Page:How I Met a Very Ignorant Practitioner.pdf/2

Rh doggedly. "I said inflammation of the lungs."

This was a facer, and as it was the first time I had ever heard that the popular and scientific terms were not indicative of the same disease, I could find nothing to say, and patiently awaited a further access of information.

"Well, that's all about Ikin."

"What is the patient?" I ventured to ask.

"Oh, he's a miller—worth every penny of forty thousand pounds. He's been getting rather fidgetty lately; talked of having a consultation. But there's no other doctor anywhere nearer than Treacham, and I ain't on speaking terms with the man there. The only other one who's bad is Warkwell, the old wharfinger. He's got St. Anthony's fire."

"Heavens!" I thought. "If that is how he speaks of erysipelas I shall expect to hear of 'jail fever' and the 'sweating sickness' next!"

"Do you make up your own medicines?" I asked when I had recovered sufficiently.

"Rather! There's no chemist nearer than Treacham. I've got an A1 little surgery, I can tell you. Just come and have a look at it."

He got up and opened a door opposite the one we had entered by; within was a long, cupboard-like place, rather dark in spite of its whitewashed walls. But after all I had seen hitherto I was quite unprepared for what was in store for me. I expected to find just a mere handful of drugs, but, as a matter of fact, the array of bottles and jars, tier after tier, bright with gilt-lettering, from floor to ceiling, would have been no discredit to a London chemist's shop. As I turned round to thoroughly inspect the place I caught Dr. Inns's eye.

"Ah, I thought it'd fetch you! All done from London; gave 'em a blank manifest when I first came down here."

One thing that struck me was the enormous stock of everything he seemed to keep; not a bottle that was not full to the stopper. But when, attracted by some very fine crystals, I took one down for closer inspection, I found that it was not only thickly coated with dust, but the stopper was so firmly fixed that I doubt if it had ever been opened since it was put there! Inns had been watching me, and I noticed that he looked as awkward as I felt, so I put the bottle on the shelf again, and was casting about for some topic to break the silence when my eye fell on what I concluded was his day-book.

"Oh, is this the day-book?" I asked.

"Yes, that's it," and he opened the parchment bound volume, and ran a coarse and rather dirty finger down the pages.

Now I have seen some curious day-books, both before and since then, but I think this was about the most curious of all. Here were none of the cabalistic signs and jargon which have such a puzzling effect upon the uninitiated; the weights and quantities were written at full length—"ounces," "drachms," "grains," etc.; the drugs, too, were set down in their conventional English names, while the directions appeared in the homeliest vernacular. In a word, the entries had very much the appearance of those in some housewife’s book of recipes, and so far from no one but himself being able to understand Dr. Inns's day-book (not at all an unusual occurrence in the case of a busy practitioner), I think it would have appeared quite simple to even non-professional readers.

"Know this here?" he asked, reaching up to a shelf above the desk, and taking down a fat volume, which he held out to me. I looked at it; it was a Popular Physician. "First-rate book," he commented as he turned over the leaves, which I could see were thumbed and dog’s-eared with long service.

"First-rate, as you say," I agreed. At the same time I wondered what occult reason could induce any medical man to constitute half his library of reference from an elementary work intended solely for the unprofessional public. I say "half his library," for this and one other book were all that I could see in the place, the second volume being "The Shipmaster's Medical Guide," a work which the Board of Trade regulations require every ship not provided with a surgeon of its own to carry as a guide to the medicine chest. Looking at it, I was reminded of the story of the captain who, finding that a sailor's symptoms required the aid of a mixture of which he was short—say No. 9—made up the required medicine by half a dose of No. 5, and a similar quantity of No. 4, to the entire satisfaction of all concerned.

Altogether Dr. Inns was a curious study, and when we had presently discussed a meal, which being neither a late dinner nor an early supper was a mixture of both, I spent