MY FIRST PATIENT

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My First Patient

'HAT shall I say, when all my friends tonight
Have blazed in such a galaxy of light;

How can I sing, when all around me here

Speaks of naught else than Pittsburg's jovial

cheer;

What shall I do to raise my name to glory,—

With your permission, may I tell a story?

'Tis not a story such as doctors tell
A dying patient, that he 'll soon "get well "
If he, all medication being vain,

Will seek the balmy air of distant plain.
Nor such an one, when on a rainy night,
The doorbell's rung by some unhappy wight,
Who cries aloud, "Sir, is the doctor in?"
To tell a story then is not a sin.

This story then, believe me, is a true one,
And happened to myself some years ago;
It therefore is, most certainly a new one,

I never having mentioned it to friend or foe. 'Twas when I, fresh from halls of learning,

Believed myself a great receptacle of knowledge, As most young men, whose eager minds are burning With lore all medical, received at college.

I thought that I could all diseases cure,

Could dish out medicines for aches and ills,
That no one need a single pang endure
If I stood by with homoeopathic pills.

It was in Philadelphia, city fair,

I lectured once and practiced physics there,

Sowed my wild oats, from which, dear me, I'm reaping Disastrous fruits, more bitter for their keeping.

'Twas there a student in long days gone by,

Those days of pleasant memory, when I

Heard from dear Matthew's lips, the truths that fell

Of our great system, which he knew so well,

Where Gardner taught us on a simple plan

The noblest study of mankind is man,"

Unfolded to our wondering gaze each hour,
The last great work of God's creative power.
Go, search your colleges for learned men,

Who teach anatomy to students eager,
List well to their instruction and e 'en then

To Gardner's 'twill be commonplace and meager.

There gentle Loomis toiled from day to day,
While swept the golden sands of life away,
Caught the last twining of the silver cord,
To pour out knowledge from his ample hoard.
Ah! let us pause and drop a silent tear,
To those fond memories we hold so dear.
Let recollection tune our hearts once more,
To friends departed whom we knew of yore.

But Williamson and Hemple stand to view,
And, oh my prophetic soul, MY UNCLE! too.

But there were fellow-students also there

Who now have grown in name and reputation, Have married ladies who are wonderous fair, And done right nobly," every man his share, To medicate the nation.

I have my eye on one, whom I could name,
Who'd slip a quiz at any time to go
And exercise the muscles of his frame,
By rolling ten-pins in a street below.

I see another, who on clinic-days would be
So weary with his labors and so pale,
That he would fain entice a company
To feed on oysters and to drink pale ale,

MY FIRST PATIENT

But pshaw; I see the blushes on these doctors' faces,
But worse than all! their ladies make grimaces.
Therefore, though every word of this is truth,
I'll not repeat these memories of my youth.

Well, as I said-excuse my being prosy,

I'll hurry through this little bit of rhyme, The older gentlemen are growing dozy,

And think I'm wasting very precious time.

In that same city fair, of which I tell,
Amid the cares of life there used to dwell
A lady of the far-famed Emerald Isle,

Rheumatic and dyspeptic, full of bile,

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Cross as two sticks," and with a temper sour,
The doctor having tested well the power
Of senna and of salts, of pills and blisters,
Salves, plasters, chologogues and clysters,
To kill or cure her-but had been defeated-
By strength of constitution being cheated.

She sent for me in haste to come and see,
What her condition for a cure might be.
Dear me! a patient-what a happy tone,
To have a patient and one all my own-
To have a patient and myself be fee 'd,
Raised expectations very high indeed-
I saw a practice growing from the seed.

I tried to don a very learnéd look,

Placed 'neath my arm a Symptom-Codex book, (A fashion which in many cities then

Was followed by most scientific men,

But which, adopted in New York would be
Considered proof of insufficiency).

It was a bitter cold December day,

And as I tramped the hard and frozen ground,

The winter wind with icicles at play,

Strewed glittering fragments everywhere around.

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I reached the house in expectation rare,
And found the patient seated on a stool,
From which she turned a concentrated stare,
As though I'd been a thief, a knave, or fool.
I drew my chair quite gently to her side,
And to her wrist my finger I applied,
Counted her pulse, and with a cheerful air,
Said quite professionally" Hem! QUITE FAIR!"

In soothing accents then the dame I asked,
"Will you allow me to inspect your tongue?''
She blurted out, not liking to be tasked,

"Arrah! me darlint, but you 'r moighty young--
Oive got a misery in me side, och ! dear,
Its throubled me for over sixteen year;
Cure me o' that, me darling honey,
Ye'll get a dollar o' the best of money."

I asked each symptom and observed each look, Wrote them "SECUNDUM ARTEM" in my book, Talked more about her rheums and aches and pains. Than Allen's Cyclopædia contains,

And then requested as simple boon,

That she would bring a tumbler and a spoon.

There's not a lady or a doctor here

Who does not know these philosophic facts,
Which oftentimes are suddenly made clear,
That heat expands and cold contracts;
That if we bring a glass, a jug, or pot
From freezing temperature to air that's hot,
Then the attraction called "cohesive" ceases,
And ten to one, the glass will split to pieces.

Now this old lady's crockery was kept
In a cold hall adjoining where she slept,
And as she brought the tumbler to her seat,
She suddenly exposed it to the heat.

MY FIRST PATIENT

I drew my tiny vial from its place,

And counting, dropped-one, two, three, four, When suddenly, oh! most unlucky case,

The tumbler split, and fell upon the floor.

The Irish dame grew purple with her ire,
She started from her seat fornenst the fire,
Seized with a will the poker from its place,
And screamed, while shaking it before my face,
"Out of me house ye murtherin' villain!

Is it meself that ye 'd be killin'!

Them pizen drops that burst yon glass in twain

Would kill me ere they aised me pain.

Och! 'tis a mercy that the stuff was spilt

Afore I was blowed up and kilt.”

How, when, or where I made retreat,

I do not now remember,

I found myself far up the street,
That day in cold December.

I felt just as I did one day,
When my young love was jilted;
I felt as western people say—
Expressive adverb-" wilted."

But every rose will have its thorn,
And every thorn its rose,
There's cob in every ear of corn,
There's nightmare in the doze.

Our lives, we know, are all made up
Of pleasure and of pain;

But gall and wormwood in the cup,

May turn to sweets again.

And so, what then o 'erwhelmed me quite

And gave my pride a fall,

I here with smiles rehearse tonight

A little joke-that's all.

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-DR. WILLIAM TOD HELMUTH.