Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

squash there is! I can hardly breathe! Oh for a sofa and this week's 'Owl'!"

Depend upon it no such corrosive thoughts disturb the ingenuous breasts of our gobbling youngsters; therefore, dear youngsters, pray gobble still.

If you gobble judiciously when you are grown-up, you may perhaps make a reputation as a "gourmand;" that is the respectful term, children, by which "society" designates a full-fledged gobbler. Let us tell you a story about one :

A rich gormandiser subscribed to half the charities in London that he might enjoy an "annual dinner" every

week. At one of these feasts a waiter observed his eating powers, and determined to feed him assiduously, just to see how much he could eat.

"Some of this, sir?" offering a fifth side-dish with a long French name. "Please,"-helps himself liberally, waiter is going-" and, I say, waiter!" "Yessir waiter stops expectantly. Dives drops his fork, raises his left hand with a rhetorical flourish, looks very serious, and, as soon as his mouth is empty, slaps his left thigh to give emphasis to the solemn injunction-" Waiter, bring me EVERYTHING!"

Being chaffed by a friend about his gastronomic powers, he observed that it was a faculty he had inherited, and he could not understand why other people had not inherited it to the same degree, being all descended from Adam and Eve.

"Adam and Eve! What have they to do with stuffing?"

“Ah, my dear fellow, I'm afraid you didn't keep chapel regularly when you were at Cambridge! When I was at college I remember a scholar was reading the

first lesson in chapel one Sunday morning,* and he came to a verse which he thus pronounced, to the enlightenment of our understanding :-'She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and gave also unto her husband with her, and he DID eat!'"

* Sexagesima Sunday, Gen. iii. 6.

CHAPTER VI.

THE HOSPITAL.

Clinical lectures and instruction-St Vitus's dance- Organisation of a London hospital staff-Clinical clerks and dressers -Bathos by the chairman-Number of beds in the various hospitals of London-The Children's Hospital-Convalescent hospitals-How to dress sick children-The slidingscale-The tumult.

IT is in the wards of the hospital that the medical student learns the most important part of his profession, where he receives what is called "clinical instruction," both in the form of set "clinical lectures" in the operating theatre by the physicians and surgeons, and in practical remarks by the members of the staff as they visit each patient.

"Well, good-bye, Mr Clericus; I am very glad to have seen you; but now I must be off to clinical," we said one day, after meeting our old friend, the clergyman of the parish.

"Clinical!' what is 'clinical'? The last time I was in town you were just going to 'clinical.' Is it what you students call your lunch, in the same way as your old Indian uncle calls it 'tiffin'?"

This is a question that is frequently asked by people

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

Dr D.,

[ocr errors]

Materia Medica.

Forensic Medicine.

Obstetric Medicine, and special physi

cian for diseases of women and children amongst the

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Dr K., for general medical cases.

Dr L., for diseases of women and children among the outpatients.

Assistant-Surgeons.

Mr M., Demonstrator of Anatomy.

Mr N., Lecturer on Zoology.

Mr O., for general surgical cases.
Mr P., Dentist.

The chairs of "chemistry and natural philosophy," and of "practical chemistry," are generally filled by scientific men, who do not practise, so they hold no clinical appointment, but they are members of the committee that manages the hospital.

Besides these, a well-ordered hospital will have on the staff four other medical men, young ones waiting for a practice, who have not charge of patients, and who take these appointments till they have a chance of obtaining better.

Dr or Mr Q., Medical Tutor, who helps the students in their private reading, and sets them examinations every week, so as to prepare them for the public examining boards. Dr or Mr R., Pathologist, who makes all the post-mortem examinations, keeps an account of them, and is curator of the museum.

Dr or Mr S., Medical Registrar, who registers, with brief notes, all the medical in-patients.

Dr or Mr T., Surgical Registrar, who performs the same duty for surgical in-patients.

[merged small][ocr errors]

Mr U., Senior House-Physician, | Mr Y., Senior House-AccouMr V., Junior

[ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

cheur.

Mr Z., Junior

These are chosen from the students who have just passed, and they hold office for limited periods, generally six months.

But the students who have not passed are not excluded from hospital appointments; every physician and assistant-physician has three or four "clinical clerks," every surgeon and assistant-surgeon three or four "dressers," who, like the resident medical officers, hold office for six months.

Students must be four years in training at a medical school, so they generally apportion them in this way: in the first two years they get over their dissection and nearly all their lectures, so that in the last two years they can take all the students' hospital appointments, without having their hands too full; in the former period they run about the wards and out-patient rooms with their eyes and ears open, but in the latter they "go in" for actual "clinical work."

The favourite way of proceeding seems to be this,

« ForrigeFortsett »