Ernest Graham: a Doctor's story

Chapter I. Introduces Relatives Who Figure Prominently In This History

In a certain London suburb, which for convenience we will call Croston, there stood not long ago a Gothic villa. Its tenants were a gentleman of five-and-forty, a young lady of twenty, and a youth of eighteen. The two last were brother and sister ; the elder of the party was their uncle, and all three signed themselves Travers. The uncle, by braving a bad climate, had made a good sum of money in a few years ; and when, after his return home, his brother's children were left orphans, a kind heart prompted him to give up bachelor habits, furnish a house in a pleasant neighbourhood, and offer shelter and provision to his bereaved rela tions. To the assertion that Mr. Travers had a kind heart I have committed myself, and his adoption of two orphans may be thought sufficient to prove the B fact ; but had his acquaintances been asked to testify on the subject, a charitable disposition would have been the last thing accorded to him.

One would have remarked, a very singular man ! another, a dreadful cynic ! a third, a horrid quiz ! and a fourth, a spite ful, opiniated noodle ! In reality, he was one whose course of life had been a little rough ; whose inter course with men had unfolded more bad than good ; and so he had become distrustful of the virtues, and sarcastic on the weaknesses, of his fellow men. He had a clear perception of human frailties ; exposed them mercdessly as occasion offered ; and, without caring if he displeased his audience, ridiculed them with unsparing tongue. He rarely opened his mouth without uttering a sarcasm, yet he never laughed at a man behind his back ; and scandal he despised as the meanest of sins. He was a thorough Christian, highly charitable, and his left hand knew not what his right hand gave.

Willie, his nephew, was about to enter the battle of life as a medical student. He possessed no remarkable traits of character ; he was full of hope, full of ambition, and fidl of conceit; enthusiastic, affectionate, and good-tempered, and he regarded a latch-key and inde pendence as synonymous terms. Edith, sister to the above, was a fair, loveable girl, remarkably devoted to her brother, and possessed of virtues difficult to paint in a few words ; they must therefore be allowed to develop themselves as this history proceeds. It is the 30th of September, and evening. To morrow is " speech day" at the medical schools : then prizes are to be distributed, and novices will begin their study of disease. Willie will be amongst these latter, and is now talking over the tea table on the coming event.

" I assure you, uncle," he said emphatically, " I would not give my chance of success in life for any ready-made position in science whatever. Take Sir Charles Brownlow for instance, — I suppose he is the greatest physician that we have at present ; — if some good genius offered to guarantee me his ring in the ladder, provided that I would swear never to mount higher, I declare upon my honour that I would not accept it." " A very fair specimen of juvenile conceit," observed Mr. Travers. " That speech of yours should be care fully preserved, for it shows at a glance the minds of most young men beginning life. Their stock-in-trade consists chiefly of a great capacity for food and admir able digestions ; and, upon the strength of these quali ties, each sneers at his father's slowness, and thinks himself a piece of machinery patented to unravel the whole of nature's secrets in one day."

" You are too severe on Willie !" broke in Edith, speaking quickly. " He does not mean to be con ceited, but is only ambitious and full of hope ; and, I am sure, with his abilities, he might attain a high position if he chose." "With his— abilities, repeated Mr. Travers con sideringly. Have the goodness, my dear Edith, to explain what you mean by that phrase." "What everybody means by it!" replied Edith. " If a person is clever, if he can do with ease what b others do with difficulty ; then, I say, he has good abilities." " Thanks for your translation," said Mr. Travers ; " the expression is so loosely applied that it requires definition. If WiUie has the power of doing a pro position of Euclid or an algebraic equation in less time than the generality of students, in common par lance certainly he would be said to have good abilities ; though, in my mind, his superiority of intellect would be better expressed by saying that he had more power of concentrating his ideas than most of his neighbours.

Many a man who is called a genius, owes his honour entirely to the power of concentration. In fact, genius may generally be rendered — moral courage ; for the power of bringing ideas to a focus cannot, I think, be often a natural gift, but must depend upon the power of resisting the seductive imaginations which try to force themselves upon serious thought. If Willie is able to keep his mind to a subject without wandering, and if he has at the same time perseverance, he might, as you say, attain a high place in the world. But really, my dear, when you spoke of good abilities, I feared that your brother had been putting potassium in water, or relighting tapers in oxygen, or turning mahogany with a lathe, or any of the regular and un mistakeable marks of genius." " You seem determined to quiz me, uncle," said Willie good-temperedly, " and I am pretty well used to it, so go ahead.

Whether I have any abilities, or concentration, or genius, or whatever you please to call it, I don't know. I did not intend to make myself out clever by what I said just now, but merely uttered the thoughts that came into my head. I am brimfull of ambition at present, and cannot prevent a little of it from running over occasionally." " Most of your profession would regard Sir Charles Brownlow as having reached the summit of ambition," observed Mr. Travers. " After a long life of intense toil he has climbed to the top of the tree ; and gained, what? A position so enviable that the muddiest, hungriest * Arab ' of London streets would not change places with him. Sir Charles Bro widow's race is run, the next step that he takes in life will be to death ; and the ragged boy prefers starvation and tatters to mouldering honourably in the dust as a successful man.

Ambitious men strain, and strive, and groan their best years out to acquire fame ; gain it at the end of life, and die." " Do you think ambition wrong, then ?" asked Edith. "A difficult question," my dear girl, "and one that men have often asked themselves and others. My answer, I fear, will be agreed to by few. I deem no ambition pleasing to God except the ambition to do good : in my opinion the pursuit of fame for its own sake is unlawful, but allowable if sought only because it gives power for good. Willie is beginning his pro fession with false notions — ' How high can I rise in it ?' he asks, and thinks himself entering a noble struggle to solve the question. His query should be — ' What good can I do in it ?' Instead of considering what course of study, or what specialty will best raise him to the required pitch of exaltation, he should seek the sort of knowledge that will enable him to be of most use to others ; he should select for practice a locality where he can be of most service, not only to the paying, but also to the pauper sick ; he should work day and night, not to be pointed at as the man who dis covered this disease or cured that, but to try how many good actions he can cram into the few years allotted to him.

Every profession or trade should be commenced with the question — ' What good can I do in it?' This is the only ambition of the slightest service at the end of life. I see that you don't agree with me, Willie ; but think it over, my boy, and some day you will own me right." So saying, Mr. Travers retired to his study to spend the evening, as was his custom after tea. " I have a thorough appreciation of my uncle's kindness and good qualities, but I wish he were not such a wet blanket," said Willie to his sister as soon as they were alone. " He was rather depressing, but he meant it kindly," replied Edith. " There were you, Willie," she added laughing, " with your face flushed and eyes sparkling, full of excitement about to-morrow ; and now you are wrapped in uncle's dripping blanket, totally extinguished."

" I certainly am a little put out, if that is what you mean. It was that dissertation on ambition that riled me ; I would have argued the point if I had not feared an endless discussion." " Which you would certainly have got the worst of," returned Edith. " I am afraid that uncle is right," she added, after a moment's hesitation. " You think ambition sinful also ! Why, you foolish girl, what state would the world be in if people had always been of your opinion ? How should we have progressed in arts, science, or literature without ambition ? What would be our social condition now? Instead of a delicate young lady in a sdk dress, sip ping bohea from a china cup, I should see a bois terous she-savage clothed in skins, grubbing up roots like a wdd pig." " I suppose you mean that there could be no improvement without the incentive of fame," said Edith, laughing.

" That is exactly what I was driving at. It is the hope of becoming famous that urges clever men to work ; without this inducement they would do nothing. Fancy me shutting myself in my study day by day, grovelling amongst books and papers, without the prospect of a world-wide reputation to urge me on. Think of enduring wet towels, aching heads, green tea, and loneliness, purely for the sake of improving one's mind, and benefiting society ; the thing is impossible, Edith, and there is an end of it." " Uncle would ask," said Edith quietly, " what have you gained after all this toil, by finding yourself famous." -' Gained ! why everything, of course ; a high standing in the world ; the respect of one's fellows; and a name that will be handed down with honour to posterity." " I can't argue the point with you," said Edith, humbly ; but if I were a man I should not care one atom to be famous.

The great point appears to be that your name should be remembered by other people after your death ; and I cannot see how this can benefit you. If I had found out something grand, and set everybody talking about me ; and then if I were to fall sick and find myself about to die ; I should altogether forget my discovery, I should be too ill to care for it ; my thoughts would be full of death ; I should be longing and yet dreading to meet Jesus, and hear him speak to me face to face ; whdst all this world would seem so unimportant, that as for caring if my name were remembered by posterity, or not, the idea woidd never even enter my head ; and as after death I should not be aware if the world recollected me, the question if they were likely to do so would not seem of much consequence." " I never could reason with girls," said Willie ; " they are so dreadfully illogical ; so let us drop the subject, and go on with David Copperfield ; we have ever so many more pages to finish, and this is my last evening of reading aloud."

Edith sighed as she got out her work and composed herself to listen. These evening readings were very pleasant to her, and now they must terminate ; she would have but little of her brother's society after to night ; he had been her constant and almost her only companion, and the prospect of losing him filled her with sorrow. " Uncle says he always pities a person who reads aloud," observed Willie, searching in his book for the last read page. " He declares that the reader seems to have shifted the responsibility of the work from the author's shoulders to his own, and is as anxious to elicit laughter and marks of approbation from his audience as if he had written the book himself. He is restless over a tedious description of scenery, or bit of genealogy ; tries to emphasize point into point less sentences ; is thoroughly ashamed of a stupid passage, and at the brilliant parts flushes with con scious pride, and receives the approval of his hearers as his just desert."

" You should have told me uncle's remarks after reading," said Edith, laughing ; " I shall be on the look-out now to see if you exemplify them." " You would like to see me losing my individuality and personating Mr. Dickens, I daresay," replied Willie ; " but you will be disappointed, for I intend to read in a milk-and-water fashion, like a schoolboy spouting Shakespeare."

Chapter II. Evening Oe The First Of October, As Spent By The

STUDENTS OF ST. JOHN'S SCHOOL. At St. John's Hospital, there is an uncomfortable looking chamber of immense size. Its walls are decorated with ponderous slabs, setting forth in fat capitals the names of the chief supporters of the charity— each by the side of the amount he has sub scribed. Near these memorials of good deeds, hang full-length portraits of famous surgeons and physicians, who have done St. John's the honour there to study, and afterwards to teach. By a chain that might serve at a pinch as a ship's cable, the ceiling supports a chandelier of colossal proportions ; windows of plate glass, grand but dirty, at four intervals interrupt the wall ; and the floor, glistening and carpetless, is spotted with chairs severe in aspect, and baize-covered tables of scholastic hue. To-night, October 1st, tables and chairs have vanished, and shoe leather sprinkles the floor instead ; boots of every description — square-toed Bluchers of men of note, side-spring patents of men of no note, delicate kids of sisters, cushion-like kids of mothers, laced cloth bags of gouty grans, crucially-tied slippers of stern old maids — press the slippery boards in all directions.

One patent boot of large dimensions, together with a slipper, globular in shape, stand aloof proudly from their brother leathers ; they encase the sound and the afflicted foot of his more than Majesty, the Lord Mayor of London. This exalted functionary, in solitary grandeur on his chair of state, occupies the east end of the room ; whilst the sides, north, south, and west, are crammed with students and pro fessors, and the friends of each. The ladies of the party are seated on rows of forms, and the gentle men stand talking to them with as much comfort as they can ; whilst the middle of the room is kept clear to enable prizemen to advance, and receive their rewards from the hands of the mayor. WUlie is here with Mr. Travers, and Edith ; and near them lounges a well-dressed, pleasant-looking young man, with an exceedingly well-cultivated pair of whiskers.

He has been gazing curiously at the trio, and particularly at Edith, and presently whispers to his neighbour — a pale, dissipated-looking youth — " Ereshman and sister, for a sovereign, Stevens ! But who on earth is the elder of the party ? I can't make him out ; he's too old for the girl's brother, and scarcely old enough for her father." " Why, husband, to be sure ; anybody can see that, and an uncommonly pretty little mate he has got, too," replied Stevens. " I suppose it must be so," said the other ; and he spoke with a half sigh. " Just married, I should guess," rejoined Stevens ; and back from the honeymoon in time to see his newly-acquired brother start shop." " The young one looks too good for this blackguard profession, said he of the whiskers, scornfully ; he is fitter for a soldier, or a sailor, than a grubby apo thecary."

" Would not the tinker or tailor suit him better ?" suggested Stevens. " He could not do much worse than he has done. With the day I saw an hospital, the curse of my life began ; had I but my time over again, I would fight with my father tooth and nail, before he should force me into this , dirty trade ; but I was in debt, you know, deeply, and over nervous about it ; duns came knocking and pestering every hour, and so I was obliged to compound with the governor ; he paid the creditors, and I came here." "And yet you came out splendidly in 'exam.,' with all your hatred of the work," said Stevens. " My opinion is, Stanley," he added in a decided tone, " that you are too bitter against the profession ; I don't get on in it because I abominate study of any sort ; but if I were obliged to do something — and I shall be some day — I would sooner drive about seeing patients than anything else."

" The actual profession of curing the sick is well enough," said Stanley; "it is the people in it that I complain of. How, for instance, any one pretending to be a gentleman, can disgrace his diploma by setting up an open shop, and selling soap and tooth-brushes over the counter, I cannot conceive ! A lady passes a corner shop, redolent of perfumes, and gorgeous with variously coloured water in crystal globes, and glancing at the name over the door, she reads, ' Jones surgeon, &c.' What can she reasonably infer but that 'surgeons, &c.' keep shops? and from that time she treats her medical adviser more distantly than before, and begins to doubt the propriety of visiting his wife. Then, look how many general practitioners lower themselves by charging for medicine, instead of for their time ; sending in bills for blisters, pills, and potions, as the grocers do for figs and raisins !

Look how a medical man has often to haggle before he can get a proper fee ! how men of refined intellect are treated by their patients like butchers and bakers ' and then tell me, if you can, that ours is a profession fit for a gentleman." " There are shabby fellows who do shabby things, in every profession ; and I don't see that ours is worse than another. "Then again," Stanley continued, without heeding this remark, " think of the disgusting sights we have to endure, the loathsome things we have to touch, the filthy smells, the close rooms, and the danger of being knocked on the head by typhus, or small-pox ; remember that we are doomed to these abominables for life ; and if you don't feel nausea, hatred, and repugnance, whenever you think of your future fate, you haven't the feelings of a man, and ought to!"

Having flung this grammatical finale at his com panion as a coup-de-grdce, Stanley drew himself up with the air of a man who felt he had been forcible, and waited the result. The only visible effect upon Stevens being the production of a languid yawn, he turned away in contempt, and fell to regarding Edith again. Stevens also turned his eyes in her direction, but fixed them uot on Edith, but her uncle. " By Jove !" he exclaimed, after staring at Mr. Travers for some time, " I know that man. I did not recognize him at first with his great black beard ; he is an especial friend of my father's — name, Travers, and hangs out at Croston. I can't endure the fellow, do let us get out of his way ; if he sees me, I shall have to do the honours of the place." " Don't bolt ; come and speak to him, and intro duce me.

There ! he is looking this way now ; it is too late !" Willie had called attention to the portrait of a cele brity over the young men's heads, and Mr. Travers in looking round had perceived Stevens. Knowing him to be a disreputable youth, Mr. Travers would willingly have avoided a rencontre ; but not liking to be uncivfl for the father's sake, he received a shake of the hand with apparent cordiality, and introduced him to his nephew and niece, Stevens afterwards per forming a like office for his friend Stanley, and bring ing a blush to that gentleman's countenance whilst introducing Miss Travers, by the unmistakeable em phasis that he laid on the " miss." "Have you been long at the hospital?" Mr. Travers inquired of his new acquaintance. " Two years," replied Stanley ; " to-day I attain the dignity of being classed amongst the third year's men— the only dignity that I have attained at St. John's by the bye, and one not difficult to get, if you only stop long enough."

" You are not one of the successful men of to-day, hen, I presume?" " Why, as to that," answered Stanley carelessly ; " I rather think the respectable old boy over there has some little article for me, but it is not of much consequence." " That is his modesty ; he came out second of his year, gets a prize of twenty pounds, and scarcely worked a bit ! " said Stevens triumphantly. " I beg your pardon," returned Stanley, " I worked hard, very hard whilst I was at it, though that certainly was not for long ; my coming out so high was a slice of luck, I did not deserve it." " One of uncle's concentrators," said Edith to her brother, sotto voce. Willie smiled, and asked Stanley who was the winner of the first prize. " That singular-looking fellow in the corner," replied Stanley, indicating a bright-eyed, intelligent looking youth with a wondrous shock head of hair, which seemed as though comb had never touched it from his earliest infancy.

"He seldom reads less than twelve hours a day, and the first of October is about the only holiday that he has in the year." " He will work himself into a fever soon," said Stevens ; " and a good thing for him, if it is only for the advantage of getting his head shaved." " You see that dried-up httle man half a dozen yards to your left," said Stanley, addressing Edith ; " he is to do the introductory address — Jupiter ! he is going to begin now ; see, he is moving towards his place ! Now, my fellow students ! your energies are to be fired, your emulation roused, and your morals touched up ; get your minds ready to resist the shock, for little Parchment is about to charge." So saying Stanley folded his arms with much gravity, and composed himself to Usten. The lecturer, after a few preliminary observations, addressed himself particularly to the new students, and spoke as follows : — " Most of you have come from the country ; young and inexperienced you are about to live in London for the first time ; you are all more or less anxious to * see life,' and fancy this city to be the place to show it you.

My friends ! with all earnestness I warn you from this devilish snare. The most promising pupil that I ever had was nearly lost through ' seeing life' — life in your sense of the term, as typified by the dissipation of this metropolis. He entered our hospital with high hopes, strong resolutions, and a profound love of science ; he thought his the most interesting, the most noble profession of all. There should be no difficulties that he would not conquer, no pro blems that he would not solve, not a mystery of chemistry or pathology that he would not elucidate : patient investigation and unflinching toil must, he thought, in time break every barrier, and make him a Galen of to-day. He came to London. The first morning was spent amongst his books and papers, not in reading, but arranging his stupendous plans.

The abridged works for students he despised ; nothing would do for him but special treatises, penned by men who had given a lifetime to the study of the one thing of which they wrote. Elaborate notes of many works he had already taken, and ponderous manu scripts lay piled about the room. Dead works, alas ! they have never been looked at since. That night some friends called, freshmen like himself; they begged him to go to the theatre ; he refused, hesitated, and at last went — and for three years from that time he never opened a book. Night after night saw him at the haunts of vice ; the death-bound, body and soul, his bosom friends. Soon there was nothing wicked enough to scare him, no orgy too abominable, and scarce a blasphemy foul enough to make him smile ; so blase had he become in the paths of sin.

Such was his state ! and then a warning came — a fearful thing thundered from an angry God — I cannot tell you what its nature was • sufficient that it smote him trembling on his knees, and wrung from his heart an agony of prayer for mercy upon him, a sinner. This was his sight of life ! How, with a broken constitution and brain stupified by false ex citement, he set to work ; how, spiritless, but perse vering, he fagged on until he obtained a fair position in the scientific world — you my friends, would not care to hear. My object in relating another's fall, is that when one of you is tempted to his first stray step, the memory of my words to-night may whisper — take care, — take care. " Gentlemen ! you enter to-day upon a large field of labour. Young imaginations are wanted to give theories to old brains to reason out and work into fact.

" In physiology, the functions of the spleen, the suprarenal capsules, and the thymus gland, are still undiscovered. Organic chemistry has only advanced far enough to show us how ignorant we are. "On our knowledge of chemistry and physiology, progress in pathology much depends ; with the rapid strides of the two former sciences, the latter has kept pace. c " Every year, the thinkers of Great Britain, Ame rica, France, and Germany add richly to the store house of proven fact. The invention of auscultation and percussion by Laennec and Avenbrugger has been as much an era in the history of medicine, in the present century, as Harvey's discovery of the circulation was in the past. "Researches on the liver have made light much that was dark, and have given us a marvellous in sight into diseases that it is vastly important to understand.

" Vigorous assaults of intellect have been made on the brain ; they have met with but partial success ; and the organ of thought, for the most part, still remains a gigantic riddle. Much, then, I say, has been done in the study of man ; more remains to be done. " We old men have contributed what we coidd ; our labour is well nigh over, and we look to you, the youth of the profession, to carry on the work. " Gird up your loins then, beginners ! for the task before you ; you have a great end in view to spur you on ; the highest object of the Christian it is you seek, — the welfare of your fellow men." The lecturer next turned his attention to those who had already been some time at the hospital. In addressing these he said : " There are some of you whom I scarcely know by sight ; your names on the books are the only evidence that you are students here.

You rarely visit the wards, or attend the ope rating or lecture theatres ; you hate the profession and ignore its duties. Your curriculum finished, by the aid of a ' crammer' you will -pass' the College of Surgeons, receive diplomas testifying to your com petence, and go forth in the world to heal the sick. What will be the consequence? If in your hearts exists a germ of right feeling, conscience will stab, and remorse cling to you during your whole lives. I cannot imagine anything more terrible than to feel incompetent when called upon to treat a patient whose life depends upon one's skill. Picture to yourselves a medical man called to a fit of apo plexy ; he enters a room crowded with the pale faces of sobbing friends ; prostrate in the midst of these he finds his patient senseless, the breathing stertorous, and face purple.

The wife, bending in dreadful suspense over her stricken husband, heaves a deep sigh of relief as she sees the doctor ; she makes way for him instantly, and approaching with inward trepidation, he stands looking at the unconscious man. What he ought to do he has not a notion ; something is expected of him, he must not lose his reputation, an appearance of knowledge must be assumed. He orders the doomed man to bed, pre scribes some trifling remedy, and leaves. Gentlemen, at the bar of Almighty God on the great day, this surgeon will stand accused of a fellow-creature's death. How, think you, will he answer to the charge ? Will he deny that he has taken life ? He has prevented the dying from regaining life ; the two crimes are but one. Had he not pretended to a knowledge which he did not possess, his wretched patient would have received proper aid, instead of, unassisted, being left to die.