It was the afternoon of the next day. Gerard was no longer lightheaded, but very irritable1 and full of fancies; and in one of these he begged Denys to get him a lemon to suck. Denys, who from a rough soldier had been turned by tender friendship into a kind of grandfather, got up hastily, and bidding him set his mind at ease, “lemons he should have in the twinkling of a quart pot,” went and ransacked3 the shops for them.
They were not so common in the North as they are now, and he was absent a long while, and Gerard getting very impatient, when at last the door opened. But it was not Denys. Entered softly an imposing5 figure; an old gentleman in a long sober gown trimmed with rich fur, cherry-coloured hose, and pointed6 shoes, with a sword by his side in a morocco scabbard, a ruff round his neck not only starched7 severely8, but treacherously9 stiffened10 in furrows11 by rebatoes, or a little hidden framework of wood; and on his head a four-cornered cap with a fur border; on his chin and bosom12 a majestic13 white beard. Gerard was in no doubt as to the vocation14 of his visitor, for, the sword excepted, this was familiar to him as the full dress of a physician. Moreover, a boy followed at his heels with a basket, where phials, lint15, and surgical16 tools rather courted than shunned17 observation. The old gentleman came softly to the bedside, and said mildly and sotto voce, “How is't with thee, my son?”
Gerard answered gratefully that his wound gave him little pain now; but his throat was parched18, and his head heavy.
“A wound! they told me not of that. Let me see it. Ay, ay, a good clean bite. The mastiff had sound teeth that took this out, I warrant me;” and the good doctor's sympathy seemed to run off to the quadruped he had conjured19, his jackal.
“This must be cauterized21 forthwith, or we shall have you starting back from water, and turning somersaults in bed under our hands. 'Tis the year for raving23 curs, and one hath done your business; but we will baffle him yet. Urchin24, go heat thine iron.”
“But, sir,” edged in Gerard, “'twas no dog, but a bear.”
“A bear! Young man,” remonstrated25 the senior severely, “think what you say; 'tis ill jesting with the man of art who brings his grey hairs and long study to heal you. A bear, quotha! Had you dissected26 as many bears as I, or the tithe29, and drawn30 their teeth to keep your hand in, you would know that no bear's jaw31 ever made this foolish trifling32 wound. I tell you 'twas a dog, and since you put me to it, I even deny that it was a dog of magnitude, but neither more nor less than one of these little furious curs that are so rife33, and run devious34, biting each manly35 leg, and laying its wearer low, but for me and my learned brethren, who still stay the mischief36 with knife and cautery.”
“Alas, sir! when said I 'twas a bear's jaw? I said, 'A bear:' it was his paw, now.”
“And why didst not tell me that at once?”
“Because you kept telling me instead.”
“Never conceal37 aught from your leech38, young man,” continued the senior, who was a good talker, but one of the worst listeners in Europe. “Well, it is an ill business. All the horny excrescences of animals, to wit, claws of tigers, panthers, badgers39, cats, bears, and the like, and horn of deer, and nails of humans, especially children, are imbued40 with direst poison. Y'had better have been bitten by a cur, whatever you may say, than gored41 by bull or stag, or scratched by bear. However, shalt have a good biting cataplasm for thy leg; meantime keep we the body cool: put out thy tongue!-good!-fever. Let me feel thy pulse: good!—fever. I ordain42 flebotomy, and on the instant.”
“Flebotomy! that is bloodletting: humph! Well, no matter, if 'tis sure to cure me, for I will not lie idle here.” The doctor let him know that flebotomy was infallible, especially in this case.
“Hans, go fetch the things needful, and I will entertain the patient meantime with reasons.”
The man of art then explained to Gerard that in disease the blood becomes hot and distempered and more or less poisonous; but a portion of this unhealthy liquid removed, Nature is fain to create a purer fluid to fill its place. Bleeding, therefore, being both a cooler and a purifier, was a specific in all diseases, for all diseases were febrile, whatever empirics might say.
“But think not,” said he warmly, “that it suffices to bleed; any paltry43 barber can open a vein44 (though not all can close it again). The art is to know what vein to empty for what disease. T'other day they brought me one tormented45 with earache46. I let him blood in the right thigh47, and away flew his earache. By-the-by, he has died since then. Another came with the toothache. I bled him behind the ear, and relieved him in a jiffy. He is also since dead as it happens. I bled our bailiff between the thumb and forefinger48 for rheumatism49. Presently he comes to me with a headache and drumming in the ears, and holds out his hand over the basin; but I smiled at his folly50, and bled him in the left ankle sore against his will, and made his head as light as a nut.”
Diverging51 then from the immediate52 theme after the manner of enthusiasts53, the reverend teacher proceeded thus:
“Know, young man, that two schools of art contend at this moment throughout Europe. The Arabian, whose ancient oracles54 are Avicenna, Rhazes, Albucazis; and its revivers are Chauliac and Lanfranc; and the Greek school, whose modern champions are Bessarion, Platinus, and Marsilius Ficinus, but whose pristine55 doctors were medicine's very oracles, Phoebus, Chiron, Aesculapius, and his sons Podalinus and Machaon, Pythagoras, Democritus, Praxagoras, who invented the arteries56, and Dioctes, 'qui primus urinae animum dedit.' All these taught orally. Then came Hippocrates, the eighteenth from Aesculapius, and of him we have manuscripts; to him we owe 'the vital principle.' He also invented the bandage, and tapped for water on the chest; and above all he dissected; yet only quadrupeds, for the brutal57 prejudices of the pagan vulgar withheld58 the human body from the knife of science. Him followed Aristotle, who gave us the aorta59, the largest blood-vessel in the human body.”
“Surely, sir, the Almighty60 gave us all that is in our bodies, and not Aristotle, nor any Grecian man,” objected Gerard humbly61.
“Child! of course He gave us the thing; but Aristotle did more, he gave us the name of the thing. But young men will still be talking. The next great light was Galen; he studied at Alexandria, then the home of science. He, justly malcontent62 with quadrupeds, dissected apes, as coming nearer to man, and bled like a Trojan. Then came Theophilus, who gave us the nerves, the lacteal vessels63, and the pia mater.”
This worried Gerard. “I cannot lie still and hear it said that mortal man bestowed64 the parts which Adam our father took from Him, who made him of the clay, and us his sons.”
“Was ever such perversity65?” said the doctor, his colour rising. “Who is the real donor66 of a thing to man? he who plants it secretly in the dark recesses67 of man's body, or the learned wight who reveals it to his intelligence, and so enriches his mind with the knowledge of it? Comprehension is your only true possession. Are you answered?”
“I am put to silence, sir.”
“And that is better still; for garrulous68 patients are ill to cure, especially in fever; I say, then, that Eristratus gave us the cerebral69 nerves and the milk vessels; nay70, more, he was the inventor of lithotomy, whatever you may say. Then came another whom I forget; you do somewhat perturb71 me with your petty exceptions. Then came Ammonius, the author of lithotrity, and here comes Hans with the basin-to stay your volubility. Blow thy chafer, boy, and hand me the basin; 'tis well. Arabians, quotha! What are they but a sect28 of yesterday who about the year 1000 did fall in with the writings of those very Greeks, and read them awry72, having no concurrent73 light of their own? for their demigod, and camel-driver, Mahound, impostor in science as in religion, had strictly74 forbidden them anatomy75, even of the lower animals, the which he who severeth from medicine, 'tollit solem e mundo,' as Tully quoth. Nay, wonder not at my fervour, good youth; where the general weal stands in jeopardy77, a little warmth is civic78, humane79, and honourable80. Now there is settled of late in this town a pestilent Arabist, a mere81 empiric, who, despising anatomy, and scarce knowing Greek from Hebrew, hath yet spirited away half my patients; and I tremble for the rest. Put forth22 thine ankle; and thou, Hans, breathe on the chafer.”
Whilst matters were in this posture82, in came Denys with the lemons, and stood surprised. “What sport is toward?” said he, raising his brows.
Gerard coloured a little, and told him the learned doctor was going to flebotomize him and cauterize20 him; that was all.
“Ay! indeed; and yon imp4, what bloweth he hot coals for?”
“What should it be for,” said the doctor to Gerard, “but to cauterize the vein when opened and the poisonous blood let free? '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 spawn83 of Ishmael. For me, I have no faith in such tricksy expedients84; 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 purgatory85 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 hissing86 flesh lets him know their meaning. Now listen to what I have seen. When a soldier bleeds from a wound in battle, these leeches87 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 nought88 of what is sure to come in a few hours, and seeing like brute89 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 exhausted90. Hundreds have I seen so scratched and pricked91 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 I ever 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 slays92 a veteran may well lay a milk-and-water bourgeois94 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 I hear 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, “Woe95 be to you, unlearned man, if you come between a physician and his patient; and woe be to you, misguid............