Punch (74.1878)

246 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [June 1, 1878.

A HARD CASE.

Enter Young Husland, who throws himself into a chair, and exclaims—

"What! Toothache again, Maria! I do call that haed upon a Feileb ! Why, you had Toothache whin I lift
this Mornikg ! And here have I been at Epsom all day, with the jolliesr lot o' Fellebs ever cor together in one
Drag, and won a Pot o' Money, and had no end of a jolly Time, and I did think I should find something cheerful
and jolly to greet a Feller when I got Home! Akd there you are!—Toothache again! I do call it haed upon a
Feller—peecious haed !"

RIVAL DOCTORS;

OR, A CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION.

Scene—Consulting-Room at St. Stephen's. Mr. John Bull, with
Doctors Beaconsfield and Gladstone in consultation over him.

Mr. Bull._ Well, Gentlemen, your diagnoses differ greatly, and
your prescriptions are singularly dissimilar. Who shall decide
when Doctors-

Dr. Gladstone {scornfully). Doctors! This person has no better
claim to that respectable title than Cagliostro, or an advertising
quack!

Dr. Beacomfield {blandly). Professional jealousy, Mr. Bull, is
very potent, especially with disappointed practitioners. As I have
succeeded to the practice which this—ahem!—Gentleman, from
proved incompetence, had to resign, it is not unnatural that-

Mr. Bull {impatiently). While physicians squabble, patients
suffer. May I suggest that I am more interested in my own health
than in your recriminations ?

Dr. Beaconsfield. Mr. Bull, this angry Gentleman attended you
for a considerable time. His treatment was not precisely successful,
I believe. His heroic regimen, his drastic drugs, harassed you in
every organ, and ended in establishing a state of chronic irritation,
as little conducive to health as to comfort. Under my mild and
strictly antiphlogistic treatment, by a careful alternation of tonics
and sedatives, your system has regained its tone; and now, to serve
his own purposes, he would fain persuade you that you are in a peri-
lous state, make you a sort of Malade Imaginaire--

Dr. Gladstone. Insidious Sangrado! Like the Yampire Bat, you
soothe your victim to_ slumber that you may the more easily and
unsuspectedly draw his life-blood. When opiates and depletives
have done their evil work, what looks like calm, may end in—
col] apse!

Dr. Beaconsfitld {acidly). Collapse ?_ Nay, Mr. Bull, I think I
can guarantee you against the fate which has already befallen this
Gentleman's professional reputation. The old original " True-
Blue Pill" is the safest of family medicines ; while a—for the
present—gentle dose of my newly-introduced " Oriental Black
Draught will, I am convinced, strengthen you considerably, and
secure you against the worst effects of the febrile epidemic now so
prevalent.

Dr. Gladstone. I affirm, on the contrary, that his treatment
invites the very disorder he affects to combat.

Dr. Beaconsfield. Ah! He is jealous of the fame already acquired
for my Indian Tonic, which, even should the fever attack you—
and that, of course, is always possible—would safely pull you
through it.

Mr. Bull {doubtfully). But how, in the long run, would it affect
my Constitution ?

Dr. Gladstone {triumphantly). Ah I That's the question! Let
him answer that!

Dr. Beaconsfield {blandly). Believe me, my dear Mr. Bull, your
Constitution is perfectly safe in my hands.

Dr. Gladstone. Safe f Why he is undermining it as fast as he
can! He never understood it, or appreciated its delicate adjust-
ments. He would strengthen one organ at the expense of the others,
developing locally a factitious force which would issue in general
paralysis. He would concentrate power in the upper parts of the
frame, while enfeebling all the rest of the body by excessive drain
of the circulation. He says my drastic remedies established chronic
irritation. I assert that his boasted alteratives, if persisted in, will
lead to acute mania, and end in utter atrophy.

Mr. Bull. Gentlemen, Gentlemen, you excite, you puzzle, you
alarm me!

Dr. Beaconsfield. Give me your confidence, Sir, and this person
his conge, or I will not answer for the consequences. If you listen
to him longer, he will mar the best results of my recent treatment.