovated society," he said, " it will be recognised
that there is no greater sin than almsgiving. By relieving dis-
78
St. Bernard's.
tressed persons, by giving bread to the hungry, you defeat
Nature, thwart her efforts to limit the too great increase of the
race, and allow the recipient to make the fatal error that he
can live without work."
" Would you deny assistance to the aged and the sick ?"
asked a lady.
" I would abolish the Poor Laws, which establish the right
of an asylum to old and infirm people, who actually often live
for twenty years in the union at an expense to the country of
say £250."
"Would you refuse to help them altogether?"
"I would. By that means people would be made more
provident, and would invest their savings when young to keep
them when old."
" Then you would leave them to starve ?"
" Not at all. I would simply stimulate them to work ; if
they were unfit to work, they must die. I would not prevent
anybody giving them food and shelter, though I would teach
people that by so doing they were hindering the great law of
Nature—the survival of the fittest."
" What about hospitals for consumptives, asylums for idiots,
and other shelters for hopeless cases ?"
" Oh ! while there was a reasonable chance of restoring a
consumptive person to health, and enabling him to work, I
would do what I could for him. If his case became quite hope¬
less, I would have him mercifully despatched, that he might
not burden the State. As for idiots, the subjects of incurable
mental disease, cripples that could do nothing useful, and all
other maimed and useless people, I would get rid of them in
the same way—of course under the most careful restrictions
against abuse."
" Don't you think the State should refuse permission to marry
to people who cannot produce a certificate of perfect health from
a physician employed by the Government, with a view of check¬
ing the multiplication of consumptive and ill-developed folk ?"
Tea and Anarchy.
79
"Certainly; that is in my scheme for an ideal republic."
" I think I know," said Elsworth, " many beautiful souls
whose work in the world is of the highest value to our day and
generation, who would not have been here had any such
regulation been in force."
" That may be," replied the advanced one; " but there
would be no room for their energies in my ideal world. Where
all were strong and healthful, all mentally well developed,
there would be no weakness, disease, or sorrow to assist."
" And the highest perfection of man would be extinct in a
selfisb, unfeeling strength ; " said Elsworth, turning to a pretty
little girl at a table, who was bending over a dish of wild
flowers. " Are you botanising, Miss Gordon 1"
"No; I was listening to your conversation, and thinking
how unlovely a place all these new ideas will make the world
when they come to predominate. Beauty will be eliminated.
Don't you think flowers were meant to delight us as well as the
insects 1 "
" Of course ; and I agree with Emerson that ' flowers are a
proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities
of the world.'"
" This is such a dreadfully utilitarian age that one has almost
to apologise for holding such sentiments," said she.
"Not at all, if we hold with Ruskin that the most perfectly
useful is always the most perfectly beautiful thing—there is
direct relation between the two. It is ever these half-state¬
ments which are the greatest lies. Truth is full-orbed; it is
the broken arcs that are half in shadow."
He is not very wise who has never erred ; and, if the truth
must be told, our hero was, to say the least, wasting his time
in a society composed of vain and unreal people, who could
teach him nothing but that we are " only cunning casts in clay."
As Arthur Devaux and Elsworth walked home with Linda, they
discussed the reasonableness of the oldandnew beliefs about God.
Both the doctor and his clever sister were declared atheists, and,
8o
St. Bernard's.
as Bacon says, proved the unsatisfying nature of their negation
of God by trying to make converts to their theory. The con¬
stant association with these friends, and others of the same
opinions, had, little by little, sapped our hero's faith,
" How do you like the tone of our meetings, Mr. Elsworthl"
asked Linda.
" I was thinking," said he, " how much they resemble the
society of which Lady Wortley Montague once spoke, es¬
tablished for taking the word ' not' out of the commandments
and putting it into the Creed. She rather approved of the
idea, as she thought so many people loved to be disobedient, it
might bring about a reformation in morals."
"Oh, but we are not immoral," said her brother; "it is a
higher morality, a higher basis we wish to introduce. "We want
first to be rid of the idea of God; the mechanic Thor with the
hammer and workman's tools. The design argument is played
out, don't you think %"
" It is hard to have to believe, and still harder to maintain
before one's unlearned friends, that this complicated machinery,
so compact, so admirably adapted to its purpose, had no de¬
signer," said Elsworth, with a sigh he could not repress.
"Oh, but it had !" said the young physician. "You must
claim all for development that the theist claims for God the
mechanic; you must claim that every articulation, every ten¬
don and muscle assumed its form after long ages of necessity for
its appearance had gradually evolved it in its present perfection."
" In a measure I grant this. I know how faculties come to
us by reaching after them—know that the craftsman's deftness
is the result of long practice and education of sense and
muscle ; but I cannot find in the highest craftsman's hand a
single extra nerve or tendon, or a better articulation, than I
find in the clumsiest day-labourer's fist which never knew the
use of a more delicate instrument than a spade."
" Of course not," said Devaux; " it is not the in¬
dividual, it is the type which is developed into a higher
Tea and Anarchy.
81
grade by slow stages, and so gradually that it is usually
impossible to mark the precise advent of a distinct advance.
Still, as Haeckel points out in the case of the axolotl in the
Jardin des Plantes, some few advanced beyond the grade of de¬
velopment hitherto known in them; they lost their gills,
changed the shape of their bodies, and, from aquatic animals,
became lung-breathers and terrestrial animals. What do you
say to that 1"
" I would like to know more precise particulars than Haeckel
gives of the anatomical characteristics of the axolotl in its
natural condition in Mexico; whether it may or may not be
the fact that all axolotls, after having propagated themselves
in their larval state, undergo the metamorphosis into sala¬
mander like animals (Amblystoma)."*
" But surely you cannot be blind to the enormous number of
facts adduced by entomologists and botanists to show how the
organs of insects and plants have a direct correlation to each
other; how each organ and the whole form of the insect is the
outcome of its effort to obtain food from particular species of
plants, and the form of the plant the outcome of its resistance
to giving food supply without payment in the shape of pollen
dissemination. The ingenuity of the insect in its endeavour to
get nectar easily, is met by the cleverness, so to speak, of the
plant in providing the food only in such situations where it
cannot be reached without efficient pollen dusting. Where is
the room for your heavenly Mechanic here 1"
" I fail to see that you in the least disturb my theism.
' These are only parts of His ways.' I expect that a Creator of
all things would operate by means, by just such natural laws
and the power of such environment as you have instanced, to
modify and develop organs. All these things serve but to
make me admire the power of His inflexible laws, and the in¬
finite wisdom which set them going. I see nothing in these
* " The Doctrine of Descent." Oscar Schmidt.
F
82
St. Bernard's.
things to make disbelieve in an almighty Creator. The creating
influence is only set a little farther back, not excluded. That
these wonderful adaptations exist potentially in the original
protoplasm of the creature, is to me quite as much a proof of
an all-wise Creator as if I believed in a separate interference
for the production of each organ, or adaptation as its necessity
arose. It is the potentiality in the cell and the atom that
transcends all men's materialist explanations, that is so won¬
derful to me. This is where you see Force and Nature, and
the Christian sees God, as Browning says :—
"'We find great things are made of little thing3,
And little things go lessening, till at last
Comes God behind them.
The name comes close behind a stomach cyst,
The simplest of creations.' "
" Yes," said Linda, who had not taken part in the argument
till now, " you set up your idea of God as a great First Cause
to shield yourself from awkward questions and the confession
of your ignorance."
" Questions that you, at least, cannot answer, and ignorance
that none of our materialist philosophers can enlighten," re¬
plied Elsworth, with a little warmth.
"Precisely; only we are honest enough to say we don't
know and cannot explain; while you shelter yourself behind a
mere idea, which is a barrier to investigation and an obstacle
to all freedom of research."
" I protest. Nothing of the sort. Darwin was a theist;
Newton was a theist. Surely neither of these men found their
conception of God an obstacle to their freedom of research 1"
"I don't mean that," rejoined the physician. "What I
mean is, that to the great mass of mankind the habit of attri¬
buting to a Creator, of whom they know nothing, the forma¬
tion of things they cannot understand, prevents their desire to
enlarge the boundaries of their knowledge. Dog fanciers know
Tea and Anarchy.
perfectly well that the English bull-dog is the creation of the
breeders ; they understand just how the bull-dog has acquired
his peculiar characteristics. They attribute animals in general,
perhaps, to God ; they take the credit of the bull-dog to them¬
selves. The gardener knows just how to develop the particular
dahlia he wants ; he knows all the tricks and interferences of
art required to produce the flower of a certain form and colour.
He attributes the creation of plants in general to God; the
dahlia you ask for, and which is in his particular line, he places
to his own account. As men enlarge the bounds of their know¬
ledge, there will become less and less room for God. I know a
man who has a brown mark on his arm, which he calls a
mushroom; he is particularly fond of ketchup ; he attributes this
taste to the fact that he is marked with a mushroom. He de¬
clares that during the mushroom season this brown mark (not
a bit like a mushroom, by the way) comes to greater per¬
fection ; as the season passes it diminishes, till at last there is,
he declares, very little to be seen.
"Now, at present, maternal impressions and birth marks are
very little understood by scientific men ; the whole question is
still under investigation. By-and-bye the whole mystery will
be solved, and we shall have an answer to the difficulty.
Meanwhile the common folk will persist in their fanciful
theories, while the more intelligent will suspend their judg¬
ment till we can influence it by science. This is my attitude
about creation, as you call it. Yours is the attitude of Mrs.
Gamp towards the strawberry marks. She persists in explain¬
ing, Voila tout / "
" In this instance Mrs. Gamp has a good deal of reason on
her side, and it is not unlikely that her explanation may have
its foundation in fact. The uneducated mind has often made
discoveries by observing and comparing this sort of facts which
scientific men have after much scoffing been compelled to admit
are correct statements of natural phenomena.
" For instance, in the case of the stigmata of St. Francis of
84 St. Bernard's.
Assisi, all the scientific men for many years put the "whole
business down to imposture, if they took the trouble to con¬
sider it seriously at all. Now they are compelled to recognise
that it is a fact that in highly nervous temperaments the con¬
centration of the mind for a length of time on one engrossing
idea, such as the wounds of Christ in the hands and feet, will
produce just such a condition of the parts in question on the
body of the absorbed individual, as is recorded of St. Francis.
The influence of the mind upon the body is even yet only very
partially understood. Mrs. Gamp, in the case you allude to,
has my sympathy. Pray remember that our great Paracelsus,
the father of our modern scientific medicine, derived much of
his valuable information on treatment from the unlettered
peasantry of the countries in which he travelled, and of whom
he was not too proud to learn."
"That is true, and I saw the other day that a layman of Vienna
has discovered a method of treatment for the cure of that puzzl¬
ing and intractable disease, writer's cramp, which has been
recognised by the physicians of Vienna as affording the only
really good results they know of. But you are wandering rather
wide of our argument. We started from the evidences of
design as shown in the human hand, and went on to consider
the question of a great First Cause. Paley's argument from
the watch might have been all very well for his time, but is
of little force now, because you see where it lands you; it
makes your designer—your watchmaker—responsible for all
the imperfections as well as the excellencies. I see a watch
lying by the road-side, and at once say it must .have had a
maker. Very well; it is a bad time-keeper—gains one day,
loses the next, and is a generally shabby bit of workmanship.
So much the worse for the watchmaker. Now, take the human
eye. Helmholtz said, as an optical instrument it was so
defective, that had such a piece of workmanship been sent to
him by any optician, he should have forthwith forfeited his
custom. If you persist in using the design argument after
Tea and Anarchy.
85
Paley, you make your Omnipotent Designer responsible for all
the evil, the disease, the misery that is in the world. Here is
the hand with all its wonders. ' Behold the all-wise, all-
powerful Creator,' say you. Good. But there are scarlet
fever, lunacy, cancer. How about your all-wise, all-powerful
Creator now 1
" Oh, if you would but read your Browning ! Hear what
he says:—
" ' I can believe this dread machinery
Of sin and sorrow, would confound me else,
Devised,—all pain, at most expenditure
Of pain by Who devised pain,—to evolve,
By new machinery in counterpart,
The moral qualities of man—how else ?—
To make him love in turn and be beloved,
Creative and self-sacrificing too,
And thus eventually God-like,
# * * * *
Enable man to wring, from out all pain,
All pleasure, for a common heritage,
To all eternity.' *
•' I am surprised you think the existence of evil militates
against the existence of a perfect Creator. A ribald contro¬
versialist was once asked how he would have improved the
world had he had the making of it. He replied ; ' For one
thing I would have made health catching instead of disease.
Yours is a similar ad captdndum style of argument. You must
know as well as I do that our fevers are the result of dirt and
neglect of the most elementary sanitary precautions j it is not
nature that afflicts us so much as our artificial living and our
vicious habits. As for lunacy, it is largely the product of
vice, drink, and the race for wealth. With regard to pain, it
is frequently conservative. As Theodore Parker points out, if
* Browning : "Ring and Book," vol. iv. p. 60.
86
St. Bernard's.
we could put our fingers into the fire without pain, they would
soon he destroyed; if dust did not make our eyes smart, their
utility would soon be destroyed by rough usage; if we could
eat improper food without unpleasant consequences, our
digestive functions would soon be unfit for their work, and so
forth."
Linda laughed at the idea of health being catching, and
thought the advocate of design was cornered.
"For my part," said Elsworth, "I think the man was a
great fool. Love is catching, as Coventry Patmore says, ' love
that grows from one to all, and love is better than health,
isn't it ?
" I don't see," said the doctor, " that you have in the least
affected my argument that evil could never have been per
mitted by an all-wise, omnipotent, and good Creator. Its
existence proves the Creator not to have been all these, at any
rate."
" A great deal of man's ill may be removed," said Elsworth ;
" indeed, amelioration is the dominant note of nature. If you
will forgive me quoting my favourite poet Browning again—
" ' Dragons were, and serpents are, and blindworms will be,
Ne'er emerged
And new created python for man's plague
Since earth was purged,'
you will see what I mean. There is a general onward move¬
ment; the prospect brightens for mankind. But there will
always be evil, because without it there can be no good.
Where would be patience without trials ; where sympathy and
charity without suffering? Do you think the virtues and
nobility of Gordon, of Sakya Muni, of St. Francis, would have
been evolved had there been no evil and suffering in the
world %"
"In a perfect world there would have been no occasion foi'
them," said Linda,
Tea and Anarchy.
" I cannot conceive," Elsworth replied, " of a perfect world
without love for one's neighbour, sacrifice of self, devotion to
high and noble efforts for the good of others. Fancy the'
hideous selfishness of a world of wealthy, luxurious aristocrats,
such as helped to precipitate the French Revolution; the
gratification of their own pleasures and passions the sole
object of their existence ! Contrast this state of things in
your ideal perfect world—where every one would have all he
wanted, and would have no occasion to think of others,—no
opportunity to exercise charity, pity, long-suffering, or altruism
in any form—with the burning love of a St. Paul, who was
willing himself to be accursed if he could thereby save others;
with Christian heroes who have sold themselves into slavery;
have entered lazar-houses from which they could never re¬
turn ; have cheerfully embraced martyrdom, and undertaken
every form of danger and suffering, to help their brother men.
Or to come to every-day affairs, contrast the selfishness of the
rich, and those who are elevated above the grosser cares and
difficulties of life, with the charity and devotedness practised
by the poor of our great cities towards each other; and say if
the existence of pain, sorrow, and suffering is not actually
necessary for the evolution of the highest man 1 And so ' upon
men's own account must evil stay.' "
" But here we are at your diggings, Elsworth. You will get
rid of these cobwebs of the brain before you have done with St.
Bernard's," laughed Devaux.
And so the friends went home to bed, to dream of a regen¬
erated world, fit for an age of steam, telephones, and physio¬
logical research not contemplated by the Apostles, and therefore
requiring a new religion of its own.
CHAPTER Xn.
"send for father o'grady."
" What ! do they study ? "
" No, father, but they feel! "
" Feel! I comprehend thee not!"
Sir. E. B. Lytton.
Such men, in other men's calamities, are, as it were, in season, and are
ever on the loading part; not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus'
sores, but like flies that are still buzzing upon anything that is raw.—
Bacon.
As a resident dresser, it often devolved upon our hero to reason
with troublesome patients who offered opposition to the
methods of treatment proposed to be adopted in their particular
case.
One day an ambulance deposited at the door of the hospital,
an Irishman, who had just fallen from a high scaffold, and had
been carried thither by the police.
Dr. Wilson had carefully examined the poor man, and had
determined to amputate one of his legs. Dr. Wilson had what
has been aptly termed the "furor 02'^ativus," the operative
madness. He had a burning desire to do everything that any¬
body had ever been known to do on the human subject in the
way of surgery. He did not want his period of office to expire
till he had had an opportunity of adding to his list of cases
the most difficult and dangerous operations set down in books.
Now the Hibernian subject just brought in would do very well
for a trial of a new method of amputating the leg at the thigh;
and as the man objected to any such interference with the
" Send for Father O' Grady"
89
integrity of his ambulatory apparatus, the strongest pressure
was brought to bear upon his obstinacy.
" Send for Father O'Grady, he'll manage it. I won't lose my
chance if I can help it !" And the newly appointed house-
surgeon looked defiantly round on his little band of dressers,
who shared his anxiety that so good an operation should not
slip through his fingers without a final effort. Pat was
determined he would not have his leg off. " What would he
be good for with a wooden leg 1 How would the wife and
childher go on if he were maimed like that 1 Let me be out
of this ! By the mercy o' God and His blessed Mother I'll get
well again and kape me leg. Just boind it up, mates, and let
me go. God bless ye all, I know ye mane it for me good.
Don't be thinkin' me a coward : it isn't that at all. Ye might
cut me in little paices, if it wasn't for the missis and the bits
of childher." And poor Pat began to cry bitterly, not for his
pain, which was bad enough, but at the recollection of his dear
ones at home, for whom he could do no more work for many a
week, perhaps might never climb a ladder again.
The dressers were rough but warm-hearted, and some had
difficulty in restraining tears that were undresser-like and
derogatory to their authority.
The house surgeon had long ago got over that nonsense
He was there in the interests of science. Sympathy was for
women and clergymen. What had he to do with a patient's
calling and his home concerns 1 He walked up and down the
receiving room with his hands in his pockets, musing thus:
" Conservative surgery is all very well, but it isn't brilliant.
When a fellow has taken off a dozen or two lower extremities,
he can afford to be conservative ; but if I let this go, I may
complete my term of office without another chance of doing
anything half so good. That conceited ass Gay worth, is crow¬
ing over me already. He did a better hernia than I ever had
the chance to do ; but I shall beat him if 1 get this. Perhaps
I could save the poor devil's leg—at any rate, Laxton thinks
90
St. Bernard's.
so; but, hang it, what's a fellow to do ? I go off next w eek,
and I shall never have anything like this again ! Here comes
the priest; he will bring him to reason."
Cheery, bustling, kindly Father O'Grady runs up the hospital
steps, and is met in the entrance hall by our ardent young
operator. " Sorry to bother you, father, but one of your
people here who has a compound fracture of the thigh refuses
to undergo the necessary operation to save his life."
" Won't have his leg off, I suppose!" said the priest.
" Just so."
"Is it really necessary, doctor dear!"
" Decidedly, and I wouldn't answer for his living the week
out if it isn't done at once."
And the surgeon looked as dogmatic and authoritative as
though he were the President of the College of Surgeons him¬
self. The good priest looked at this youth, only just turned
twenty-two, and wondered, if he were older and wiser, with the
knowledge that comes not from books and lectures, but from
experience and meditation, the true correctives for so many
medical theories—wondered if he would be as positive as he
was now.
" You are sure you couldn't save his leg anyhow 1"
" Quite sure."
It was not for the good clergyman to argue the case, so he
went to the couch on which lay the crushed form of his suffer¬
ing countryman and co-religionist, bent over him and whispered
loving words in his ear, and commanded him in the name of
the Church to submit to lose his limb that his life might be
saved, as the doctors desired.
Without another word of resistance the man obeyed, and
gave the surgeon permission to do as he would with him.
The good priest blessed the man, and, with tears in his eyes,
turning to the grateful young doctor, said in a whisper,—
" But I hope it is really necessary."
" Oh, certainly, father, or I wouldn't think of it."
" Send for Father C? Grady? 91
His reverence did not seem quite so convinced on that score
as he might have been, and left the place with a sigh. A
message was immediately sent to the visiting surgeon of the
week, who lived close by and who had long promised the
young doctor " something good before he went off." He
soon arrived, approved of Wilson's suggestion, and congratulated
him on his " opportunity," for he was an amiable and benevolent
teacher, who liked his pupils " to feel their feet" as he used to
say.
Of course it was given out that the great man was to operate
(that was a precaution always taken) the teachers never
shirked any responsibility, their backs were broad enough for
everything, and when the anaesthetic had done its work, " who
was to know % That's the beauty of chloroform," said Wilson.
" Qui facit per alium, facit per se," added the professor, " that is
an axiom in law and that must be right!" So the bell was
rung that called the students to assemble in the theatre where
the operations took place, and all was ready. Mr. Wilson was
not quite easy in his mind; his conscience told him he was
sacrificing this Irish labourer's chance of preserving his injured
limb (and that limb meant so much more to 1pm and his than
to a rich man) to his own advancement in the surgeon's art.
But that conscience was soon silenced. He had learned how to
crush out all feelings of pity that interfered with his " work "
long ago in the physiological room. He was tender, kind, and
a lover of the lower animals when he began his course there,
when he first obeyed the order of his teacher to slice off a
piece of a living frog's eye and rub lunar caustic on the injured
organ. He shuddered when the professor said : " It won't be
nice for the frog, but it will be useful to you !" But he
shuddered less next time , and when he had conquered his
aversion to the torture of living dogs which licked his hands
before he began, it was not difficult to do any work in the
operating theatre on human beings which science might de-
paand,
92
St. Bernard's.
" So patients must suffer that surgeons may learn,
And women must weep when their husbands return
With their limbs left behind at St. Bernard's."
And he whistled merrily to think how his capital operation had
come in the nick of time.
Poor Pat was quite resigned; he had obeyed the voice of the
Church; and Faith bade him reflect that God would look after
his family when he went out with a wooden leg and his calling
gone in this life. It is not absolutely certain that this
mediaeval attitude of mind is so very inferior to that of the free
and independent Protestant way of looking at things, after all.
Patrick Flynn's day-book and ledger would not make a bad
figure when the auditing angel came along, notwithstanding
his complete ignorance of any learning save his rosary and the
non-possession of the key of his own conscience.
" I could have saved that leg if it had been my case," said
Senior Surgeon Bishop after the operation; " but it wrould
have been hard on Wilson to make him lose his chance."
It was this same Wilson who so horrified Elsworth by com¬
pelling him to tear off the thumb-nail of a patient for whom
such an operation was necessary, without the use of any
anaesthetic. " If we gave chloroform for every trifling job
like that," he said, " we should have enough to do." He had
become so case-hardened against feeling pain in others that he
could only attribute to weakness and incompetence that hesita¬
tion to cause a single unnecessary pang in any sentient being
which is the unvarying qualification of all the greatest and
noblest men and women of whom we know anything. The
blood-madness of some of the Dukes of Milan no doubt began
early with unrestricted torture of animals. Not all at once dc
men bring themselves to hunt their prisoners with dogs fed or
human flesh. Ecelin had to learn his cruelty as men learn any
other business, slowly and by degrees qualifying for the title
" Send for Father OyGrady."
93
of " The Cruel" which men gave him. It would doubtless be
some satisfaction to flies and other insects tortured by ill-
trained children, if they could know that their tormentors
would soon exercise their skill on their fellows, and so avenge
the innocent world below them. Elsworth had done his best
to get the man to consent to his mutilation, but his conscience
troubled him for many days afterwards.
CHAPTER XIII.
"the soothing idea op god."
How dear, how soothing to man, arises the idea of God, peopling the
lonely place, effacing the scars of our mistakes and disappointments.—
Emerson.
That grand sin of atheism or impiety, Melancthon calls it monstrosam
melancholiam, monstrous melancholy; or venenatam melancholiam,
poisoned melancholy.—Burton.
It would be very far from the truth to say that when people
cast off their orthodox creeds they turn their morals out of
doors. Some of the noblest and most beautiful souls maintain
their pure and lovely li ves in spite of their having long ceased
to be Christians—that is, as far as they can tell—for sure it is
that many such follow Christ and know it not, perhaps follow
Him very much closer than more orthodox believers. Still, it
must be confessed from an impartial view of the question, that
these cases are quite exceptional, that they cannot be claimed
as the fruits of atheism. For one such opponent of Christian
teaching who lives an exemplary life in spite of his want of
faith, a thousand quiet, self-sacrificing men and women could be
found. Of course, philosophy and high culture will do some¬
thing for mankind. It did something for the pagan world, it
does much for the Buddhist and Confucian peoples. But the
note of all these philosophers is Melancholy, and the note of all
true Christian folk is Cheerfulness. "Christianity alone stands
between the human intellect and madness."
" The Soothing Idea of GodI
95
Elsworth could not but notice the despair which at times
and in moments of confidence was so manifest in Dr. Day and
his daughter, and Linda and her brother ; they were " without
hope and without God in the world." They often lamented
that they could not believe, and enjoy the peace of God that
passes all understanding. How often in the wards of the hos¬
pital or at the bedsides of out-door patients had he been moved
by the contrast offered by the simple, sublime faith of some
poor suffering Christian man or woman, whose sick-room was
illumined by a light that never sprang from the human intel¬
lect, but rayed forth from the face of God Himself. Peace
that yet was not indifference, cheerfulness that was not stoicism,
made the chambers and the couches of these men and women
unspeakably different from those of their unbelieving neigh¬
bours. Prayer, " the window that opens towards the infinite,"
as a great writer has beautifully expressed it, brought light
and warmth and joy to these poor souls; and his atheist friends
would not have made proselytes of them on any account.
They said that for these folk their religion was philosophy
made easy, and thought this accounted for the matter satis¬
factorily.
The chaplain of a general hospital should be a man of liberal
ideas and wide sympathies ; he should be capable of taking an
interest in the daily life of his charges, and try to see the
things that interest them as much as possible from their own
points of view. Here he will meet with people who have per¬
haps had no instruction in religion whatever, and whose sole
knowledge of its working has been gathered from the misrepre¬
sentations of a street infidel orator or the ignorant distortions
of an atheist journal. To such he cannot be too human and
unecclesiastical. He must not talk " Church " to them, but
the simplest, most loving human words. One of the St. Ber¬
nard chaplains made a great mistake when he asked everybody
"if they had said their prayers." He never got to their hearts,
and no wonder. The new chaplain, Mr. Anderson, was a man
St. Bernard's.
of very different stamp; he was of Charles Kingsley's school,
and seemed familiar with every calling and phase of the life of
his people. He was a devoted son of the Church, but you did
not find it out by any symbols or tone. The fact that no
patient, whether heathen, Christian, or " unattached," left the
hospital without being the better for knowing him, proved his
fitness for his work.
He taught many an indifferent one the true spirit and
method of prayer, and many thanked God for the accident or
malady which had brought them under his happy influence.
In him they had secured at least one friend for life, for dis¬
charge from the wards was not the usual termination of the
friendship of Mr. Anderson. Before he came the chapel was
seldom attended by the resident students; their pews were
conspicuous by their emptiness, but he won even them, and
helped many out of difficulties with the authorities. Mr.
Horsley, the late chaplain of Clerkenwell prison, tells us he
learned thieves' slang, the better to acquaint himself with his
flock. Mr. Anderson had some very curious specimens of
humanity to deal with who required almost as much skill on
his part, for many men injured in unlawful proceedings are
taken to hospitals and watched by the police till their recovery
permits their removal. He neglected not even these.
CHAPTER XIV.
the sacred whole of man.
So ignorant of man's whole,
Of bodily organs plain to see—
So sage and certain, frank and free,
About what's under lock and key—
Man's soul !—Browning.
He alone is an acute observer who can observe minutely without
being observed.—Lavater,
When the students enter the wards of the hospitals for regular
work with the staff, they have to devote a considerable portion
of their time to the business of minutely recording the family
history, physical signs and symptoms, and the treatment of
each patient allotted to them. These records are valuable for
reference, and still more so for the education of the pupils.
They accustom the student to habits of careful observation;
and as clinical work is by far the most important factor in his
training, the man who does most of this stands the best chance
of thoroughly learning his business. Elsworth found his ac¬
count in sticking to the bedside, and often learned from con¬
versing with his patients many things which helped him to
understand how they came to be patients at all. Indeed, he
found so much imprudence and ignorance in the habits of the
people, that he wondered how it was they were ever free from
disease. All the industrious men were great note-takers in the
wards \ they found that to understand the disease one must
understand the subject of it. The practice introduced them to
the habits of the working classes as nothing else could have
a
98
St. Bernard's.
done so perfectly. The expert note-taker learned more of
human nature in thus recording these histories than he could
have acquired from reading any number of books. Some
startling revelations as to the amount of drink the British
workman can absorb were often made in this way. There
were several great breweries in the neighbourhood, and the
men employed assured the doctors they usually drank about
two gallons of beer a day. These men were always awkward
persons to treat; their flesh healed badly, and they were liable
to many complications which abstemious persons would escape.
Many artisans, whose weekly wages would average twenty-
eight to thirty shillings, owned to spending ten shillings
on their own liquor—a sum which, given to their wives,
would have often made all the difference between poverty
and decent comfort. Many of the accidents that were
brought in could be traced to unsteadiness of brain caused
by alcohol. When men are working in dangerous situ¬
ations, it is perilous in the extreme for them to indulge in
stimulants. It was not surprising that men who drank two
gallons of strong beer a day should fall into the vats or down
trap-doors; the wonder was they could walk at all.
One man confessed to having taken on an average forty two-
pennyworths of rum a day. He was a Jew dealer in metals,
and made a good deal of money at times ; but his liver could
not stand the alcohol, and he was the subject of a good patho¬
logical address on cirrhosis when he died.
This drink-madness was often found to be hereditary, as were
many other maladies. Very often the taking of the family
history involved the collection of very curious facts from the
patients' relatives when they came to visit their sick friends.
Idiosyncrasies were often traced several generations back, odd
deformities and bodily peculiarities persisted in families as ex¬
plained by Darwin, and illustrated the fact that a man thinks
and reasons in certain grooves wherein have run the wheels of
thought of hosts of his ancestors. A descendant of a Ilugue-
The Sacred Whole of Man.
99
not refugee remarked lately that his nerves had not yet got
rid of the terror infused into them by the hair-breadth escapes
his progenitors endured hundreds of years ago. It is said the
whole world feels the effect of the stamp of one's foot on the
ground; not less is it true that our habits and work will in¬
fluence the minds of untold generations of our successors.
True psychological medicine is less understood in the
present age of science by our doctors than it was in the East
thousands of years since. It will scarcely be credited that the
great, the overwhelming majority of medical men can and do
obtain their diplomas to practise, and attain to all the honours
of their profession, without ever having heard a lecture on
mental diseases, seen the inside of a lunatic asylum, or ex¬
amined a person of unsound mind, except in connection with
some physical signs indicating bodily disease, as in the delirium
of fevers. In connection with some medical schools facilities
are offered to the students to visit a neighbouring asylum for
clinical observation, but it is extremely rare for them to avail
themselves of the privilege. One may pass half a score of
examinations at the various boards which have the power of
licensing the practitioner who is to be charged with the duty
of aiding by his counsel the families amongst which he will
practise in a hundred forms of mental affliction, without hav¬
ing ever been asked a single question bearing upon psycho¬
logical medicine. The student will be required to state with
the minutest accuracy the stages of great operations which
there are ten thousand chances to one he will never have the
chance of performing, and a still remoter probability that he
would have either the knowledge or the nerve to perform if he
had the opportunity. He will be minutely cross-examined
over obscure and rare complaints which it is extremely likely
he will never see in his own practice if he live to Methuselah's
age; yet he will not be inquired to diagnose the difference
between melancholia and hysteria. At the same time it is
quite true, if he be an industrious man, he may learn a good
100
St. Bernard's.
deal about these mental maladies if he attend the lectures of
the physicians who make them their speciality, but this is
optional; he does not get any credit for it in his schedules;
he will not be advancing his chances of a " pass " by so doing,
and there is much temptation if, amongst so many things
which a student of medicine must know, he holds in light
esteem some things about which he may or may not trouble
himself at his discretion. The study of mental phenomena
occupies the attention, then, of but few, and those only the
most cultivated and thoughtful of the students. To the
Sawbones it is like cuneiform inscriptions or the domestic
economy of the Hittites. Is not this a scandalous blot on our
system of medical education? Yet every half-educated, idle,
and beer-boozing young man who can get one foot on the
medical register, and write L.S.A. after his name (implying
that he has the licence of the Apothecaries' Society, Black-
friars), has the legal power to sign a lunacy certificate which
may consign any one of us to the walls of a mad-house ! Would
this be tolerated were it understood ? It is recorded of Gari¬
baldi that in the war against the Austrians in Lombardy, he
was seized with the marsh fever in the midst of one of his
campaigns. The malady soon turned to typhus, and he was
given over by his physicians. Lying at Lerino at the point of
death, he heard the wild shout—" The Austrians ! " The
enemy had suddenly come down upon the little town, and the
slaughter of his followers had begun. Springing from his bed
with an infusion of new life in his veins, he buckled on his
sword, and led his troops, inspired by his own wonderful person¬
ality, to conflict and victory. What was the influence of the
mind in effecting tins cure ? Ah ! that is no part of a medical
curriculum. Mesmerists, spiritualists, theologians may deal
with that as best they may—it is beneath the notice of the
colleges.
A fact like this is surprising only to those medical men who
have never studied psychological medicine.
The Sacred Whole of Man. 101
The miracles of Lourdes and of hundreds of other Catholic
shrines need not be denied altogether as unworthy of credence.
There is abundant evidence that some cases of cure do really
occur in connection with faith healing. Those who have made
a study of mesmerism have adduced instances of healing by
its means which it would be foolish to deny. So much charla¬
tanism and fraud have always been mixed up with these things
that it is not perhaps matter of much surprise that they are
held in low esteem by men of science. Still, as there are un¬
doubted phenomena in connection with them worthy of patient
examination, it is surprising that so prominent a field of inquiry
should be so completely neglected by our doctors, while it is
considered necessary to know precisely how long a dog covered
with varnish would live, and how many degrees of heat a rabbit
can tolerate before succumbing to its agony. A young lady of
hysterical temperament, who had been humoured to the top of
her bent by her medical man, had, after a few months of
gynaecological treatment, become so enfeebled in mind that
she imagined she had lost the use of her lower extremities, and
even succeeded in inducing her doctor to believe that she really
was unable to walk. She was advised to consult a well-known
hospital physician, who was chiefly celebrated as a true mind
doctor. When he took his seat by the couch of the invalid he
soon diagnosed her malady, and, finding she was of high intel¬
lectual culture, asked permission to read to her. The doctor
was an admirable reader, and his rendering of a long and soul-
stirring passage from one of the great poets made the girl forget
her ailment so completely that she sprang from her couch with
energy as he paced the room declaiming the poem, and ex¬
claimed, " Is not that magnificent 1" At that moment the
deluded woman found the complete use of her limbs, and a few
more readings cured her without other medicine. They don't
teach this sort of things in hospitals,—not the curative part, at
least. Examiners at the colleges would " plough " the man
who ventured to propose readings from Shakespeare three times
St. Bernard 'j-.
a week with dramatic action as a remedy for hysteria. What
they want is—
R. Tinct. Yaler. Am. dr. j ; Potass. Brom. gr. x.
Aq. Dest. oz. j ; ter die sumend.
You see, it has been discovered by physiologists that if a
solution of the bromide of potassium is applied locally to a
rabbit's heart, it produces instantly marked lessening of its
action,* and if applied to the muscle of the frog it throws it
into tetanic spasm.t On the nerve trunks it acts as a paralyz¬
ing poison ; J in fact, if you inject it in the vicinity of a living
dog's heart, " cardiac arrest always occurs." So that you see
how easily the physiologist can demonstrate how bromide of
potassium quiets the excited nervous system of the hysterical
ladies. You do not quite follow the reasoning? Well, do not
tell the examiners that, because they declare it is quite plain
to them, and helps to prove the value of experiment. Now, as
there are no instances given in any books of physiology known
to us, detailing any effects produced on the hearts or brains of
any mammals by the dramatic reading of poetry, it would be
manifestly unscientific to treat lady patients by any such
method. Moreover, as it is of no use to cure anybody if you
cannot demonstrate precisely how you cure him, it is better to
let him alone.
The mind specialist who effected these remarkable results
was answered by his colleagues who went in for the rabbit and
dog theories that in the first place the patient wasn't ill at all;
secondly, that consequently she was not cured ; and thirdlys
that she was still as ill as ever. But the good physician still
holds on his course, speaks with growing disrespect of the
* Virchow's Archiv., xls. 101.
t Dublin Journal, xlvii. 325.
J Bull. Therap., lxxiii. 253. 290.
The Sacred Whole of Man.
103
Pharmacopoeia, studies Nature, but does not " put her to the
question," and takes hints from old women, birds, trees and
flowers; and, like another Paracelsus, is ridiculed by his pro¬
fessional brethren in proportion to his success in unorthodox
methods.
CHAPTER XV.
science and fashion.
Full ready had he his apothecaries,
To send him drugs and his electuaries ;
For each of them made other for to win !
Their friendship was not new6 to begin.
—Chaucer.
He was a very perfect practisour,
* * * * *
His study was but little in the Bible.
—Chaucer.
Nothing in his curriculum puzzled our embryo physician so
much as the different methods of treatment advocated by his
teachers. "With many of them, it is only fair to say, the only
treatment they advocated was the extension of the palmaris
muscle in the hand, known to anatomists as the guinea muscle,
for the purpose of receiving the fee. Men of the new school
declared the only treatment necessary for any medical, as dis¬
tinct from surgical disease, was a good warm bed, and discarded
all drugs. As, however, these gentlemen lived by the practice
of their profession, it was a question if they were not liable to
be charged with obtaining money by false pretences, as they
did nothing whatever to assist their client's recovery.
Some, on the other hand, wrote great books on therapeutics,
and gave you a list of some score or so of drugs, more or less
deadly, for the cure of every complaint, real or imaginary,
leaving the selection to the practitioner, as he, when he com-
Science and Fashion. 105
bined them, left Nature to take what she thought would best
answer her purpose.
King James the First declared that the perusal of Hooker's
" Ecclesiastical Polity " (written as an apology for the Church
of England) made him a Roman Catholic. How many students
haying heard at the hospitals the defence its professors have to
make for it, and seen its practice in the wards, have retained
any faith at all in the science of medicine 1 King James found
that the arguments of Hooker did not go far enough. The
student of medicine finds his teachers go a great deal too far;
and becoming a medical sceptic when he has obtained his
diploma, he generally adopts "the expectant treatment," and
leaves everything to the vis medicatrix naturae—in other words,
he leaves his case exactly where he found it, and takes much
scientific credit to himself for his non-interference.
You could always, if you liked, have the expectant treat¬
ment exhibited at St. Bernard's; it was rather a favourite ex¬
periment. You got two cases as nearly as possible of the same
type of the same disease, say typhoid fever, in exactly the same
stage of development. You put the cases side by side in the
same ward. With the one you adopted all the therapeutic
routine which might just then be the fashion—for fashion in
medicine is as variable as in ladies' dress—and in the neigh¬
bouring case you gave no drugs at all, but water simply
coloured with burnt sugar as a placebo, lest the patient should
think himself neglected. You watched the progress of the
malady, you adopted in each case the same diet, and at the end
of three t weeks or a month, both cases terminated by recovery
as nearly as possible at the same time. Dr. Oliver Wendell
Holmes said, " if all drugs were cast into the sea, it would be
so much the better for men, and so much the worse for the
fish." They quite went in for this idea at St. Bernard's, with
an exception in favour of newly discovered drugs whose
physiological actions were yet to be investigated, and till all
was known of them which could be learned, they compelled
io6
St. Bernard*s.
their patients to swallow them. This was part of the ex¬
pectant treatment. Mr. Micawber, it will be remembered, was
somewhat of a disciple of this school. It is most unfair to
argue that nobody got any good from this method, because
many papers were produced for the medical journals on these
new preparations; though, as an inquisitive lady reader once
remarked, the cases all seemed to end with an autopsy.
But then, you see, a "P.M." is like a lady's P.S., quite the
most important part of the whole concern. The drug bill at
our hospital was a very heavy one, because all these new
remedies at their first introduction are necessarily costly from
their limited demand. Then all sorts of worthless articles of
diet, much belauded by the journals which received large sums
from the proprietors who advertised their wares in their
columns, had to be tried. Poor wines, with high-sounding
titles, at prices to match, were for mysterious reasons certified
by the physicians of the place to be particularly " rich in phos¬
phorus, and peculiarly suitable to invalids suffering from
dyspepsia and want of nervous tone;" and were used in the
hospital generally, in proof of the favour in which they were
held, by Dr. Octavius Puffemup, M.R.C.P. (Lond.), Lecturer on
Diseases of the Supra-Orbital Nerve at St. Bernard's Hospital,
London, Fellow of the Royal Society of Diana Lucina, and
Member of the Royal Institution of Cynegetics, etc., etc., etc.
All these much-belauded nostrums, like our little systems,
" had their day and ceased to be;" they cost the charity a
great deal of money, and served merely to advertise the
members of the staff who demeaned themselves by praising
them.
Did a member of the staff invent a new bed, a new inhaler, a
new instrument, or a new kind of invalid's clothing, it must be
purchased, no matter what the cost, as often as he chose to
order it for his patients. It served to keep his name before the
public; it was one of the many ways in which the charity could
recompense him for the time he devoted to its work.
Science and Fashion. 107
A bookseller once declared, if his customers only purchased
the books they were likely to read, he would net get bread and
cheese. If only the pharmaceutical preparations were pur¬
chased which the patients really required, the makers of them
would be in the same predicament. It is so easy to be liberal
when you don't have to pay. With proper conscientious
management, directed for the patient's benefit alone, the ex¬
penses of our great hospitals might easily be reduced one-half.
But then there must be a good deal of self-sacrifice.
CHAPTER XYI.
sowing wild oats.
The acquirements of science may be termed the armour of the mind ;
but that armour would be worse than useless that cost us all we had, and
left us nothing to defend.—Lacon.
We go our ways
With something you o'erlooked, forgot, or chose to sweep
Clean out of door ; our pearl picked from your rubbish-heap.
You care not for your loss ; we calculate our gain.
—Browning.
Our doctor was now given wholly to the material side of his
work. Young men are an imitative order of beings, loving
smartness, and desiring to be in the foremost rank, whether in
sports or study. The men of the hospital found there was na
road to distinction at St. Bernard's except that of novelty.
There was nothing to be done 011 the old lines; to stay there
was to be content with the dead level of mediocrity. This
section of the school scoffed at religion, held faith to be a mark
of imperfect development ; and in proportion as they grew more
in the sort of knowledge they thought it the proper thing to
acquire, learned to despise everything which of old bad served
to make the world wise and good. Elsworth, for some time,
kept himself aloof from this set, but his abilities and his rising
ambition made him a man to be competed for and flattered.
Gradually he became puffed up with a sense of the importance of
the things he had acquired. So far from thinking himself, with
Newton, a child on the sea-shore picking up shells of truth, he
fancied he was doing business in the deep waters, though he
Sowing Wild Oats. 109
was only stumbling amongst rocks. When this state of mind
is reached, the man becomes selfish and indifferent to the con¬
dition of his fellow-men, and as God becomes a vanishing point
Self looms large. All the virtues were to these men mere con¬
ventionalities, and it was as absurd not to live for one's own
advancement as for a giraffe to contravene the law of his nature
pressing him to crop the highest branches he could reach with
an increasing length of neck. So they craved after the best
within their reach, regardless of the poor wretches below them
who had not learned how to put forth their powers.
A purely scientific education has a tendency in the minds of
the young to produce this selfishness, and the wisdom of our
forefathers is shown in their having made the masterpieces of
ancient literature the great pieces de resistance of the mental
provender which they provided for their alumni, because Liter¬
ature ennobles and subdues Self, and inspires with great and
generous thoughts as does no other human learning.
The hospital education of the present day is mere craftsman
ship, and should only be permitted in conjunction with a liberal
university training. The man who knows medicine and sur¬
gery only, however well he may know bocL, has only half
learned the business of a doctor.
The old custom of serving an apprenticeship to a general
practitioner had many advantages. Hospital work is so
different from that in the outer world in which the student will
have to practise, that he is only half educated when his curri¬
culum is finished, and his diploma obtained. One acquires
a certain wholesale business air in dealing with patients while
attending the hospitals which is particularly objectionable to
patients in general ; and till a man has had considerable contact
with private patients, he is far too rough and ready in the sick¬
room to be very welcome there. Our every-day complaints, it
is evident, do not particularly interest him. He has been
dealing with "cases as is cases; none of your trumpery family
doctor business," as Podger said. He has no respect for the
no
St. Bernard's.
miserable creature who has only bruised himself, not fractured
anything; or whose mind is disturbed by family troubles and
so misses his sleep, instead of being the subject of the vastly
more interesting cerebral disease. In the latter case there is
something pretty for his ophthalmoscope; in the former your
eyes are not worth looking at. He has got hold of the notion
that there can be nothing at all the matter with you if you have
no " physical signs." For your true scientist rejects the im¬
agination. He wants facts he can handle and see. At heart
he is a mere mechanic; he must open the frog's thorax, and
actually see the heart beating ; must see with his own eyes the
way carbonic acid acts on the living blood corpuscle. When
completely imbued with this spirit, as the human mind can
only entertain one great idea at a time, he acquires a sovereign
contempt for the men who imagine merely, and do not see,
taste, handle, and feel.
Linda had given herself up to the Socialist propaganda, and
had quite resolved to waste no part of her life in love affairs.
" It was quite time," she declared, " that women should begin
the work of setting to rights a world that men had so grievously
muddled up." She had often said more unwise things than
this. She was, moreover, quite sincere, and had refused several
very eligible offers for her hand. A bright-eyed, graceful
woman like Linda, with her undoubted intellectual powers and
her nice little fortune, would naturally have had offers before
she reached her twenty-eighth year; but she loved the new
gospel, and honestly thought it her duty " to war against the
Jahveh worship introduced by a tribe of wandering Semites,
and to substitute the evangel of Humanity for the code of
Sinai." There are plenty of such people about. It is not only
the followers of Christ who sacrifice their lives and substance
for their faith; His enemies do that, and doit honestly enough
in their way. Were these people enemies of Christ ? They
did not think so. They maintained that the greatest
Socialist who ever lived was Jesus of Nazareth, that He
Sowing Wild Oats.
ill
would have really conquered the world had not the Church
conquered Him.
Elsworth was not in love with Linda in any true sense. He
was attracted towards her by her brilliancy, wit, and mental
powers. She was not beautiful if you analysed her form and
features,—not one of the latter would have passed muster with
an artist; yet, taken altogether, with intellect and grace beam¬
ing from her eyes, and influencing every movement, she was
just the woman a clever man would fall in love with while in
her presence. But this love would not last long. Clever men
are usually held in bondage by coarser fetters than those of
intellect. Girton or Newham are not at all the places one
would go to for the purpose of seeking a wife : they can want
no very high walls at either to keep Borneo out. As this is
not a love story, we do not propose to analyse very minutely
the sentiments that drew these young people towards each other.
Perhaps it is quite enough to say that Elsworth was attracted
by the very efforts she used to demolish the principles he had
brought to his hospital career. He felt that Christianity was
not intellectual enough for Western notions, however, it might
include the highest modern ideas of philanthropy. In face
of that young girl and her brother, he lacked the courage to take
upon him the offence of the Cross. Peter denied his master at
a maid-servant's question. Linda had vanquished our young-
surgeon's faith.
The athlete glories in his strength, the boisterous health of
a well-knit frame requires an outlet; hence the periodical
rowdyism which attacks students everywhere, especially those
in training for callings that will repress their ardents spirits all
too soon. With Tom Lennard and little Murphy, Elsworth
was now almost nightly engaged in some wild frolic or other.
A curious mixture was in him—half hero, half imp; at times
he was given to periods of deep meditation on the highest
matters that can interest mankind, to speculation on questions
which have agitated the minds of philosophers, with a deep
112
St. Bernard's.
under-current of poetry running through his soul. Yet with
all this there was a surface hot-headed foolishness which he
neglected to restrain, leading him, at the suggestion of the
moment, into outrageous acts of purposeless folly, if fun could
be extracted from it. He wanted one thing—
" Discrimination—nicer power man needs
To rule him than is bred of bone and thew."
Ever some new madness was attempted, some scandal enacted.
The favourite amusement just then was disturbing music-halls
and theatres, bar-rooms, and supper places in the West. The
public seemed, rather to like the students' riots, and the pro¬
prietors condoned for money compensation what the police were
only too anxious to punish.
One proprietor of a large and popular place of amusement
did not see these disturbances in just this amiable light, and
had recently caught and punished several young medicos who
had made themselves obnoxious to him. It was determined
very secretly to combine the fighting men of several hospitals
into one grand attack on this man's property.
CHAPTER XVII.
the lost leader.
Well, he is gone, and with him go these thoughts.—Shakespeare.
Meantime, how much I loved him,
I find out now I've lost him .—Browning.
It was the 9th of November, and Lord Mayor's Show day—a
festival of the first class at all the medical schools of the
metropolis. On great occasions like this, the spirits of all
medicos run high. They drink deeply, sally forth with knobby
sticks, and prepare for multiform scrimmages. On this
particular day word had been sent round to all the medical
schools that a raid was to be made on the " Frivolity " Music
Hall, Oxford Street, and Medicine expected every hospital man
to do his duty. The rendezvous was at Piccadilly Circus, the
time ten o'clock. At the appointed hour the locality was
crowded with active, healthy young fellows, armed with their
characteristic bludgeons; and the word was quickly passed to
link arms and rush up Regent Street, driving everybody
before them. No sooner suggested than done ; right across
the street they formed, from house-front to house-front, in
triple rows. Of course everybody got out of their way, and
gave a wide berth to them, and the young clerks and shopmen,
who were delighted to join in the spree, and Avilling to under¬
go the indiguity of being arrested for the pleasure of being
suspected and perhaps described in the papers as medical
students. As it is not the cowl that makes the monk, these
vain persons do not always deceive either the public or the
h
114
St. Bernard's.
magistrates before whom they appear. The music hall was
quickly reached, with little interference on the part of the
police who had not previously got notice of the raid. The
turnstiles were upset or broken down, the money-takers
roughly handled, and the spacious " hall of splendour and
realm of dazzling light," as one of the fellows called it, was
taken by storm ; the glasses and crockery at the refreshment
bars were smashed, the looking-glass on the walls demolished,
the marble tables overthrown, and the unfortunate portion of
the audience, which did not succeed in escaping, soon had
cause to regret the excessive demonstrativeness of the followers
of medicine. Of course, when the place was half wrecked, the
police came in force, and restored order. Some half-dozen of
the rioters were arrested, and duly appeared before the magis¬
trate, received their lecture on the manner they disgraced
their noble calling, and were let off with fines. But the event
of the night was the disappearance of Els worth. No one knew
what had become of him; he was not among the arrested, nor
had he turned up at the hospital or his lodgings. No one had
seen him after the row at the " Frivolity," and all sorts of
alarming rumours began to circulate as to his absence. He was
last remembered in the heat of battle in the music hall, rally¬
ing his forces, crying, " St. Bernard's to the rescue ! " when the
police had captured one of his heroes. After that no one saw
him more. Had he met with an accident? Had he been
attacked and robbed, and then killed by some of the bad
characters in Seven Dials close by ? No one could say. A
week passed, and though inquiries had been made at every
possible place, and all his friends communicated with, nothing
whatever could be heard of him. The fellows began to rake up
every bit of his conversation they could recollect. As we have
already narrated, at Oxford he was deeply religious, but his
medical studies had imbued him with serious doubts on all the
distinctive dogmas of Christianity, till at last the atmosphere
of the dissecting-room and the physiological laboratory seemed
The Lost Leader.
115
to have weakened his faith in God, the soul, and the future
life. It was the fact that this state of things often obtained
at St. Bernard's. All its professors but one or two were
agnostics, or even atheists. Some were serious, thoughtful
men, who grieved they could not believe; while others, as far
as they dared, made a jest of the most sacred themes. Young
men—and especially young medical men—are prone to copy
very closely the speech and the modes of thought of those who
are in authority over them, and the school took its tone from
the many brilliant men of science on its teaching staff. The
microscope, the test-tube, and the scalpel had dissipated much
of young Elsworth's faith, and he had not cared to conceal it.
Had he committed suicide ? Why should he 1 He was not
embarrassed; he had ample means and wealthy friends. Nor
was he involved in any intrigues, as far as could be known;
and as he was of the liveliest and most optimistic turn of
mind, the idea was scouted by those who knew him best.
CHAPTER XVIII.
an epicure of pain.
I pity the unfortunate who, in their necessities, find only the
succour of the civil authorities, without the intervention of Christian
charity. In reports presented to the public, philanthropy may and
will exaggerate the care which it lavishes on the unfortunate, but
things will not be so in reality.—Balmez.
He loves not to be prodigal of men's lives, but thriftily improves the
objects of his cruelty, spending them by degrees, and epicurizing on
their pain.—Thos. Fuller.
The institution aud maintenance of such public charities as
hospitals for the gratuitous relief of sickness all over Europe
are directly due to Christianity; no other religion or policy,
except Buddhism in its prime, ever blessed the world with such
a form of charity. It has become a recognised idea in our day
that a poor sick man has a right to be restored to health at the
hands of a Christian people. That there are misuses of it is
well known, many persons seeking to participate in this
benevolence who could afford to obtain medical aid at their
own expense; yet the public is so convinced that at any cost it
is bound to remove the burden of illness from the shoulders of
the poor, that it is ready to wink at the abuse of its kindness
in this way. The physicians and surgeons attached to the
greater hospitals are much sought after by very well-to-do, not
to say opulent, persons, who use every mean device to obtain
consultations gratuitously. Many such persons have been
known to attire themselves in the clothes of their servants, and
An Epicure of Pain.
117
to send their children in charge of their cooks, to obtain advice
and medicine which would have entailed expense if obtained
privately. This is one of the ways in which such institutions
are robbed.
It is possible that the treatment of the ills to which humanity
is subject may in course of time be considerably improved, in
consequence of the patient investigation that has long been
carried out on every form of disease at our hospitals. At
present physiology and pathology so entirely occupy the
attention of the doctors, that treatment is relegated to the
distant future. A French physician spoke the truth when he
said, " The object of the scientific practitioner is to make a
good diagnosis in life, and then verify it on the post-mortem
table." It is not to be denied that the art of making a good
diagnosis has been brought to considerable perfection of late;
but whether we are more successful than the doctors of former
times in curing these well-diagnosed diseases is very doubtful.
Now a general hospital, frequented by thousands of " cases," is
to the inquiring physician what an Alpine valley is to the
botanist, or a Brazilian forest to an entomologist. It is there
that orders, genera, and species are to be found. Diseases for
classification in all their variations are met with amongst the
crowds applying for treatment. The great object is to get the
crowds j they come for one thing, the doctors for another.
Very good and kind and clever at curing folk, no doubt they
often are, but primarily the object of calling the crowd together
is precisely that which the herbarium supplies to the botanist,
and the nest of drawers to the entomologist.
The hospital professor is like Linnceus, who so curiously
expressed himself when he had achieved success :—
" God hath so led me, that what I desired and could not
attain has been my greatest blessing ;
" God hath given me interesting and honourable service,
yea ! that which in all the world I most desired;
" He hath lifted me up among the nmcenates scientiarumx
118
St. Bernard's.
yea ! among the princes of the kingdom, and into the King's
house;
" He hath lent me the largest herbarium in the world, my
best delight.
" He hath honoured me with the honorary title of arkiater,
with the star of a knight, with the shield of a nobleman, and
with a name in the world of letters, etc."
The only difference being that the great botanist thanked
God for his herbarium, while our hospital man of science has
generally little thought of God when making up his case book,
unless it be to think, with Helmholtz, how much more perfect
organs he could have devised had he been consulted at creation.
Elssvorth often thought that all their diagnosis and classifica¬
tion did little for the cure of disease ; and that, as the labourer
said of his landlord's claret, " You didn't get any forrarder
with it all!"
" Some day we shall arrive at the treatment stage," they
said ; "at present all is chaos in that direction. We have not
diagnosed enough," they urge. " We must diagnose a good
deal more in every part of the world; then meet in congress,
then keep up discussion in a hundred societies, and, in the
course of a century or so, we may begin to try to cure people;
but it is too early yet. Meanwhile, we can diagnose. And
take our fees 1 Why, certainly ! "
Mr. Crowe was lecturer on physiology and pathology; that
is to say, he taught the students what the human body is in
its normal state, and what happened to it when subject to
disease. He claimed that the only gate to the true knowledge
of a doctor's work was the branch of science which formed his
speciality; and, as the examiners seemed to take the same
view, Mr. Crowe occupied a considerable share of the students'
time and attention. St. Bernard's made a great fuss with Mr.
Crowe, and grudged no expenditure on his department. He
could have all sorts of costly and curious apparatus on applica¬
tion, because, in the present rage for experiment, it was found
An Epicure of Pain.
119
to pay. He had a beautiful laboratory for his work in the
medical school, and in the hospital, fine new chambers attached
to the post-mortem room, where he kept his microscopes, and
made sections with the utmost patience and skill. Here he
often spent whole nights alone ; here it was more than rumoured
the most gruesome things went on in secret, for, in the vaults
below, there was a small menagerie. No one was supposed to
have access to this inquisition-chamber, except he was either
in Mr. Crowe's employ, or in his completest confidence, for of
late unpleasant discussions had taken place, and the subscribing
public had made it pretty well known that they did not support
St. Bernard's for this sort of work. Thus, great care had to
be exercised, and all Mr. Crowe's familiars were cautioned to
mind what they were about. The tabbies and the lap-dogs of
the neighbourhood could venture abroad with less danger of
being pressed for service at St. Bernard's, and the porters had
to go to Seven Dials for their purchases. These porters were
•characters in their way. Long service in this line of business
had left its marks upon them. They were scarred and furrowed
about the hands and arms with bites, cuts, and scratches,
which had healed badly, and, to the skilled observer, sufficiently
stamped them with the trade mark of the hospital. They were
brutalized by their ghoul-like work, and, if given the opportunity
of doing a stroke of business, would stick at nothing in the
way of subjects, which did not actually jeopardize their necks.
Mr. Crowe was forty-two years old, of middle height, dark,
and inclined to leanness. He had a decidedly malevolent
aspect. His face was not that of the libertine, the schemer, or
the man of pleasure; but a perfect pitilessness, an utter
dissociation from any genial or loving characteristics, was boldly
recorded on the lines of his face, and the very carriage of his
body. Hard was not the word for it, cruel was not wide enough
to comprehend his character. Disregard of all pain in others,
contempt for those who professed to care for what troubled
others ; these were the distinguishing traits of Mr. Malthus
120
St. Bernard's.
Crowe's moral character, and his face advertised it. Mr Crowe
was rapidly becoming an authority in his branches of science,
and accordingly brought much kudos • to St. ^Bernard's. Had
not physiology been invented in these latter days, it is difficult
to imagine what the world could have done for Mr. Crowe.
He loved pain; he reverenced and esteemed it (in others, of
course). He had inflicted it in every form, and watched its
effects learnedly without flinching, both in animals and man.
He always described it as a tonic—Nature's great nerve
bracer—but he never took it himself if he could help it. He
declared the world could not get oil without it.
He had married in early life the daughter of an Italian
engineer, who lived at Cernobbio, on Lake Como. Having been
in the habit of taking his long vacation tour in Switzerland
and Italy, he had formed the acquaintance of several hospital
surgeons of kindred tastes to his own, and had frequently
visited them at Milan and Genoa, and compared notes on
matters of mutual interest. One of these confreres had intro¬
duced him to his family, and so he met Olvmpia Casatelli,
and, having some reason to think her prospects good, had
married her, notwithstanding she was a Catholic, though hei
pronounced Garibaldian sentiments had left her without anv
very ardent attachment to the religion of her baptism.
Olympia was deeply imbued with the new Italian patriotism,
and cordially detested the " rule, of the monk." Passionatt
in her love for her country, she eagerly caught at Mr. Crowe's
atheistic and revolutionary notions, and, repellent as he appeared
to most women, he succeeded in winning her love, more by his
professed sympathy with the cause of Italian independence,
and his hatred of the Bourbon and Austrian, than by his own
personal attractions. Downright ugliness in a clever man is
often an additional attraction, even to a handsome woman;
and Mr. Crowe's science and revolutionary sympathies found
their way to Olympia's heart, during an autumn holiday he
passed at the lakes. She must have loved him very much, or
An Epicure of Pain.
121
thought she did, or she could never have torn herself away from
the beloved mountains and the blissful lake to bury herself in
a wilderness of ,brick in the heart of London. However, she
had not been married a year ere she began to pine for her
picturesque home by the waterfall in the midst of the vineyard
at Cernobbio.
She soon found that her husband's interest in Italy was
merely that of a destroyer—he cared only to upset the old
order of things everywhere, loved anarchy for the sake of
pulling down something venerated by Christian folk, and was
insusceptible of sympathy with patriotism. Soon poor Olympia
was dis-illusioned ; her husband was absorbed so completely
in his unpleasant branch of science, that she had little of his
company, and gradually was entirely neglected. She had few
friends in London, and none of the resources that would have
helped an Englishwoman similarly situated. It was not long
before Mr. Crowe threw off his mask. He cared for her less
even than he cared for her country : it was plain that he had
married for money, and had not realized his expectations.
Working as he was doing for European fame, engaged in re¬
searches which could only indirectly bring him reward, it was
irksome in the extreme for him to have to devote valuable time
to patients and pupils, for the sake of earning a living. He
had trusted to a good marriage to liberate him from these
necessities. Never a very ardent lover, he showed disgust
when his neglected wife sought a miserable refuge from her
grief in narcotics. She gradually neglected her personal
appearance, and declined her food, occupying herself with
painting and music, but not sufficiently to absorb herself in
these pursuits; she slowly wasted, and ultimately lost her
health completely. Then her sleep forsook her, and she took
chloral by her husband's suggestion. Its fascination held her
in a bondage, from which she had no sufficient energy to
escape, and in mind and body the beautiful Olympia, so re
qently the flower pf her mountain home, became a wreck.
122
St. Bemard%s.
Her very presence soon became an annoyance to her husband,
and for days together he would absent himself from the house.
She was so irksome to him, that had he any deity in his
pantheon who could have assisted him, he would have prayed
for her death. The sole deity he acknowledged was the one
who only helps those who help themselves; and at times a dark
thought occurred to him that some day he should be compelled
to come to his own assistance—the methods of carrying out
such an idea were all too easy and too safe for a man with his
knowledge and in his position.
CHAPTEB XIX.
AN apt pupil.
Gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully ;
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Now hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.
—Shakespeare.
I hold that we should only affect compassion, and carefully avoid
having any; it is a passion that is perfectly useless in a well-constituted
mind, serving but to weaken the heart, and being only fit for common
people, who, never acting by the rules of reason, are in want of passions
to stimulate them to action.—La Rochefoucauld.
Walter Mole was assistant to Mr. Crowe in his laboratory.
He was twenty two years of age when he entered St. Bernard's.
He was the youngest son of a speculative builder in the West
of England, who having made a fortune by erecting many streets
of stucco-fronted villa residences (built on ground the gravel of
which he had dug out and sold and replaced with the contents
of the dust-bins of the town), was ambitious to settle his sons
in life in the learned professions. He tried hard to make his
eldest a clergyman, but as he lacked the ability even to
conceal his evil habits, he sank back to the gutter from which
it was impossible to raise him, and followed the entirely con¬
genial calling of a billiard marker. The aspiring parent still
determining to make capital out of evil and unpleasant things,
sent his smart, pushing little cad of a son Walter to St.
Bernard's, to bring honour to the family name as a surgeon.
Me Walter Mole was a very diminutive specimen of humanity,
124
St. Bernard's.
making up however in conceit, as is often the case, what he
lacked in inches. Mr. Mole was a young man of aspirations.
Sharp at his books, he had done so well at the cheap boarding
school where he had got his education, that he had no diffi¬
culty in passing the examination in arts required by the very
moderate ideas of the Apothecaries' Society of London. By
industry and a plodding perseverance, combined with an
intense desire to elevate himself in the social ladder, he
ingratiated himself in the favour of the Professor of Anatomy,
who made him a " demonstrator," a kind of anatomical pupil
teacher. He won the scholarship in anatomy and physiology ;
by constant practice he acquired a nice dexterity with his
fingers, and his dissections were so accurate and careful that
many of them were honoured with places in the college
museum. Now Mr. Mole, although popular with the lecturers,
was detested by the men. He was, in the first place, not a
gentleman ; everything he said or did proclaimed him " Cad."
His oily hair, and still more oily tongue ; his dirty finger-nails
and dirtier ideas ; his paper collars and imitation jewellery;
his low money-grubbing propensities ; his scheming cunning to
win the favour of those who could help him, and his insolent
contempt of those whom he considered to be beneath him in
position, made him detested by the men of the school who
were \mfortunate enough to have to associate with him. To
thrash him was of no use. Who could fight such a contempt¬
ible object 1 So all sorts of tricks were played upon him,
which he resented in his own way ; and as he had much
influence with the authorities, his resentment was not always
to be despised. As he did a good deal of money-lending at
exorbitant interest, he was always able to secure the favour of
the very considerable section of the men who were in his debt.
Such a man can always hold his own, and Mr. Mole held his at
St. Bernard's, and was not to be put down. If popular dislike
could exterminate—say—toads, how few would be left! And
3.S toads must have some use in the economy of nature, there
An Apt Pupil. 125
is no knowing what disarrangements of her plans their disap¬
pearance might effect. There was possibly some use for Mr.
Mole, or "Molly Cular," as he was usually called. He acquired
this epithet from a mispronunciation in his early days at the
hospital of the term " molecular," and the nickname stuck to
him even when he became house surgeon. His eye was as
quick as his hands were dexterous, and as Jack Murphy used
to say, " Mole was cut out for a pick-pocket, but spoiled in the
making." When assisting the lecturers he never failed to
detect the larking student who was causing all the uproar, and
many were the men who lost marks and favour by the watch¬
ful supervision of Demonstrator Mole. His sensitiveness to
ridicule served to improve his taste, and he gradually acquired
correctness of pronunciation and much general knowledge from
sheer dread of the suffering he would have to undergo if caught
in the slightest mistake. He had endured so much for drop¬
ping his h's that he fell into the opposite error of a too liberal
use of the aspirate. He so economized the truth that he
never used it unnecessarily, and was as sparing of it as
of his money, though probably not for the same reasons.
Of course he scoffed at religion as something beneath the
notice of an advanced scientist, and was never more in his
element than when shocking some pious pupil by a coarse
joke twisted out of Biblical language, or a metaphor which was
perverted from a sacred subject. His familiarity with Holy
Writ enabled him to shock a great many good people, and
amuse some evil ones; but even they were few, as it is rightly
considered the mark of a vulgar mind to make fun of any
man's faith. This habit ultimately caused complaints to be
made of him to the college board, and he was cautioned that
he must abandon it if he expected advancement. Hating
religion, which was a constant rebuke to all he loved best, he
threw himself with renewed zest into the pursuit of science,
which was too cold to reproach him with anything, and he
determined to win respect for services rendered to physiology
126
St. Bernard's.
which he could scarcely hope could be conceded for anything
else within his reach. He was not loved ; he determined to be
respected. Soon he found his opportunity. A skilful and
patient worker at the microscope, he earned much favour and
profit from Mr. Crowe by his admirable pathological work.
Many thousands of beautiful sections and other objects in the
microscope room were the result of Mr. Mole's deft labours in
this direction. He became indispensable in the physiological
room, and the constant attendant on the researches of his
master. There was a common sentiment which drew these
men together. Both feeling that the world did not love them
for themselves sought to compel admiration for their achieve¬
ments. Both were essentially cruel at heart; both would not
only have gladly botanized on their mother's graves to discover
anything to win them credit, but would have learned with
pleasure anything they could from the sufferings of their dearest
relations. Mr. Mole took care that his chief never ran short of
dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, or frogs, for use at the tables
and troughs. To show his devotion to this work he even gave
up a worn-out retriever which had saved his life a few years
before by arousing him from sleep when his chamber was on
fire. What greater proof of devotion to one's work could be
demanded than this 1 But he would have done even more to
win favour with Mr. Crowe. Had he not been introduced by
him with high encomiums to several learned medical societies,
and had not his early attempts at writing for the scientific
journals been aided by his counsel 1 Such a friend was worth
a dog or two. He laboured at first, above all things, to win
Mr. Crowe's favour; then, as the work began to be familiar, he
embraced it with an ever-increasing love. It did not give Mr.
Mole much difficulty to rid himself of the outside prejudice
against causing needless suffering to sentient beings, though
when he first began, it was not with the "true spirit of the artist"
that he approached his work. But this came in time, and now
not alone on Mr. Crowe's account, but for its own sake, this
An Apt Pupil.
127
laboratory business took hold of every fibre of his being. He
revelled in it; he spent in it his nights as well as his days.
His Sundays were specially devoted to the more private, re¬
volting, and awful exercises which Mr. Crowe would only share
with priests of the inner temple of science. Here one vied
with another who could do the most startling things, whc
could invent newer forms of torture.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PROFESSOR AT HIS WORK.
Doctrines and maxims, good or bad, flow abroad from a public
teacher as from a fountain, and his faulty lessons may become the in¬
direct 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 experi¬
ment 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 way, 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 acknow¬
ledgment 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.
The Professor at his Work.
129
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 col¬
lected 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 sur¬
face 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."
Now these directions, although satisfactory to the adept,
were wanting in lucidity to the pupil; and Mr. Murphy, who
never liked to admit even to himself that there was anything in
his profession too hard for him, went down into the erysipelas
ward and set to work upon his wretched victim with a light
heart.
" Going to heal up your leg, old chap, in a brace of shakes
Splendid invention for putting a new skin on your leg. Sha'n'1
hurt you a bit. Don't squeal. I'm just going to snip otf a
tiny bit or two from your arm, and transplant 'em 011 to your
leg." And having cheered up the patient with a stiff glass of
grog which the nurse had at command, the vigorous young
dresser took off a dozen or more pieces of skin the size of a
threepenny-piece, from the arms, and scattered them in likely
places on the badly healing burn.
When Mr. Murphy entered the dining-room that night, he
was received with a perfect roar of laughter from the house
surgeons, who had become aware of the ignorant barbarity the
1
130
St. Bernards.
burnt man had suffered; and Mr. Murphy was made to know
that his idea of a snip of skin for grafting was at least a hun¬
dred times in excess of what it ought to be, and that for the
future he must be less generous with his pound of flesh. Even
the patient found out the error, and Murphy, who was a good-
hearted fellow, wished he had known more about skin-grafting
before he had punished him so. It wras some weeks ere the
victims arms healed, and the scars remain now, and even the
operator is still sore when the subject is referred to.
It was wonderful how they managed to get the patients to
take all the new remedies that were tested upon them. Folks
are usually very careful as to the physic they swallow. Your
poor folk do not mind it being nasty, they rather like it thick,
with a good rich, nourishing sediment and an awakening odour;
but they are very suspicious of anything that gives them queer
sensations. They often return to their doctor with a bottle of
stuff which he has prescribed them, and declare that they
" cannot take any more of it, because the first dose made them
feel as if all their senses was a-running away from them down
their right arm, making them feel that strange in their toes as
they seemed as if they were going to die." And this when the
poor practitioner has merely given them perhaps a little quinine,
or some simple diffusible stimulant! Their confidence seems
to come with the increase in the number of their medical
attendants; and when the chief surgeon, with his dozen of
satellites, supported by several capable-looking nurses, has
ordered them to take a decoction that works in their systems
as if scorpions and tarantella spiders were careering through
their veins, they submit with meekest resignation, and admire
the regularity with which their doses are timed. You can do
things in hospital it would be as much as your life were worth
to attempt outside. A hospital doctor may steal the horse
where a general practitioner dare not look over the hedge.
"It's the confidence as docs it," Mrs. Podger used to say. But
not always. Some do resent. The sprcr.d of Socialism, the
The Professor at his Work.
tracts of the various societies which dare to question some of
the cherished privileges of the profession, and the general up¬
rising against all authority that characterizes the present ao-e,
have produced a class of patients who provokingly assert their
right " to know what you are about with them." Such are
awkward people of whom to make use.
These persons are not liked in the wards, and are frequently
cured right away and sent about their business with indecent
haste. A sort of ungrateful folk that want to get all they can
out of the hospitals, and then be off. A most unappreciative
class, which seems a growing one too. " Like to know what
they thinks 'ospitals is for ? " said Podger. " Seems to me they
think 'em 'otels ! "
Latimer complained in his day, that " physick was a remedy
prepared only for rich folks, and not for poor, for the poor man
is not able to wage the physician." He could not fairly say
that now. It is possible, if good Master Latimer were preach¬
ing one of his plain sermons at Paul's Cross, he would complain
for quite an opposite reason.
CHAPTER XXL
taken in.
Although hospitals have been intended as a blessing and benefit to
the poor, they have too often proved the reverse, on account of the
ignorance on the part of their administrators of the true principles of
health. —Encyclopaedia Britannica.
There are diviner, truer laws,
That teach a nobler lesson still.
Procter.
One of the greatest blots upon hospital management of the
present day is the abuse of alcoholic drinks. The immense
amount of spirits needlessly, and often not harmlessly, given to
the patients is a serious tax on the resources of the charities,
and a fertile cause of dram-drinking in the people at large.
As you pass along the wards and read the cards over the beds,
indicating the diet and amount of drink ordered by the medical
officers, it is startling to see how many sick or convalescent
patients are ordered six ounces of whisky or brandy a day.
Now six ounces represent three wineglassfuls of good average
size, or say nearly two bottles a week. This is expensive, to
say the least—of very questionable service in most cases to say
nothing more. That the custom has its advantages in an
hospital like the one we were describing is indisputable—to the
medical staff. Where a system obtains by constant worrying
and painful, or at least unpleasant physical examinations, it is
of great assistance to doctors and nurses to have at hand an
unfailing means of putting and keeping the patient in good
Taken in.
133
humour and benevolent docility. Does he object to be
" mauled about," as he sometimes inelegantly calls his dose of
"palpation and stethoscopy," his equanimity is at once re¬
stored by the comfortable words of the doctor, "An ounce of
brandy, sister !" Should he object to his treatment, and rebel
against the hallowed customs of the place, considering he has
a right to the orderly arrangement and general integrity of
his own limbs, he is a lucky fellow if upon an early date his
spirit card is not reduced, or even taken away altogether. You
could not manage St. Bernard's on. its present lines without
alcohol. The medical school would not have a chance with it.
Let us follow, say, Thomas Smith from St. Giles to the hospital.
He has inflammation of the lungs, is very weak and ill, has
been badly fed and cannot in his own home obtain proper care
and nursing. His clergyman kindly gives him a letter for the
hospital. He is advised to be at the out-patient department at
one o'clock. To make sure, the poor fellow's cab is there by
half-past twelve; the great waiting-hall is already filling.
The physician of the day arrives a little after two. About
three, if he is lucky, Smith's turn will come. He is not sorry.
It was weary waiting, sitting upright on a hard bench in a
great noisy, draughty room, with many distressing and painful
sights around him ; and when the kind, gently speaking phy¬
sician tells his wife to strip him to the waist, he begins to think
he is going to be cured straight off by some of the superabun¬
dant medical force surrounding him.
There are many interesting clinical features in Tom Smith's
case, and the doctor lectures long and learnedly to the score of
good-natured, athletic young gentlemen whom he has just been
informed are " sucking doctors." They have all come provided
with stethoscopes, and after the examining physician has
thoroughly thumped, pummelled, and " auscultated" poor
Smith's chest, back and front, as many of the aforesaid young
men who are invited, or who can be induced to interest them¬
selves, "have their go "at the patient, and are very kindly
134
St. BcrnardS.
and patiently shown precisely where the mischief is, and what
is the exact stage of its progress) but all this could not be got
through without an ounce or two of brandy in a drop of water,
in a measure glass that stands handy. And everybody having
quite done, with many remarks, such as, "You see the pomt
I was driving at, Mr. Dobbs?" or, "You are quite convinced
my theory of pneumonia is correct, Mr. Murphy 1" poor,
shivering, sick and faint Tom Smith is sent up to the wards to
bed, under the care of an entirely fresh physician, physician's
assistant, clinical clerks, and students of the in patient depart¬
ment.
None of those men who have spent so much time over the
case, will probably ever see it again. Smith's cards, papers,
and books having all been duly made out, signed and registered,
he is conducted, say, to Magdalen ward, where he is put to bed
and made comfortable. If he has brought any tea and sugar
with him, he can have a cup; but these things are luxuries
not provided by the charity.
When the staff has dined, the house physicians and surgeons,
accompanied by their clinical clerks, dressers, and nurses, go
their rounds. All the fresh cases that have come in during
the day have to be examined. All that Tom Smith has under¬
gone in the out-patient department goes for nothing, and the
process is now still more carefully repeated. A minutely exact
record of the " physical signs " is made ; all that drumming of
the fingers on the poor tender chest, that long stethoscoping
at the panting lungs, whose every movement causes acute
distress, has to be undergone ; the heart sounds are scrupul¬
ously noted; its size and the line of demarcation of the liver
and other organs recorded, not by the qualified doctor
temporarily in charge of the case alone, but, by his kind per¬
mission, his assistant clerks also, for their education, verify all
the recorded facts for themselves. "An ounce of brandy,
sister ! " and the man suppresses his growing discontent. His
night temperature is recorded on the card above his bed, and
Taken in.
135
now, if so disposed, he may say his prayers and compose him¬
self to sleep. At six in the morning he will have to get his
breakfast, for work in a hospital must begin early, or the wards
will not be scrubbed and tidied up by ten o'clock, when the
doctors go their morning rounds.
If the gentlemen who examined him overnight have been
duly interested in their cases, they will have read them up
from the approved text-books; and it will be strange if that
reading has not raised questions and points that will necessitate
a fresh examination. So the man gets another ounce of
brandy, and another knocking about. At three in the after¬
noon the head physician—a fashionable West-End speciality
man for diseases of the chest—goes his rounds, followed by a
crowd of students. He makes himself responsible for each of
the cases in the beds allotted to him, and naturally wants to
know all about them, especially if any of them are likely to
make good subjects for elaborate clinical demonstration. So
with tenderest grace and the most honied phrases, with every
courtly apology to the patient for disturbing him, the great
man proceeds secundem artern to teach the young idea how to
shoot. The junior in charge of the case, reads his report of
the physical signs, family history, diagnosis and prognosis of
the case, with the treatment proposed, while the lecturer
verifies or objects to the statements of the record. He is so
thoughtful, so kind and sympathising with the poor fellow on
whom he is going to discourse for the next half-hour, that
having noticed he is distressed by the process before it is fairly
begun, he, in his most mellifluous tones, asks, " AVould you like
a little wine or brandy, my friend 1" And the poor man
thinks he would. Then have at him, lads ! for here is a pretty
case, a typical text-book case, and all you who are going up
for examination had better gee all you can out of Tom Smith,
for here are "minute crepitations,""vesicular murmurs,"
" obscured resonance," and if you watch the progress of the
disease you may get " tubular breathing," " bronchophony,"
136
St. Bernard's.
" increased vocal vibration," and no end of good things. Tom
Smith remains in the hospital six weeks before he is " discharged
cured." He has suffered many things at the hands of his
physicians ; he has cost St. Bernard's say about a pound a
week, besides his medical attendance. Who says he has gone
out without paying his bill 1 It has occurred to no one con¬
cerned, least of all to the patient, that there is anything wrong
in all this treatment. In their passionate eagerness to acquire
information that can only be obtained at the bedside, the
assiduous students are of course delighted to have Mr. Smith
amongst them. The house physician is soon going into private
practice, and he wants to consolidate and confirm all his know¬
ledge of the various forms of disease; the lecturer loves
nothing better than to exhibit his really admirable powers of
clinical observation to a body of rising men, who can send him
many patients and more guineas. The patient is usually de¬
lighted that so much interest is taken in his case, and contrasts
the hurried " Put out your tongue ; give me your hand ; take
this medicine, and I will see you again in two or three days;"
all in a hop, skip, and jump style, of the club doctor, with this
elaborate marshalling of great medical forces for the purposes
of his cure, sadly to the discredit of the club doctor's hasty
method.
Nobody sees through it all;—yes, the sisters and the nurses
do. The former do their very utmost to soften by their kind
assiduity evils which they think are inseparable from the work
of a public hospital. The nurses do what they have to do ; it
is their business to execute orders, and they usually say little,
whatever they may think. Then says the reader, " Who is
aggrieved 1 What is there wrong in the system 1" What is
wrong ? Everything! From the long waiting in the out¬
patients' ward; the exposure of such a case while the pre¬
liminary examination is made; to the long and dangerous
examinations of the stripped sufferer in the ward upstairs:
with their constant repetition by so many persons; so that it
Taken in. 137
is probable he would have made a better and speedier recovery
under the care of the club doctor, who seemed hasty because
full of business, but who thoroughly knew what he was about,
and only did not waste time over matters his quick eye took in
at a glance, and whose large experience was an additional
sense. All that auscultation had nothing to do with the man's
cure, hut a great deal to do with the education of those con¬
cerned in it; and as the treatment consisted in salines, tonics,
poultices and rest, with suitable food at suitable times com¬
bined with good ventilation and cleanliness, the elaborate
exhibition of therapeutic force was very much like cracking a
nut with a Nasmyth hammer, only the cracking of the nut
was but a detail!
It is possible that if all this could be knocked into Tom
Smith's uneducated head, he might not again lend himself so
readily to the business; still less is it probable that all those
cheques would be drawn in favour of St. Bernard's, if the sub¬
scribers knew just how the case stood. They might ask with
much cogency, " Cannot we get our nuts cracked without the
use of those costly steam hammers ? " And, after all, that is a
very important factor in the case. For consider ! It is only
by much begging and by resorting to many stratagems that
the governors can keep these charities going. Now if the
charitable Christian public chooses to crack its nuts with steam
hammers, we cannot offer any objection. It seems costly, but
that is their business; but if they think their nuts can be
cracked by no other and less costly method, they are very
much in the dark. Let alone the fact of so much unconscious
cruelty, wrought in the name of charity and mercy. Of that
we have said enough. The fees for a complete hospital curri¬
culum average a hundred guineas for the four years' course, an
absurdly small sum for such an education. In what other
learned profession could such advantages be obtained for
twenty-five guineas a year 1 But then the charitable public
does not assist other professions so liberally as that of medicine.
CHAPTER XXII.
how els worth came to himself.
Oh, then, if Reason waver at thy side,
Let humbler Memory be thy gentle guide ;
Go to thy birthplace, and, if Faith was there,
Repeat thy father's creed, thy mother's prayer.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes.
A dream is o'er,
And the suspended life begins anew ;
Quiet those throbbing temples, then, subdue
That cheek's distortion!
His forehead pressed the moonlit shelf
Beside the youngest marble maid awhile ;
Then, raising it, he thought, with a long smile,
" I shall be king again ! " as he withdrew
The envied scarf ; into the font he threw
His crown.
—Browning (" Sordello").
When the scrimmage and riot was at the highest point, Elsworth
suddenly found himself separated from his companions, and in¬
volved in a rush of people who were making for the street.
These persons were anxious to escape from the violence that
had suddenly come upon them, and taking rapid stock of affairs,
thought it best to be outside. So, in a very few moments,
Elsworth was in Oxford Street, with no chance of getting back
to the scenes which he had just so unwillingly left. He turned
down the Seven Dials, and as he walked towards the Strand
had time to feel heartily ashamed of himself and that night's
How Eisivorth came to Himself. 139
work. Had he not had nearly enough of this sort of thing ?
Was it for this he had read and worked, earned honours, learned
many and great things, profited by the labours of the past,
which surely could not have come to him through such channels
as he was likely to prove ? For several days past he had been
immersed in the study of Browning's " Paracelsus." He had
seen how that hero of medicine had torn himself away from
home and friends, and all his loved surroundings, to go far into
the distant world to gather, with enormous difficulty, hints and
scraps of medical learning which were but the veriest crumbs
compared to the loaded tables now set before the student of the
healing art; how, with poor means, great hardships, and the
scantiest help, in opposition to the teaching of its appointed
professors, doing violence to the received notions of his time, he
had struck out a path for himself, through the trackless forest
to the unexplored country where lay, he felt and knew by the
inner light that guided him, the key to the true treatment of
the hurts and troubles of men's bodies—all this against tears
and entreaties such as often hold a man back from attempting
new and great things. And how, after many wanderings and
contentions, much violence, and opposition, he had seized,
Prometheus like, Divine gifts for men, all by his own great
soul, fortified by faith in God and love to man: and had
dowered the human race with gifts greater than kings and
captains ever won for it, and blessings for which the art of
medicine yet sings his praises. While he, Els worth, standing
as it were high 011 the shoulders of the discoverers of the past,
had been using his time at best to acquire a mere means of
livelihood, his predecessors, who had helped him to all this
knoAvledge, had been glad to win from nature, by years of work,
one by one those secrets he was using so lightly. He was over¬
come by shame and the sense of his unfitness for such a work
as he had dared to undertake.
Paracelsus,—the Paracelsus made known to this age, not by
the false portraits limned by his contemporaries and enemies
140 S/. Bernard'v.
but as drawn by the master hand of Browning,— seemed to step
out from the dark past and forbid his progress on a path he had
traversed. A horrible sense of degradation took possession of
him. He had once held a lofty ideal. When at Oxford, when
his faith in God was a real working faith, he had often vowed
himself to the service of humanity. That the saints of the
Church, the fathers of the faith, the apostles, the prophets, the
teachers of the past should have all worked to hand down to
him—Elsworth—this noble, Divine light of Christian faith,
which alike impelled his adhesion and claimed his co-operation;
and for him to receive all, and then hesitate to give in his turn
his best years and his whole heart to the world's needs, was
surely but to be repelled on its suggestion. But faith was
gone, intellect had usurped the place of will, the will was
unsanctified, and the man in brain and heart a chariot
whose steeds rushed uncontrolled along the beaten track of
habit, and were carrying him—whither? If there were no
hereafter—nothing beyond this life—was it worth while to go
on with this devilry, this riot, this attempt to drag the better
part, the reason, into the mire, with the swine 1 Why not for¬
sake it all, and now while there was time for repentance ?
The man was pulled up short: thrown back like a horse on
his haunches. A great gulf in these few minutes was opened
between him and the past; and not Paul when smitten down
on Damascus road was blinder as to the future than Elsworth
on this night in Seven Dials, amongst the suspicious men and
bedraggled women, who passed him as he moved listlessly
along, arrested by the scream of a conscience that would be
heard at least once more, and whose voice had unspeakable
terrors for him. For he was made for better things—that he
always had felt; he was not vile, debauched, debased, as some
of his companions were. He had fought against light; he had
struggled not to believe, not that he might give the reins to his
passions, hut that he might deify intellect. He thought it was
cowardly to leave those poor lads in the fight, but it was use-
How ulsworth came io Himself. 141
less to go back ; and even if he could have saved them from
arrest, he dare not engage in any more of that work—away
with that at least; it was too horrible to think of any more.
So on he went, scolding himself, calling himself by every
opprobrious epithet, and berating himself back into manhood
again. He had reached Chelsea ; it was almost too late to get
a lodging, but he would try; for the conviction began to dawn
upon him that he should not go back one single step into the
past, but there and then break with it all, and be a man, and
live a man's life. He prayed—once more repeated, " Our
Father, which art in heaven ; " it seemed very unphilosophical,
very unscientific. He had often sent out aspirations to " the
Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness," to " the
one Consensus of the whole," to " the Eternal Verity," but it was
long since Elsworth had said " Our Father;" he felt that in
doing so he had reopened that long closed " window towards
the Infinite," and had once more let in the light of the Divine
and supernatural wisdom without which he had been groping
along. He found a clean, but mean lodging in a little
eating-house down by the river, and went to bed. Surely
a voice out of heaven had called him that night. Not
clearer was Paul's arrest—not plainer Loyola's, " Hitherto,
but no farther "—than this to him to-night. So, ever, when
there is a work for a man that he must do, that he is sealed
and set apart for, when the full time comes he shall hear the
call j if not in the still small voice and the whispering wind,
then in the fire and thunders of Sinai.
Elsworth felt that night, as he lay restlessly tossing on the
rough bed, that he had gone about his whole work at the hos¬
pital the wrong way. Thus had not Paracelsus done ! How
he cried at the outset of his career :
" I can abjure so well the idle arts
These pedants strive to learn and teach ; black arts,
Great works, the secret and sublime, forsooth—
Let others prize ; too intimate a tie
142
St. Bernard's.
Connects me with our God ! A sullen fiend
To do my bidding, fallen and hateful sprites
To help me—what are these, at best, beside
God helping, God directing everwhere,
So that the earth shall yield her secrets up,
And every object there be charged to strike,
Teach, gratify, her master God appoints? "
His black arts were neither secret nor sublime, but the openly
belauded methods of investigation, involving the tortures of
sentient beings for the sake of learning the idle arts these
pedants taught at the schools. He, too, had invoked the aid
of the sullen forces of Nature, from -which he had thrust
Nature's God, and they had done his bidding in a way—and
the way was hopeless and dark. He had long felt this reckon¬
ing-day with himself must come; he was too honest to go on
much longer leaving the question of his responsibility un¬
settled ; he was too healthy-brained to give way to despair, till
he had found a modus vivendi with his better nature impossible.
Early bereft of a mother's care, his father, wholly absorbed in
his literary pursuits, and keeping up merely the slightest cor¬
respondence with his son, whom he had apparently almost
forgotten, Elsworth had very few family ties, and was perfectly
master of his own position. He had no fear of his father's
withdrawing his allowance of £300 a year. As it happened,
he had the day before been paid a sum of rather over £100 by
his agents ; he was not in debt, save in a small sum to his
landlady, and the hospital beadle, with some trifling amounts
in the neighbourhood of St. Bernard's which his man of busi¬
ness would pay. Why not cut the old familiar scenes? The
wilderness period has to be gone through by every man with a
work to do; the retreat is sahitary for the stricken soul. Why
not enter into it at once ? He was a man of resolute will, pos¬
sessed by a strong determination when the right and proper
thing to be done confronted him. He had true stuff in his
composition; originality, firm purpose. Boldness to do and
How Elsworth came to Himself. 143
dare came to him from his father, who had won his promotion
in Indian warfare through a grandly conceived and brilliantly
original movement, which had insured the enemy's defeat at
the moment his own seemed imminent. It should be done;
he would go away early in the morning light. " Let him that
is on the house-top not come down to take anything out of the
house." And he went not down, nor took anything of his old
life, but made straight for Paris that same day, for, like his
father when he made his brilliant move, he had formed a plan
and carried it out.
He gave directions to his lawyer to discharge all claims upon
him, to say that he had gone abroad, and would not return for
some time, but begged him not to disclose his whereabouts to
any one without first communicating with him at the address
he should forward, when he had chosen his headquarters.
Now he began to enter into himself. He must seek some
hallowed place of prayer to consecrate his remaining years to
God, and renew his baptismal vows, to drink a deep draught of
the Divine Spirit as he entered on his new work.
He turned into Notre Dame, to see the place again, and in¬
vestigate some details .of the architecture. He sat down on a
bench before the high altar ; they were singing the vesper ser¬
vice. A sense of heavenly calm pervaded his soul, his tur¬
bulent thoughts were quelled; his disquiet, his vague appre¬
hensions, his disgust with life, all seemed to melt away as the
influence of prayer lulled his troubled soul on the breast of
God. The organ ceased to peal, the monotone of the priests
and the clear young voices of the choir had died away. He
peacefully slept in the house of -prayer, and angels seemed to
whisper sweet words to him, and glorified saints from out the
storied panes to counsel him. He was aroused by a Suisse,
who, noting him as a tourist, and having an eye to a douceur,
invited him to come and see the relics, and the treasures in the
sacristy and chapels. He declined, and moved away—moved
to a less conspicuous place, and again sat down to muse on the
144
St. Bernard's.
great things the sacred fane had witnessed in the past. How
many and great events of human history had been enacted
under its shadow and beneath its roof ! Here, and on that
very altar, had been enthroned a vile woman to be worshipped
as Goddess of Reason, a visible presentment of what a nation
or a single human soul meant when it had cast out God.
Could anything, had anything kept the intellect of man from
madness when bereft of the idea of essential goodness outside
the mean world of man! All history, he must confess, answered
"No." And "No" was thunder-pealed from that desecrated
altar, where the idea of God had been openly crucified amid
the highest civilization of modern Europe, by the lusts and
madness of the age of science. Dethroned and cast out for
what 1 When all was gone, and the last traces of the faith
stamped out, as far as might be, what was to come in its place 1
What for that market woman kneeling by his side rapt by
devotion at least to an idea more exalted than her business or
her pleasures could have suggested 1 Surely something ennobl¬
ing her small surroundings, if only by its poetry and sentiment.
And that workman there under the sculpture of the Cross-
bearer 1 Not altogether waste of time for him to meditate a
few moments on sacrifice of self for good of other men. It
might help him perhaps to bear a hand at a neighbour's over-
pressing burden. And those little children before the picture
of the Infant Saviour ? At least for them such idealism must
be a factor in their mental development which could ill be
spared. Philosophy was good for men, the wisdom of the
sages had often balanced a wavering mind, and strengthened the
fibre of men to dare and do great things ; but it was not pos¬
sible for the masses of mankind to be so sustained any more
than it was possible they could be all fed and housed like
princes. Was not this contemned Christian religion which he
had been helping to push aside, philosophy made easy for
simple folk, unlearned and without culture 1 Would it not
still further belittle their poor lives to take their faith from
How Elsworth came to Himself. 145
them 1 For them Plato, Dante, and Shakespeare were not
horn-books. Was it so very wise to take away their gospels,
and their psalms, and leave them nothing to elevate the daily
round of life's task above the muddy floor of their miserable
dwellings 1
And so he mused on all these things, and the worshippers
came and went, knelt in prayer, and laid their poor burdens at
the feet of God ; took in from the infinite a draught of the
water of life, wept their tears, sighed up to the throne of the
Heavenly their anxieties; asked direction from the Wisest they
knew of, wandered a little out of themselves a while ; felt that
bread and meat were not alone the sustenance of man, and
went on their way. And as he thought and pondered in his
heart, the sinking sun gleaming through the great west win¬
dow scattered a thousand jewels over the floor around him,
and he rose and knew that religion brightens life, and colours
with rose and gold the dark shadow brooding over the soul of
man. Not altogether was it a fact that man had been wholly
wrong in his faith, and had done nothing but " build him fanes
of fruitless prayer," or had reaped from them nothing but the
opportunities to " roll the psalm to wintry skies."
As he rose from his long meditation, and went into the gay,
busy world without, he felt how inconsistent with his previous
mental attitude were the thoughts he had entertained. How
often had he not dedicated himself to the overthrow of super¬
stition, and pledged his energies to do what he could to erase
its traces from the minds of his friends ! It was but a few
weeks since he had angrily tossed a crucifix from a patient's
couch, who he had directed should not be bothered by religion
or priests. Had he not scoffed openly at a poor old woman's
simple assurance that God was helping her in her sickness, and
that to her ears came often " songs in the night season 1" At
St. Bernard's how many times had he not endeavoured to
laugh or reason young freshmen out of the religion of their
mothers, unworthy of belief now that facts, and facts only,
K
146
St. Bernard Ss.
were to be the study of their lives! There was a little band of
true Christian men at the hospital, who met for prayer and
Bible reading from time to time. He could not deny that they
did their work in the wards conscientiously—did it more faith¬
fully than the ardent young Comtists and Secularists, who
made so much noise about Humanity and its claims. They
were so cheerful, too, and helpful in their attitude towards the
afflicted and poor who sought their aid, that they were a con¬
stant reproach to him for not living up to the faith with which,
in his secret thoughts, he had never really broken.
CHAPTER XXIII.
IN exile.
And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,
Where with her best nurse Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
—Milton.
No star is ever lost we once have seen :
We always may be what we might have been.
—Proctor.
Elsworth spent a few days in Paris, and then determined he
would go on to Spain. He dreaded discovery, for ridicule was
more terrible to him than any bodily danger. He had been
only two days in Paris when he passed a London friend, who,
however, did not notice him. He neither wanted to be chaffed
by old companions, nor urged back to a life with which he had
resolved to break. He was not strong enough to fight—the
highest bravery is sometimes to fly. He felt that, though the
world is so small, he would be less likely to meet acquaintances
in Spain, especially if he did not stay in the capital.
As he entered the night express for Madrid, and settled him¬
self in a corner of the carriage for sleep, he felt some sinking at
heart, a sense of his isolation and a misgiving of the adequacy
of his motive which had driven him into his solitude. This
age of ours, he thought, is not the time for sacrifice to principle.
Retreats for clergymen and devotees might be right because
148
St. Bernard's.
customary; but, whoever heard of a medical man, scarcely
emerged from his hospital, giving up all his professional pros¬
pects, abandoning friends and position, country and habits, be¬
cause a great sense of non-response to the higher call of duty,
had suddenly come upon him? Yet history was full of such
precedents. Men had done all this and more to seek an island
in unknown seas, to trace the sources of a river, to get gold, to
seek for novelty, to gratify small ambitions, to chase the merest
butterfly of a pleasure. He had seen, as a lightning flash in an
instant reveals a yawning precipice or some great danger in
time to be averted, that he was descending from his higher self,
and leading a life which could not be worth living for any man
who had once known a better and followed nobler things.
Could it be wrong to break with the past like this ? Was it
not just this that the Great Teacher meant when He said, " If
thy right hand offend thee, cut it off?" Was it not good
for him to go out into the desert for awhile, and let God speak
to him in the silence ? He had said to himself that he would
live to make the world better for his living. He had vowed
himself to the order of those wTho smooth away some of the
roughnesses of this life for weaker brethren ; not a very
wonderful thing after all, to do, in face of what had been done
for him by others. True, this is the age of " doing nothing
without a quid pro quo " paid down in hard cash. A cruel and
a soul-benumbing maxim, which, if acted upon universally
would turn the brightness of the world into the grimness and
noisy whirl of a mere factory. Let him for awhile, at least,
see if it were possible to live the life of an early Christian;
such a life as was common enough in the dawn of the new
civilization which had love and self-abnegation for its motive
power. And so musing, with heart-aspirations going up to
God for help and His sustaining power in following this better
ideal, he fell asleep.
The morning broke struggling through the mists that hung
In Exile.
149
over the strange, weird country of the Landes. The train ran
through miles of fir-trees—nothing but fir-trees, grown for the
sake of their resin. Every tree had its cup slowly but steadily
filling with the fragrant exudation. Every tree, as he saw,
gave up its blood to help mankind ; not one refused to fill with
resin the cup affixed to it. Was not all Nature at work to
keep the world a-going, and to better its life 1 And then he re¬
buked himself in George Herbert's lines :—
" All things are busy ; only I
Neither bring honey with the bees,
Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry
To water these.
" I am no link of Thy great chain,
But all my company is as a weed.
Lord ! place me in Thy concert, give one strain
To my poor reed."
Soon Bordeaux was reached ; then, as the afternoon drew on,
the Pyrenees were passed, and at midnight he alighted at
Burgos, to rest a day or two before going on. An old-world
place, where the railway was a gross anomaly, and the telegraph
poles a violation of the fitness of things. At least two hundred
years behind the times, the great offence to the eye being
smart French-looking soldiers where one looked for mailed
knights with their esquires. Here was a market-place with its
traffic much as it had been conducted any day this five hundred
years. True, by ferreting amongst the stalls you could find
some nineteenth-century novelties in the shape of wax matches
and paper collars; there were books, too, in secluded corners,
" printed on scrofulous grey paper with blunt type," which
evidenced some demand for modern literature; but, these
indications of our advanced civilization excepted, the rest of the
dealing was in things which cannot have much changed their
form or their use for many generations. A sleepy, quiet,
leisurely place, with plenty of time to be wicked in, but also
with much opportunity to be good. In such a place, indeed
St Bernard's.
in the whole peninsula, there is every inducement to lead the
devout life ; there is so little else to do. One's activities have
small outlets, except towards the other world. Yet for a busy
Londoner, a blase Parisian, what a blessed sense of peace comes
over the soul resting in such a becalmed water-way on one's
voyage !
But a terrible sense of loneliness possessed Elsworth. The
day after his arrival here it was Sunday. The wind was
bitterly cold. His Spanish was not quite Castilian in its per¬
fection, though he could make himself understood; and when
he had spent some hours in the cathedral, visited what a young
fruit-seller called the Mercado de la Llendre, which is not quite
literally rendered as Rag Fair, and wandered round and round
the quaint old market-place half a dozen times, his questioning
spirit disturbed him as to why he had ever left London, and
how was a nineteenth-century life to be supported long under
such conditions ? St. Simeon Stylites, on the top of his pillar,
must have had some such misgivings for the first few days at
least, and St. Francis could not have found all at once the
birds and the fishes supply the place of familiar friends, not
their sentiments, if they expressed any, a sufficient substitute
for his human interests of former days. The dinner table did
not mend matters. The company at the hotel consisted of
some half a dozen priests, as many young officers of the army
from the barracks opposite, and some of the towns-people, who
evidently were quite at home in their surroundings and
particularly provincial in their breeding. No one took the
least notice of him, and his attempts at conversation, like
sparks of damp wood, went out dismally. The truth was, the
Castilians had paid for a good Sunday dinner, and the matter
of making the most of it was of too serious importance to
every one of them to permit of their being beguiled in their
work by any such trivial considerations as the young English¬
man's conversation could offer. So everybody ate as became
I11 Exile.
good hearty Burgolese, and poor Elsworth was left to his
meditations.
He knew the only remedy for this depression was to get out
of cities into the country. There is no such loneliness as that
experienced in a crowd where one knows nobody; so he deter¬
mined henceforth to live chiefly in villages, roadside inns, and
places where he might hope to make friends with the less
sophisticated of the people. Sending therefore, his luggage on
to Madrid, he packed a small knapsack, took his stout walking-
stick, and set off for a good spell of pedestrian work. He
resolved to purchase a bicycle when he reached the capital.
He was an ardent cyclist, but had not brought his machine
with him, and now missed it sadly. He loved his steel roadster
as men love a favourite horse, and felt shorn of his strength
without it. His Spanish stood him in good stead, not only at
the posadas, but with the people he met on the roads. Spain
is so little known from the play-ground point of view, that he
felt sure of the retirement he sought, and had been but a few
days on the tramp ere he found his healthy life invite healthy
thoughts ; and as the London smoke got out of his lungs, a
clearer spirit entered him in its place. The smoke of the
great city had penetrated deeper even than his lungs: it had
begun to pollute his mind. It was time he broke with it.
Thank God, he was not out of tune for Nature altogether, and
as he sat beside a mountain stream could lift up his heart and
meditate, and say with old Isaac Walton :—
" Here we may think and pray, before death stop our breath.
Other joys are but toys, and to be lamented,''
CHAPTER XXIV.
the school op humanity.
For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain ;
Hence timely running's no mean part
Of conduct in the martial art.—Butler.
The Divine origin of Christianity is manifested in nothing more
powerfully than by the progress it rapidly made among the
Latin races. The soft, voluptuous climates of Southern Europe
would have bred, one would have thought, nations whose chief
characteristics would have been gentleness and tenderness.
But it is not so, and the cruelty that was deeply ingrained in
the Roman nature lives on in Christian Italy and Spain, un¬
influenced by some sixteen centuries of Christianity, so far as
regards the treatment of the lower animals. To have softened
towards their neighbours and dependents, the cruel patricians
of Nero's reign needed the greatest miracle of the Christian
religion. The actual reception of the code of Christ by the
men of old Rome is evidence enough that there was no mere
human agency at work. We may estimate the magnitude of
the task Christianity had to accomplish by marking the con¬
dition of the shores which its tide has failed to overflow. Up
to the present it would seem, in Spain and Italy at least, the
high-water mark of mercy stops short of the animals which
serve us. " To them Christianity has no duties," they say.
The women and children of Italy do not think for a moment
that they are not justified in torturing the trapped wolves and
The School of Humanity.
153
foxes the shepherds have taken, just as our sailors used to
torment sharks. " What rights have such naughty beasts 1 "
say they.
The long, stern contention of the men of the North against
the rigour of the elements, or some other profound cause, has
produced in the Teutonic races a tenderness of heart, and a
sympathy with every phase of wrong, which have made the
Anglo-Saxon race the pioneers of mercy throughout the whole
world.
The progress of Christianity was assured when the men of
the North were converted; and if they owe to warmer climates
the message of the Friend of man, they have in their turn
blessed the birth lands of the Gospel with the broader humanity
which has help for everything that lives and suffers.
Elsworth was amazed to find how the bull-fight cultus had
permeated and moulded every Spanish mind. That it was a
pastime, he knew; that it was a religion, he did not imagine
till he had lived in Spain. The very landscapes were cruel: the
mountains and rocks had no softness, they were all angles,
with stern, hard outlines that seemed reflected in the Spanish
nature. Man, modified by his surroundings, often formed the
subject of his meditations. Here, if anywhere, cruelty would
be apotheosized! The railway journey to Madrid, and the
landscape of the Escorial threw a light on many chapters of
Spanish history which had often seemed hard to understand.
Having reached Madrid in due course he made some neces¬
sary purchases. First of all he bought a bicycle from Singer's
agents in the Puerta del Sol, also some good road maps and all
the necessary tools and materials for repairing any accident
that might happen to his machine. Then a good medicine
chest and some well-selected medical appliances to enable him
to be useful to any sick folk he might fall in with. A few
books, dictionaries, grammars, and guides were added to his
slender baggage and sent forward to Granada to the Hotel
Washington Irving, where he determined to remain till he
154
St. Bernard's.
should decide his future course of life. He knew the cholera
was raging at this city, and without rashness, yet with con¬
fidence in God and the wisdom of sanitary precautions which
he should adopt, he decided to do what he could to help the
dreadful misery that hung over the unfortunate city. His
work at St. Bernard's had familiarized him with the terrible
disease on its last visitation of London, and he trusted to the
measures which had been followed there to keep him from
danger in Spain. At Madrid he wrote to his father, telling
him the exact state of affairs, and assuring him that he had
fled from temptation that could not be safely parreyed with, but
was better conquered by flight.
A few months later he received a reply from the Major, who
so far from being annoyed at his son's conduct, praised him
for it.
" You have done what the Lord Gautama Buddha felt com¬
pelled to do. When he left his royal home, and in the night
passing through the dimly lighted pavilions' where the sleeping
Natch girls lay, conceived an overpowering loathing for worldly
pleasure, and was assailed in vain at the outset of his great
renunciation by the voice of the tempter Mara urging him to
cling to all the good things he was giving up, he set an ex¬
ample wdiich I rejoice to know my son has followed. You are
seeking the Nirvana. Do not think yourself singular in this
step ; one cannot be saved without a renunciation."
Elsworth thought of a higher example and a nobler Prince,
who left His throne to teach us the way of salvation; but was
glad he had the approbation of his father. No one else except
his lawyers, knew of his whereabouts; and he asked his father
and agents not to give the curious inquirer any clue to his
place of retreat.
Ever since as a boy he had read "Washington Irving"
and Mr. Prescott's " Conquest of Granada," he had longed
to see that celebrated city of which one Spanish proverb
declares, "He is loved of God who lives in Granada," and
The School of Humanity. 15 5
another, that " He who has not seen Granada has seen
nothing."
George Borrow's books on the Spanish gipsies, their customs,
and their curious language had fascinated him, and made him
anxious some day to see these strange people for whom he had
acquired a singular liking. The Spanish character has in it
something strangely akin to the Puritan severity, honesty, and
fibre of the English race, and no true Englishman can read the
history of the conquests of Peru and Mexico without feeling his
heart go forth towards those brave followers of Pizarro and
Cortez, who seemed possessed of a character so much like our
own in their invincible courage, daring, and hardihood in dealing
with difficulties.
Elsworth had Puritan blood in him, inherited from his
mother, more than one of whose ancestors had fought for
England's liberties under the great Protector. Good blood has
the peculiarity of helping its possessor at a critical turn in life;
and at this juncture in Elsworth's history it served to stimulate
him with something of the nerve force that enabled his fore¬
fathers to cast off the trammels of a licentious and drunken
age, and go forth to a purer atmosphere for their souls' salva¬
tion. He knew from many an old book treasured at home,
the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, and what they had done for
what the world called a mere idea. His favourite book, the
" Pilgrim's Progress," came to his aid. Was he not, like
Christian, setting forth from the City of Destruction 1 And so
one bright autumn day he found himself in the famous city, the
Queen- of Cities, as Ibn-Batuta calls it.
The Arab writers used to say it was a fragment of heaven
that had fallen to the earth. Elsworth had not gone forth
into a waste, howling wilderness; he did not see there was
any use in making himself wretched. He wanted, if possible,
to do some good ; and as he knew the language of the Gitanos,
he thought if he could devote himself to their interests for a
while in a missionary way, he would be the happier for being
*SV. Bernard''s.
useful in his retirement. For he had great faith in the eternal
freshness of the New Testament, and he concluded that its
doctrines were as potent, as life-giving now as when they first
shed their beams on a benighted world ; he was determined
that now religious liberty was permitted in Spain he would
circulate the Cal6 New Testament amongst the gipsies, and do
what he could to bring them to its teaching.
He took a couple of charmingly situated rooms in a venerable
house on the banks of the Darro, looking down upon an old
bridge which spanned the golden stream that comes down from
the Sierra Nevada. The Alhambra Hill was close by, and the
old city, rich with historic memories, in the plain below. He
had little difficulty in ingratiating himself with the Gitanos.
Knowing their language so well, they insisted that he must be
of their race; and his dark complexion, fine eyes, and jet-black
hair made it almost useless for him to deny that he was of gipsy
stock. They argued that he must have their blood in his veins,
even though he might not know it.
He soon became very popular, and having no prejudice, but
being of a thoroughly cosmopolitan mind, it was not long before
he was looked upon as one of themselves. His hospital life
helped him, and he soon became at home in the Sacro Monte.
The gipsy quarter of Granada is one of the great sights of
the place, and is the most romantic spot one can imagine. The
pencil of a Dore and the pen of a Theophile Gautier have made
it familiar enough to students of Spain and its people.
CHAPTER XXY.
" what's become of waring % "
Oh, never star
Was lost here but it rose afar !
Look east, where whole new thousands are !
In Vishnu-land what Avatar !
—B roicnhig.
Two years had passed away since Elsworth's disappearance, and
a little party of house physicians and surgeons—all young men
and recently qualified—were sitting round the roaring fire in
the snug quarters of the senior house surgeon at our hospital,
discussing the sad fate of their old comrade. Young Harvey
Bingley—a thoughtful and cultivated man, who, besides passing
his exams, with credit, found time and inclination for literary
pursuits, and especially loved to dig into Robert Browning's
poetry and extract a nugget from time to time—propounded
the theory that perhaps Elsworth had gone off like Waring in
Browning's pcem. Nobody saw the allusion, because nobody
there knew anything of Browning; hut Bingley was always
worth listening to when he got on his hobby, so he was required
to explain.
"Well, you see, the poem opens with the question,—
' What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest, or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down
Any longer London town ?'
158 St. Bernard's.
" He is described in the poem as walking with two or three
friends one snowy night in December, when suddenly he was
missed from the little company of students, who were returning
home from a supper party, and none of them saw him again,
nor could anything he learned of his whereabouts till years
after, when one of his friends, sailing by Trieste, caught a
glimpse of the lost Waring's face under a great grass hat, in a
fruit-boat, offering to trade with the English brig : caught that
glimpse, and nothing more, as the boat which bore him went
off—
' Into the rosy and golden half o' the sky to overtake the sun.' "
" How romantic !" exclaimed several of the party.
"Yes," said the junior house physician; "very like young
Sapsford; he disappeared just that way, after a supper party,
and was not heard of till several days after, and then he was
found in a boat off Margate jetty, with his landlady's daughter!"
" Shut up ! " cried Dr. Aubrey; " you've no poetry or sent¬
iment in you—not a bit. You are saturated with ' Mark Twain,'
and it's blasphemy to quote Browning in your ribald hearing !"
"Do you think Elsworth has gone into the fruit business ' in
the rosy half of the sky 1'" meekly asked Maberley the dresser.
" I've no idea," said Bingley; " but I have known things
quite as strange as that. By the way, you were all so anxious
to laugh at my poetry that you didn't wait to hear the denoue¬
ment."
"Oh, isn't it over1?" asked a groggy individual on the sofa,
smoking a churchwarden. " Hoav could he get back out of the
rosy sky 1"
" That I can't say; but he did, and is now living in a pretty
villa on Hampstead Heath, is very fat and jolly, and sketches
in fine weather ' bits ' which he exhibits at the Academy."
"Then I say it's a beastly shame," cried Ryder, the " Resid¬
ent Acc.," "to come to a public place like Hampstead and
" What's become of Waring?" 159
dissipate all that beautiful poetry and rend asunder those ros.y
skies and appear as a fat sketcher amongst donkey boys and
nursemaids, to say nothing of girls' schools. It's indecent, and
Robert Browning ought to go at him for damages. I would!
'Avatar' indeed."
" Now, joking apart," said Dr. Aubrey, " don't you think poor
Elsworth got a sudden sense of disgust with his rackety life,
which was always, I thought, rather assumed—never sat upon
him quite naturally—and in a moment resolved to cut it all ?
I shouldn't be a bit surprised to hear that he had settled down
in some quiet nook abroad, and was leading a philosophical life.
Do you remember Bartley Coleman? You do, don't you,
Fourneaux ?—he was of your year. You remember how promis¬
ing he was? We all made sure he would take the medical
scholarship. One fine morning he was missed, and nobody
heard of him here till Dr. Sales went into a little grocer's shop
in a Scotch village for some fish-hooks, and was served by the
missing Coleman. His father had become bankrupt while he
was a student, had a fit of apoplexy soon after, and died, leaving
a widow and five girls unprovided for. Poor Coleman heard
the call of duty, laid down the scalpel and took up the cheese-
cutter, and so supported his mother and his sisters. Noble
wasn't it?"
"Oh, I say, Aubrey," said Maberley, "you don't mean to
imply that Elsworth is keeping a chandler's shop ?"
" I imply nothing. I say we know very little of the under¬
currents of half the men's lives we are familiar with; we see
the surface-water and what floats on it; that is all. The
wonder to me is how we keep between the banks as well as we
do. Some from inclination, others from duty, more from de¬
fective control, get away from the old course, wander off down
the rapids, under the rocks, and disappear. Is it any marvel ?
For my own part, there are times when I long to cast off the
restrictions of your so-called civilized existence, and go with a
gun or a lasso to the Pampas and the virgin forests."
i6o
St. Bernard's.
"Yes, all very fine, and make the welkin ring with cries for
your slippers and your grog when tired and heated with the
chase. After a very few months of that sort of work, the fit
would cool down ; and the next thing that the world would see
of you, you would be dining with your father at the Fish¬
mongers' banquet, eating your turtle and drinking your tres sec
like the rest of the ' domine diriges.' "
" I believe he has gone off" with some girl," said ugly little
beetle-browed Mills, the clinical clerk; " or somebody's wife
more likely still."
" Well, you may comfort yourself, Mills, that that indiscretion
will never happen to you. I could believe it of a cash-box, but
there isn't a woman living who would elope with you—married
or single. You will never create that scandal."
At this moment a knock was heard at the door, and a nurse
put her head into the room and, addressing one of the house
surgeons, told him the patient Green, in Isabella ward, had
consented to undergo the operation which he had suggested,
and then added : " Sister says she thinks he is dying fast, and
are you going to operate ?"
" Going to operate? Rather think I was. Don't you know,
Nurse, this is my first capital operation? Do you think I am
going to lose the chance ?"
" Then, sir, Sister told me to ask you if I had better let the
chaplain know ?"
" Chaplain be hanged ! " he cried. " Certainly not! It
would only depress the poor devil. No ! no ! Plenty of brandy!
Keep him up ! Cheer him all you can; tell him it is only a
trifling, every-day sort of affair, and he will be well in a jiffy.
You may send for his wife."
" Oh, sir, she has been waiting about the hospital all day."
" All right, then ! Now, gentlemen, to business. You shall
see me do something pretty. Bishop says I may do it all
myself as soon as the ether is given. Is Bishop in the wards ?'
" No, I saw him in the pathologist's room with Crowe an
" What's become of Waring ?' 161
hour ago, and he said he should be here but part of the day.
I'll tell him, shall I %" asked a dresser.
" Do!"
The hell rang for the operation, to assemble the students,
some of whom said " It was a beastly shame to torture a poor
wretch who hadn't a chance of getting over it."
" Ah, you won't talk like that when you are house surgeon
(H.S. they always termed it) yourself. You will be glad
to operate on your own father if you can't get anybody else.
Besides, what are hospitals for, if not to qualify us for our
work 1 If people don't want us to learn all we can from them,
why don't they stay at home and die 1 The parish doctor
won't disturb their latter moments with operations."
And so, while the case was being discussed by the novelty-
hunting lads, and the grim tools of the surgeons were being
selected and placed on a pretty little table by the side of the
couch in the theatre, and covered with a white napkin;—while
the nurses were assembling who had to assist, and the surgeon
refreshing his memory by a last peep at the text-book directing
the steps of the operation ;—while the poor patient, who, after
much worrying, had at last consented to undergo what he was
told was a trifling affair that would be certain to cure him—an
agonised young woman, with a baby at her breast, was pacing
up and down the courtyard of the " cathedral of surgery," as
the Sunday papers called it, feeling that her poor husband was
fast leaving her and his little home, and much doubting if she
should have given that young doctor her consent to cut and
hack the sinking frame of the father of her babe. But what
was she to do 1 Had not five well speaking, kind-looking
gentlemen told her that very morning it was the only chance
of saving him 1 Did not the pretty nurse and the ladylike
sister urge her to do just whatever the doctor in charge of the
case advised 1 There was only her own heart, her sad misgiv¬
ings, standing between her and the operation that they said
was to give her Jimmy back to health. She had yielded; it
h
St. Bernard's.
was to be done. She had seen him, and kissed him; but her
heart told her she would see him and hear his voice no more
in life.
A kind porter in the place let her sit down in his room and
await the result. Before nightfall, she was a widow. The
announcement was made to her by one of the dressers, who
coupled his bad news with a request from the authorities for
leave to make a post-mortem examination. For James Green
had yet something to contribute to science and St. Bernard's;
he had given his life; had presented a rising young surgeon
with his first opportunity for a great and interesting operation.
He had still something more to bestow—his dead body. It
was considered a grievous oversight, and a wrong to the
institution, if a patient who had died there failed to make his
or her appearance on the post-mortem table at four o'clock the
next day, not only that it might be seen and demonstrated by
skilled pathologists just where and how the operation had gone
wrong, but for the sake of all the beautiful and instructive
things that might be shown in brain, or heart, or lungs. For
statistical purposes, for treatises being written, for papers for
learned societies on all and every of the ailments of humanity,
it was ill fortune to let a sectio cadaveris slip, as one never knew
what one might be losing. They had an euphemistic way of
asking the relatives' permission for what they termed a " P.M."
"You don't object to a slight examination, do you, just to
find out the real cause of death, so as to make the death
certificate all right 1"
"Who could object? Few understood what it all meant, fewer
thought they had any power to object; so the cases were rare
where the ruse failed.
Therea is a widespread feeling amongst the people against
post-mortem examinations. There is a vague apprehension
that portions of their deceased friend's anatomy may appear
" in spirits in a vial," iu some museum or other. When the
remains of the relative come back from the hospital, it is
" What's become of Waring f 163
unpleasant to feel doubts as to their integrity. Visions of
important portions of their internal economy lying perdu in
back gardens of students' lodgings, the prey of the too inquisitive
cat or investigating terrier, are not altogether baseless.
Hundreds of back gardens in London doubtless do contain
such material, as we have frequent proof. Many thousands of
museum shelves are loaded with preparations of such departed
friends. It is doubtless, in the abstract, absurd to object to
these common practices; but when it comes home to a mother
to ask how she would like her dead child's remains disposed of,
it is perfectly natural, and not at all absurd, to suppose that
with her whole heart, she would earnestly demand that they
should be reverently interred in Christian ground, and be as
little mutilated as possible.
The Jews are very reluctant to allow post-mortem examina¬
tions on their relatives ; and, when such a thing is unavoidable,
as by coroner's order, an official from the synagogue is present
to see that nothing is abstracted. It has often happened that
the friends have discovered that portions of the corpse have
been withheld or lost; and, as such detention of human
remains is forbidden by law, the authorities have had to com¬
pensate the relatives by handsome sums towards the funeral
expenses. Nevertheless, one shilling will still purchase a
healthy, adult human brain to dissect quietly at home ; and
the emptiness of the dead person's head is not always a cause
of surprise. A judicious porter in the P.M. room has often
found the cranial cavity a good receptacle for the liver, thus
balancing matters comfortably.
CHAPTER XXYI.
sister agnes revolts
The world's male chivalry has perished out,
But women are knights-errant to the last;
And if Cervantes had been Shakespeare too,
He had made his Don a Donna.
—Elizabeth B. Browning.
When it was found that Elsworth had quite disappeared, and
nothing more was heard of him, many of the good sisters and
kind-hearted nurses were really sorry to have lost him. None
more so than Sister Agnes. Sister Agnes was the brightest,
cleverest, and most devoted nurse that could be imagined.
She never wearied of her work, never grew snappy and huffy,
as the best of women will when worn and weary with hard work
and watching, She never seemed to need rest; that is to say,
she never exhibited in her perfect temper the strain upon her
system which her heavy duties entailed. She was not only the
intimate personal friend of all the nurses under her, but she
made it her business to aid in a thousand ways all her patients
and smooth their pillows by the many sweet attentions such a
loving woman could bestow. She was the widow of a clergy¬
man who b^d died two years after his marriage, and having no
family she was free to follow a long cherished desire, aud so
devoted herself and her admirable talents to the sacred office of
nursing. She was tall and dark, with charming wavy hair and
a healthy, not to say ruddy, complexion, which bespoke more
than the usual health of a London woman. Deeply religious,
Sister Agnes Revolts.
165
of High Church principles, she was yet entirely free from those
prejudices against other forms of belief which often detract
from the usefulness of a hospital sister. It was enough for her
to know that a patient loved her Master, in whatever outward
form that love was expressed, to make Sister Agnes at once a
friend. In many a way she contrived to instil even into tne
hearts of the most indifferent some thought of better things,
some hope of a life beyond. Most of her patients left her
wards the better for having come into contact with her. Sister
Agnes often said she had observed in Elsworth traits that pro¬
mised a great and useful man, and she was always unwilling to
believe that he had gone wrong in any way. For many months
past she had found difficulties in her work at St. Bernard's in
consequence of the growing dissatisfaction she felt at the con¬
duct of most of the doctors who attended her patients. It
pained her and roused her indignation that needless and
dangerous things were constantly done to patients who had 110
idea of their import, and who would have protested with all
their might if the opportunity had been given them. Valuable
lives of patients who had become her friends had been sacri¬
ficed to the growing taste for novelty in methods and in¬
struments, daily introduced from all parts of the world. What
one man had done in Berlin must be imitated here, and what
had proved fatal in New York was tried at St. Bernard's in the
hope of better success and the increased reputation of the
operator. One man extirpated one organ and one another ; one
resected this and another that, till poor Sister Agnes began to
wonder what, and if any, part of the frame would ultimately
claim exemption from the rage for taking it away. And she
was expected to do her part in paving the road for all these
mutilations. The wiser she grew, and the more she learned of
her business, the more she saw that much, if not most, of all
this was not for the patient's good ; and no wonder she began
to rebel. She was brought principally in contact with Dr
Stanforth, who was the chief physician of the women's wards.
St. Bernard's.
Not alone did she object to his professional methods, but the
manner he used in the wards. It was neither useful nor ex¬
pedient for Dr. Stanforth to regale his class, in the presence of
herself and nurses, with his most salacious anecdotes, his
coarse allusions and indecent jokes. Some patients no doubt
enjoyed them, but these were a minority which should have
been made better instead of worse by living in the hospital.
To most, however, these things were painful in the extreme. It
required better health and stronger nerves than the women
generally possessed to cope with Dr. Stanforth and his rollick¬
ing lads. The valley of the shadow of death is an ill place for
satyric abominations. The sympathetic nerves of the poor
sister's face were too habituated to Dr. Stanfort'n's little ways
to cause her cheeks to flush at all of their manifestations, but
there were times when her indignation would make her turn
away with her note-book and inkstand, and remove out of ear¬
shot. At such times the funny man would apologise in a way
which only made matters worse, and she would often wonder in
her own mind how much longer she could or ought to be a
party to these improprieties.
CHAPTER XXVII.
" another patient, sister ! "
He was happier using the knife than in trying to save the limb.—
Tennyson.
And whom have ye knowen die honestly
Without help of the Poticary ?—Heywood.
Dr. Staneorth was considered a model hospital physician—for
the students. They were ever the first in his thoughts ; to
touch one of them was to touch the apple of his eye. He lived
for them (and by them), yet he never allowed any of his patients
to suspect anything of the kind. There was nothing he
grudged his pupils, and they consequently worshipped him.
To serve any of his boys he would sacrifice the feelings of any
interesting bit of " clinical material" that came in his way, and
he boasted that he turned out more proficient practitioners
than any one of his colleagues. His methods were startling
even to them, and many were the wrinkles he put them up to.
His fame in his speciality—gynaecology, was so great, and his
really remarkable abilities so well recognised, that nothing he
did, startling though it was to the outside world, diminished
the crowds of patients who flocked to his consulting rooms.
Of course he had the bonhomie and social tact that are needful
in attaching young men to a teacher; he was, in addition, able
to prove to them that by attending his practice they were
acquiring a practical knowledge of their work which they could
obtain in no other way.
Dr. Stanforth held all his patients at the disposal of any
pupil of his who desired to do or see something new. ' Do
St. Bernard''s.
what you like, my lad," he used to say to a favourite assistant.
"You are in these wards to learn all you can, and all my beds
are at your service. Would you like to do a gastrotomy?
You ought to do one or two before you leave ; it's a very
pretty operation. I never knew a case survive more than a
week; but there's nothing like trying, and if you pick out a
case that must die any way, you are welcome to use any of my
cases that we can get to consent: and with Sister Agnes' help—
Sister is capital at getting consent to anything, aren't you
Sister 1—it can generally be managed. Yes, you had better
do one or two; it will be a fashionable operation before long.
Rabbits do very well with it, better than dogs in my hands;
but humans don't take nicely to it at all. Now, don't scruple
to let me know anything you'd like to do. I owe you some¬
thing good for keeping that pretty Pemphigus going so nicely
while I was on my holiday—very good of you, very good
indeed—Isha'n't forget you ; bye-bye."
At what awful cost all this was to the " material" he never
troubled to estimate. The scandal at last got too strong for
St. Bernard's, and he wTas soon promoted " out of the oppor¬
tunities of his art "—as he complained.
" Sister, let us have another patient!" said Dr. Stanforth,
on one occasion, just as one might say, "Hand me another
chair," or " Bring me another book." It was in the private
operating room at St. Bernard's, screened off from the ward
specially set apart for women. The assistant physician of this
important department had invented a new apparatus for ad¬
ministering anaesthetics, and it was tried that day for the first
time—tried on hospital patients first, of course. It promised
materially to assist in bringing the patient under the influence
of the anaesthetic with rapidity and comfort. Being a com¬
plicated machine, with various ingeniously constructed valves,
it was not by any means an easy thing to manage, and the
least error might have fatal consequences; it would never do,
therefore, to use such a thing out of doors till all its bearings
" Another Patient, Sister / h 169
had been taken at the hospital, where any mishap could be
adroitly attributed to some other cause. Long before one dare
use such a thing on Lady Millefleurs, its capabilities and little
eccentricities must be exhibited on the unimportant carcass of
Eliza Smith; and so it fell out that day that a little knot of
students, interested in giving chloroform or ether, with due
address, were assembled to see the working of this pretty bit of
mechanism.
Dr. Stanforth was an amiable creature, who lived and
worked for, and devoted all his energies to his " boys," as he
called his students; for them he spared his patients neither
shame nor pang; for them his beds were occupied by so much
" teaching stuff." He was skilful to cure, but at St. Bernard's
he often forebore to cure too rapidly, lest the " pretty case "
might get well before all his boys had had their fill of it. It
was far better, he used to say, that a patient should " bide a
wee," if any interest attached to her case, than that any budding
obstetrician should leave the hospital imperfectly equipped
with all the weapons he required. " Have as many patients as
you want, my lad," he said ; "let us get the thing right while
we are about it." " The thing " was the new apparatus, and 011
its first trial on patient number one, had narrowly escaped
sending her to kingdom come by suffocation. She appeared to
be "going off lovely," as funny Mr. Philips said, till Dr.
Stanforth, suddenly turning round in the middle of a droll
story about his friend " Wales and the actress," seized the
patient's hand, and declared she was "going" in quite another
sense. Artificial respiration was performed, and the woman
restored to life and consciousness. It was generous not to
subject her to any further experiment that day, and she was
sent back to her bed, which she had not left for any benefit
likely, under any circumstances, to accrue to herself, while the
instrument which had so terribly failed was carefully examined
for the cause of the mishap. On taking it to pieces, a
mechanical genius amongst the students found that a valve had
St. Bernard's.
got fixed, and as it was speedily put to rights, the operator was
encouraged by Dr. Stanforth with " Better luck next time my
boy. Sister, let us have another patient! " How the sister
managed to induce a second woman to undergo a mysterious
ordeal, the purport of which she was not permitted to question,
and after the experiences of the first victim, which did not
appear to the curious ward as having been altogether pleasant,
we do not pretend to understand; but hospital sisters who
know their business have clever little ways whereby they aid
and abet the doctors in their search for wisdom. Sister Agnes
had long felt that her conscience was being overstrained at St.
Bernard's. Her work was developing itself as quite other than
she had expected when she gave herself up to the life of a
nurse. These good women, at any rate, had a lofty ideal, and
followed it with no hope of other than its own reward. They
were not seeking fame, or money, or any worldly reward; it
was no wonder therefore that a noble-minded woman like Sister
Agnes should see that unless the great work of her life, for
which she had given np all else, were undeviatingly followed,
she at any rate had failed in attaining her mission. It was
not to help doctors to get knowledge; it was not by trickery
and " white lies," used to induce defenceless sufferers to submit
to horrible ordeals, and indescribably painful examinations for
no benefit to themselves, but simply to teach their business to
young men, that she had devoted herself to work in the wards
of a general hospital. And daily the conduct of Dr. Stanforth
and his assistants clearly showed that the patient's benefit was
quite a secondary object, and the chief end of his or her
residence in the wards of St. Bernard's was precisely that of an
artist's model visiting a studio. Yery good, doubtless, in its
way, but not what the main body of hospital subscribers
intend ; still less what the patients come for, and only
partially, surely, what such as she had left the world to aid.
In a word, she saw plainly that the whole system of the
modern hospital in great cities was a gigantic sham, a cruel
" Another Patient, Sister ! "
171
fraud on the subscribers, and an atrocious delusion and a snare
to the patients themselves.
How difficult a task it would be to convince the world of all
this ! What an Augean stable for a weak woman to cleanse !
Then again nothing annoys the public more than to open the
doors of its whited sepulchres. Of course, it was no use to
condemn the present system without putting something better
in its place. The workhouse infirmary was far better in one
sense; there, the object was to help the patient to get well as
speedily as possible, and take himself off the books \ but there
attaches a stigma to the infirmary from which the hospital is
free, yet the hospital must be reformed on the model, in some
respects, of the infirmaries.
The sister was a clever woman, a woman of ample means,
and with great influence ; why should not this be her life-work
to found a new order of charity 1 It had been the work of
many a noble woman to do greater things than this, and with
apparently less foothold ; and that night, before she went to
rest, she prayed that strength and wisdom might be given to
her to carry out the scheme which was taking hold upon her
heart. " I shall want half a million of money to make a
beginning. What is that? A man dies, and leaves a quarter
of a million to a college of anatomy and surgery, to be spent
in skeletons and pickled specimens of curious fish and odd
deformities. Many a man's picture gallery has had that spent
upon it; it might buy a moderately good ironclad ; would
make a mile or two of suburban railway, and execute a few
hundred yards of submarine tunnel. Somebody will come
along who will see with me that humanity and cruelty, whom
God hath disjoined eternally, shall not be forced into unholy
union. Let me be the Joan of Arc to fight this out."
But not yet. She must arrange her plan of campaign,
collect her forces. So enormous a tnsk must demand an
adequate inception, and though she shrank from nothing, she
ventured nothing rashly.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
dr. stanforth with his PUPIIS
His story would not have been worth one farthing if he had made the
hat of him whom he represented one inch narrower.—Steele.
Natural ferocity makes fewer cruel people than self love.
—La Rochefoucauld.
Dr. Stanforth knew everybody, from " a very exalted person¬
age," with whom he led the students to believe he was on
terms of close intimacy, down to the most insignificant disciple
of Galen who had ever been connected with the hospital. He
never permitted a patient to baffle him ; he always pretended
that he knew all about him or her, and had his or her medical
history at his fingers' ends. His days in the out-patients'
rooms were looked forward to by the students with delight.
He was so droll; he teased the pert and knowing patients
worse than any Old Bailey barrister. " There was no getting
over Stanforth," they declared ; " he was too much for the art-
fullest of 'em." His bete noir was the over-dressed, robust,
viragoish lady patient, who could well afford to pay for medical
advice, but wanted it for nothing.
" Put out your tongue, madam."
The lady complied. Carefully adjusting his gold eye-glasses,
he would minutely inspect it.
"Did I understand you to say you were a strict teetotaler?"
"No, sir, I am not exactly that: but it's little I ever touch ex¬
cept a glass of beer with my dinner."
" No spirits, madam ?"
Dr. Stanforth with his Pupils. 173
" Very seldom, sir."
Dr. Stanforth would take off his glasses, carefully wipe them
with his handkerchief, and readjust them.
"Permit me to see your tongue again, madam. Urn—ah
—h—h." Then, after looking at the organ closely for some
moments, he would ask, incredulously—-
"You never take spirits, madam 1"
" I said very seldom, doctor—never more than a teaspoonful
of brandy in a little water the last thing at night. You know
you told I might do that last time I was here."
" One teaspoonful, madam 1" with another scrutiny of the
tongue ; " only one teaspoonful of brandy 1 "
" That is all, sir," said the patient, bridling up and getting
restive.
Dr. Stanforth took off his glasses, folded them, and leaning
back in his chair, asked in his blandest tones, " Pray, where
do you procure your brandy 1 It must be very strong. I can
get none so good !"
The woman would bear no more roasting that day, and hav¬
ing taken her prescription, left the room, the assembled
students heartily enjoying her discomfiture.
The way to annoy him and put him on his mettle was for a
lady patient to object to an examination in the presence of his
very large class of students.
" Can't I see you privately, doctor 1"
" Why 1"
"Well, sir, I do not like to undergo all tins before these
young gentlemen."
" You are married, I believe 1"
" Yes, sir."
" Have you any boys ?"
" Two, doctor."
"Would you like your eldest to be a great physician when
he grows up 1"
" Oh, yes, indeed I should, if he were clever enough ! "
174
St. Bernard's.
" I thought so. Now all these young gentlemen's mammas
have the same desire, and have sent them to me for that pur¬
pose. If you don't help them, they can't learn to be doctors.
Now, nurse, assist this lady to undress." And, without sparing
the poor creature a pang of shame, he would submit her to a
degrading ordeal, so that every one of his boys might have
the chance of learning that for which, as he said, " they have
paid large sums of money."
To amuse them and impress them with the idea of his wit,
he would, in the presence of patient and nurses, often tell
shady stories as broad as they were long. Such droll scenes,
such lively contests between one weak, suffering woman (for he
would never permit a patient to bring mother or friend into
his room), and this brilliant physician and his admiring, titter¬
ing pupils, made the gynaecological out-patients' days the great
fun of the place. " Beats Punch into fits ! " said Murphy.
" Never half as much spree at the play ! " vowed Robins. But
it was poor spree and very mitigated fun to the hundreds of
afflicted creatures who sought this great doctor's aid; for great
he was and very skilful, and had saved many thousands of
sufferers from pain and discomfort. He was a generous,
patient, useful man, and in his private practice was everything
that could be desired in a doctorbut he thought, and that
thoroughly, that he was at St. Bernard's first to interest and
teach in the completest manner all the men who attended his
classes. If in this doctor-factory any sick woman could avail
herself of the by-product or waste for her cure or relief, she
was heartily welcome. In any case, her attendance served his'
purpose very well indeed—unless she became troublesome, and
refused to comply with some of his too outrageous demands,
and then her letter would be taken from her, and marked by
the doctor " Refuses treatment," and she would be escorted out
of the hospital by one of the nurses.
Sometimes "a very pretty case," as they called good'clinical
subjects, would be taken into the wards, with the assurance
Dr. Stanforth with his Pupils. 175
that it could only be effectually treated there, but really that
it might be daily examined and watched by the students, al¬
though it would have done as well or even better at home.
Thus he used a bed—at say a cost of a pound a week for two
months,—a bed which in another case, far worse but not so
interesting, would have been much better engaged. Of course
the pupils were not unmindful of all these efforts for their
advancement when they got into practice ; and as they were
daily qualifying, Dr. Stanforth was daily making a number of
valuable friends.
CHAPTER XXIX.
AN IDEAL PHYSICIAN.
The Christ Himself had been no Lawgiver,
Unless He had given the life, too, with the law.
—Elizabeth B. Browning.
He hansels not his new experiments on the bodies of his patients,
letting loose mad receipts into the sick man's body, to try how well
nature in him will fight against them, whilst himself stands by and sees
the battle. —Thomits Fuller.
Darwin spending whole nights watching pots of earth-worms,
and studying minutely the habits of these creatures—Thoreau
exiling himself from civilization that he might learn how to live
cheerfully and healthily, in company with the animals of the
forest, are examples of the true method of learning from
Nature. There can be no real sympathy with those with
whom we have to deal apart from an intense desire to know
them intimately. Can we expect to reach the heart of Nature
except by the royal road of love ?
Elsworth learned this in his voluntary exile,—learned that
he could interrogate Nature, get at her secrets and apply them
„o the healing of mankind, when he had reverently put off the
shoes from his feet and entered her temple as a worshipper,
rather than as the devastator placing the abomination of
desolation in the holy place. The secret of Nature, as of the
Lord, is with them that fear her.
To analyse a rose is a poor way of learning the sweetness of
An Ideal Physician.
177
its perfume ; to master the language of a country is of the first
necessity to knowing anything about its people.
The Monte Sagrado is reached by a road made through the hill
of the Albayzin, which overhangs it on one side. Everywhere we
see masses of enormous Indian figs, or prickly pear, the fruit
which for months together forms the chief diet of the gipsy
population. They live in a quarter by themselves, outside the
city, as did the Jews in their ghettos in Italy. In Granada
they are more settled in their habits than in other places, with
the exception of Seville. Their dwellings are caves dug out of
the hill-side, and it is very curious to see the smoke from their
fires issuing from holes in the ground amongst the Indian fig
plants. Very dirty and smoky are these grottoes; the only
daylight which can enter them comes through the doorway.
As a rule, the furniture is of the most wretched description,
though some of the burrows are better off in this respect than
the rest. These poor folk are much looked down upon by
their Spanish rulers, to conciliate whom they pretend to be
good Catholics —in the old days of the Inquisition a not un¬
necessary affectation. They excel in many ingenious trades,
best of all in horse dealing and thieving, professions nearly
allied in most countries. Social pariahs as they have ever
been, it need not excite any surprise that they are depraved
and ignorant, though, as they have some noble qualities,
they must be capable of great improvement when an age of
wider sympathy and diminished race prejudice shall enable
their neighbours to do justice to them.
They are at war with mankind because they have always
been cruelly oppressed and ill-treated; but as in our own
country a George Smith of Coalville and a George Borrow in
Spain have found the gipsy character well repay the efforts
made to improve it, we may fairly hope Christianity will
ultimately conquer even this stubborn race. They are light-
hearted, clever, courteous, and forgiving, generous, and kind
even, to strangers in distress ; great lovers of Nature, and full
i/8
St. Bernard's.
of affection for dumb creatures ; surely in such a race there
must be the material for improvement 1
Rico, the gipsy king, soon became warmly attached to
Elsworth, who spent many a pleasant hour in his sooty hut;
pigs, fowls, and children wallowed and grovelled together in
the mud-floored cabin, which was more suggestive of the Green
Isle than of lordly Spain.
It was worth a journey to Granada to hear and see Rico
play the guitar. The instrument only really lives in Spain,
elsewhere it is but a feeble, voiceless toy; here it speaks, de¬
claims, rouses and fires the brain^ but then that is because the
performer and the instrument become one. Rico's guitar was
part of himself, not only the strings but the body of the
thing.
Often he would gather round him some of the young men
and women of the colony, who would accompany his playing
with plantive, weird singing and hand-clapping, in perfect
tune, strange Eastern dances, with wild gesticulation and
choruses which seemed reminiscences of ancient Greece. In
return Elsworth, with hearty, manly sympathy, would recite
some sweet narrative from the Gospels, and win his way to the
hearts of these poor people bv stories of the Saviour's love.
Amulets, charms, fetishes, all these they knew. How the
King of Heaven loved the despised Romany people, this was a
strange thing to tliem which the Englishmen had come to
teach. But it touched their hearts, poor outcasts !
"When he had completed the translation of the Gospel of St.
Luke into their language, they would listen with apparent
interest to his reading by hours together. This was not the
sort of Christianity that had before been presented to them.
In its grand simplicity and manifest adaptation to the wants
of these wandering children of Nature, surely here ii
anywhere, was the ideal religion for them; and as for their
teacher, who lived their life and proved in a hundred ways
his devotion to their interests, who showed that he loved these
An Ideal Physician.
179
people, outcast and despised as they were, because of his
honour to them as children of the same Father whom he loved,
surely they were bound to treat his mission with respect.
And so four years had gone by. He had journeyed with the
gipsies into many parts of Spain, but had always returned to
Granada as his home, as the centre for his work and life
interest.
How real and earnest a life", he was living now ! On this
lofty height overlooking the historic scenes which had occupied
so large a space in the annals of the past, what wonder if to an
ardent poetic mind, romantic yet intensely practical, there
often came, in moments of deep sympathy with mankind born
of the love of God, high aspirations after noble deeds, and the
determination, when his hour came, to go down into the arena
and bear his part manfully in the fight 1 No, Elsworth was
not skulking in idle retirement; not shirking his share of
work; but because of a deep conviction that there was work
for him to do which required his retirement to fit him for it he
stayed, and did what lay to his hand, and waited for the
summons.
The life of the hermits of the Theban Desert was a violation
of common sense and true religion, inasmuch as it was all
preface and no book; all preparation and girding on of
armour, and no work; all tuning of instruments, and no music.
The great wonder is, how the fanatics could have stood it so
long.
Elsworth found that doctors were not held in nearly such
high esteem in Spain as in England. They pursued the
barbaric methods of treatment which were in vogue here at the
beginning of this century, and which, if followed now, would
subject the practitioner to a trial for manslaughter. Spain is
so far behind the rest of Europe in everything, that it can
easily be imagined how perilous it is for an invalid to fall into
the hands of the sangrados even of the present day. The
Spaniards are celebrated for their proverbs, not a few of wThich
i8o
6V. Bernard's.
are aimed at the doctors. A popular rhyme goes like this:—
" And, doctor, do you really think
That asses' milk I ought to drink ?
It cured yourself, I grant it true ;
But then 'twas mother's milk to you !"
His fourth autumn had been passed in Spain, when another
terrible epidemic of cholera broke out in Granada and other
cities of Andalusia. Now he seemed to lenrn why he had been
sent hither. Now he could test the reality of his conversion.
Now he would realise the dignity of his calling and the strength
of his humanity. And he did not flinch.
His skill in sanitary matters and his surgical knowledge
stood him in good stead. A good head for mechanics, much
common sense, and a readiness of resource had already enabled
him to save many of his Gitano friends from the hospitals they
so much dreaded. He could mend their broken limbs with
extemporised splints, reduce dislocations, and dress wounds
antiseptically ; and by cheering them by the infusion of his own
light-heartedness, shorten their period of convalescence. To
be sure, they had their own well-tried methods of cure, which
were not so contemptible, though unrecognised in the schools.
Having small faith in drugs, and smaller still in their whole¬
sale administration by ignorant and unthinking practitioners,
his medicine chest seldom needed replenishing. He valued his
opium (Mash Allah, the gift of God, the Turks call it), but
administered it with scrupulous care. Quinine was indispens¬
able, and a dozen other well-tried remedies enabled him to
work many a cure. But cold water and fresh air, wholesome
food and temperance, want few aids from medicine for the ills
of man. The wiser the physician the fewer the drugs, and by
the length of your doctor's prescription you may estimate the
shallowness of his pretence to wisdom.
Sanitary engineers have done so much for the improvement
of the health of towns, that the low death-rate in London and
An Ideal Physician. 181
other English cities is more to he attributed to their agency
than to improved methods of medical treatment. The wonder
is that Spain and Italy are not continually decimated by
pestilence. We may see what was the state of England in the
time of the Black Death and the Great Plague by the condition
of Naples and Granada under recent cholera visitations; the
most elementary sanitary precautions being not only neglected
but apparently impossible of comprehension by the people
generally, so that the soil is always ready for the seeds of
disease.
Elsworth was in robust health and vigour while he lived at
Granada. Every morning he took two hours' exercise on his
bicycle into the open country of the Yega. His daily bath,
the simplicity of his diet, his entire abstention from alcohol,
and his scrupulous care to drink no water which he had not
himself carefully boiled and filtered, with his cheerful, well-
occupied mind, prevented him from taking any complaint
during his work amongst the sick. He was well received by
the poor folk he visited; and though the local doctors and
priests looked coldly on his work, he had no difficulty in find¬
ing cases neglected by both, where his services were eagerly
welcomed. He found amongst the very poor a strange pre¬
judice against the doctors, who were ignorantly accused of
giving the disease to the people to lessen the population. This
seems to have had its origin in the inoculations practised by a
disciple of Pasteur, and which undoubtedly did cause many
deaths. There is such a widespread dislike of the priests
among Spanish men, not altogether to be marvelled at by
those who know the country, that the religious ministrations
of this young English surgeon were often acceptable where the
public functionary would have had scant courtesy. The
authorities of the town recognised his work, and gave him per¬
mission to act as a medical man when they had satisfied them¬
selves as to his qualifications. He attempted no concealment.
Why should he 1 The British vice-consul of the city, a wealthy
182
St. Bernards.
old Scotchman, the head of a firm of mining engineers, soon
became a good friend to him. He was a Presbyterian of the
good old school, with convictions about the Man of Sin and the
Scarlet Lady, and loved Spain chiefly for the lead his firm ex¬
tracted from the bowels of her mountains. Being a man of-
considerable standing in the city, and withal highly respected
for his probity and charity, he had no difficulty in making easy
the sort of work Elsworth aspired to do in the public service.
Naturally the authorities did not at first relish suggestions
from a foreigner about improved drainage and water supply,
though when they came to know the clever young surgeon, and
had listened to his sensible proposals anent accumulations of
refuse and dust, they gradually adopted many of his suggestions.
Daily he spent many hours visiting amongst the most poverty
stricken and dirty inhabitants. He spent the greater part of
his income in helping his patients with suitable food and
clothing. His missionary work was done by a few kind words
here and there ; with loving counsels and the sympathy which
comes with a sense of the higher relationship of man to man
through the All-Father, he won bis way to the hearts of all.
Virtue went out of him, and health and peace seemed to follow
his steps. He was as much at home with the Catholic people
of Granada as he would have been in the courts and alleys of
London; he was as welcome in the homes of the atheist and
gipsy, the red Republican and anarchist, as with the family of
the Presbyterian vice-consul; and all because the pervading
sense of God's love for man had taken possession of his life.
His sympathies were too wide for the influence of bigotry ; he
was as a traveller from a far country, who has long been home¬
less and a wanderer, not at all in the humour to trouble him¬
self with the squabbles of his vestry, or the quarrels of the
political clubs of the town he has come back to rest in.
Elsworth had recovered the lost idea of a loving God and
Saviour of men. What to him did it matter, all these hair¬
splitting dogmas and wranglings of theologians 1 the recovered
An Ideal Physician.
183
treasure was too precious to neglect for the ornaments of the
casket in which it was contained.
So he daily went about doing good. By his constant
visitation of the people he was able to detect the earliest stages
of the pestilence which was destroying so many; then by
prompt and judicious treatment he was often successful in
arresting its progress. His fame spread, and he was often
called in to attend rich sufferers, from whom he refused
to take any fees, as he considered himself the servant of
the poor. If they chose to make him presents, as they, often
did, he took them with the understanding that their gifts
should be devoted to charitable purposes.
He often went to Mr. MacAlister's home, at the Vice-Con¬
sulate, close by the cathedral. The old gentleman was rather
afraid of infection; but as the doctor always changed his
clothing before paying visits to his friends, he took his word
for it that there was no cause for alarm.
He rented at a very low rate, through the kindness of a
member of the municipal council, an old monastery which had
been taken by the Government on the expulsion of the monks,
and was now let to a furniture dealer; and turned it into a
small but serviceable hospital for cholera patients. Funds
were readily provided for its support, and there was no diffi¬
culty in inducing sufferers to avail themselves of it, as was the
case with the great hospitals of the place, which they dreaded
to enter. They knew they would be safe in Doctor Elsworth's
hands; he wanted to try no experiments upon them, and was
not (as they foolishly thought the other doctors wrere) in league
with the Government for getting rid of them.
Mr. MacAlister's daughters nobly came forward and helped
in the nursing. They found amongst their English and
American friends resident in the town abundant means for
carrying on the plan, without any Spanish assistance in this
branch of the work. Spanish ladies, even if available, would
have been of little service. Even Spanish nuns are not very
184
St. Bernard's.
valuable as nurses, and the best Catholic charities are recruited
from France. Spanish women can do the devotional part of
the work, they say; but that is about all they are good for.
The bringing up of a Spanish woman tends to make her orna¬
mental merely, and surely she is of the loveliest of her sex.
She spends the greater part of her day in bed, rises and adorns
herself for dinner; then the tertulia, with its music and
dancing winds up her waking hours, and by midnight she is
again in bed. This is poor material for making sick nurses or
sisters of mercy.
They had only twenty beds in Elsworth's hospital. Their
principal disinfectant was fresh air, for our surgeon was not
greatly in love with carbolic acid and the other disinfecting
fetishes, which are probably about as powerful for evil and
powerless for good as any which the African venerates.
CHAPTER XXX.
sister agnes leaves st. bernard's.
So all the more we need be strong
Against this false and seeming right;
Which none the less is deadly wrong
Because it glitters, clothed in light.
Procter.
The prince who asked, " Who is she 1" when anything went
wrong in his kingdom, was not far out in his estimate of the
power of woman for mischief; but he would have been wiser
had he asked the same question when he heard of any ne w
movement for good. The fact is that, as Coventry Patmore
says, women have the power, would they but use it, to make
"brutes men, and men divine." When the selfishness, the
thoughtless cruelty, and the greed of men have culminated in
some deep-seated, persistent social wrong, it may be taken for
granted that the evil will not be uprooted till a woman's whole¬
hearted, unselfish courage has taken it in hand. Mr. Ruskin
somewhere complains that " no one pays the least attention to
what he says on social topics, except a few nice girls, and they
can do nothing." He should not have said that, because he
knows better—no one more certainly than he—that his " few
nice girls " will bring to pass all that is good in his teaching
sooner or later.
Women mend what men mar;—everything, from our linen
to our laws.
Sister Agnes knew all this—knew that it was just as cer¬
tainly some woman's place to set to work and remedy this
shameful abuse of Charity's holiest work, as it would be her
St. Bernard's.
work to restore peace and order to a home wrecked by a man s
selfishness and violence. The more she thought of the matter,
the more indignant she felt that no man could he brought to
see the awful wrong of exploiting the miseries and diseases of
the poor for the purpose of adorning the brows of men with
academic laurels. Surely never in the history of this world
was so cruel a mockery of charity ! Asked for bread, to give a
stone ! What was this but to give disease for health, maiming
for cure, torture for ease, and death for life 1 And then to go
round to those who, in the name of the Healer, were ever
ready to sacrifice their substance and give alms out of their
penury, for the means to bring more victims to the altar of
their Kali! Did not every sister and nurse in the place, with
feminine penetration, see through all these shams 1 Did they
not revolt in their souls, day by day and hour by hour, at this
mockery of mercy, till, by long use, they forgot to feel the
wrong 1 She had mentioned her misgivings to many men,
clergymen chiefly, who saw it all—saw just where the mischief
lay, but thought it inseparable from the work that had to be
done; knew of its existence, but could see no remedy for it.
They declared that every good thing in this world must be
bought with a price. But was not this price too high to pay 1
They did not know, they did not think anybody could even set
about estimating that. They did not like to encourage thought
or discussion of the question—money was hard enough to get
for the hospitals as it was. Breathe but the least on the idea
of their utility, and the charitable public, all too ready to with¬
hold its gifts, would cease to subscribe. Hospitals were costly
things to establish, still costlier to maintain efficiently. " Let
be," they said ; " we can do nothing." Men always do talk
like that in face of such difficulties, but, fortunately, their
arguments never yet held back a woman who had set her heart
on a great work of love.
Sister Agnes gradually evolved an idea of a great hospital
richly endowed and well officered, ruled by a competent
Sister Agnes leaves St. Bernard's. 187
governing body, and animated throughout by one idea—to
heal by the shortest and most effectual methods, the sufferers who
sought its portals ; to take as the guiding principle of all the
work done there, not possibly better methods for better patients,
but the best existing methods for the present occupants of its
beds. The motto of the place to be, " Honour all men." A
revolution indeed ! A work of such magnitude that its incep¬
tion seemed Quixotic !
Things, however, had come to this pass that she could no
longer retain her position at St. Bernard's; and feeling that
she could do nothing there to elaborate her scheme, she left
the hospital, and took time to consider what her next step
should be. She did not leave a bit too soon ; things had been
rather unpleasant of late. There were several patients who, at
a hint from her, had taken themselves off from St. Bernard's
with all their limbs about them, who would have gone out
minus one or other of these useful appendages had they re¬
mained much longer, and the loss of these valuable oppor¬
tunities had very properly been charged to Sister Agnes's
account. She was accused of not showing sufficient interest in
the welfare of the place.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE GOSPEL OF WORK.
God says, " Sweat
For foreheads ; " men say, " Crowns : " and so we are crowned ;
Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel,
Which snaps with a secret spring.
Elizabeth B. Brovming.
If to the city sped—what waits him there ?
To see profusion that he must not share ;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined,
To pamper luxury and thin mankind.
Goldsmith {" Deserted Village").
What is the perfect life for a Christian man or woman? It
was settled once for all by our Lord. " Sell all that thou hast
and give to the poor "—and live in a cave, on the top of a
column, in a monastic cell, or beg for daily bread from door to
door ? Would that fulfil the command ? The nineteenth cen¬
tury has no place for St, Simeon's Pillar; the cells of the monks
are turned to other uses than that of contemplation, which is
not quite in the way of the age of steam and the telegraph;
and begging and alms-giving are denounced by students of
social economy. What is the precise application, then, of our
Saviour's teaching to the present day ? Though deaths from
starvation and terrible tales of privation are not uncommon in
our great cities, and the condition of the unskilled working
classes is particularly unsatisfactory, there is no question that
our poor even at their worst are better off by far than
those of our Lord's time, Admitting the work that remains
The Gospel of Work.
to be done in helping to raise the lower sections of society,
it is in a moral rather than a material direction that our
efforts must be exerted; and though our Lord's command to
sell all and feed the poor is not perhaps to be interpreted liter¬
ally, because the literal is not now the highest interpretation
of the injunction, yet never was there a time when it was more
the duty of Christian people to make great, ay, the greatest
sacrifices for their fellow-men than the present. The law pro¬
vides against the starvation of any human being dwelling in
our midst; but it is souls rather than bodies which languish
for food, and are fain to be filled with carrion. The separation
which many .years has been going on between class and class ;
the locating the workers in quarters given over to dirt, squalor,
and dullness; the exodus of the cultivated minds to more con¬
genial sections of our greater towns, where the signs of labour
and the noise of work cannot disturb or annoy them; the draw¬
ing off the classes from the masses, depriving the poor man of
the society, the encouragement, the teaching, the example, the
brightness, the wealth, and the culture of the more leisured—
it is this which is slowly but surely working, not alone the
degradation of the deserted people, but a terrible punishment
for the deserters. There is not a work of art, not a lofty aspir¬
ation, not a burst of song, not a beautiful face, nor a well-stored
intellect, but is part of the heritage of the poor. We have as
much right to cut off the poor man's oxygen or his nitrogen as
to deprive him of any of the elements needful for the nourish¬
ment of his soul.
Walk through the unlovely streets where the worker dwells
in London. Note the changes that have taken place in them
during the past fifty years. Once there were mansions in
them, where their employers dwelt. Now these deserted places
are let off in tenements, since their former occupants have long
ago left them for brighter and wealthier parts of the town.
Grim, dirty, and neglected parish churches stand in the midst
of graveyards filled with the tumble-down monuments of rich
190
St. Bernard's.
residents whoso descendants never visit them, scorning to go
east of Temple Bar, even to pay their respects to the tombs of
their ancestors. Within these temples of prayer the monu¬
ments round the walls tell sadly of better days and a prosperity
that contrasts oddly with the decadence of the present. Hard
work here for the clergy, with much begging from distant and
richer parishes to maintain the services and ministrations of
the Church, even in their crippled form. True, money is sent
from the West, but where are the workers? the men and
women who could help the clergy in a hundred ways to miti¬
gate the evil surroundings ? And Lady Millefleurs will have to
know, sooner or later, that she has not charity, though she sell
all her goods to feed the poor, and give her body to be burned,
while she will not give herself a living sacrifice to humanity.
How is she to do this? How is she to fulfil the command to
sell all she has and give to the poor 1 Simple enough. Give
up Belgrave Square and settle in Bethnal Green! Forsake
Tyburnia and dwell in Whitechapel! Then, and not till then,
will she follow her Master's commands. Yery unpleasant,
doubtless ; but consider what she would learn. At a great
cost she has acquired much human knowledge of a kind, not
enough to keep her, perhaps, from falling into the error of the
often-quoted lady, who wondered why the poor who could not
get bread did not live on those nice twopenny cakes to be had
in Bond Street. What good would be done by this retrogres¬
sion from progress? Just think of a few ways of helping the
poor. Look at the East End and suburban vestries, boards of
guardians, and public bodies generally. Why are they so
corrupt, so hard to move, so gluttonous and backward ? That
is not far to seek. Consider the mental calibre, the social
status, the education and tastes of the men who compose them
too generally. The gentry are far away, where they only see
the poor as rare and interesting objects on which to bestow
Bibles blankets, soup, and occasional recitations and songs.
They spend their days in places where the clergy are compelled
The Gospel of Work.
191
to preserve with care a few exotic paupers as specimens, that it
may be demonstrated now and then that "the poor ye have
always with you." Granny, in her clean cap, white apron, and
neat gown, sitting in a well-scrubbed room, reading the Bible
with the help of a pair of horn spectacles, by the side of a not
depressingly low fire, is all the idea of poverty with which
many a high-born lady has any acquaintance. How about
"slumming" which Mr. Punch declared recently was so
fashionable 1 There never "was very much of it; there is less
now, and that doesn't count. It never did the least good, nor
was it likely it should. The great wrong done to the poor by
the complete alienation of the rich cannot be condoned by
spasmodic visits to their wretched homes by ladies and gentle¬
men, who go to see them as they go to the Zoo ; by their occa¬
sional presence at the opening of a bazaar for a poor church ;
nor by the exhibition of their well-appointed equipages to the
admiring gaze of the denizens of Tourniquet's Bents. This
wrong cannot be remedied by gifts of money, nor by loans of
pictures and objets (Part.
It happened that just as Sister Agnesleft St. Bernard's, a num¬
ber of ladies of wealth and position had formed themselves into a
community, without any distinctly religious badge or dogmas,
for the purpose of residing together in an East London district.
They took a large, old-fashioned house in the Commercial Koad,
called in a skilful architect and a builder, had it put in
thorough repair and properly adapted to the purposes of coloni¬
zation by the well-to-do. They were women of ample leisure,
intelligence, and business capacity, and were impressed by the
idea that if one would help the poor and ignorant, it could only
be done effectually by teaching them how to help themselves.
They did not propose to inculcate the religious opinions of any
particular section of the Christian Church ; they wore no dis¬
tinctive dress, had no politics in particular, and were only ac¬
tuated by a desire to see for themselves what was the real life
and what were the real needs of the working people with whom
192
St. Bernard's.
they went to reside. They knew that in a great measure the
deplorable unloveliness of East London was due to the fact
that it was deserted by people of wealth and capacity for help¬
ing their neighbours, and that the best way of doing good in
the locality was work and residence there. " The problem was
how to make the working people realize their spiritual and
social solidarity with the rest of the capital and the kingdom ;
how to revive their sense of citizenship, with its privileges
which they have lost, and its responsibilities which they have
forgotten. Among these privileges should be education,
rational amusement, and social intercourse, best supplied by
local clubs, with their various guilds, classes, and societies.
Among the duties, on the other hand, which require to be re¬
vived, thrift and prudence stand pre-eminent; and thrift
and prudence can only be taught by those who will asso¬
ciate with the people and thus induce them to face the ele¬
mentary laws of economy. This is especially the case with re¬
gard to that population question to which all the other pro¬
blems are subordinate. The levity with which lads and girls
enter upon matrimony without any adequate provision (a levity
which would be criminal if it were not so unconscious), can only
be met by convincing them that prudence in this matter is a
duty which is as fully recognized in other grades of society as it
is ignored by themselves. The sympathy and example of
educated people living in their midst does more good in all
these ways than the foundation of any number of new
charitable institutions. Destitute London requires their per¬
sonal help as well as their subscriptions."
Such was the plan which had worked so admirably at Oxford
House, Bethnal Green, established by a number of Oxford men
for just this work; and these good women rightly argued : If
such an institution worked hy men has been found so useful,
how much more effectual would be something on similar, but
less ambitious lines, if worked by women ! Reform the women,
you reform the men and the next generation. Make the home
The Gospel of Work.
193
life what it should be, and you have made virtue and decency,
not only possible, but easy and pleasant.
It was brave of these good Oxford men to go and live in the
gloomiest part of surely the gloomiest and poorest parish of
East London; but though they might stimulate the brains of
the people amongst whom they laboured, and do good in a
thousand ways, it was impossible for them to hope to achieve
the influence of women in the home. The men could capture
the outworks; women were required to secure the citadel. So
they spent their money liberally, and went to work at the courts
and alleys that run off right and left of this great thoroughfare
from the Docks to the City. One of their great ideas was an
hospital for Women and Children—not a place for teaching
doctors their business, or giving them scope for their fads,—not
" happy hunting grounds " for " cases," but wards for the re¬
storation to health with all possible speed of sick folk of the
neighbourhood who could not effectually be tended at home.
It was an axiom with the Lady Head of the Home, which was
called Nightingale House, that no sick person should be re¬
moved to the hospitals who could be effectually and comfortably
treated at home. She argued that we do great harm by
making hospitals the universal resource of the lower classes,
even of those who have sufficiently comfortable homes. She
maintained with great force that much of the tenderness of
family life is fostered, nay, created, by the mutual care of
parent and child, husband and wife, brother and sister, in
seasons of illness and in the hour of death ; and held that if we
deduct from our feelings all which we owe to sources of this
kind, the residue would represent all that we can expect from
the working classes under the present system. Thus if the
home were not over-crowded and the disease not infectious, she
held that it should be nursed and doctored in the family. As
much kindly aid and sympathy, as much attention and skill as
possible these ladies lent, but there was no removal from home
unless absolutely necessary. Sister Agnes was just the woman
x
194
Si. Bernards.
to be matron of this hospital for -women and children ; and as
the plan was completely to her mind, she was soon installed in
her new office.
Sister Agnes had made many friends amongst her patients at
St Bernard's, and many of them and their relatives came to see
her at her new home, and sought her advice in their troubles
and difficulties. Her great experience and ability enabled her to
penetrate to the bottom of many a little mystery. She often
wondered how she could so long have been cognisant of the things
that took place and had not sooner rebelled. Often a husband or
wife who was a patient at the old place would write home, and
the letters would be brought to her for her opinion. A poor
carman at the docks one day brought her a letter which his wife
had sent him the previous day. The poor man did not know
wffiat to make of it. His wife had gone to the hospital merely
on account of loss of appetite and strength, and the doctors,
after " overhauling her like a barge as was in dry dock," as he
expressed it, had come to the conclusion that she had a tumour
" somewhere internal," and if she did not have it taken out she
would soon die.
"In course, Mum," said he, "the doctors ought to know
best; but my belief all along is they be nothing but practisin'
on her."
Then he gave the Sister the letter his wife had sent him;
which was expressed in Mrs. Stubbins' forcible vernacular. The
dialect of a denizen of the London slums abounds in idioms,
which were intelligible enough to Sister Agnes from long
acquaintance, but she could not help smiling as she read the
poor woman's epistle.
" St Bernard's Hospital, "16th July.
" Dear Jack,—
" I write these few lines for to let you now how I am gettin
along in this plaice. I have bean hear six weaks to-morrer,
which is little Jemmie's birfday. I ain't undergond the hoper-
The Gospel of Work.
195
ation as I cum for yet, bekos the doctor says my sistem ain't
reddy fur to stand it yet. My patients is allmost gon, Jack,
with waitin in suspends so long. Sumtimes I begin to think as
the doctors ain't acting straight with me. They makes a dred-
ful hurtin examinashun everry morning with more'n a dozzun
yung stoodents a-lookin on, which ain't proper in my opinyun,
and they talks a lot of Latin and says it is a verry pretty case.
One feller sed it was you-neek or somethin of that sort, and
Doctor Stanforth would be back in a fortnit and must see it.
As for phizzik I swer I ain't had a drop of anythink but
pepermint water sins in this plaice I've bin; but I've bin pulld
about shameful, as ain't fit for no respectful marrid woman, for
what objek I can't for the life on me see. Now, Jack, do mind
and keep Lizzie at her scholin, and don't let Billy and Polly
run wild in the streets. I don't like meself at all in this plaice,
and ef the tumour aint sune tuk out I shall bunk it, so I tell yer
strayt. I wish you'd ask Dr. Phelps what thear littel gaim is
hear. I beleaf I am only kep as a speciment, bekos my cais is
curous ; anyhow, I ain't a-bein dun no good to, and they'll find
I'm sloped afore long. 2 on em in saim ward as me bunked it
last week.
" Your lovin wife,
" Matilda Stubbins."
" Now, Mum," said the man, " what I wanted to ask you
was this. Mrs. Foster, our relieving officer's wife, I have heerd
tell had a tumour in her inside, asking your pardon for speak¬
ing like that afore a lady ; but you don't mind me, I hopes,
and she went to a ladies' 'orspita! in the West End, and they
was a-going to take her pretty nigh all to bits, as the sayin' is,
tellin' her she'd be a dead woman in no time if it warn't done ;
and while the poor thing was a-prayin' and a-screwin' of her
courage up for to have it done, a lady told her hew she had bin
cured of the same thing by drinkin' of gallons and gallons of
still water, think they called it "
196
St. Bernard's.
" Distilled water," said the Sister.
" Maybe your right, lady ; anyways, she drunk pretty nigh
a hogshead of it, besides wearing a tin bottle full of it hot
round her innards, savin' your presence, and she got well in
three months and the tumour went right away. I have heerd
Mr. Foster say so hisself. Now I wants to ask you if so be as
you thinks as my poor Tilly could be cured with these 'ere
waters like that 1"
" Well, I can't tell you that, Stubbins, but if you like I will
get a clever doctor I know to see her, and tell us all about the
case ; but my advice to you, from what I know of St. Bernard's,
is to get her away at once. If the operation must be done, we
will find some other hospital, after we have tried what we can
do with less severe means."
Visions of similar cases crowded in upon the good Sister's
recollection—of eviscerated creatures in whom no tumour was
discovered to remove; of cases where, on the post-mortem table,
sponges, and even instruments, had been discovered carelessly
sown up in the patients after operation, and had caused their
deaths. Had not Dr. Stanforth ever after said, with a look
full of meaning, when about to perform this operation, " Count
your sponges, sister ! "
Mrs. Stubbins discharged herself from St. Bernard's without
waiting for further treatment, and actually recovered her health
perfectly, unassisted even by " still waters." She always declares
that her doctors were like " Helen's Babies," who wanted to see
the " wheels go round," and was glad they had not gratified
their curiosity on her " works." Poor woman! she forgave them
the wrong they had intended to do her, for in common with her
class she believed it was somehow meant for her good, only
" they are so fond of hacking folks about at them places."
Good-natured creatures, they sacrifice their poor skins, organs,
and limbs, usually with generosity, when a great institution re¬
quires it, though the general practitioner cannot touch them
with a lancet without protest. It is the iclat does the business.
The Gospel of Work.
197
One day an old pavior smashed his hand. The surgeons at
St. Bernard's wanted to remove three fingers. Not before he
had been to see Sister Agnes, he thought. Sister Agnes went
in for conservative surgery, and told him to refuse his consent.
How often had she known a simple method of dressing save the
digits in such a case. In three months tbe man had the com¬
plete use of his hand as before the accident, but that didn't
console the house surgeon, whose fingers had itched " to make
a neat little job of it." The pavior was so grateful to the Sister
for her advice that he begged her acceptance of his favourite
linnet in a nice case.
CHAPTER XXXII
the rise of nightingale hospital.
Heaven must be won, not dreamed ; thy task is set,
Peace was not made for earth, nor rest for thee.
Lyra Apostolica.
And so the medical Btaff of the Nightingale Hospital of fifty
beds consisted of a resident doctor, duly qualified both by
nature and the colleges—the only true " double qualification "
in this world—with a consulting physician and surgeon of
eminence who attended twice a week for a proper fee. This
last was not at all an honorary appointment, because doctors
never do work for nothing if they can help it, any more than
bishops, or even kings ; and as they were prevented by the
constitution of the place from paying themselves in any of the
accustomed ways, substantial cheques had very properly to be
drawn. No new operations, no new drugs, no treatment of
any kind not well established elsewhere were permitted by the
governing body (which had several medical men on its board
beside the lay members), because it was held that, however
desirable it might be to keep abreast of the science of the day,
it was first much more important then and there to get the
poor women and children of Commercial Road healed of their
diseases as soon as conveniently might be done. Science, as
far as Commercial Road folk went, was thus baulked of its
prey—no great hindrance probably to the human race. The
ladies of Nightingale House had not settled in that locality
precisely on scientific grounds : they felt they could safely
The Rise of Nightingale Hospital. 199
leave Science in the hands of its devotees, these being probably
people so ardently in love with it, that they would sacrifice
themselves, their bodies and their feelings on its behalf. The
laws of supply and demand would doubtless meet that case as
they meet others. This scheme was for quite other and (as
the originators thought) better purposes; and the patients
took kindly to the idea. They did not mind getting well on
empiric methods if the doctors did not object to curing them
without knowing why. For their part it was a great deal
better to go out whole and sound, unscientifically, than to die
according to the highest dictates of science, or hobble away
maimed for similar reasons. So it worked well all round.
The subscribers secured what they paid for; the patients did
not complain of getting well on such terms; the doctors had
no cause to grumble. It was only the medical journals which
declared that the hospital was not up to the standard demanded
by an age like the present.
Two large and well-conducted Convalescent Homes were
part of the plan—one situated at Hastings, and the other at
Godalming; and these contributed at least as much as the
hospital itself to the improved health of the parish.
Now it was objected by those who were not friendly to this
place that medical knowledge could never be advanced by such
a system, and would stagnate and die, if all hospitals were
conducted so selfishly. It was answered that medical science
could scarcely be in worse plight than it already was, after all
its great opportunities and hecatombs of murdered victims, as
admitted by the most eminent medical writers.
No objector to the methods of treatment in our great general
hospitals could express himself with more force than Sir Astley
Cooper, lecturing to the students of Guy's Hospital, when he
said : " Look, gentlemen, at one hundred patients who come
into the hospital. What is the miserable treatment of these
patients 1 You are aware that I scarcely ever enter these
wards (the medical wards) of the hospital. I will tell you
2CO
St. Bernard's.
why I do not enter them. I abstain from entering them
because patients are compelled to undergo so infamous a system
of treatment that I cannot bear to witness it. ... No con¬
sideration shall induce me to repress my feelings, and I do say
that the present treatment of patients is infamous and disgrace¬
ful, for their health is irremediably destroyed." On another
occasion this great surgeon said: " The art of medicine is
founded on conjecture and improved by murder."
Nightingale Hospital could not do worse than this anyway !
CHAPTER XXXIII.
mrs. podger becomes a sibyl.
There's a real love of a lie,
Liars find ready-made for lies they make,
As hand for glove, or tongue for sugar-plum.
—Browning.
In nothing have hospitals improved more of late years than in
their nursing arrangements. This seems coincident with the
High Church movement which has given the sick poor the
inestimable boon of being nursed by gentlewomen who have
adopted the noble profession of nursing from the love of God
and their neighbour—ousting the Gamp and Harris sisterhood
to the great advantage of their patients. Previous to the
reform of this branch of charity, great scandals were always
arising from the ignorance, incompetence, indolence, and
drunkenness of the women employed to attend upon the sick.
Very often, too, the poor invalids were robbed by these persons;
and when their little possessions were not actually filched, it
was necessary to bribe tjieir attendants to do their duty, or to
omit it, as the case might be. Many blots on the management
of St. Bernard's were traced to this source by the governing
body; and when Miss Rack worth, the matron, died, it was
determined to thoroughly reorganize the nursing staff on the
new system, which had been proved successful in other
hospitals.
The first thing which the new matron did after her installa¬
tion was to make a clearance of the Mrs. Gamp order of nurse.
202
St. Bernard's.
And it was time ! The age has outgrown " Sairey " and her
set. The old hussies made it their business to "keep in" with
the students, as they could help them in many ways, but the
patients who did not "tip" them got scant courtesy. The
newer order of skilled and educated nurses kept the students
within due bounds ; and, feeling that their first duty was to
the patients, never, if they could prevent it, permitted their
interests to be sacrificed to medical education. Podger's days
were numbered when Miss Kemp took up the reins of govern¬
ment.
Podger had of late presumed to send away several minor
cases of casualty, with wet bandages of her own application,
when she was in her cups ; and the matron demanded her
dismissal. It was a sad day for poor Podger when she turned
her back on the hospital she loved. She had saved a little
money, not so much as she ought, but still something for a
rainy day. So she took a small house in Chillingworth Street,
near Seven Dials, and set up in the " ointment " line. Filling
her parlour window with a few gross of willow boxes, such as
doctors use for their stuff, she announced, " Mrs. Podger's Old
Nurses' Salve for Bad Legs, Boils, etc.," and published some
remarkable cases, which soon brought a little grist to her mill.
But she had also furnished apartments to let, and these were
taken by a middle-aged lady in the " medium " line of business
—Mrs. Sabina Allen she was called. She was of more than
middle stature, with jet-black hair, good features, and a general
cheap tragedy-queen aspect. She converted Podger in a month,
and with the assistance of her little stone jar of " Old Tom,"
made her see the ghosts of her deceased relatives floating
about the house in the "most permiscuous manner." Podger
was no sooner a disciple of advanced spiritualism, than she,
entered into partnership with her lodger, and inserted adver¬
tisements in The Medium Light and Daybreak, announcing
that public seances were held at 15 Chillingworth Street, every
Sunday evening, at eight o'clock.
Mrs. Podger becomes a Sibyl. 203
The first Sunday, some seventeen persons attended, and the
collection was a great success, as it amounted to no less a sum
than eight shillings and sixpence. Dreams of wealth began to
float through the brains of the sibyls. Podger did not admit
all comers; they had to pass a " preliminary" in the passage
before they went upstairs. Podger was the examiner. When
the bell rang, she answered it. The applicant would request
admission to the stance.
"Are you a spiritualist 1"
"Yes."
" What journal do you read ?"
" Daybreak."
" Do you know any of our friends ? "
"Yes; a Mr. Lapworth and a Miss Clegg who attend here."
" All right, you can come up."
Then you were led by Podger into a first-floor front room,
very frowsy, dark, and stuffy, in which the chairs were arranged
in a semi-circle, facing a big chintz-covered sofa. There was a
cabinet or screen in front of a cupboard on the left of the fire¬
place, covered with black cloth, which material also closely
draped the windows, and excluded the light from the street
lamps and the public-house opposite. The room was already
nearly filled, and, in a few minutes, the medium entered, and
took her seat on the sofa, with Podger on her left, by the
cabinet. When she had seated herself, you saw that the long
greasy mark on the wall-paper behind the couch was caused
by the contact of the medium's head as she leaned back fanning
herself, and looking pale and weary. The company, on the
occasion we describe, consisted of eleven women, more or less
young, evidently work-women, and six men. Eight o'clock
having struck, Podger put out the gas, and left the room in
total darkness, and then struck up a hymn,—
" Shall we gather at the river ? "
which was very well sung by the little congregation. By the
204 *SV. Bernard's.
time the hymn was finished, the medium had begun to breathe
heavily, and occasionally draw deep sighs. When all was silent
she began to speak in a queer tone, and Podger announced that
it was the spirit of an ancient Egyptian who had entered into
the medium temporarily, and who was about to describe what
he saw round the heads of the visitors, amongst whom to-night
was Janet Spriggs, niece of Mrs. Podger. She was Mrs. Crowe's
maid, and had recently made the acquaintance of Mr. Mole,
who had frequent occasion to visit the house on business
connected with the Laboratory. The ancient Egyptian declared
he saw a vision of a field of waving corn behind Janet's head,
which her aunt interpreted to mean coming prosperity of
extraordinary extent; he also saw her seated in a chariot,
drawn by horses like those of Pharaoh, and waited upon by
slaves of the desert (this was declared to mean she would ride
in her own carriage, and have servants of her own); that he
also saw Imhotep, the son of Ptah and Pakht, bringing one of
his disciples to marry her (Mrs. Podger interpreted this to
mean she should wed a young doctor); that an evil spirit was
in the house where she lived who meant mischief, and indicated
perhaps a speedy visit to the spirit world for a lady who abode
there (this was not further explained, as Jenny seemed to know
all about it).
As each visitor was permitted to ask any question he liked
of the Egyptian gentleman, the fortune-telling business went
briskly on till closing time, when everybody felt that they had
had a very fair sixpennyworth, and went home to dream of the
things in store for them.
" Spirit lights " had floated all about the room, accompanied
by handbells, daubed with luminous paint, and agitated by
unseen hands. The entertainment was altogether a very eerie
affair, and no doubt contributed its quota towards manufacturing
mental disorders for the neighbouring asylum.
It was very droll to see the old nurse in her new character.
She had, in a few months, cast off most of her hospital peculi-
Mrs. Podger becomes a Sibyl.
205
arities, and had picked up from the medium an ample vocabulary
of spiritualist terms.
They worked together in harness very well. Podger was the
jackal who provided the material for the medium to work upon;
she got to know all the secrets of the folks who came to the
stances, and by her wide acquaintance and powers of ferreting
out all about people, kept Mrs. Allen well supplied with
provender for the Egyptian and other familiar spirits who
hovered about Chillingworth Street.
Mr. Mole never attended the stances, but he frequently saw
the ex-nurse, and, by judicious hints, secured to himself the
benefits of her niece's co-operation.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
mr. crowe parleys with the evil one.
He needed her no longer,
Each day it grew more plain ;
First with a startled wonder,
Then with a wondering pain.
—Proctor.
"You are sick, that's sure "—they say ;
"Sick of what?"—they disagree.
" 'Tis the brain "—thinks Doctor A ;
" 'Tis the heart "—holds Doctor B ;
" The liver—my life I'd lay ! "
" The lungs ! " " The lights !"
Ah me !
—Browning.
Mr. Crowe was an intensely selfish man, but he had never
found his favourite vice a profitable one. Regardless of the
feelings of others, he found all the world against him; and his
heart, entertaining no good company, was occupied by the evil
tenants always on the look-out for such lodgings.
His marriage had brought him nothing but disappointment;
his wife, finding him at first indifferent to her society, became
at last herself unfit to entertain any one. Her life was no less
a burden to herself than to him.
Neglected, and all but ignored, her temper became daily
more intolerable; and soon, from a bright, happy woman, she
became a morose and shrewish invalid, occupied only with the
thoughts of her wrongs.
Mr. Crowe Parleys with the Evil One. 207
Because she no longer pleased her husband, she soon grew
to he troublesome ; and when such a man as Mr. Crowe realizes
that state cf things, the wish to be rid of it is never far
distant from his thoughts. At first a scarcely defined, but
soon a clearer shape of deadly intention formed itself before
him, and found entertainment in his heart.
What wonder ? He had been a murderer half his life in a
licensed and acknowledged sense. What pain had he ever
spared to secure his ends 1 What thought for others had ever
interfered with his pursuits 1
To abstain from putting out of the way of his pleasure and
advancement a troublesome wife might be a concession to the
prejudices of society. It was certainly only because such a
process was condemned by law that he forbore at present to
adopt it. He had reasons in abundance to satisfy his own
mind that such a method of ridding himself of annoyance was
justifiable. It is to be feared that if the murder spirit were to
write his reminiscences he could tell some ugly stories of very
respectable houses which had exhibited invitations to him to
call when on his rounds. Sick people, when their illness lasts
an inordinate length of time, must be often wished out of the
way, else doctors would not be so frequently asked by over¬
anxious relatives and friends, " Don't you think it would be a
blessing if the Lord would take him, sir 1"
It was a favourite reply of Dr. Stanforth's to this question,
"Very likely, but I am not the Lord."
How very fortunate it is that our thoughts cannot all be
read, and that we can obscure the windows in our breasts from
too inquisitive observation !
It must have been very trying to such an experimenter to
have to adopt a roundabout method to release himself from his
bonds, when he knew of so many pleasant and simple processes
of hastening the departure of lingering mortals on the banks
of Jordan. There were, however, two perfectly legal, not to
say most fashionable, means of facilitating the descent into
208
Si. Bernard's.
Hades which he was free to adopt; certain enough, though
perhaps a little tedious—viz., Brandy and Chloral; and both
quite to the victim's taste. You could not call Mr. Crowe a
generous man, yet he never stinted his wife's brandy. It was
everywhere convenient, and its supply always replenished.
There is no law against liberal housekeeping arrangements.
Some people, however, take a great deal of killing by alcohol,
and Mrs. Crowe seemed obstinately to live for the purpose of
confuting the highest medical opinions as to the prognosis of
her case. Clearly the cirrhosis was shortening her life in a
very languid manner. But the doses of chloral, to which she
took very kindly, could be increased, and this was done with
better prospects of success. Of course Mr. Crowe took care to
let her have the advice of the most eminent of his colleagues,
who each diagnosed the disorder from which she suffered accord¬
ing to his own speciality. The eminent heart-specialist con¬
sidered it the most curious "presystolic" case he had seen for
some time. But then the liver and stomach man smiled
increduously when his turn came, and found plenty to interest
him also, while he made no account at all of his colleague's
discovery. Then the brain man came along, and said the liver
was to ordinary doctors what the devil was to theologians, a
very ill-used personality indeed, and generally a mere cover for
a diagnosis which puzzled them. For his part, he had decided
the mischief to be in the grey matter of one of the frontal
convultions of the brain. The gynaecologist laughed at all the
others, and declared that if his delightful branch of science
received more attention in the medical world, the profession
would make the healing art worthy of the age, which at present
it was very far from being.
As they stepped into their carriages after these examina¬
tions, each sighed deeply to think how ignorant the other was
of the science of medicine, and heartily thanked Providence
that they had devoted themselves to their particular speciality.
They ordered that neither stimulants nor chloral should bo
Mr. Crowe Parleys with the Evil One. 209
allowed, and ostensibly both were banished j but as Mrs. Crowe's
servants found little difficulty and no danger in keeping up the
supplies, things went on as usual. Her own maid, it will be
remembered, was Janet Spriggs, a niece of Nurse Podger. Janet's
private opinion was that, as missus couldn't eat, she must be
kept alive by stimulants; she considered them nourishing and
good for ladies in low spirits. Then, as she couldn't sleep with¬
out her draughts, how cruel it would be to deprive her of this
means of repose ! With the assistance therefore of a neighbour¬
ing chemist, the chloral was nightly administered. The chemist
had his authority in a prescription of Mr. Crowe's, which he
had repeatedly dispensed without demanding fresh instructions.
The worthy pharmacist would not have objected had the paper
been brought daily for fifty years. Mr. Crowe never appeared
to scrutinise his accounts very closely. Certainly he took no
exception whatever to the amount of drugs swallowed by his
wife. And so Olympia became a hopeless imbecile.
How she lived was a mystery. A little jelly, a custard, a
few spoonfuls of beef tea, a morsel of Brand's Essence, and her
alcohol, helped her to drag on her existence from day to day.
Yet for the past two years she had not appeared to be getting
much weaker. She had no real kindness from any one about
her. Her maid paid her all the attention which could be ex¬
pected from a servant who did not really love her mistress.
But this did not interfere with her " day out," her " weekly
evening," or her love-making; for Janet was in love, and the
object of her heart's adoration was Mr. Walter Mole. Janet
" looked high," as cook said. Spriggs was a pretty, well-built
girl, and it was prophesied in the kitchen that she would " ride
in her carriage " some day. Mr. Mole often came to the house
on professional business with Mr. Crowe, and though he was
extremely discreet in the company of his superiors, was not
above a little diversion with the servants when favourable
occasions arose. Often of a night when he left Mr. Crowe's
study by the front door he would run down the area steps to
o
210
St. Bernard's.
have a chat with " pretty little Spriggie," as he called her, and
had frequently met her by appointment on the occasions when
her holidays came round ; but all this, on both sides, was with
the greatest circumspection. Of course her fellow-servants were
in the secret; hut as no man was kept at Mr. Crowe's, and as
poor Mrs. Crowe was not in a condition to receive confidences,
there was no fear of gossip reaching the dining-room, for the
unapproachable master would have snapped the head off any
domestic who had attempted disclosures with him. Mr. Mole's
little flirtation was not likely to get abroad, and poor Janet
went on losing her silly little heart, and dreaming of being
one day mistress of an establishment of her own, when her
Walter should place her in the position she felt she was born
to fill.
Now Mr. Mole's attentions were not wholly caused by the
tender passion. He had long had dark and deep suspicion of
his chief. Scientific secrets were concealed from him, of that
he was sure. He was carrying out a long course of physio¬
logical experiment, the object of which Mr. Mole was unable
to fathom, and he was not the sort of man to be kept out of a
good thing willingly. A great number of animals had been
used up for some unexplained reasons, and always at night;
some at the hospital laboratory, and others, as he had reason to
suspect, at Crowd's own home. Numerous square cases had
from time to time been sent in from Odessa and other Russian
towns. These were never opened in Mr. Mole's presence, but
were always reserved till the nights when Mr. Crowe worked
alone. Never had he succeeded in finding even one of the
empty cases. What could Mr Crowe want from Russia which
must be kept so very secret 1
For months this question had agitated the breast of our in¬
quisitive little physiologist, and he seemed no nearer its solu¬
tion than when he first set his brains to work upon it. One
day, however, he picked up under his employer's desk a small
pamphlet printed in characters of a language with which he
Mr. Crowe Parleys with the Evil One. 211
was quite unfamiliar. It was something like Greek, but he
knew it was not that. However, he thought it was good
enough to take pains about, so he went to an office in Fleet
Street which advertised itself as willing to translate anything
into anything in the world of human speech. He found that
the pamphlet in question was in the Kussian language, and was
a treatise on the poison of mushrooms written by a professor of
toxicology at Moscow. It gave a very curious account of the
symptoms produced in various mammals by the administration
of the active principles of several poisonous fungi, and urged
that they should be tried by some doctor, having proper con¬
venience for doing so, on hospital patients, with a view to the
investigation of the symptoms produced by them on human
beings. Mr. Mole paid his translation fee and preserved his
notes for future use, restoring the Kussian pamphlet to the
laboratory from which he had taken it.
He was still puzzled at the secrecy shown by Mr. Crowe,
having often before assisted him in the investigation of the
action of the most deadly and obscure vegetable poisons, which
were always tried on some of the unfortunate patients with
more 01* less valuable results.
One day, when visiting Janet at her aunt's home by appoint¬
ment, Mr. Mole confided to her his desire to know what those
foreign boxes contained which he had discovered at the
laboratory, and asked her if she had ever observed such things
in her master's rooms 1 Spriggs said she had not noticed them,
but would oblige him by keeping a sharp look-out; and shortly
after, to his great delight, she handed him one which she had
abstracted from a cupboard in the study. It was empty, but
Mr. Mole took it home with a view to closer scrutiny. In the
corner of the box, which was of thin deal, he found a brown
powder, which he subjected to careful microscopical examina¬
tion, and was not long in proving to his complete satisfaction
that it consisted of the spores of some mushroom, of a species
which he was not precisely able to determine. However, he
212
vSY. Bernard's.
had satisfied himself that certain kinds of Russian fungi were
imported by Mr. Crowe for some mysterious purpose. Some
months after this he was on a visit to the kitchen when the
other servants were absent temporarily, and Spriggs was pre¬
paring for her mistress a small dish of stewed mushrooms, of
which she was able to partake with more relish than she
showed for her other food. Spriggs told him that her master
had ordered her to let her mistress have them as often as she
liked, as they were very good for her complaint. He did not
at the time attach any importance to this discovery) but when
a few clays after a case of mushroom poisoning of a whole
family was reported at the hospital, he remembered the
circumstance, and took copious notes of the cases. In the
college Library he turned up from the files of the Lancet all
the cases he could find of poisoning by fungi, and soon had a
very clear idea of the peculiar symptoms of such cases, after
which he began a course of experiments for himself. At first
he thought Mr. Crowe was engaged on some monograph on the
subject that was to bring him distinction, especially as he
noticed in the wards set apart to his principal's cases,
symptoms more or less severe, which he had no doubt were
due to small doses of some such agent as Muscarin, Lorchelin,
or Bulbosin, the active principles of poisonous mushrooms. On
examining the prescriptions for the medicines which these
patients were taking, he found that his ideas were correct, and
that Mr. Crowe had been exhibiting these poisons in minute
doses to all of them. He made no remark, but obtaining a ,
supply from the dispenser, tried their effect in various doses on
a number of animals which he kept for such purposes in one of
the subterranean chambers under the pathological rooms. It
was not long before Mr. Mole was in possession of quite a fund
of information relating to the use of these potent drugs.
He found, to his horror, that in none of the papers or books
which he could find bearing on the subject was there a record of
any re-agent or test that could be relied upon for the detection
Mr. Crowe Parleys with the Evil One. 213
of the poison after it had been taken internally. Other poisons
had their respective tests, but these deadly principles existing
in fungi could be administered criminally with little chance of
detection, and no chemist would be able to prove their
presence in food or drink to the satisfaction of any jury.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE HOBBY OP DR. SONES.
Let me be sick myself if sometimes the malady of my patient be not
a disease to me. I desire rather to cure his infirmities than my own
necessities.—Sir Thomas Browne.
We own that numbers join with care and skill,
A temperate judgment, a devoted will;
Men who suppress their feelings, but who feel
The painful symptoms they delight to heal.—Crabbe.
As Mr. Crowe had evidently been for many months engaged in
this particular branch of research, it occurred to his assistant
that it would be a good idea to take up the same line himself.
He was piqued that any new discoveries should be kept from
him ; and as he had devoted himself heartily to the interests
of his chief, he felt he should have been permitted to share in
so interesting a study as this promised to he. He had done
much valuable microscopical work for the school and the
curator of the museum, and here was an opportunity of still
further glory. He got his firm of translators to write him an
order to the Russian agents for the drugs and the fungi from
which they were manufactured, and had the journals and books
which recorded Professor Oppenheim's discoveries sent to his
private address. He went further than this. He had often
rendered services to one Dr. Newberry Sones, an analyst and
specialist in toxicology, who lived in a turning out of Wardour
Street, and he determined to enlist him as a partner in the
chemical part of his work.
The Hobby of Dr. Sones.
215
Dr. Sones was not in any way connected with St. Bernard's,
nor did he even know Mr. Crowe, except by repute.
Dr. Sones was the parish surgeon of his district, and had a
large and lucrative practice amongst the poor folk of his
neighbourhood. He was an energetic man, and got through
an amount of work in the course of his long day which amazed
less active men. He had a hobby as every one has who is
good for anything, more especially every medical man. If he
has none, his mind becomes unhealthy from the nature of his
calling. This hobby was analytical chemistry. When his
day's work was done he retired with a sigh of relief to his well-
ordered laboratory at the top of his house, where he could
carry on his experiments without fear of interruption. Much good
work had been done in this place, for its owner was no
amateur. He had written papers for half the chemical
journals of Europe, and had earned an honourable name for
the accuracy and utility of his research. He always declined
work of a medico-legal nature, as he detested law and police
courts, which would have interfered with his pursuits, in
which he was perfectly happy; and, as he knew that change
of work was as good as play, he never repined when a sick call
took him from an interesting bit of research to help some
poor sufferer. As he grew in prosperity he could afford to
keep a qualified assistant, who did his night work for him ;
there being one thing in life which he dreaded—the sound of
the niglit-bell. He loved his well-earned sleep, and thought it
only fair that he should be able to count upon enjoying a
good night's repose if he did an honest day's work. The room
where the speaking-tube and night-bell communicated with the
outer world was occupied by a gentleman who had no objec¬
tion whatever to being called up, and seemed as happy
tramping about at night as his employer was miserable at the
bare idea of the proceeding. Every man to his taste. It is
lucky for folk who are taken ill at ungodly hours that some
body can be found to attend with cheerfulness and promptitude
2l6
St Bernard's.
at, say, three a.m., when the snow is falling in January, or it
is raining cats and dogs ; or a genuine pea-soup fog makes
the red lamp scarcely visible over the doctor's door. The
poorer the neighbourhood the more these night calls are the
rule, because the indigent are often compelled to defer calling
in medical aid till the most urgent necessity arises. In
addition to this reason, they are more nervous, as they are
usually unskilled nurses, and symptoms not really serious often
cause the greatest alarm to ignorant persons.
Dr. Sones was beloved by his pauper patients, who knew
how to secure his influence with the relieving officer when
they wanted " nourishments," which the doctor knew well were
generally more efficient in effecting a cure of their little ailments
than the physic he prescribed. His genial way with the poor
creatures, his pleasant smile and his hopeful, cheering words
were not the least effective armamentaria he bore with him in
the treatment of disease. Crabbe's well-known and admirable
description of the consequential parish apothecary, " whose
most tender mercy is neglect," did not apply to Doctor Sones,
who was as beloved by his poor clients as he was skilled in
aiding them. He had the virtues which the poor always
appreciate—sjunpathy and patience. No tale of impossible
affections of disturbed organs in impossible situations ever
caused him to speak irritably or hastily, so they poured out
their troubles into his willing ears, and were always satisfied
with his courtesy, if not relieved by his skill.
Of course, Sones entered with delight into the scheme as
unfolded by Mr. Mole. He dearly loved a new line of
research; but as he refused to have anything to do with the
physiological part of the business, ridiculing the idea as 'un¬
scientific that the alkaloids to be found would act in the same
manner on animals as humans, Mr. Mole had to content
himself with getting his chemical work done in the best way
possible. And this was really all he wanted. The task was
not an easy one, but Sones was just the man for it. When a
matter like this took his fancy, he thre vV his w hole soul into the work.
The Hobby of Dr. Sones.
217
He isolated a number of active principles from the hundreds of
poisonous fungi which Mr. Mole brought to him, and put them
into separate glass tubes, carefully marked with signs corres¬
ponding to those which he kept in a register. Mr. Mole was so
interested in his pursuit that he actually tested some of these
dreadful agents upon himself, after he had tried them on some
dogs which had been reserved for the purpose.
Apart from the business he had with the analyst, Mr. Mole
always enjoyed his visits to Wardour Street. Those who had
once met Newberry Sones and his witty, clever sister Mary, in
that hospitable home of theirs in Mulberry Lane, were always
glad to go again ; and so in the course of a few years they had
gathered round them a society of charming people, in whose
company the hours flew pleasantly by with high talk of poetry,
literature, and with the refining influences of art and music.
Mr. Mole found plenty of food for discussion and investigation
in the mushroom question, and Sones had worked at little else
of late than the isolation of the alkaloids in fungi. His
laboratory had long been stocked with baskets full of agarics,
morels, and puff-balls ; every known poisonous species which
collectors could bring in was rigidly submitted to analysis.
Especial attention was directed by Mr. Mole to the species
which are commonly eaten in Prussia and Russia, but which
are never eaten in France, and to those which, though eaten
with impunity in France, are considered poisonous in England.
The great questions they desired to settle were the circum¬
stances that modify the action of fungi, e.g. cooking, idiosyncrasy,
climate, weather, and seasons; all of which are known very
greatly to influence the behaviour of mushrooms in the human
stomach.
Dr. Sones had nothing to do with the physiological part of
the question, and Mr. Mole was dependent mainly for the
chemical side of the business on Sones. When Mr. Crowe
started on his annual holiday, the various poisonous alkaloids
in the fungi had just been isolated by our chemist, and it only
awaited a series of experiments on animals to verify the facts
218
St. Bernard's.
which had been discussed relative to their operation. During
his absence Dr. Sones had prepared a considerable quantity of
these deadly poisons for the use of his friend. The porter at
St. Bernard's had collected a sufficient number of animals of
various ages and sizes for Mr. Mole, so that nothing was want¬
ing but the remaining links in the chain of proof to settle once
and for all the great question of the causes of mushroom
poisoning. One terrible fact greatly impressed Dr. Sones as
the result of these determinations : namely, that if the poison¬
ous alkaloid became readily procurable, nothing would be easier
than for a criminal to prepare a dish in such a manner that the
eater thereof would die, without much chance of detection, ow¬
ing to the bad reputation of the fungi for terminating life
suddenly. He laboured, therefore, long and anxiously to find
some reagent or means of detecting the presence of the differ¬
ent alkaloids he had discovered which were capable of causing
death in the human species ; but hitherto without success.
Dr. Sones had bought his practice of an aged surgeon who
had occupied the house over fifty years. He often showed his
friends a curious collection of old drugs and medicines that
were in actual use in pharmacy in the time of his predecessor.
There was a bottle labelled " Moss off a dead man's skull," but
it was not known how or for what complaint it was administered.
There was another horrible mess called " Oil of earth-worms,"
besides " Oil of bricks," and " Powdered tapeworms," actually
administered for those parasites on the similia similibus prin
ciple. "Cobwebs," "Crabs' eyes," and "Crabs' claws," were
at that time regularly used in medicine, the two latter being
merely chalk, sold under those names. If one were disposed
to laugh at the therapeutic folly of the past generation of
doctors, Sones would remind you that quite as absurd and dis¬
gusting things have been " strongly recommended by the
faculty" in the present day. A prominent medical journal
only recently had several articles on thevirtuesof an "Essence
The Hobby of Dr. Sones.
219
of Cockroaches " of all loathsome remedies ! What is there
that has not at one time been either a deity or a drug 1 One
of these old bottles contained a preparation from some Russian
fund, which he had not hitherto noticed, and in that he found
an important clue to his tests.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
mr. crowe at granada.
He that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun,
Himself is his own dungeon.
—Milton.
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man ?
—Wordsworth.
One lovely autumn evening, just five years after Elsworth
went to Spain, two Englishmen were chatting over their wine
in the dining-room of the Hotel de los Siete Suelos in the
grounds of the Alhambra at Granada, under the red towers of
that fairy palace of the Moors. The elder was an exceedingly
handsome man of fifty or thereabouts, of commanding presence,
a fine, open, honest, intelligent countenance, a voice all suavity
and of soothing modulation and persuasive power, he looked
every inch the sort of person he was—a fashionable West-End
physician, whose clientUe was mostly composed of ladies.
Dr. Garnett Graves, lecturer on gynaecology at St. Bernard's
Hospital, was taking his holiday in Spain this year. His com¬
panion was his colleague at the same place—Mr. Malthus
Crowe. They were taking their long vacation trip together,
and had remained a few days longer at Granada than they had
originally intended, because news had reached them that two
ladies of their acquaintance were on their way home to England
Mr. Crowe at Granada.
221
and would take Granada en route. It was of these ladies, ex¬
pected to arrive by the evening train from Malaga, that these
gentlemen were speaking. The talk was of money, and the
prospects of the heiress.
Mr. Crowe we know; his companion needs some introduction.
He was not a very scientific man, but withal a most successful
physician. He managed somehow to do his patients a great
deal of good, yet as he did not always know exactly why, some
of his colleagues did not see the benefit of it, though the
patients certainly did not offer any objection to the cure on
this account. His colleagues did not exactly go the length of
saying that the patients ought to have refused to be cured on
such unscientific conditions; for as their contempt for the
mental powers of patients in general was immeasurable, they
probably thought them capable of any unscientific meanness.
So Dr. Graves was not very popular with the younger and
ultra-scientific members of St. Bernard's staff, though his out¬
patient waiting-rooms were always crowded with suffering
human beings, whose gratitude for his kindly, and generally
efficient, help was unbounded. The students liked him and
valued his teaching—that is, the younger ones did; but when
they had been long enough at the hospital, they, too, came to
see that a cure on unscientific grounds and upon doubtful
principles was no cure at all; so they pitied his ignorance and
turned elsewhere for knowledge.
Mr. Crowe would not have been out of his suitable environ¬
ment in this very city of Granada had he happened to have
been born in Isabella the Catholic's time. Perhaps he would
have made, in some respects, an excellent Inquisitor. Certainly
he would have done well for one of the doctors who had to
stand in the torture-room to say exactly how much more pain
the victim could bear. The days of the Inquisition being run
out, Mr.Crowe, as we said, would have been a square man in a
round hole if the science of physiology had not demanded an
expositor.
222
St. Bernard's.
They were talking, these two doctors, at the Alhambra Hotel,
about the only daughter and the orphan child of the great Sir
Martin Lee, late consulting physician to St. Bernard's, who
had amassed enormous wealth by the practice of his profession,
and recently dying, had left no less a sum than two hundred
and fifty thousand pounds to his daughter, beside great legacies
to friends and public institutions, amongst which St. Bernard's
came in for its share.
Known to both of the speakers of course was Mildred Lee,
who, with her aunt, was expected that night to arrive in Gran¬
ada, and would then with the two doctors continue the journey
homewards.
Mr. Crowe had been a constant visitor at her father's house,
for Sir Martin had great sympathy with his physiological
tastes ; and though certainly not an original investigator him¬
self, having a more profitable occupation as a fashionable
physician, he found it very useful, and even necessary, to keep
well ahead with all the research of the day, and to have the
reputation for the highest scientific method. When he cured
people, he always knew exactly the reason why ; but he cured
the patient first, and found the reason afterwards. At least,
he always maintained that he did this, and never omitted to
give the happy patient a popular little lecture on the subject,
which sent him, or her, away not only disburdened of the ail¬
ment, but conscious of the delightful reflection that his case
was an interesting contribution to clinical medicine and its
cure the outcome of the study of practical physiology. For a
great deal of this Sir Martin Lee sucked the brains of Mr.
Crowe, who in his turn found his profit in the transaction, as
he, being a surgeon, was often recommended by his more cele¬
brated friend where the patient's case was not a medical one.
Dr. Graves, not being so ardent a devotee of science, and find¬
ing no such necessity for assuming a virtue he did not possess,
had seldom visited the house in question. A great hospital,
with its large medical school, its staff of professors, its pliysi-
Mr. Crowe at Granada.
223
cians, surgeons, assistant physicians and assistant surgeons, its
nursing sisters, nurses, dressers, and students, makes up a
Avorld in itself, of which the interests, occupations, and pursuits
seem to those engaged in it to be almost the only ones of any
consequence to them. They must feel this absorbing interest
in all that belongs to it, or they would not be fit for their
work, and could not continue it efficiently. The study of
medicine demands, perhaps, a more complete sacrifice of the
whole man than any other profession, except that of the Chris¬
tian priesthood. To be a competent doctor at all, one must
feel an overwhelming interest in the mysteries of health and
disease. To be a distinguished doctor the interest must be¬
come a lifelong passion ; and this, alas ! too often closes in the
mind of its possessor against the access of any other of the
enthusiasms that lay hold of men.
Neither the Church nor the Bar demands so much of its dis¬
ciples as does Medicine. They allow far more scope for the
pursuit of letters than the healing art. We expect a clergy¬
man or a barrister to be a literary man. We are surprised if
the doctor, by stealing some hours from his daily avocations,
attains even moderate eminence in the path of literature.
"A quarter of a million!" exclaimed Mr. Crowe, as he carved
another slice of melon.
" Rather more than less," said Dr. Graves.
" What will she do with it %"
" Ah ! that is just what all the world is wondering ! "
" She'll be a fine catch for somebody ! "
" I doubt it. She is not likely to be caught with any of the
ordinary baits with which men fish for heiresses. She has a
fine brain and ideas of her own which she will be likely to
carry out, I fancy, before she is much older—expensive ideas,
too, that may melt her fortune like snow before the sun."
" Oh ! but she is not extravagant 1"
" No, because she has never yet discovered anything worth
spending money upon. Ideas, notions, crazes, run away with
224
Sf. Bernard''s.
a good deal more money than can be spent in Bond Street or
the Palais Royal, you know."
" But she does not want to convert the dwellers on the
Congo,to Paris fashions and Society journalism % "
" No ; but you will find, unless somebody marries her, that
she will spend the money on some mad humanitarian scheme
quite as ridiculous."
It was a little remarkable, perhaps, that these gentlemen,
who owed their position to the great medical charity which ab¬
sorbed their daily interests, should object to money being
devoted to philanthropic purposes. Probably they had left
their benevolent feelings in London when they donned their
unprofessional travelling suits, and started for a two-months'
Iberian trip, and put themselves under the influences of history,
poetry and romance It would have taken a great deal of
either to have warmed or softened the heart of Mr. Crowe; but
Dr. Graves fell speedily under their domination, and became
almost a devotee in some of the more magnificent of the
historic cathedrals of the peninsula.
On this night, seated at the table, and discussing the wealth
and position of his accomplished young friend, the thought
crossed Mr. Crowe's mind, " Were I but free, I should not
despair of winning Mildred Lee and her wealth ! "
These are dangerous thoughts to enter any man's mind who
has a troublesome wife, especially when that man has no other
consideration than for himself alone. He wandered out of the
Alhambra grounds and strolled along the road, over the hill,
past the massive old red towers which had seen so many
tragedies and had heard so often the din of battle for their
mastery. He was not romantic, but had read deeply in
Spanish history, and knew something of the world which had
once been enclosed by those mouldering walls and fortresses.
The soothing melody of falling waters and the whispering of
the many streams which descend through the richly-wooded
slopes to fall into the Genii, down to Granada, make a nigH
Mr. Crowe at Granada.
225
under the shadow of the Alhambra a never-to-be-forgotten
pleasure, like no other for kindling poetical thoughts and
romantic ideas. But not poetry nor romance stirred, this
autumn night, the breast of Mr. Crowe. The greed of gold,
the thought of all he could acheive if he had the tenth of this
woman's wealth, was moving within him, and he went out to
meditate on the matter. Past the gardens of the Generalife,
up the hill, through vineyards and fields of prickly pear, by the
cactus hedges and the clumps of aloes, under the soft shade of
olive groves, on towards the Sierra Nevada, which lifts its
sunny peaks to heaven like thrones of pearl above the Alham¬
bra hill, till he found the road stopped by the cemetery wall.
Seeking the entrance, he found himself for the first time within
a Spanish place of burial. How unlike the quiet solemnity of
an English churchyard! The ground was rough and untended;
a few aloes were scattered here and there, but with no attempt
at orderly arrangement. And where were the graves 1 In
place of the sacred six feet of earth, planted with flowers and
marked by beautiful sculpture, inscribed with the touching
memorials of the dead, he saw innumerable cells, built in the
thickness of the massive walls which surrounded the place,
each cell hermetically sealed with a marble tablet, on which
were recorded the name and titles of the departed whose re¬
mains it inclosed, together with some verses, or quotations
from the Missal, in memory of the lost ones. An unpleasant,
business-like way of economising space, far too suggestive of
lockers in a store, and giving one a sense of insecurity against
violation when the space occupied by the corpse should be re¬
quired for a fresh tenant. As Mr. Crowe was an advocate of
cremation, and considered land which would grow potatoes far
too valuable to waste on dead people, his susceptibilities were
exercised merely by the novelty of the arrangements, and not
in any way by a sense of their impropriety. Any way, he con-
sidei'ed them good enough for Spaniards, who were far too
p
226
St. Bernard's.
conservative to have any claim on an advanced thinker like
himself.
Running his eye over the long rows of marble tablets which
served to seal the openings of the cells which held the coffins,
he was struck by the fact that two departed wives of doctors
of medicine were amongst those deposited in the west wall.
Nothing extraordinary in this—nothing to excite the least re¬
mark for most observers ; but in Mr. Crowe's present condition
it set him wondering how much longer it would be ere h«
would be relieved of the now almost intolerable burden of a
sick wife. Who stood a better chance with Mildred Lee than
he, the old friend of the heiress's father, himself her tutor?
Admired by her for his science he knew he was—why not ad¬
mired for himself, perhaps, if only free 1 He had never really
loved his wife; he had married her for her fortune, and had
been disappointed in its amount. He was not capable of
loving anything but wealth and fame. He ardently longed to
make some discovery which should bring him prominently
before the medical world. To upset the theory of the last
German or Frenchman whose work made any noise in the
literature of the day, and to establish on the ruins of his re¬
putation a better and more consistent one of his own : this was
worth his days and nights of anxious thought, and his toilsome
and patient investigation.
So morbid had he become that he looked upon all mankind
from a pathological point of view, and it was seldom that he
could not detect abnormal processes at work in those with
whom he came in contact. His work absorbed him; and when
he desired to hold converse with any one, it was on those
topics connected with it alone. Possessed of a small patrimony,
worth to him some £250 a year, he was compelled to add to his
income by taking pupils to " coach " for the higher professional
examinations. In this work he was very successful, for he was
a painstaking and impressive teacher. He was withal a skilful
surgeon, and had made many wonderful cures. He had rooms
Mr. Crowe at Granada.
227
in a well-known street of doctors, but was consulted with ex¬
treme infrequency. His appointment as surgeon to St.
Bernard's did him little good in a pecuniary sense, for no
patient liked liim; and no man or maid-servant whose health
had been restored under his care ever took the least pains to
get master or mistress to call him to any case of sickness.
Nobody ever thanked him for a cure ; nobody ever gave him
credit for curing him. A great many poor hospital patients
gave him the credit for anything that went wrong with them
while under his treatment; but their blame or their praise was
equally a matter of indifference to him, who occupied himself
only, as he said, with Man in general, especially man in the
future, to the utter disregard of the man particular and the
man present.
How often man with the51 big M has robbed and murdered the
body and soul of the individual of the race ! Was he happy 1
He had no idea of the meaning of the word; enough for him
that complete mental occupation stifled and subdued the rising
thoughts ever struggling in his heart to torment him.
He turned to leave the cemetery. The sun was sinking be¬
hind the distant mountains that bounded the western Vega.
Amid scenes not to be surpassed for grandeur and beauty on
this planet of ours, his thoughts were selfish and mean, and
untinged by one ray of the romance or poetry which the sur¬
roundings should have imparted to the least cultured mind.
He, the distinguished man of science, whose name was known
in every physiological laboratory of Europe, beheld all this glory
unthrilled by emotion, and scarcely troubled to think, except
of the purely physical causes of what he knew were to others
sources of the profoundest and most entrancing sentiment. It
can be killed—the love of goodness! It can be stifled, sup¬
pressed, and destroyed—the heart's throb of delight at loveli¬
ness and grandeur which awakens the emotions of even the
untutored savage ! And it can be stifled, suppressed, and
228
St. Bernard's.
killed by no surer method than that of coldly formulating,
analysing, and materializing, till the sentiments of wonder and
worship are dissipated into their elements. To-day, as he
turned to leave the cemetery, he thought of his visit, when a
boy, to a little churchyard on Bantry Bay, where straying once
on a walking tour, he shed tears of joy at first beholding such a
wealth of loveliness as met his eyes when they took in the
glorious vision.
" I was a little fool then," he thought.
Behind-him was the pearl-crowned range of Nevada; around
him were the richest tropical forms of flowers and fruit; below,
the towers of the Alhambra, whose every stone was moss-grown
with legend and cemented with story. Still below, the grand
old city, fragrant with the odour of knightly deeds; and far
beyond, stretching into illimitable distance, the lovely Vega,
dying away into the vapoury west, behind whose mountain
cincture was sinking the sun in a glorious wealth of colour and
a momentarily varying richness of shade unimaginable to those
who have not watched it set from that same spot where he
stood. And he thought but of the spectrum, of Frauenhofer's
lines, of refraction and the absorption of light. His curse was
on him, and fructifying. To lose the sense of feeling another's
pain is, in its culmination, to lose the sense of ever feeling
pleasure one's self. As the poet says,—
" Put pain from out the world, what room were left
For thanks to God, for love to man ? "
Nature, ever striving to reduce the mountain to the level of
he plain by its disintegrating and destructive processes, does
but bring earth to earth; while man, repressing his holiest and
most exalted emotions to the level of mere physiological pro¬
cesses, reduces spirit to earth. Mr. Crowe had perfectly
succeeded. He went to his hotel. The nightingales in
"Wellington's elms were singing—not for him ; the streams
were answering the constant whisper of the leaves—to him it
Mr. Crowe at Granada.
229
■was nothing but gravitation. The fire-flies danced and the
moon shed her silver light over all this beauty. Bah ! it was
easily done in a laboratory ! The whole universe was but an
expansion of that. To bed, therefore, to rest, and to dream of
something grander than scenery, poetry, or romance—money
whereby to win a wider, a more enduring, and a more brilliant
fame !
Mr. Crowe flattered himself that were he free to ask Mildred
to become his wife, he would stand a good chance of being
accepted. His long and close connection with her father, his
acquaintance, not to say intimate friendship, with herself, the
many opportunities time had afforded him of winning her
esteem, his growing fame, the respect the world was beginning
to show for his achievements in science,—all led him to hope
that, were he but disencumbered, he might win the heiress.
Yet, at the rate his wife was sinking, she might last for
many months. "What was the good of her life to her % Would
it not be merciful to terminate such an existence 1 When it
became misery to live, why continue to do so 1
Of course he maintained the right we all had to commit
suicide. Might not such a man as himself, who had pushed
many a poor wretch into Charon's boat, scientifically hasten
her removal 1
CHAPTER XXXVII.
mildred lee.
Grief should be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate ;
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free ;
Strong to consume small troubles ; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.
—A ubrey de Vere.
Mildred Lee, at the time of our story, was twenty-eight. She
early lost her mother, and now, by the recent death of her
father, was left to her own devices. She was fortunate in the
devoted attachment of her maiden aunt, Janet, who shared her
tastes, and whose views on things in general were, with some
important differences, which gave a zest to their discussion,
pretty much her own.
Aunt Janet was studious and intellectual, and had exercised
a great influence in the development of her niece's mind. It
was she who had formed her tastes, and in a great measure
moulded her intellect, while it was yet plastic, on her own ex¬
alted pattern. Mildred's father had been but too glad to confide
his only child to her care, and the event proved his wisdom
and her salvation, for the devotion of Aunt Janet's life had
found its reward in the beautiful flower of Mildred's intellectual
and moral life, which seemed a reflex of her own. Blessed with
Nature's best endowment at starting, a robust and healthy
frame, which often implies a vigorous and healthy mind, Aunt
Janet had the initial impetus within her from childhood which
Mildred Lee.
231
kept her always aiming after the noblest and best standard of
the good and true. A tendency of phthisis is not the sole
cause and stimulus of the religious sentiment, and the strumous
diathesis is not the only reason why children take instinctively
to books instead of athletics, as some maintain. Certainly none
of these things were the causes of Aunt Janet's devotion to
letters, and her constant desire to do something to advance the
interests of mankind. The vigour of her thinking capacity,
her rapidity in grasping the idea of a subject, her instinctive
apprehension of the right way to the essence of things, was
equalled by the physical capacity for continued work, and
the strain which her system could bear without breaking
down or depressing her industry. She was witty, and
superabounding in good humour; never dull, never—like so
many brilliant leaders of society—the subject of reaction after
unusual efforts to amuse and enjoy; but so even, so constant
in mental, as in physical health, that all her friends sought her
in seasons of depression and mental discomfort, feeling that
some subtle healing power for their minds would restore and
reinvigorate them. Her niece could have had no better train¬
ing than the mere daily contact with so normal a mind. Sub¬
ject of late to fits of melancholy, musing despondently on what
she called her unsatisfied longings for a higher life, she was yet
daily growing, though she knew it not, into the perfect woman,
nourished by all the elements necessary to build up a capacity
for a great world's-work.
Their method was to lose no more time over the small society
frivolities, or even its conventional demands, than was absol¬
utely necessary; and when these things were cut down to
their lowest convenient point, they found they had time enough
to devote to their philanthropic projects and their intellectual
pursuits. Aiint Janet had never found time to be in love ; she
used to say this in a joking manner, but it was perfectly true.
Books, and the study of almost everything practicable for her,
occupied her whole thoughts from morning till night. Love,
232 vS7. Bernard's.
she thought, might some day be taken up, when philosophy,
botany, and the higher mathematics failed to absorb her; but
it was always hidden away in the dim distance, and was as
likely to be seriously entertained as a journey to the sources of
the Nile. Of the two rather less likely, for distant foreign
travel was quite in her line ; and as she had more than once
packed up and shipped herself off to Eastern climes, for better
acquaintance with their history, she might be moved to under¬
take Central Africa in default of anything better to do. When
she undertook the care of her niece, and the superintendence
and development of her mind, she found abundant employment,
and was busier than ever, so that love and Equatorial Africa
receded still farther into distance, and she settled down per¬
fectly contented to be an old maid for life.
Now the influence of such a preceptress on a clever, thought¬
ful girl like Mildred was just this. She gave herself up to her
aunt to learn all she wanted to teach her, and imbibed so much
of her spirit and mode of looking at things that she was
ashamed to talk, or even think of love, in face of the supreme
indifference, if not quite contempt, with which Aunt Janet
viewed the tender passion. Her father acquiesced in this state
of things. He was too unwilling to part with Mildred, and only
hoped the men would keep away from his treasure as long as
he wanted it all to himself. Her aunt, for her part, thought
her niece much too good to be sacrificed in marriage. It was
not the selfishness which animated Dr. Lee that made her wish
to keep her niece single, but a real conviction that if a woman
could in any way avoid it, marriage was not the best state for
her, whatever the world might say to the contrary. As, there¬
fore, she was in no want of a position, what better thing was
there for her to do than keep single, be the light of her father's
home, and help her—dear, philanthropic old maid as she was !—
in her humanitarian and intellectual schemes—projects which
could only be successfully worked out by women, and women
who had 110 husbands, babies, and family ties to engross them,
Mildred Lee.
233
and make them callous to the wants of the great world outside
a nursery 1 If a young woman wrants to shield herself from
the arrows of Cupid, there is no better defence for her than a
wall of books, a science or two, some ologies, and a taste for
writing. Behind these bulwarks her pretty face, her figure,
her youth, her grace, and her accomplishments are comparatively
safe. So Mildred seemed likely to be a second edition of her
aunt; and if truth must be told the prospect did not in the
least alarm her.
While this calm and uneventful life went on, unbroken by a
single disturbing element, each of these happy, pure, and useful
women making the world around them better and happier for
her presence in it, and reaping in calm contentment the fruits
of the good deeds they scattered lavishly, the sad calamity of
Sir Martin Lee's death suddenly fell upon them. Had their
lives been hitherto spent in selfish enjoyment of the pleasures
of the hour, the blow would have been heavier than it was; but
though they were unfamiliar with great troubles of their own,
their loving work amongst the poor, the friendless, and the
sick had familiarized them with suffering in others, and they
knew how to bow the head in meek submission when the storm
passed over them, and scattered their hopes in its path.
Resignation was now the virtue to be practised, and Mildred did
not fail in the hour of trial. A few months after Sir Martin's
death her aunt took her for a long tour through scenes of travel
which she was anxious to unfold to her. They had often
talked of them, and it was soon resolved to take the St. Gothard
route to Italy, and return home by Spain. From Naples they
went to Sicily, and made a rather long stay at Taormina, under
Etna. It was not till they reached this magnificent spot
(perhaps, as has been said, the loveliest on the earth), that
Mildred began to recover somewhat from her bereavement. On
that lofty height, surrounded by mountain peaks, up which
rock-hewn steps led to ancient cities and old-world castles and
fortresses, with the great snow-covered volcano rearing its lofty
234
St. Bernard's.
head above the clouds, with the Straits of Messina dividing their
shores from those of Calabria, whose purple mountains melted
away into the dim distance, she could read the lines which
Cardinal Newman wrote amid those scenes with a sweet con¬
viction of their truth.
" Say, hast thou tracked a traveller's round,
Nor visions met thee there,
Thou could'st but marvel to have found
This blighted world so fair ?
And feel an awe within thee rise,
That sinful man should see
Glories far worthier seraphs' eyes
Than to be shared by thee ?
Store them in heart, thou shalt not faint
'Mid coming pains and fears,
As the third heaven once nerved a saint
For fourteen trial years."
And so from one world-famous spot to another in that
panorama of Southern loveliness, they made the tour of Sicily,
and at Palermo took the steamer for Malaga. It was a sight
to lift up any sorrowful spirit when Mildred went on deck in the
early September morning, as the steamer lay at anchor before
the beautiful white city, glowing in the roseate hues of the
rising sun. High above them the cathedral seemed to stand as
the protector of the town, surrounded by palaces, and as its
guard, still higher,
" On a lofty hill the castle of Gibralfaro
Seemed to watch the town and bay."
The harbour, crowded with vessels of all nations, and the
busy quays, gave signs of wealth and activity which the
travellers had scarcely expected to find in benighted Spain.
The blessed Mediterranean it is wThich would have given trade
and wealth wherever its waves touched the shores, had man
known how to preserve its gifts. It has given Malaga more
Mildred Lee.
235
than wealth ; for it is one of the great health resorts of the
South. It must be confessed, however, that what these blissful
spots gain in climate, they, by the ignorance and indolence of
their inhabitants, lose by neglect of the simplest elements of
sanitary science.
Aunt Janet had been a little doubtful of Spain ; she feared
they would have to " rough it " rather too much, having taken
her impressions from Mr. Ford's books, which, however accurate
n some particulars, are too prejudiced against the corns de Espana
in general to deal fairly with the manners and customs of this
intensely interesting land.
" Now for rancid oil, and garlic, and bull beef! " said she.
"No more French cookery."
"Well, aunt, it can't be worse than Sicily; and we have
done fairly well there."
" I don't know, dear. I fear we shall be devoured alive by
the ' light infantry' of the country, unless we are poisoned
straight off by their cooks. Besides, we don't know any
Spanish !"
" Why, aunt, the courier declares I speak it very well in¬
deed, and for the rest I expect French will serve us perfectly."
Their hotel was situated in the Alameda, and a glimpse of
that pleasant resort revealed so much of the beauty of the
Spanish ladies, of which they had heard with a little scepticism
after their illusions had been dispelled as to the charms of the
Italian fair sex, that they agreed the reports had not been ex¬
aggerated. The next day they started for Granada, which they
reached two hours late, thus early making their acquaintance
with the dilatoriness of Spanish railways. Mr. Crowe and Dr.
Graves met them at the station, and welcomed them to their
abode in the grounds of the Fairy Halls of Alhambra.
It was scarcely light when Mildred rose to visit the palace of
her childhood's dream. It seemed almost wicked to sleep with
such delights awaiting her. Aunt Janet was much less in a
hurry to leave her couch ; still, as she was not less imbued with
236
Si. Bernard's.
the spirit of the enchanting place, she soon followed her niece into
the grounds. When we have longed all our lives to visit some
celebrated scene, the first impression, on finding our hopes at
length realized, is often one of disappointment. The imagina¬
tion in some minds paints in colours of such " rainbow sub¬
stance " that reality can never equal; but it has often been
remarked that no one has been disappointed in his expectations
of the Alhambra. Here he is in the scenery of the Thousand
and One Nights itself, and if he is of the least romantic order of
intellect, will be filled with more poetic reflections than can be
supplied by any other place in Europe. Long before the gates
were opened for visitors, the ladies had walked round the
venerable walls, had visited Charles V.'s incongruous palace,
and drunk in some of the inspiration of the lovely scene. When
they returned to the hotel to breakfast, they found the doctors
awaiting them with tickets for the Generalife, which they were
to visit after the Alhambra.
What a day was this to Mildred! How she wished she
could have some of her English friends with her, as she im¬
bibed such stores of beautiful recollections ! Mr. Crowe was
very attentive, and was full of learned lore about the builders
of the place. He praised the Moors so much that he seemed
to lament that they had been expelled from Spain, and it re¬
quired all Dr. Graves' chivalrous devotion to the memory of
Isabella to defend the conquest.
" But you must not forget, Crowe, that your beloved Moors
were in their decadence when their expulsion came; their
luxury and over-refinement had drawn attendant evils in their
t rain, and these brought about their ruin when attacked by a
people like the Spaniards—then, as you must admit, in every
way superior to their foes, or they could never have united all
Spain under their sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella."
But Mr. Crowe could not forgive the Spaniards for having
too much religion and too little science ; and maintained that
Mildred Lee
237
in both respects they were considerably the inferiors of the
Moors whom they had dispossessed.
Of course Mr. Crowe and Dr. Graves thoroughly acquainted
themselves with the mysteries of the Bull Ring. They wished to
take the ladies to a bull fight, declaring-that one could not really
say he had seen Spain without a visit to the national sports.
As neither of the ladies had any desire to say she had "seen
Spain," they deprived themselves of this particular item of their
education, and astonished the hotel proprietor by their forbear¬
ance. He protested that all the English ladies went to the
fights, though they all declared it was a disgrace to Spain to
tolerate such cruelty; and he laughed at what he evidently
considered our national hypocrisy. To the credit of the
Spanish nation, ladies do not attend the bull fights nearly so
frequently as formerly. It is beginning to be unfashionable to
do so,
Did Mr. Crowe enjoy the sport % Strange to say, he strongly
disapproved of it! He thought it a degrading and cruel
spectacle ; most demoralizing to the people, and a quite useless
waste of life, which could have been devoted to the progress of
humanity. So do our minds refract the light that comes from
the actions of our fellow-men ! Dr. Graves did not scruple to
say, "a bull fight was just the grandest sight on all this
planet!"
They visited the cathedral together, and descended to the
vault where Isabella and her husband lie in their leaden coffins
side by side.
Dr. Graves could forgive the great queen all her bigotry for
having offered to pawn her jewels to send Columbus on his
voyage of discovery. Nothing would satisfy him but that he
must make a pilgrimage to the old bridge where the messenger
overtook the heavy-hearted navigator, and brought him back
to the noble queen.
" So like an impulsive, generous woman, ready to sacrifice
everything for an idea ! " said Dr. Graves.
238
St Bernard's.
" A very substantial idea," replied Mr. Crowe, who detested
Isabella for being a good Catholic but could not help admiring
her devotion to exploration and expei'iment. " The acquisition
of a new world to the crown of Leon and Castile was worth a
few jewels."
" Don't you think," asked Aunt Janet, " that she was
actuated by far worthier reasons than those ? "
Mildred was almost as much in love with Isabella as Dr.
Graves, and declared " that she was moved in all her conquests
and expeditions by a passionate desire to win souls for God and
His Church."
" By roasting their bodies at the stake," added Mr. Crowe.
Mildred said, in her quiet, arch manner,—
" We may roast people alive in the coming age of science for
much less important reasons, if physiologists have their way ! "
This was a particularly nasty cut, as it was well known Mr.
Crowe had often lamented to his class that criminals under
sentence of death could not be used for scientific purposes.
" We should not burn people alive, I hope," said he.
" I am not so sure of that. I have read somewhere of one
of your profession boasting that he took particular delight in
inflicting ' atrocious pain ' on dogs."
Aunt Janet interposed, as the discussion was getting rather
acrid, and philosophically attempted an apology for the per¬
secutions of the dark ages.
Having paid a visit to the Cartuja Convent, they returned to
the hotel for luncheon, and afterwards wandered about the
delicious gardens of the Generalife till it was time for dinner.
As the night was moonlight, they obtained permission to enter
the Alhambra again, and saw it with all the glamour and
witchery of the midnight hour.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
unearthed.
The circumstance of circumstance is timing and placing. When a
man meets his accurate mate, society begins, and life is delicious.
Emerson.
Be not amazed at life; 'tis still
The mode of God with His elect
Their hopes exactly to fulfil
In times and ways they least expect.
Coventry Patmore.
The romance of the novelist and the startling incident of
melodrama are colourless and insignificant in comparison with
the events of real life. Every day things happen around us
which would appear far-fetched and absurd if transferred to the
pages of a novel. We go to our peaceful slumbers at night
little recking of the letter lying at the post-office close by
which at breakfast-time will have destroyed the work of our
lives, and given us a heart wound no time can heal. We sit
down to dinner in weariness with the common-place monotony
of our existence which the telegraph boy, already on his way
to us, will startle into most unseemly agitation. We wander
along Cheapside, Fleet Street, and the Strand, wondering why
the stream of life in the world's chief artery so little affects our
pulses, and we meet the man who with a word changes the
current of our existence in an instant.
Mildred Lee went to her bed full of thought, and wondered
how she was to carry out the purposes which she had often
240
St. Bernard''s
pondered, with only half-opened eyes seeing the great work
which lay before her, little dreaming that before another bed¬
time she would have had all her fluid purposes cast in the
mould of fate, or rather set, by the hand of Providence, in a
sharply defined form which was to make her name high and
honourable amongst men. She went to rest that Granada
night a purposeless dreamer of unbodied hopes. Next day was
to introduce her to a higher phase of thought. Hopes to¬
night, dreams to-night; to-morrow an opening in the mist, as
one sees from a high mountain in a rift of the fog, the pano¬
rama sun-bathed at one's feet.
It was a bright and glorious morning when she opened her
window, the birds in the elms singing to the ever-rushing
streams, and the breeze rustling amongst the leaves hinted a
delicious coolness inviting to a ramble. She met Mr. Crowe
strolling in front of the hotel smoking his early cigarette.
Throwing this away, he advanced to meet her, and, in his most
gracious manner, invited her to inspect the restoration of some
Moorish baths which were going on close by.
" These Moors," said he, " value fresh air and water far
more than their Christian successors. The old Eastern
religions and the Professors of White Magic insisted on the
most scrupulous cleanliness, while the Inquisition made the
use of the bath a mark of heresy."
Mildred thought of some new bath experiments which her
father had tried to prevent at St. Bernard's; and could not
help saying, with a tinge of maliciousness, "There are some
uses of the bath which I think heretical, and would punish as
severely as ever did Philip the Second."
Mr. Crowe remembered his old battle with her father on
this question, but prudently declined to discuss medical treat¬
ment with any one but a doctor, Mildred, seeing he was
getting huffy, did not press her point further. The physi¬
ologist was very severe on the old and cherished institutions of
Catholic Spain, and did only partial justice to the authors
Unearthed.
241
of so many mistakes, whilst he was quite blind to the horrors
being perpetrated in the name of Science now, and which a
more civilized age, let us hope, will brand with equal infamy.
"How long do you propose to stay here1?" asked Mr.
Crowe.
" Really, I find it hard to leave ; but we must not extend
our visit beyond another day or two. What have we still
to explore 1"
"You don't want to make any ascent of the Sierra Nevada,
do you ]"
" Oh, no ; I fear it is too fatiguing. My aunt is not equal
to camping out in the snow for a night, and I should not like
to leave her. But we must visit the gipsy quarter; I am
told it was much more interesting than that at Seville."
" I have not explored it, but shall be glad to do so. Shall
we go to-day 1 I saw Rico, the gipsy king, yesterday, and he
was anxious to do the honours of the colony, and make our
visit pleasant."
" Very wrell, then. My aunt is anxious to go, I know.
Will you arrange it all for us 1"
" Certainly. They say there is some risk of annoyance ; but
if you are not very fastidious, I dare say it is nothing very
serious."
Mildred declared that she wanted to see everything that was
Spanish, and had not crossed the Pyrenees to be stopped by
trifles. So an expedition to the Sacro Monte was arranged for
the next day, and the party, with a trustworthy guide, took a
carriage for the trip.
The hill of the Albayzin was steep, and the horses not being
equal to their work, they made the rest of the ascent on foot,
and soon reached the singular region of the Zincali. It was
strangely unlike anything else in Europe, and the ladies being
anxious to acquaint themselves with the mode of life peculiar
to this tribe, went into many of the open grottoes, of course
Q
242
St. Bernard's.
accompanied by the guide. This being one of the show places
of the city, the inhabitants are used to visitors, but they often
rob and sometimes behave very badly to them. Wandering
down the alleys and mazedike turnings amongst the hills,
observing the curious trades followed by the bronzed cave-
dwellers, they became separated from their guide, who was
engaged with the gentlemen in a distant cavern, explaining
some of the methods adopted by the gipsies when they want to
improve the appearance of a horse they have to sell. Sud¬
denly they were surrounded by a crowd of half-naked, vocifer¬
ating children, handsome as those of Murillo's pictures, but
rather alarming in their boisterous behaviour, tugging at their
dresses, cutting wild and unpleasant capers, and demanding
money on every hand. Missing the turning by which they
had entered the labyrinth, they were nervous and annoyed
with themselves for slipping away from their friends, when
suddenly the noisy rabble melted away as if by magic, as a tall
young man in Spanish dress came into the lane, and called
angrily to the little imps in their own lingo. The young
scaramouches at once made off, and the Englishman, apologis¬
ing with an easy grace for the rudeness of the children,
volunteered to escort the ladies to their party. The shortest
way was through a patch of garden, and the walk gave the
ladies the opportunity of thanking their protector, who soon
found the gentlemen and their guide.
Mildred felt certain that she had met the young man before,
though it seemed very improbable ; but when they reached
Mr. Crowe, he at once exclaimed, " Mr. Elsworth, I declare ! "
As Mr. Crowe had been Elsworth's physiological teacher at the
hospital, it was natural he should easily recognise him. The
ladies, of course, had not the same intimate knowledge of him,
though they knew of his mysterious disappearance from
London. Mildred had not seen him since the day they had
first met at a picnic which her father gave to his students at
their country place on the Surrey Downs. They had been
Unearthed.
243
introduced some months previously; but on that occasion,
while showing him the points of interest round the house and
grounds, she had been favourably impressed by the earnestness of
his interest in many things in which she delighted, and had often
confessed to herself that if she should ever be weak enough to
bother herself about man in the concrete, it would be somebody
very much like Elsworth who would interest her. He knew
all her favourite books, and her tastes in poetry coincided with
his own. He was something of a Shelley and a Browning
enthusiast; and held by B/uskin and Emerson, proving by his
criticism of their works how deep a hold their ideas had taken
of him. They had talked much that day of these things, and
she recalled, as she now met him again after his long absence,
the time when they had so long discussed themes congenial to
them both. When he disappeared she had been painfully
anxious to learn the causes which could have driven so promis¬
ing a young man from his work and friends, and had speculated
deeply as to what could have befallen him. She had never
ceased to hope that one day he might turn up again. And
here he was, and she had discovered him ! Their eyes met, in
an instant each recognised the other, and in that glance each
told the other that the meeting was of moment to him
and her.
" Mr. Elsworth, I was sure !" she exclaimed.
" And Miss Lee, of course !" said he.
Aunt Janet had met, but did not recall the handsome man
who had just done them so grateful a service. She was soon
enlightened however.
" Auntie dear, you remember Mr. Elsworth who used to visit
us, and who alarmed us all so much by going away and leav¬
ing no address, making us all wonder what could have become
of him 1"
Auntie remembered all in a moment; and as quickly
reflected with a woman's instinct that perhaps their kind
friend would not thank them for thus unearthing him, which
244
St. Bernard's.
they had literally done by drawing him from the gipsies' cave.
" Mr. Elsworth will, I am sure, forgive us," she said, without
embarrassment, "for inadvertently trespassing upon his retire¬
ment, and he may rest assured we will not break the secret we
have unwittingly discovered."
" Oh, for that matter," said he, as they turned into a field
planted thickly with prickly pears, and shaded by olives, "you
have but precipitated what would have come to pass very soon,
for I had resolved to return." He had noticed Mildred's deep
mourning, but he had no knowledge of her father's death. He
had immediately, on recognising her, remarked a great altera¬
tion in her features. True, it was six years since they had
last met; but he had not forgotten, amid the hosts of beauti¬
ful faces which he had since seen, those bright eyes and the
face free from all anxiety or trace of melancholy which had
fixed themselves upon his memory. She was more beautiful
now, but there was not the sparkling playfulness of the eye,
nor the light-hearted glow in the features ; she was more like
our Lady of Sorrows whom he had seen above so many Spanish
altars, than the merry, laughing maiden of his student days.
" You are not quite the Miss Lee of the picnic, if you will
forgive me saying so. Have you not passed through some
great anxiety or trial %"
" Did you not know I had lost my father % Do you get no
English newspapers here 1"
" I do not see them often. I have so much to occupy me
here that I am unpatriotic enough to confess that I have lost
much of my interest in the affairs of my own country."
" We must hear your story, Mr. Elsworth," said Aunt Janet,
" for there must be a most romantic one to tell, I am think¬
ing. You are more Spanish now than English, and we antici¬
pate quite a revelation of the real life of the people we mix
with, but do not in the least understand."
" Here are the carriages," said Dr. Graves, who had walked
on with Mr. Crowe a little in advance.
Unearthed.
245
Dr. Graves and Mr. Crowe expressed their regret for neglect¬
ing the ladies. It was, in fact, a risky neighbourhood; and as
they had been warned that they might suffer annoyance if they
got away from their guide, they could only blame themselves.
Mr. Crowe was not very cordial in his manner towards
Elsworth. Dr. Graves was courteous enough in a formal sort
of way. He had known his father; and with a fashionable
physician's worldly wisdom made it a rule never to make an
enemy of anybody if he could help it, but to be on his best
behaviour to all the world.
"You have dropped from the clouds, Mr. Elsworth," said he.
" Or sprung from the earth, rather," said Mr. Crowe.
Elsworth knew Crowe did not like him. They had never
quite got on together since he neglected to attend his experi
mental physiology class which met at church time on Sunday
mornings in his own private laboratory—the chamber of
horrors it was called. He could never bring himself to do so.
" Neither a fall nor a rise," rejoined Elsworth, quietly;
" nothing but a very matter-of-fact story of disgust with the
noisy world of men, and a relish for a sojourn in the wilder¬
ness for study and meditation. Not quite without precedent
in the history of civilisation, eh, Mr. Crowe?"
"Well, friend, I always said that a man who refused to learn
practical physiology was a ' heathen man and a publican,' so I
am surprised at nothing that has happened to you."
" Is the evisceration of a living cat the passport to all the
Beatitudes with you, Mr. Crowe ?" asked Miss Lee, in a rather
contemptuous manner.
" Symbolically, for a medical man, yes," said he, " as imply¬
ing the true scientific mind."
The ladies had now re-entered their carriage, and warmly
thanking Elsworth for his assistance, and expressing their
delight at having discovered him, like Stanley finding Living¬
stone, they ended by begging that he would join them at
dinner that day at their hotel. He declared his readiness to
246
Si. Bernard's.
do so, and bowing with all the dignity and grace of a real
Spaniard, he turned and left them.
The guide who had taken the party to the gipsy quarter
knew and saluted Els worth, and when he had taken his place
beside the coachman, turning to the party, said, " That gentle¬
man is the friend of all the poor in Granada. The gipsies call
him their English king ; he has lived here several years. When
the people are sick he attends them, for he is a clever doctor;
he takes no money from anybody, but he gives away a great
deal to the poor. He can go amongst the worst people un¬
molested. Where the priest goes, he can go—to brigands, to
thieves, to all the gipsies everywhere. He can travel alone over
the mountains where none of us could go safely without an
escort. He is a good man—a saint I ought to have said."
" Why does he stay so long in Granada 1" asked Mildred.
" Oh, he is studying the language and the manners and cus¬
toms of the gipsies ; he has a printing press, and he prints
books to give them. He has a school, and he teaches their
children. He is writing, they say, a great work on the origin
and the life of the Spanish gipsies ; but we hear he is going back
soon to his own country He had a hospital down in the city
for the cholera patients last year, and has been decorated by
the king for his services in the epidemic. There will be many
tears when he leaves us, seflora."
The exile dined with his friends at the hotel, and enlightened
them all on many points of interest which a mere tourist would
be certain to miss. Every one noticed the change in Elsworth.
Even Mr. Crowe, with his hard, unsympathetic soul, could not
help seeing that in him was a renewed man, " one who had
been set apart by Nature (as he expressed it to his colleague
afterwards) for some great work." Mildred and Aunt Janet
saw that here was a man called to be an apostle; called, like
the men of Galilee, from their nets and money tables, to serve
the highest purposes of God ; and they longed to hear the story
they knew he must have to tell. After dinner the ladies con-
Unearthed.
2A7
trived to have a chat with him, while Mr. Crowe and Dr.
Graves were walking on the terrace smoking. To no one had
he spoken, during these years of retirement, of the causes
which had led him away from his haunts and profession ; but
these sweet women, with their sympathy which invited his
confidence, soon heard his story ; and in listening to it Mildred
felt as Desdemona when Othello told his own; and listening,
loved. Here, she thought, is a man with a heart and a con¬
science! All her life .had been spent amongst selfish seekers
after fame, wealth, or the amusements of life ; men who cared
not whom they overthrew could they but climb themselves ;
men of genius, who cared no more for the troubles of their
fellowmen than the heartless libertines for the victims of their
pleasures. She remembered Moore's lines :—
" Out on the craft—I'd rather be
One of those hinds that round me tread,
M ith just enough of sense to see
The noon-day sun that's o'er my head,—
Than thou, with high-built genius cursed,
That hath no heart for its foundation,
Be all, at once, that's brighest, worst,
Sublimest, meanest in creation ! "
Here was a man who had left all and followed his Master;
not as a missionary sent out by a society, with all the prestige
and protection of his Church behind him, but who went forth
to save his own soul and aid his brother man. This was devo¬
tion, true self-sacrifice, of which this age seems almost to have
lost the idea. One cannot give a cup of cold water now-a-days
to a thirsty child unless at the bidding of a committee. Our
charity is done to order and by deputy. Elsworth's way of
going to work was like that of an early Christian, and savoured
of real heroism; and women love heroes, because every woman
has the germ of heroism in her own heart, and self-sacrifice is
of her nature.
Mildred had found her ideal man, They talked of many
248
St. Bernard's.
tilings, but most of his hospital down in the city, and the next
day they all went to see it, and many other of the charitable
agencies of the town.
Of course Mr. Crowe was huffy and upset at the meeting,
and at the reception which the ladies gave to the handsome
young fellow whom they had discovered. He was jealous, too;
for Mildred did not conceal the interest she felt in all that was
shown her, and Mr. Crowe could not scoff down the good works
of which he had evidence that day, though he tried hard to
make game of any attempt to Christianize the gipsies, and pro¬
tested it was a great pity to waste so many opportunities of in¬
vestigating cholera germs and inoculations in such a favourable
field.
Mildred set him down when he spoke contemptuously of Els-
worth's Gitano friends.
"Now, Mr. Crowe, you surprise me, as a deep student of
natural phenomena, to hear you talk so. Don't you know—
' No creature's made so mean
But that, some way, it boasts, could we investigate,
Its supreme worth ' ? "
Mr. Crowe did not think the game was worth the candle;
besides, it would spoil the artists' chances to civilize the
gipsies.
Elsworth explained that had he attempted to experiment with
the cholera patients, if he had been so inclined, he would have
fared no better than the native doctors, who were suspected of
pi'opagating the disease for the Government, who wished to
deplete the population.
" Yes," said Aunt Janet, " can we wonder at the poor
Neapolitans and Spaniards, in the late cholera epidemics, ■
attacking the doctors with sticks and stones, declaring they
were spreading the disease—as, in fact, they were—by these
abominable vaccinations ?"
Unearthed.
249
"I hear that Pasteur's hydrophobia cure is entirely dis¬
credited by the French experts," said Mildred.
" It is," replied Elsworth ; " and anybody who believed that
God, and not the devil, governs the world, might have pre¬
dicted its failure from the infernal nature of the process for
keeping up the supply of the vaccine. Just fancy, keeping in
cages, a lot of dogs inoculated with the virus, to inoculate again
a lot of rabbits, ready for use for any patient who might want
the treatment !"
" Do you know, Mr. Elsworth," said Mildred, " I am almost
afraid to venture the opinion, yet it is a growing one with me,
that what is called scientific medicine is a contradiction in
terms. The human stomach is not a test-tube, and till we
leave off treating it as a dyer treats his vats, we can't expect to
make any progress. So many things go to make up therapeutic
treatment. How often have I heard my father say that he
never could do any good unless the patient had full faith in
him !"
" I fear you do not estimate very highly either the education
you got at St. Bernard's, or the benefits such institutions con¬
fer on the people," said Mr. Crowe, in a rather sneering tone,
when Elsworth had assented to Mildred's remarks.
Dr. Graves maintained that the hospital education given at
St. Bernard's was second to none in Europe, and doubted if it
were possible to improve on its methods, as far as they went.
" What do you say, Mr. Elsworth h " he asked.
" I hold," said Elsworth, " that all hospitals are only neces¬
sary evils in an imperfect state of society."
" I have long held that opinion, too," replied Mildred ; " it
seems to me that our poor people are far too ready to get rid of
their sick and troublesome relatives."
" Yes, nursing is rapidly becoming a lost art amongst the
working people," remarked Aunt Janet. " The instant their
children, husbands, or wives get sick, they are packed off to
one or other of the charities which compete for their favours
250
St. Bernard's
and they are troubled with them no more till they are
cured."
" You mean till they recover 1" said Mildred, with an arch
look.
"Oh, we really do make some cures, though our Spanish
friends are cruel enough to say, ' El medico lleva la plcita pero
Dios es que sana !' (the doctor takes the fee, but God works
the cure.")
" I fear our noble art is not more highly esteemed here than
in England," said Dr. Graves.
" England is the very Paradise of doctors ; though the art
of medicine, so far from making progress even there, bids fair
to be destroyed by a noisy and arrogant school," said Elsworth
emphatically.
"You mean the ultra-physiological party which goes in for
these hideous inoculations 1" asked Mildred.
" I do," he replied. " While I was a student at the hospital,
I often remarked the contempt with which many of the phy¬
sicians spoke of drugs and of the people who believed in them ;
and found it difficult to reconcile all they said with their prac¬
tice amongst their private patients who went to their consulting
rooms and always returned armed with prescriptions which they
were instructed should be dispensed only at the most eminent
pharmacies. At the hospital, peppermint water was the great
remedy for every complaint, except where some new thing was
in hand which wanted testing; but when the guinea-paying
public were to be dealt with, they received the most formidable
prescriptions, resulting ultimately in rows of medicine bottles."
Mr. Crowe looked very cross at this, and would have replied
with bitterness had it not been for the ladies. To make matters
worse, Aunt Janet capped it.
" Yes, I remember Dr, Lee declaring at a meeting of medical
men that drugs were a delusion and a sham; and that nothing
but nature and a good nurse were wanted to cure any complaint
amenable to treatment."
Unearthed.
251
" What did the others say ? " asked Elsworth,
" Oh, they objected that it was all very well for a Royal
Physician, who had reached the top of the ladder to talk like
that, but that it would not work well for those who were still
climbing."
Wishing to divert the conversation into another channel,
Mildred asked Elsworth if he did not think with her that the
great cause of sickness amongst the poor was due to drink—in
England, at all events.
He agreed that it was so, but attributed the craze for
alcohol partly to the climate, and partly to the gradual degra¬
dation of the social conditions of life amongst the poor. The
separation between the masses and the classes was more pro¬
nounced, he thought, in England than in any other country of
which he knew anything.
" I don't wonder at the poor creatures drinking," said he;
" it is the only way they have of satisfying the natural aspira¬
tion of mankind for the ideal! "
" You mean, we are all more or less poets, and alcohol develops
the latent genius within us 1" said Mildred.
" I do, and I can never tolerate the argument that a man
who drinks makes a beast of himself, because the beast can have
no desire to minister to a sense which he does not possess."
" Then you would say, that the universal desire for some
sort of intoxication is a proof of the higher and immortal nature
of man," said Mr. Crowe.
" In a certain degree, yes ; because all error is a perversion
of some truth. A booze of bad beer and a glass of gin do for
the lower man what Shakespeare and Keats, Bacon and Ma-
caulay do for the cultured man—lift him for a while from his
sordid surroundings, and raise him to a Monte Cristo palace of
beautiful imagery. Mind, this is all the more sinful, all the
more degrading at last, because it is buying of the devil at the
price of your soul what God would have given you in another
and a better way, if you had asked Him."
252
St. Bernard's.
"Very pretty," said Crowe, " but I don't believe it a bit! "
Dr. Graves said he thought that the theory was as clever,
yet as improbable, as that of an American friend of his, who
held that all children told lies, because by nature their dra¬
matic faculties were in advance of their moral principles. Fibbin»
children were on this theory all premature poets.
And so the symposium ended, and the little party broke up.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
mildred finds her work.
"This is not our work," you say, "this is the work of man." Ee it
so if you like. Let them be the hands to do it : but who, if not
women, are to be the hearts of the redemption of the poor from social
wrong ?
—Stopford Brooke.
Live greatly ; so shalt thou acquire
Unknown capacities of joy.
—Coventry Patmore.
When the ladies reached their own room that night, Mildred
began at once with something which was, evidently, uppermost
in her mind.
"Aunt Janet, do you believe in special providences!"
" Do I not, dear ! you know my life has been full of them."
" Well, auntie, it seems absurd that every action of our
lives should be interesting to Heaven, but I think I was sent to
Granada as the great turning-point in my life."
" Nothing very wonderful in that, if you believe that the
hairs of our heads are all numbered, and that a sparrow does
not fall to the ground without our Father's knowledge. But
what do you mean 1 Have you met your fate in the hero of
Granada 1"
" No, no! Nothing in the least romantic, but I have de¬
cided on my mission in life ; you know I have been a long time
on the look-out for it."
254 vS7. Bernard's.
" I always thought your mission, dear, was to make everyone
the happier for having come in contact with you."
"Ah, but you are an infatuated auntie, you know, and have
always spoiled me, as papa did; but aren't you anxious to know
what I am going to be 1"
" Something quixotic, Millie, to suit our surroundings. It is
the coirteur locale which has dazzled you; the romance of the
Alhambra is too much for you. Is it a novelist or a poet 1
Don't dear ; the market is overstocked. Now, domestic service
offers a grand field."
" But I don't feel it to be my vocation. I shall set to work
to revolutionise the system of our great hospitals. I have seen
enough to-day to convince me that, as at present constituted,
they do as much harm as good."
"Revolutionise the hospitals! Isn't that rather 'a large
order 1'"
"Weaker women than I have done greater things than this;
and then remember, auntie dear, the lines—
' And none are strong but who confess
With happy skill that they are weak.'
Besides, don't you think the public is almost ready for a revolu¬
tion on this question 1"
"You know, Mildred, my opinion ; but I never could see my
way clear to any interference with hospitals. It is a terrible
responsibility, don't you think ? "
" Poor papa has often declared to me that the public would
one day wake up to the fact that the hospital was one of the
great shams of the time."
" I know, dear. But St. Bernard's having made your papa's
fame and fortune, isn't it rather a shame to upset the con¬
cern 1"
" I have no desire to upset anything. Don't you remember
how we rebuilt our parish church at Welby, without stopping
Mildred finds her Work. 255
the services for a single day 1 That is what I want to do in
this case."
" I don't quite follow you, dear."
" Well, of course I haven't formed any complete scheme yet;
but I have often thought that what we want in London, for
instance, is a sort of Hospital University, with a great number
of affiliated colleges of healing. Not a great unwieldy Cathedral
of Surgery as they call it, here and there, but a ' Chapel of
Ease' at every sufferer's door. Fifty beds should be the limit,
I think."
" Not enough. Don't you know the examining bodies do
not recognise as a teaching hospital one with less than two
hundred beds 1"
" But I am concerned with healing the sick, not with teaching
students."
"Just so; but where are your future doctors to come from
if you cut off their only way of learning their business 1"
" Do you really believe the present system is the only way
of training medical men and medical women, for I recognise
the right and advantage of women students 1"
"Your papa has often told me that a doctor can only be
liberally educated by being enabled to draw his conclusions
from a great number of facts; and, as each case has some
peculiar feature, the more cases he sees, even of the same
disease, the more the intelligent pupil will learn."
" I see the force of that," replied Mildred, " but I think my
scheme would meet it. I would make use of the great pauper
infirmaries, at present entirely wasted, as schools of medicine."
" I fear they would prove very imperfect substitutes for the
great hospitals. I am told, and I can readily understand it to
be the fact, that the cases which gravitate to the parish
infirmary are usually chronic diseases, old-standing bronchitic,
asthmatic, and rheumatic troubles, with bed cases innumerable ;
and all of little or no use to the student."
"But wait, aunt; you have only heard of one side of my
256
St. Bernard''s.
plan ; it provides for a vast and efficient system of out-door
treatment. I strongly object to rushing every troublesome
phase of disease away from home, and placing it in a great
hospital. My indoor scheme would only embrace such cases as
could not wisely be treated in the family. What at present
do you take to be the chief passport to a bed in a general
hospital 1"
" The malady which has the greatest interest for the doctor
who has power to admit it."
" Precisely. But, as it is not the doctors who support the
hospitals, don't you think the intentions of the subscribers are
often defeated by this system 1 Is it not, in fact, getting
money under false pretences to ask for funds to help sick folk,
and then apply them to even so good a purpose as medical
education 1"
" I think you put it too strongly, Mildred. The public does
understand that in supporting the hospital, they are training
their doctors."
" Then," said Mildred, " the fraud is on the patients. Lady
Ponsonby de Tompkyns gives a big cheque to the hospitals,
that she may have confidence that no new remedies may first
be used upon her. Like the lady of the Fly papers, who
' Wouldn't try 'em on her cat,
If she could try 'em on another.'
You see, the public is in this dilemma—either they are deceived
as to the way patients are treated, or if not then the poor
sufferers are misled to their grievous hurt."
" I know of terrible things which Sister Agnes has told me,"
said Aunt Janet; "and I am afraid more goes on than even
she knows. Your father told me of a case of puerperal fever
which was clearly one of licensed murder. He protested, but
in vain. A poor woman recently confined was suffering from
hyperpyrexia, which no drugs would abate. The physician in
charge had become enamoured of the iced-water-bath treatment,
Mildred finds her Work. 257
and the wretched woman was the first victim at St. Bernard's
to the new fad. She was kept for four hours a day in the cold
water at her bedside. When she died, her relatives all protested
she was murdered."
" That must have discredited the treatment rather."
" Not at all; they persevered in ' giving the thing a fair
trial.' The Germans invented it, and said it was very effectual
in bringing down high temperatures. At St. Bernard's, it
brought the patients down, and the doctors could not bring
them up again : and, as all the cases died, the authorities
stopped the experiments; but some of the physicians declare
to this day, I believe, that 'there was something in it, after all.'
Mr. Crowe was very strongly in favour of it; he said it was
physiologically right, and therefore must be so medically."
"" But perhaps the patients would all have died, any way,"
said Mildred.
" Yery likely ; but what cruel torture in your last moments
to be served like that! "
"Yes, that is the horrible part of the business. At an
hospital, you cannot even die in peace; you are in danger of
being the subject of some ghastly medical freak while there is a
gasp left in you."
" Yet, as the doctor must necessarily be an autocrat in his
treatment, I don't see how you can interfere with him," mused
Aunt Janet.
" Oh, can't you! Do you think they would dare do such
things in a parish infirmary ? What a pretty storm there
would be if our Mr. Hilbourne, for instance, heard of such
things at St. Mark's Workhouse ! Don't you think the doctors
content themselves with using the best of their already acquired
knowledge there 1" asked Mildred.
"Yet, the poor think much more highly of hospital than of
infirmary treatment."
" Naturally. It is drummed into them a hundred times a
day by everybody in the place, that everything is being done
R
258
St. Bernard's.
for their benefit. Papa told me of ' a very pretty knee case'
which had been fourteen months in the wards, merely because
it was an object of surgical interest, and was the subject of a
monograph."
" Your scheme, I fear, would not provide for monographs ! "
" I fear you think I am very quixotic, aunt."
" No, dear; you are not tilting at windmills, but at real
dragons, which I am afraid are much too strong for you ! But
we must think it over. Dr. Graves is a good, sensible man,
and though of course wrapped up in the conventionalism of his
class is still open to reason. You will want more armour, and
a sharper sword than Isabella's for this fight, I am thinking."
"Yet, I can see," said the girl, "in my prophetic vision, our
Boabdil giving me the key of the fortress, if we go to work
properly. Meanwhile, let us build our Santa Fe."
" Castles in Spain! dear—just the place for them. I can
see ghosts of giant physiologists and vampire surgeons guarding
the treasures of their vermilion towers, and warning you off
their premises."
" I don't fear them, aunt. I shall visit Isabella's tomb again
for courage, though."
" I think we had better sleep over this. Buenas noches,
senorita."
" C011 dios."
When the time came to leave Granada, Aunt Janet noticed
that her niece was in rather low spirits. She guessed the
cause, for it was manifest she was more than interested in the
young doctor; and though it was difficult to say whether her
interest was more in his work than in himself, or the contrary,
she was glad that something had arisen to rouse the girl from
the grief which had weighed upon her since her father's death.
That was the charm of Aunt Janet—she always accepted
accomplished facts with equanimity, and perhaps was rather a
fatalist. If Mildred was really in love, so much the better—
she thought it would replace the lost light which had gone out
Mildred finds her Work.
259
of her life; and if, still better, she had really found a great
philanthropic object in life, why the meeting with young
Elsworth was the best thing that could have happened.
" There's a divinity that shapes our ends
Rough-hew them how we will."
Would it not be strange if it should turn out that Elsworth's
exile to Granada, and their visit, should be the centre round
which the lives of two noble souls should revolve 1
CHAPTER XL.
SHOD WITH WOOL!"
There is no strange handwriting on the wall,
Thro' all the midnight hum no threatening call,
Nor on the marble floor the stealthy fall
Of fatal footsteps. All is safe. Thou fool,
The avenging deities are shod with wool!
— W. Allen Butler.
But the sinner who would fain
Cover murder's crimson stain,
Still shall find his steps pursued
By inquisitors for blood,
Due to the unavenged dead,
Our malison devotes his head.
—J. Anstice, translated from ASschylus.
The last week in September usually sees all the teachers and
staff of the hospitals back at their posts. Mr. Crowe and Dr.
Graves were again in harness, and the patients who had been
the objects of 'prentice work now came under master hands.
These long vacations are grand times for the junior staff;
then they are the lords of the territory, and can try everything
without fear of interference from their superiors who do not
want any more information on what perhaps interests their
juniors keenly.
Mr. Mole had been working away patiently and secretly.
He had a vast accumulation of notes of facts, symptoms, and
tests on the action of Lorchelin and Bulbosin on man and
animals; and what was of equal importance, no one had ap-
" Shod with Wool! "
261
parently even suspected his secret. No one except Dr. Sones,
and from him he kept nothing, requesting only that outside
the walls of his laboratory no word of the business was to pass.
All Dr. Sones' efforts to find chemical tests for the poisons
which could be absolutely relied upon had been fruitless. Mr.
Mole was, however, so satisfied with his physiological tests that
he declared himself ready to detect the deadly alkaloids under
whatever circumstances they might be administered. Sus¬
pecting Mr. Crowe of entertaining a very limited amount of
affection for his wife, and knowing how he must estimate the
burden of her long-continued illness, he imparted his suspicions
to Janet Spriggs, and bade her tell him everything fresh that
happened. But there was little to tell. A caution was given
to her that should her mistress suddenly die, two or three
handkerchiefs were to be dropped as by accident in the remains
of the last food of which she had partaken, and especially in
anything that might be vomited. These handkerchiefs were
then to be given to him.
The winter session had commenced about a month; the
lecturers had all returned to their posts and patients, and the
work at St. Bernard's was again in full swing. In all the wards
you heard little hints, jokes, and anecdotes of the holiday tours
and adventures of the doctors—very impressive to the students,
very suggestive of the good things in store for them when they
had made their mark and could take expensive trips. The
poor assistant surgeons and physicians had been compelled to
stick to their work all through the vacation, and heard with
rather mitigated relish the stories told by their chiefs of
Norway, Switzerland, Italy, or Spain.
Mr. Crowe was full of the latter country, and the backward
condition of everything there. He found nothing doing of
importance for research but some Pasteur inoculations. He
had visited many of the Spanish hospitals and schools of
medicine, but everything was backward in comparison with
France or Germany. The Spaniards, he thought, were uu-
262
Si. Bernard's.
willing to embrace the new theories which were helping the
world forward. He had only met three physiologists who lived
np to the true ideal of a modern scientist. One at Salamanca,
who, having discovered the bacillus of phthisis in the sputa of
a patient, had inoculated with the germs one of his own
children several times, with a view to watching the rise and
progress of the disease. Another at Valladolid had carried out
a long series of experiments in brain localisation on a mule-
driver who had fallen over a precipice, and was taken to the
hospital with a portion of his brain exposed so conveniently
that it could be galvanised as readily as one of Professor
Ferrier's monkeys, and was consequently a most valuable
means of confirming that gentleman's theories. The third he
met at Madrid, and he had done wonders at his hospital by
ordering a number of his patients, who were either cooks or
butchers, to eat daily a portion of raw beef (persons of these
professions are usually quite ready to do this), for the purpose
of introducing into their systems the parasite Taenia medio-
canellata.
As epilepsy, hysteria, convulsions, and even insanity have
been known to follow the introduction of this interesting para¬
site into the human body, it must be admitted that Professor
Montijo was one of the heroic school, and merited all Mr.
Crowe's eulogiums. Some of the alumni who listened to these
accounts of continental practice thought that the first man was
the only true hero of the lot. He, Abraham-like, had been
willing to sacrifice his own son "for the good of humanity."
As for the mule-driver and his exposed brain, they had done
quite as good things at St. Bernard's more than once; while in
regard to the hydatid and tape-worm germs in beef and pork,
that was an every-day business down in the out-patient depart¬
ment, and a very meek sort of experiment for a St. Bernard's
man.
Dr. Stanforth told his class a good thing from Milan, where a
tremendous experiment, involving risk to the lives of several
" Shod with Wool! "
263
women, had been tried by a friend of his at the Maternity
Hospital. He admitted it was rather hard on the women, who
had sought the comforts of the hospital for quite other reasons;
but it was a point which needed clearing up, and the learned
professor, with the unwitting assistance of eight patients (and
eight other lives especially protected by the laws of God and
man, he forgot to add), had settled the question on behalf of
therapeutics for ever.
" This is the heroic work we need so much in England. They
are not nearly so timid in other countries as we are. We must
have a policy of ' thorough,' or we shall be left behind." And
he set his lips firmly, and looked as though henceforth his
patients were going to have " a bad time."
Mr. Mole was doing all his little best to bring about this
scientific millennium, but just then was not able to produce
the results of his work, as the time was not ripe for his revela¬
tions.
CHAPTER XLI.
the triumph of mr. mole.
There came a respite to her pain ;
She from her prison fled.—Wordsworth.
Those natures that are sanguinary towards beasts discover a natural
propension to cruelty. After they had accustomed themselves at Rome
to spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the
slaughter of men the freer.—Montaigne.
One day in November Mr. Mole received a little note by the
hand of a small boy, who said he had just come from Mr.
Crowe's. It was from Spriggs, and in these words :
" Dear Mr. Walter,—■
"Do come here at once if you anyways can, for poor missus
has just expired in agonies awful for to behold. I have done
just as you told me, and I will only give them into your own
hands for fear of mistakes. Do pray come soon. I am in such
a fluster, though I have expected'it for a week or more.
"Your affectionate friend,
"Janet Spriggs."
The half pound or so of striated involuntary muscle which in
Mr. Mole did duty for a heart was thrown into a state of agita¬
tion by this epistle. He must be off to Mr. Crowe's residence
at once.
Entering the house by a back door opening into an alley at
the side of the residence, he was unobserved by any one except
the servants. Janet soon told him the circumstances of her
The Triumph of Mr. Mole. 265
mistress's death. How at eleven o'clock she had given her a
composing pill, the only one in the box. These pills had been
ordered by Dr. Stanforth, who had seen the patient the previous
day. How, an hour after, no sleep having supervened, she had
given a little brandy and water, and a few mushrooms, which
had been sent in by Mr. Crowe from the fruiterer's. How, soon
after partaking of this food, her poor mistress had been seized
with faintness and vertigo, had become suddenly pale and
pulseless. That she had immediately called her master, who
was in his study, and by his orders had sent the page to Dr.
Stanforth, who was not at home. That meanwhile Mrs. Crowe
had got rapidly worse, had vomited several times, and died
with convulsions in great agony. How she had adroitly man¬
aged to drop her handkerchief on her mistress's pillow, and so
contrived to provide her lover with the materials for an
analysis. How, moreover, she had reserved in another hand¬
kerchief the remains of the dish which formed the patient's
last meal. One thing that excited the girl's curiosity was the
fact that on the previous night she was certain there were two
pills in the little box on the mantel; whereas, although none
had been taken during the night, only one remained when, by
her master's order, she gave the morning dose. Had the box
been upset ? Had the parlour maid, who arranged the room in
the morning and made the fire, disturbed the box ? She de¬
clared she had not touched it when Mr. Mole examined her,
and he believed the girl.
The death certificate was filled up by Dr. Stanforth as
follows :
Atrophic cirrhosis . . two years two months.
Gastritis .... one year three months.
Hsematemesis . . . four days.
This certificate was duly delivered to the registrar; and two
others like it were forwarded to the assurance companies in
each of which the life was insured for the sum of one thousand
pounds.
266
St. Bernard's.
Mr. Mole went away with liis little parcel, and soon set to
work in his own private room on his tests. From his observa-
ations on some mice, to which he gave an ethereal extract of
the contents of the handkerchiefs, he was quite sure that mus-
carin or lorchelin had somehow found its way into the stomach
of the deceased lady. But here was the difficulty. She had
undoubtedly eaten of a dish of mushrooms previous to her
death. Somehow or other a poisonous fungus might have got
into that dish, by accident possibly, by intention more likely.
Again, there was the mysterious incident of the pill. What
was easier than to substitute a pill of bulbosin for one of the
morphia pills which should have been given. Was it not strange
that only one pill remained in a box which should have con¬
tained two if it had not been interfered with ?
He must consult with Dr. Sones about this, and off he went
to his place, taking with him all the materials for examination
which he had left. Dr. Sones listened to his story with the
interest of a toxicologist who was on the track of a terrible
crime ; for to that he agreed with Mr. Mole all the circum¬
stances seemed to point.
" Leave everything with me for a week," said he, " and then
come again. Meanwhile, if I want you, I will write."
Mrs. Crowe was buried in Highgate Cemetery, and the sin¬
cere condolences of all the staff were duly presented to the
bereaved surgeon. Dr. Stanforth saw nothing at all peculiar
in the circumstance of the death, and had not even thought of
attributing it to other than a quite ordinary cause. After all,
what was there to excite suspicion? There was some rather
violent vomiting in a patient who was the subject of constant
nausea, and the attendant symptoms of a chronically inflamed
stomach. True, she died after a meal of mushrooms. Danger¬
ous things at all times, she, of all people, should never
have touched them; but they were some of the few articles of
diet the poor lady ever fancied, and it was hard to deny them
to her. "Had the mushrooms anything to do with her death?"
The Triumph of Mt. Mote. 267
asked Mr. Crowe. He thought not, except in causing perhaps
an attack of acute dyspepsia. The fruiterer declared that it
was impossible any deleterious fungus could have got into the
basket; he had sold a dozen that same morning, and no other
purchaser had found any fault with them.
At the expiration of the week Mr. Mole called upon Dr.
Sones.
"You have," said the latter, "not only the alkaloid muscarin
here, but an acrid volatile principle which could not have re¬
mained in the mushrooms after cooking. This must have
either been added to the dish after it left the kitchen, or been
administered in some other form than the food in question.
Now so powerful is this principle in the vomit in the handker¬
chief you have brought me, that I have come to the conclusion
it could only have been derived from the Russian species we
investigated together last year. I know no English fungus
which contains it in precisely this form. Again, in the remains
of the dish in the other handkerchief, though I find lorchelin
plentifully, I do not find the irritant poison I have mentioned.
I should conclude, therefore, that this was administered some
other way."
" The pill! " cried Mr. Mole. " Wasn't it in the pill ? Was
not the box tampered with, and was not a pill compounded of
this irritant poison substituted for the harmless morphia ones
the box previously contained ? "
" That is quite likely, and the poison either given as medi¬
cine, or added surreptitiously to the dish after it was prepared."
To Dr. Stanforth, Mr. Crowe's easy-going, amiable colleague,
as we have said, the case presented no peculiar features what¬
ever. Very few cases did so to this optimistic, complacent
gentleman. His was the charity that thinketh no evil, and
considered everything was " for the best in this best of all pos¬
sible worlds." Perhaps, however, it was the nil admirari
principle that most influenced him. He had acquired a certain
distinction in his profession by having statistics ready for every
268
St. Bernards.
class of case coming under his notice in his speciality, and it
would have detracted from his glory to have permitted himself
to be surprised at anything which might happen to a lady
patient. " Had he ever seen such a case before 1" some ex¬
cited general practitioner who thought he had something
interesting to show him would demand, only to be coolly set
down with the reply, " Oh, certainly. As near as I can tell
without reference to my notes, this makes the thirteenth case
of the kind that I have examined since my connection with the
hospital."
When, therefore, Dr. Stanforth had heard all the symptoms
exhibited by Mrs. Crowe on the morning of her decease, he was
not the least surprised; he had his theory ready for any
emergency.
"Ah, my dear Crowe, this is just what I always expected
would happen to your poor wife. In cases of cirrhosis like
hers, I find the proportion of deaths, with just such symptoms
as you describe, to be one in 238J."
Dr. Stanforth prided himself in his arithmetic, in which he
was always very exact. He usually went in for decimals, but
to-day was satisfied with vulgar fractions. He always had a
similar case to illustrate the one under notice, and was equally
precise in his way of mentioning it. " I had just such another
case in the year 1861. It was Easter Monday, and I remember
it was snowing hard. I was called to a draper's in St. John's
Wood. You know the shop opposite the church1? Just such
a case as this. The poor heart-broken husband, just like your¬
self, was beside himself with grief, and reproached himself for
having given his wife, poor thing, some macaroni he had just
got from Naples. She was seized precisely as Mrs. Crowe, and
died within two hours after eating it. He would have it there
were cholera germs in the macaroni. The cholera was raging
in Naples just then. You remember. Don't you remember?
Ah, I do ! I lost my beautiful cousin, Lady Arethusa Stan,
doph, who was seized with it while staying at Castellamare
The Triumph of Mr. Mole.
269
close by. One in every 625^ visitors to Naples died that year
of cholera, of all nationalities that is to say; of English only
one in every 889^."
Dr. Stanforth was a princely, not to say kingly, liar. When
ne did a thing, he did it royally, and he lied without niggardli¬
ness and with the precision of an actuary. Perhaps this
peculiar trait in Dr. Stanforth's character had recommended
him to Mr. Crowe's favour. Be this as it may, the latter was
well pleased to hear that mushrooms could have had no possible
connection with his wife's death. He was willing to waive his
superior physiological attainments in favour of his colleague's
statistics. So far from pressing his opinion with his usual per¬
sistence, he bowed in acquiescence, and thereby flattered Dr.
Stanforth immensely. Of course it would have been most un¬
pleasant to have had an inquest, and this admirable certificate
saved all that annoyance. Both the insurance companies paid
the money, and Mr. Crowe seemed disposed to bear his be¬
reavement with exemplary resignation. He went on with his
work much as before, solacing himself, however, with frequent
visits to Aunt Janet and Mildred. Both ladies felt it their
duty to be as kind and sympathetic as possible, and he was
urged to visit them as often as he conveniently could. They
got up nice little dinner parties for him; and as Mildred, in
her kind, consoling way, did her best to solace the widower in
his affliction, he began to hope he was daily growing in her
favour. He did his best to throw cold water on her hospital
scheme, as he foresaw such a project would be most prejudicial
to his order, and would set an example that would be surely
followed by other faddists, much to the injury of scientific
medicine ; but he had to be guarded in his treatment of this
subject, because he saw the new object was deeply set in the
hearts of both ladies. When he found it was hopeless to try
and hinder it, and that it was an accomplished fact, he set to
work to turn the scheme to his own advantage. But to little
purpose. There was no chance for him at Nightingale House.
2JO
St. Bernard's.
His peculiarities and principles were too well known to be dis
guised, and nobody believed he was capable of conversion.
But gradually it came to be noticed that everybody was
fighting shy of Mr. Crowe. The most unpleasant rumours
about the cause of his wife's death were in the air. Nobody
spoke out, nobody seemed to know anything precisely ; but all
at once Mr. Crowe was blown upon.
That nobody spoke was perhaps too much to say, for Mr.
Crowe had one open and bitter enemy on the staff of St
Bernard's. Mr. Bingrose, the surgeon, had been quarrelling
with him for years in a gentlemanly and polite sort of way.
Each had presented the other to the council as having done
something unprofessional. Crowe accused Bingrose of having
killed a man through operating on him when drunk; and
Bingrose, who was a popular man, had branded Crowe as an
atheist who was damaging the reputation of the school by
seducing the young men from the Christian faith by his
blasphemous remarks and ridicule of Scripture. Mr. Bingrose
did not scruple to say that, if anybody wanted to get rid of his
wife, he could not do better than learn physiology. And so
what with speaking out, and what with shrugging his shoulders
and hinting the darkest things possible, he managed to imbue
everybody in the place with dire suspicions about Mr. Crowe.
Soon everybody got hold somehow of the whole circumstances
connected with the death of the lady; and though there was
not enough known to make a legal investigation desirable or
possible, there was abundant reason for shunning Mr. Crowe's
society. The students soon caught the infection, and all sorts
of graffiti were blazing openly on the- walls of the college ;
toadstools surmounted by a death's head and cross-bones;
legends such as—
" Crow's-foot, a poisonous plant of the order Ranunculacce;"
under which a wag added—
" But not half so deadly as Crowe's hand, order Physiologaca. '
One day Mr, Bingrose accidentally found that be had
The Triumph of Mr. Mole.
271
seated himself at a table in the refreshment department at the
Army and Navy Stores facing Mr. Crowe, who was lunching off
a dish of curried fowl, and surrounded by various little
purchases which encumbered the chair next his own.
The men nodded coldly, but did not speak to each other.
Mr. Ringrose, impelled by the demon of mischief, demanded of
the waiter to come and attend to him.
" Have you any mushrooms 1"
" No, sir. Mushrooms not in season, sir."
" Of course not. How stupid of nie ! "
Mr. Crowe, under the glare of his enemy's cruel eye, visibly
winced; his face paled, and Ringrose could see that the arrow
had gone home. The physiologist beckoned to a waiter, gave
his number, paid his bill to the boy who came round for the
money, picked up his little brown-paper parcels, and went off.
Mr. Ringrose felt sure that one murderer had lunched that
day in decent company.
Now Mr. Mole had long been working to supplant his chief.
He aimed at nothing less than the chair of physiology.
In a very short time things became so unpleasant for Mr.
Crowe, that he was fain to resign his appointment as surgeon
to the hospital, though for the present he retained his lecture¬
ship at the medical school.
CHAPTER XLII.
the bacillus of love.
Where both deliberate the love is slight.
Who ever loved that love not at first sight ?
Marlowe,
Love and joy are torches lit
From altar-fires of sacrifice.
—Coventry Patmore.
Elsworth had lived all this time hitherto in Spain without
falling in love;—quite a phenomenal attitude for a healthy
young fellow in a land like this, where the women's eyes, their
figures, and incomparable grace, usually make havoc with the
men's hearts. But as yet he had escaped the notice of Cupid,
or perhaps the little god was disgusted with his peculiar
theories on the subject, and had let him alone out of contempt.
Our hero held that love was a a kind of zymotic disease, and,
like its congeners, could only be caught where there was a
predisposition or suitable nidus in the patient. He thought it
was very like hydrophobia in some respects, and might be
compared to small pox in others. The best way to minimise
its attacks was to get vaccinated in early life. You could
have a mild " cultivation " of the bacillus. He thought he had
undergone this business with Linda, and attributed his
immunity to that cause. Now the " protection " of the afore¬
said inoculation was very severely tried \vhen Mildred ap¬
peared on the scene. Mildred was so sweet and angelic, so
kindred in every way to his ideal of what a perfect woman
The Bacillus of Love.
273
should be, that he had to confess to himself that, impossible as
it was for him to descend to the weakness of falling in love,
nothing possibly could be more delightful than to have Mildred
always near him. It will be seen that our young doctor had
very imperfectly studied all the phases which his disorder of
love could assume. Far more capable physicians in this
branch of practice were his gipsy friends. The Gitanos at once
detected that he was suffering from the malady in one of its
acutest forms. No man should ever doctor himself; he cannot
diagnose properly; it is as unwise as to be one's own lawyer.
It was remarked that he had lost his gaiety, was absorbed in
his own thoughts, and spoke often abstractedly, sighed
frequently, and had a " far-off look" about his eyes which
showed them that his heart was not at Granada.
These acute observers knew all about the beautiful English¬
woman who had met their friend, and the guide told them a
good deal of his own impressions on the matter. They all
agreed that he was in love. At last our hero was fain to con¬
fess there was truth in the poet's lines, that
" In the arithmetic of life,
The smallest unit is a pair."
He tried hard to shake it off. Somebody says (but we do not
believe him) that by a strong effort of will, a man can rid
himself of hydrophobia, and even preach eloquent sermons
whilst suffering from Asiatic cholera. It may be so. The
martyrs have done more, if the Bollandists are to be credited.
But putting all such exceptional cases on one side, there is no
denying that this love business is a very subtle and insidious
malady, with very pronounced and persistent symptoms. They
say seeds found in ancient mummies have retained their
vitality to the present day. Love germs are hard to kill also.
You cannot detect them by the microscope, or destroy them by
cold or heat. Cupid uses poisoned darts. Prophylaxis'?
There is none except, perhaps, books and hard study, though
s
274 St. Bernard's.
even these have been known to fail. Still, in the present state
of medical science, we must be thankful for small mercies.
Now, with all respect to Love " cultivations," as Pasteur
would call them, there is as much uncertainty about the
business as in uglier maladies. For think what Love is—in¬
oculation from a well-aimed bolt of Cupid. Now Cupid hits
whom he wills, and you cannot hire the god by the day to go
shooting with you ; you cannot indicate his mark, direct his
aim, or choose his weapon. He will not lend his bow and
arrows, neither can he be wooed by cajolery nor coaxed by
prayer. He is the most independent little deity, and cares for
nothing but having his own sweet will upon us mortals. What
he is chiefly to be praised for is the absence of favouritism and
perfect impartiality which he always shows. None ever bribed
him, none ever clad himself in panoply impervious to his darts.
You may be hit before your beard has downed your chin with
faintest bloom. You may go shot free till you are grey and
bent, and then have to plaster up your hurt when you should
be composing your epitaph, like the poor old queen in Brown¬
ing's play.
Love is like inspiration; it is not to be commanded, bought,
or sold, not even given when deserved. The most unworthy
are often most favoured, and the faithful suppliants at the
capricious god's gates often go empty away. You may go t( far
from the madding crowd," and hide yourself in the desert.
You may bury yourself in a cave in the Thebaid, as the hermits
of Egypt did, and you will be hit; while you might have been
unscathed in the assemblies of Beauty. Ah, the lives of the
Thaumaturgists tell us nothing about all this! Like the
testimonials to the quack medicines, we know all about the
cures, but what about the failures ? Do you think St. Simeon
Stylites, atop of his pillar, was out of reach of that bow ? Not
he ! Is he hot an ungrateful archer ? Does he not come creep¬
ing to our doors with wet wings and cold body, craving our
warmth and food, and then transfix us? That is just his way,
The Bacillus of Love.
275
the rogue. "All is fair in love and war," he cries; and so he
transfixed our hero, and wonderful to relate on this occasion
benevolently hit our heroine too—double violence. He is not
always in this humour. That is the worst of it! When maid
and swain are wounded at once, Borneo and Juliet like, where
is the harm, though poison and the tomb follow with winged
feet 1 To have loved so is worth the cost. The mischief of it
is, when one truly loves, and the other thinks perhaps she
loves, and is not hit at all. That is just where all the misery
comes, for you can't catch love like the cholera, by frightening
yourself into it. You must have the true vaccine or you won't
get the vesicle. Is not that a horrible simile 1 Does Cupid
poison his darts, and is it a disease he produces after all, and is
he a doctor ? Hush ! The euphemism for the Erinnyes was
Eumenides, remember. Do not let us draw their attention
by needless plain speaking.
So when Mildred had departed from Granada, and Elsworth
was left alone and had time to examine his hurt, he found it
was deep. Things were not the same to him as before that
day when he rushed out to drive away the rude children who
were annoying her. " Ah, blessed children," he would of tea
say, " you opened heaven to me !"
" 0 love, my love ! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—
How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing ?"
Here in this out-of-the-way corner of civilization, then, he
had been unearthed, and it was no longer possible to shut him¬
self from the observation of his friends and relatives ; he would
soon have to return to society and explain his conduct.
He was fain to confess that his energies had long demanded
a wider field for their exercise. He had done a certain amount
St. Bernard's.
of work which would last. The seed sown must bear fruit
some day, and in the voluntary retirement he had embraced,
he had found a strong internal felicity which could have come
to him in no other way. A growing conviction took hold of
him that he was being prepared, by an unseen Hand, for some
great work which would require all that self-command, that
conviction of right, that neglect of selfish ease, which had come
to him during these Spanish days. He had found that in the
lowest of our race, there is lying dormant that spark of the
Divine essence which needs hut the call of smypathy to
awaken. "With these poor folk he had spent some of the
happiest years of his life, among them had found many real
friends, and had learned in their company a thousand things to
enable him to benefit mankind.
CHAPTER XLIII.
DE. sones succeeds.
I have no title to aspire,
Yet when you sink I seem the higher.—Swift.
The greatest professor and proficient in any science loves it not so
sincerely as to be fully pleased with any finer effort than he can him¬
self produce—Lacon.
Dr. Sones had pursued his investigations till he had made the
great discovery of a test for the active principle of the poison¬
ous fungi. He clearly demonstrated that the poison of the
deadly Russian fungus was identical with that absorbed by the
handkerchiefs which Mrs. Crowe's maid had given to Mr. Mole.
Here then was the detection of a horrible crime! He of course
lost no time in communicating these important results to Mr.
Mole, whose triumph was complete. They held long delibera¬
tion as to what was to be done. In the minds of both these
experts there was no doubt of the guilt of Mr. Crowe ; but was
it advisable to bring his guilt home to him 1 They decided
it was not possible, nor was it expedient even were it in their
power. But Mr. Mole determined to do one thing that would
test the matter pretty closely. He wrote a learned and ex¬
haustive paper for the Medical Society of the Hospital on
"The Physiological and Chemical Tests of the Poisonous
Principles of Fungi," and read it. Mr. Crowe, who was the
chairman of the Society, wrote, an hour or two before the
meeting, that "important engagements would prevent him
278
St Bernard's,
having the extreme pleasure of being present that evening to
hear Mr. Mole's deeply interesting paper."
Dr. Wilson occupied his place, and so highly did he and the
rest of the staff and students present think of the monograph
that it was ordered to be printed and circulated at the Society's
expense. Mr. Mole received the warm congratulations of the
audience, and it was felt that he had conferred honour on his
alma mater by his original research.
The next morning, when Mr. Crowe heard the report of the
evening's work—the nature of the long course of investigations,
the Russian treatise which had fallen so strangely into his
assistant's hands, the discovery of the tests and the other
points that indicated, as by the finger of an avenging angel,
his guilt and downfall—he knew Mole was on his track, knew
that he was in his power, and that his doom had come. He
was alone with his crime ; his murdered wife was avenged.
He turned from his pupils, who eagerly questioned him as to
his opinion on this and the other points of Mole's paper, went
into his laboratory, seized a bottle of prussic acid, drank its
contents, and was a corpse before his class had left the lecture
theatre. Everybody attributed the awful tragedy to jealousy
of Mole's success. Two men knew the secret, and kept it.
Two women guessed it, and told their suspicions. Gradually,
like a bad vapour spread by the law of diffusion of gases, all
the world had an inkling of the crime. But Mole and Sones
held their peace; and when the former was elected to the
vacant chair of physiology at St. Bernard's, there was only one
man besides the occupier of the post who knew the steps by
which it had been reached.
Mr. Mole proved a failure; his great monograph was all the
original work he ever did, and he lived a poor and obscure
man. He never married Janet, after all, so that her Egyptian
gentleman misled her no less than the little physiologist. Dr.
Sones still occupies his old quarters, and now and then gets a
thrill of ecstatic delight as he makes some new discovery in his
Dr. Sones Succeeds.
279
favourite study; and though he does not acquire a fortune, he
gets what he values more—a little fame from time to time in
the chemical journals of Europe. His good sister still befriends
his poor clients; and even his Board of Guardians acknow¬
ledges that, in the medical officer of the south ward of their
parish and his estimable sister, they have full value for the
salary they pay their doctor. This has actually been admitted
at the Board, and nobody opposed it—a fact going far to prove
that the officer must either be a very good or an exceedingly
bad one.
"When Mildred returned to England, she found amongst her
correspondence a prospectus of the new hospital and nursing
home, with a note from Sister Agnes, asking her to visit the
little colony and hospital on her return. Mildred seemed to
see in all this the hand of Providence pointing her future
course. Was it not strange that her meeting with Elsworth,
and the history of his work, should have aroused her interest
in, and awakened a desire to promote a similar scheme on a
large scale, and immediately on her return to find that the
same idea had occurred to her good friend, Sister Agnes 1 The
prospectus declared that the new hospital scheme had proved
perfectly feasible, all that was wanting was the necessary
money to develop and extend it. For this object a drawing-
room meeting was to be held in Kensington Gore in a few days,
and Sister Agnes earnestly besought her presence. Mildred
was not long in finding her way down to the East End, and
assuring her friends at Nightingale Home of her interest in the
good work they had so well begun. She paid such frequent
visits that at last Aunt Janet jokingly remarked that she fully
expected soon to see her don the habit of a sisterhood, unless
perchance anybody should come along to forbid the sacrifice.
As she said this, she held up a letter which she had received
that morning from Elsworth, announcing his intention to return
at once to England, inasmuch as the news had reached him
28o
St. Bernard's.
from his men of business that his father, Major Elsworth, was
dead, he having been seized with a fit of apoplexy while
engaged at a meeting of the Theosophical Society of Benares.
"When Elsworth received the news of his father's death, he
felt that he could no longer remain in Spain. Apart from the
necessity of visiting England on business, he yearned to be
nearer his newly found friends. Poor fellow, he felt the need
of " congenial sympathy"—at least, so he said to himself.
The death of his father and the thoughts of Mildred (and Aunt
Janet) combined to make him think that gipsies and cholera
patients did not completely fill the void in his heart. Aunt
Janet had corresponded with him, and spoke in such terms of
Mildred that he would have been foolish not to take encourage¬
ment from her tone and follow up his advantage. Aunt Janet
was evidently developing into a match-maker. She was, in fact,
so impressed with Elsworth that, highly as she valued Mildred,
she did not consider her a whit too good for such a man. A
girl's women-folk usually think no man is good enough to
marry her. Very likely they are right; still, there are some
Elsworths yet in the world.
Six months after Mildred's visit to Granada, Elsworth, the
exile, returned to London. His first visit was to St. Bernard's.
Having entered as a perpetual student, he had the right to all
the advantages of the hospital for life. He saw the warden
and several of the staff, explained the reasons of his absence,
and requested that his name might at once be put down for
the appointments he had the right to hold. As it happened,
there was a vacant house-physicianship just then at his service,
and, as he was very popular at the place, he went into residence
almost at once.
It was not long before he looked up Aunt Janet and Mildred.
That was the arrangement on his surface mind—his deeper
soul said "Mildred and Aunt Janet," but he did not permit
this to be audible to his own ears. He feared she was too
high for him; her wealth had placed a barrier between her
Dr. Sones Succeeds.
281
and his striving. Still, he could call upon Aunt Janet, and
that would be something towards keeping up the acquaintance
with Mildred.
As soon as it became known that Els worth had turned up
again, he had visits from many old friends. Alas ! some of his
former acquaintances were dead; others had gone hopelessly to
the dogs. Many were in good practice—some in London,
others in the country. A few had spent the interval in going
backwards and forward as surgeons in ships trading to the
Antipodes : but there were at least a dozen fellows who, having
failed to pass any of their examinations, were still hanging
about the hospital, which was heartily ashamed of them, while
they divided their time impartially between the dissecting-
room and the neighbouring taverns. Of course, it was not to
many of these Elsworth told the story of his going, but it soon
oozed out. Was he chaffed! Not the least. The lowest
mind, the most besotted intellect admires and respects the
genuine conversion of a sinner, even as the angels rejoice at
the fact. Not that Elsworth would now, in the strength he
had imbibed from his long communion with God, have cared in
the least for the jeers of these men. He was quite strong
enough now to
"Take temptation by the head and hair."
He was very popular with all the staff, but still more with
the patients and the nurses; not quite so popular with the
students. They might tax his energies to the utmost; he
never' tired of helping them to learn all they could learn
honestly and fairly, but with him it was patient first and
pupils next; no tricks were played upon the occupants of any
beds in his wards. He had been just two months in his post
as resident physician, when the secretary of the hospital sent
for him to his office, to ask him if he would like to take a
rather valuable appointment as resident surgeon to the Night-
282
St. Bernard's.
ingale Hospital. He had been told by Miss Mildred Lee that
he was just the man they wanted for their new charity.
The secretary was compelled to give the invitation himself,
as the staff would not even recognise the place. When the
doctors heard of the new hospital, they poured their scorn and
contempt upon it. "The newest fad of the faddists;" "the
humanitarian craze of the shrieking sisterhood;" " the college
of all the antis," and the like complimentary epithets were
bestowed upon it.
Of course none of them would give it the least of their
countenance or support, and all would have dealt hardly with
any friends who helped it.
Elsworth thought he would like this position above all
things, and lost no time in calling upon Mildred for further
particulars. He learned from Aunt Janet that her niece had
absolutely made over the great bulk of her fortune to the
trustees of the new buildings, and had besides interested some
wealthy friends who rendered valuable assistance; and that,
so convinced were they that he was the man for the post of
medical superintendent, that they begged him to accept it,
with the stipend of £500 a year. Elsworth did not hesitate,
but accepting the offer at once, set to work to elaborate a
scheme for the efficient conduct of an institution so consonant
with his ideal of what a true hospital should be.
At first it was not proposed to establish a Medical School, as
it would involve too great an expenditure for their present
means. But such an institution would ultimately be included
in the work proposed, as they considered that it was perfectly
possible efficiently to educate men for the medical profession,
if they were of worthy material, without entailing suffering,
shame, or loss 011 man, woman, 01* child.
Of course Aunt Janet knew perfectly well that Mildred and
Elsworth loved each other, though neither had given her any
real cause for speaking 011 the subject. The great difficulty
was the heiress' wealth; to a man of Elsworth's principle this
Dr. Sones Sticceeds.
283
would ever prove a barrier to any avowal of his passion. He
would have hidden his love to his life's end, sooner than be
suspected of designs upon her fortune. By the death of his
father, he was in a position to maintain a wife in a sufficient
luxury, for the Major had left him a very handsome provision,
but this was far below what he considered enough for Mildred.
When, however, her niece had finally disburdened herself of
the greater portion of her golden encumbrance, Aunt Janet
thought that as an equilibrium was more nearly approached,
he might be encouraged a little; and she did not hesitate to
let him know he might avow himself with some prospect of
success.
CHAPTER XLIV.
an infant river.
Pass on, young stream, the world has need of thee ;
Far hence a mighty river on its breast
Bears the deep-laden vessels to the sea ;
Far hence wide waters feed the vines and corn.
Pass on, small stream, to so great purpose born,
On to the distant toil, the distant rest.
—Augusta Webster,
Five years after Elsworth's marriage a great meeting of nobility
and others interested in hospital and charitable work in the
metropolis, met at a ducal residence in Kensington to found a
society for the purpose of establishing in every quarter of
London inhabited by working people, a small hospital and
nursing institute on the plan of the Nightingale institution.
This was proposed to be combined with a similar scheme of
civilizing work to that conducted by the Home of the same
name.
It was felt and cordially expressed that so admirable were
the results of the work done by this institution, that society
owed it to the poorer districts of the metropolis at once to do
this much towards remedying the terrible and growing evils
caused by the withdrawal of the gentry from the working
neighbourhoods of London ; and that the growing discontent of
the people could best be allayed by such a scheme carried out
in its integrity.
One of the speakers said that each place would involve an
An Infant River.
285
expenditure of not more than twelve hundred pounds a year,
which sum he believed was about the cost of keeping the
rhinoceros at the Zoological Gardens. It was not disputed
that there were hundreds of ladies leading perfectly idle and
useless lives in the West End who would gladly devote them¬
selves to such a work if it were made practicable; and it
seemed to the speakers that no missionary work could have
such a claim on Christian people as this. The result of the
meeting was that in a few days large sums of money were
placed at the disposal of the committee, and some fifty ladies
of wealth and position offered themselves for personal service
in its cause.
Elsworth is now engaged in a scheme for a General Hospital
of 200 beds, with a Medical School attached to it; the latter
being for the purpose of educating on humane principles such
young men as may desire to devote themselves to the healing
art on the lines laid down by the Founder of that faith from
which has sprung all the charities of modern Christendom.
It is thought that should this plan meet with the success
which has attended other hospitals founded on similar prin¬
ciples, it will be ultimately possible to re-direct our richly en¬
dowed charities to the purposes intended by their founders and
supporters. For many years it was loudly maintained by the
doctors that patients could not recover from many illnesses
without the liberal use of alcoholic stimulants. The success of
the Temperance Hospital has upset that " idol of the schools."
The physiological mania, the drug mania, and the operative
furor will all in time pass away like the craze for bleeding, and
it will ultimately be found that it is perfectly possible to cure
the sick and save the limbs of the injured by merciful, honour¬
able, and rational means. But then it will want merciful,
honourable, and rational Christian gentlemen to do all this.
Nous perrons.
286
St. Bernard''s.
L'Envoi.
When the world has been dowered with a great truth, the
boon comes usually as a germ. The world always looks for its
Messiah as a crowned King, and neglects its infant Jesus in the
manger. No great truth flashes on the world all at once;
great forces work ever most silently. Even the Christ of God
so little affected the contemporary history of His period that
scarce any record is found of His work in the secular literature
of the time.
The seeds of truth, placed in favourable conditions, can no
more help growing than the sun can help shining ; both fulfil
the laws which are behind them ; and it is a source of infinite
solace to the noble men and women who are striving to benefit
the world by their words and works that no great idea founded
on the truth of God can either perish or fail of its mission.
The work of Mildred and Harrowby Elsworth must ultimately
succeed; its principles must in time dominate the conduct of
the great medical charities of our land. When the air and
light of day are let in upon the foul accumulations of scientific
error which have lately been infecting their atmosphere, their
antiseptic influence will kill the bacteria of a " science falsely
so called."
THE END.
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THE LATEST VOLUMES ARE:—
The Reform of London Government and City Guilds.
By J. F. B. Firth, M.P. 170 pp., Is.
Church. Reform. Edited by Albert Grey, and the Hon.
and Rev. Canon W. H. Fremantle, containing contributions by George
Harwood, Rev. C. W. Stubbs, Rev. G. S. Reaney, P. L. Gell, Rev. S. A.
Barnett, and the Rev. J. Ll. Davies.
1. Imperial Federation. By the Marquis of Lorne.
2. Representation By Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P.
3. Local Administration. By W. Rathbone, M.P., Alb.
Pell, Esq., and F. C. Montague, M.A.
4. England and Russia in Asia. By Right Hon. W. E.
Baxter, M.P.
5. Women Suffrage. By Mrs. Ashton Dilke and Wm.
woodall, M.P.
8. Local Option. By W. S. Caine, M.P., William Hoyle,
and Rev. Dawson Burns, D.D.
7. Leasehold Enfranchisement. By H. Broadhurst, M.P.,
and R. T. Reid, M.P.
8. Disestablishment. By H. Richard, M.P., and T.
Carvell Williams.
Reform of the House of Lords. By James Bryce, M.P.
\In Preparation\
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