to drive out rheumatism. The prescription of the worthy doctor rested entirely on the curative power of the water. "You will take," he said to every one who came to him, "every morning before breakfast for choice, a glass of the water. Or, if you prefer first to take a dish of tea, a cup of chocolate, or a draught of beer, do so by all means. In that case take your glass an hour – not more – after breakfast. I prescribe in your case, a dose in a glass numbered A or B – or C" – as the case might be. "It contains seven ounces and six drachms" – or some other weight as the case might be. He was very exact in the size of the glass and the weight of the dose. "This is the exact quantity which operates efficaciously in your case. Do not take more which will not expedite your cure: nor less which will hinder it. Seven ounces and six drachms."
The doctor's dignity and gravity indeed were a credit to the town. Out of London, I believe, there was no physician with such outward tokens of science. The velvet coat he now wore habitually: a new wig greatly delayed had been brought from Norwich: his lace and his linen were clean every morning: his fingers became curly from the continual clasp of the guinea. No one, I am sure, expected to find so grave and dignified a physician in a town occupied mainly by rude tarpaulins and their ladies. Where nothing better than a mere apothecary could be expected there was found a physician in manner and in appearance equal to the most fashionable doctor of medicine in London itself.
"Before breakfast, madam," he repeated. "Fasting, if possible. If that is not convenient, after breakfast. Think not to hasten the operation of the waters by too generous a use of them. Seven ounces and six drachms in weight. Let that be your daily allowance: that and no more. For your diet, let it be ample, generous, and of the best quality that the market supplies. It is providentially, considering the wants of the spa – the best market in Norfolk, provided with birds of all kinds, both wild and of the farmyard: with beef and mutton fattened on the pastures of Marshland; and with fruit and other things of the very best. Partake plentifully, madam. Do not deny yourself. Tea, you may take if you desire it: very good tea can be obtained of the apothecary at a guinea a pound. For my own part I allow the beverage to be sometimes useful in clearing the brain of noxious vapours and the body of corrupt humours. For wine I recommend Port, Malmesey, Madeira or Lisbon – but not more than one measured pint in the day. You must take exercise gently by walking in the gardens, or in the long room, or by dancing in the evening. And you may maintain cheerfulness of mind, which is beneficial in any case whether of sickness or of health, by taking a hand in the card room."
To the gentlemen who had not as yet fallen victims to any of the prevalent diseases he would discourse much after the same fashion.
"Put out your tongue, sir – I believe it to be furred – So… Dear me! Worse than I suspected. And your pulse? I believe it to be strong. So. As I thought. A little too strong, perhaps even febrile. Your habits, I suppose, include a hearty appetite and a full allowance of strong ale and wine. You ride – you hunt – you attend races, cockpit and sport of all kinds; you are not addicted to reading or to study, and you sometimes play cards."
"The doctor," said his patients afterwards, "knew exactly and could tell by my pulse and my tongue my daily way of living. 'Tis wonderful!"
"It is my duty to warn you, sir, that you have within you the seeds of gout – of inflammatory gout – which will fix itself first upon the big toe and thus become like a bag of red hot needles. Afterwards it will mount higher – but I will spare you the description of your dying agonies. You may, however, avert this suffering, or postpone it, so that it will only seize upon you should you live to a hundred and twenty, or thereabouts. The surest method is by drinking these waters every year for a week or two. One tumbler every morning fasting. You will take a measured weight of seven ounces and six drachms – " or as I said before some other weight. "I prescribe in your case, no other medicine. Let your diet be generous. Confine yourself to a single bottle of wine a day. Ride as usual and, in fact, live as you are accustomed. Nature, sir, abhors a revolution: she expects to perform her usual work in the usual manner."
If any came to him already afflicted with gout or rheumatism he prescribed for them in a similarly easy and simple fashion.
"You have been taking colchicum – " or whatever it might have been. "I recommend you on no account to discontinue a medicine to which you are accustomed. Gout is an enemy which may be attacked from many points. While it is resisting so far successfully the attack by the drugs which have been administered to you, I shall attack it from an unsuspected quarter. Ha! I shall fall upon the unguarded flank with an infallible method. You will take, sir, three glasses of water daily; each before meals. Each glass contains the measured weight of seven ounces and six drachms," or some other weight was carefully prescribed. "You will, in other respects, follow the diet recommended by your former physicians."
"The doctor," said his patients, "is not one who scoffs at his brethren. On the contrary, he continues their treatment, only adding the water. And you see what I am now."
"Observe," the doctor continued, "my treatment is simple. It is so simple that it must command success. I shall expect therefore, to find in you, for your own share in the cure, that faith which assists nature. Nothing so disconcerts an enemy as the confidence of victory on the other side. Before that faith, gout flies, terrified; and nature, triumphant, resumes that nice balanced equilibrium of all the functions which the unlearned call health."
The doctor also encouraged his dippers, one of whom was a young woman of attractive appearance and great freedom of tongue, to relate for the benefit of those who drank the waters, cases of cure and rapid recovery. This encouragement caused the girl who had a fine natural gift of embellishment or development, to sing the praises of the spa with a most audacious contempt for the structure of fact.
"Lawk, madam!" she would say, using the broad Norfolk accent which I choose to convert into English, because her discourse would be unintelligible save to the folk of the county. "To think what this blessed water can do! That poor gentleman who has just gone out – you saw yourself that he now walks as upright as a lance and as stiff as a recruiting sergeant. He first came to the pump room, was it a fortnight ago or three weeks, Jenny? Twelve days? To be sure. You ought to know – Jenny dipped for him, madam. He was carried in: his very crutches were no good to him; and as for his poor feet, they dangle for all the world like lumps of pork. And his groans, – Lawk! – they would move a heart of stone. Jenny here, who has a feeling heart, though but a humble dipper at your service, madam, like myself and pleased to be of service to so fine a lady, burst into tears when she saw him – didn't you, Jenny, my dear? Before all the people, she did. Well, he drank three tumblers every day – each exactly seven ounces and six drachms in weight – oh! the doctor knows what to do for his patients – did your ladyship ever see a wiser doctor? On the third day he left off groaning: on the fourth he said, 'I feel better, give me my third tumbler.' Didn't he say those very words, Jenny? 'Give me my third,' he said. On the fifth day he walked in by himself. It was on crutches, it is true, for even this water takes its time. Lord forbid that I should tell your ladyship anything but gospel. On the sixth day he used a walking stick: on the seventh, he said, walking upright, his stick over his shoulder, 'If it was not Sunday,' he said, 'I should cut a caper – cut a caper,' he said. Jenny heard him. And now he talks of going home where a sweet young lady, almost as beautiful as your ladyship, waits for him with a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. She couldn't marry a man, could she, madam, with both feet, as a body might say, in the grave? Nobody except the doctor and us dippers, knows the secrets of the spa. If we could talk – but there we are bound to secrecy, because ladies would not let the world know that they have had ailments – but if we could talk, you would be astonished. Tell her ladyship, Jenny, about the old gammer of ninety, while I attend to the company. Yes, sir, coming, sir."
And so she rattled on, talking all day long and never tired of inventing these stories. The people listened, laughed, affected disbelief, yet believed. They drank the waters, and put down their twopences, which went into a box kept for the doctor. What with the patients' guineas and the daily harvest of this box he, at least, was in a fair way of proving the truth of his own prophecy that everybody
