Their diagnosis, therefore,
implies agnosis, or ignorance too great to be forgiven. I will not share
my patient with two gentlemen who know so little of medicine, and know
nothing of anatomy, which is the A B C of medicine. Can I see their
prescriptions?"
These were handed to him. "Good heavens!" said he, "have you taken all
these?"
"Most of them."
"Why, then you have drunk about two gallons of unwholesome liquids,
and eaten a pound or two of unwholesome solids. These medicines have
co-operated with the malady. The disorder lies, not in the hemorrhage,
but in the precedent extravasation that is a drain on the system; and
how is the loss to be supplied? Why, by taking a little more nourishment
than before; there is no other way; and probably Nature, left to
herself, might have increased your appetite to meet the occasion. But
those two worthies have struck that weapon out of Nature's hand; they
have peppered away at the poor ill-used stomach with drugs and draughts,
not very deleterious I grant you, but all more or less indigestible, and
all tending, not to whet the appetite, but to clog the stomach, or turn
the stomach, or pester the stomach, and so impair the appetite, and so
co-operate, indirectly, with the malady.
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