by A. A. Milne
THE DOCTOR
His slippered feet stretched out luxuriously to the fire, Dr. Venables,of Mudford, lay back in his arm-chair and gave himself up to thedelights of his Flor di Cabajo, No. 2, a box of which had been presentedto him by an apparently grateful patient. It had been a busy day. He hadprescribed more than half a dozen hot milk-puddings and a dozen changesof air; he had promised a score of times to look in again to-morrow; andthe Widow Nixey had told him yet again, but at greater length thanbefore, her private opinion of doctors.
Sometimes Gordon Venables wondered whether it was only for this that hehad been the most notable student of his year at St. Bartholomew's. Hisbrilliance, indeed, had caused something of a sensation in medicalcircles, and a remarkable career had been prophesied for him. It wasVenables who had broken up one Suffrage meeting after another bythrowing white mice at the women on the platform; who day after day hadparaded London dressed in the costume of a brown dog, until arrested forbiting an anti-vivisector in the leg. No wonder that all the prizes ofthe profession were announced to be within his grasp, and that when heburied himself in the little country town of Mudford he was thought tohave thrown away recklessly opportunities such as were granted to few.
He had been in Mudford for five years now. An occasional paper in _TheLancet_ on "The Recurrence of Anthro-philomelitis in Earth-worms" kepthim in touch with modern medical thought, but he could not help feelingthat to some extent his powers were rusting in Mudford. As the yearswent on his chance of Harley Street dwindled.
"Come in," he said in answer to a knock at the door.
The housekeeper's head appeared.
"There's been an accident, sir," she gasped. "Gentleman run over!"
He snatched up his stethoscope and, without even waiting to inquirewhere the accident was, hurried into the night. Something whispered tohim that his chance had come.
After a quarter of an hour he stopped a small boy.
"Hallo, Johnny," he said breathlessly, "where's the accident?"
The boy looked at him with open mouth for some moments. Then he had anidea.
"Why, it's Doctor!" he said.
Dr. Venables pushed him over and ran on....
It was in the High Street that the accident had happened. Lord Lair, aneccentric old gentleman who sometimes walked when he might have driven,had, while dodging a motor-car, been run into by a child's hoop. He laynow on the pavement surrounded by a large and interested crowd.
"Look out," shouted somebody from the outskirts; "here comes Doctor."
Dr. Venables pushed his way through to his patient. His long search forthe scene of the accident had exhausted him bodily, but his mind was asclear as ever.
"Stand back there," he said in an authoritative voice. Then, taking outhis stethoscope, he made a rapid examination of his patient.
"Incised wound in the tibia," he murmured to himself. "Slight abrasionof the patella and contusion of the left ankle. The injuries are seriousbut not necessarily mortal. Who is he?"
The butcher, who had been sitting on the head of the fallen man, got upand disclosed the features of Lord Lair. Dr. Venables staggered back.
"His lordship!" he cried. "He is a patient of Dr. Scott's! I haveattended the client of another practitioner! Professionally I amruined!"
Lord Lair, who was now breathing more easily, opened his eyes.
"Take me home," he groaned.
Dr. Venables' situation was a terrible one. Medical etiquette demandedhis immediate retirement from the case, but the promptings of humanityand the thought of his client's important position in the world were toostrong for him. Throwing his scruples to the winds, he assisted the agedpeer on to a hastily improvised stretcher and accompanied him to theHall.
His lordship once in bed, the doctor examined him again. It was obviousimmediately that there was only one hope of saving the patient's life.An injection of anthro-philomelitis must be given without loss of time.
Dr. Venables took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He nevertravelled without a small bottle of this serum in his waistcoatpocket--a serum which, as my readers know, is prepared from theearth-worm, in whose body (fortunately) large deposits ofanthro-philomelitis are continually found. With help from a footman inholding down the patient, the injection was made. In less than a yearLord Lair was restored to health.
. . . . .
Dr. Gordon Venables' case came before the British Medical Council earlyin October. The counts in the indictment were two.
The first was that, "on the 17th of June last, Dr. Gordon Venables didfeloniously and with malice aforethought commit the disgusting andinfamous crime of attending professionally the client of anotherpractitioner."
The second was that "in the course of rendering professional services tothe said client, Dr. Venables did knowingly and wittingly employ theassistance of one who was not a properly registered medical man, to wit,Thomas Boiling, footman, thereby showing himself to be a scurvy fellowof infamous morals."
Dr. Venables decided to apologise. He also decided to send in an accountto Lord Lair for two hundred and fifty guineas. He justified this tohimself mainly on the ground that, according to a letter in that week's_Lancet_, the supply of anthro-philomelitis in earth-worms was suddenlygiving out, and that it was necessary to recoup himself for the generousquantity he had injected into Lord Lair. Naturally, also, he felt thathis lordship, as the author of the whole trouble, owed him something.
The Council, in consideration of his apology, dismissed the first count.On the second count, however, they struck him off the register.
It was a terrible position for a young doctor to be in, but GordonVenables faced it like a man. With Lord Lair's fee in his pocket he cameto town and took a house in Harley Street. When he had paid the firstquarter's rent and the first instalment on the hired furniture, he hadfifty pounds left.
Ten pounds he spent on embossed stationery.
Forty pounds he spent on postage-stamps.
For the next three months no journal was complete without a letter from999 Harley Street, signed "Gordon Venables," in which the iniquity ofhis treatment by the British Medical Council was dwelt upon with thefervour of a man who knew his subject thoroughly; no such letter wascomplete without a side-reference to anthro-philomelitis (as found,happily, in earth-worms) and the anthro-philomelitis treatment (asrecommended by peers). Six months previously the name of Venables hadbeen utterly unknown to the man in the street. In three months' time itwas better known even than ----'s, the well-known ----.
One-half of London said he was an infamous quack.
The other half of London said he was a martyred genius.
Both halves agreed that, after all, one might as well _try_ this newwhat-you-may-call-it treatment, just to see if there was anything _in_it, don't you know.
It was only last week that Mr. Venables made an excellent speech againstthe super-tax.