第72章
'Tis the only safe way.Avicenna indeed recommends a ligature of the vein; but how 'tis to be done he saith not, nor knew he himself I wot, nor any of the spawn of Ishmael.For me, I have no faith in such tricksy expedients; and take this with you for a safe principle: 'Whatever an Arab or Arabist says is right, must be wrong.'""oh, I see now what 'tis for," said Denys; "and art thou so simple as to let him put hot iron to thy living flesh? didst ever keep thy little finger but ten moments in a candle? and this will be as many minutes.Art not content to burn in purgatory after thy death? must thou needs buy a foretaste on't here?""I never thought of that," said Gerard gravely; "the good doctor spake not of burning, but of cautery; to be sure 'tis all one, but cautery sounds not so fearful as burning.""Imbecile! That is their art; to confound a plain man with dark words, till his hissing flesh lets him know their meaning.Now listen to what I have seen.When a soldier bleeds from a wound in battle, these leeches say, 'Fever.Blood him!' and so they burn the wick at t'other end too.They bleed the bled.Now at fever's heels comes desperate weakness; then the man needs all his blood to live; but these prickers and burners, having no forethought, recking nought of what is sure to come in a few hours, and seeing like brute beasts only what is under their noses, having meantime robbed him of the very blood his hurt had spared him to battle that weakness withal; and so he dies exhausted.Hundreds have Iseen so scratched and pricked out of the world, Gerard, and tall fellows too; but lo! if they have the luck to be wounded where no doctor can be had, then they live; this too have I seen.Had Iever outlived that field in Brabant but for my most lucky mischance, lack of chirurgery? The frost chocked all my bleeding wounds, and so I lived.A chirurgeon had pricked yet one more hole in this my body with his lance, and drained my last drop out, and my spirit with it.Seeing them thus distraught in bleeding of the bleeding soldier, I place no trust in them; for what slays a veteran may well lay a milk-and-water bourgeois low.""This sounds like common sense," sighed Gerard languidly, "but no need to raise your voice so; I was not born deaf, and just now Ihear acutely."
"Common sense! very common sense indeed," shouted the bad listener; "why, this is a soldier; a brute whose business is to kill men, not cure them." He added in very tolerable French, "Woe be to you, unlearned man, if you come between a physician and his patient; and woe be to you, misguided youth, if you listen to that man of blood.""Much obliged," said Denys, with mock politeness; "but I am a true man, and would rob no man of his name.I do somewhat in the way of blood, but not worth mention in this presence.For one I slay, you slay a score; and for one spoonful of blood I draw, you spill a tubful.The world is still gulled by shows.We soldiers vapour with long swords, and even in war be-get two foes for every one we kill; but you smooth gownsmen, with soft phrases and bare bodkins, 'tis you that thin mankind.""A sick chamber is no place for jesting," cried the physician.
"No, doctor, nor for bawling," said the patient peevishly.
"Come, young man," said the senior kindly, "be reasonable.
Cuilibet in sua arte credendum est.My whole life has been given to this art.I studied at Montpelier; the first school in France, and by consequence in Europe.There learned I Dririmancy, Scatomancy, Pathology, Therapeusis, and, greater than them all, Anatomy.For there we disciples of Hippocrates and Galen had opportunities those great ancients never knew.Goodbye, quadrupeds and apes, and paganism, and Mohammedanism; we bought of the churchwardens, we shook the gallows; we undid the sexton's work of dark nights, penetrated with love of science and our kind; all the authorities had their orders from Paris to wink; and they winked.
Gods of Olympus, how they winked! The gracious king assisted us:
he sent us twice a year a living criminal condemned to die, and said, 'Deal ye with him as science asks; dissect him alive, if ye think fit.'""By the liver of Herod, and Nero's bowels, he'll make me blush for the land that bore me, an' if he praises it any more," shouted Denys at the top of his voice.
Gerard gave a little squawk, and put his fingers in his ears; but speedily drew them out and shouted angrily, and as loudly, "you great roaring, blaspheming bull of Basan, hold your noisy tongue!"Denys summoned a contrite look.
"Tush, slight man," said the doctor, with calm contempt, and vibrated a hand over him as in this age men make a pointer dog down charge; then flowed majestic on."We seldom or never dissected the living criminal, except in part.We mostly inoculated them with such diseases as the barren time afforded, selecting of course the more interesting ones.""That means the foulest," whispered Denys meekly.
"These we watched through all their stages to maturity.""Meaning the death of the poor rogue," whispered Denys meekly.
"And now, my poor sufferer, who best merits your confidence, this honest soldier with his youth, his ignorance, and his prejudices, or a greybeard laden with the gathered wisdom of ages"That is," cried Denys impatiently, "will you believe what a jackdaw' in a long gown has heard from a starling in a long gown, who heard it from a jay-pie, who heard it from a magpie, who heard it from a popinjay; or will you believe what I, a man with nought to gain by looking awry, nor speaking false, have seen; nor heard with the ears which are given us to gull us, but seen with these sentinels mine eye, seen, seen; to wit, that fevered and blooded men die, that fevered men not blooded live? stay, who sent for this sang-sue? Did you?""Not I.I thought you had."