"I can't oblige you there, Wrench," said Mr. Hawley, thrusting his

hands into his trouser-pockets.

"My dear fellow," said Mr. Toller, striking in pacifically, and looking

at Mr. Wrench, "the physicians have their toes trodden on more than we

have. If you come to dignity it is a question for Minchin and Sprague."

"Does medical jurisprudence provide nothing against these

infringements?" said Mr. Hackbutt, with a disinterested desire to offer

his lights. "How does the law stand, eh, Hawley?"

"Nothing to be done there," said Mr. Hawley. "I looked into it for

Sprague. You'd only break your nose against a damned judge's decision."

"Pooh! no need of law," said Mr. Toller. "So far as practice is

concerned the attempt is an absurdity. No patient will like

it--certainly not Peacock's, who have been used to depletion. Pass the

wine."

Mr. Toller's prediction was partly verified. If Mr. and Mrs. Mawmsey,

who had no idea of employing Lydgate, were made uneasy by his supposed

declaration against drugs, it was inevitable that those who called him

in should watch a little anxiously to see whether he did "use all the

means he might use" in the case. Even good Mr. Powderell, who in his

constant charity of interpretation was inclined to esteem Lydgate the

more for what seemed a conscientious pursuit of a better plan, had his

mind disturbed with doubts during his wife's attack of erysipelas, and

could not abstain from mentioning to Lydgate that Mr. Peacock on a

similar occasion had administered a series of boluses which were not

otherwise definable than by their remarkable effect in bringing Mrs.

Powderell round before Michaelmas from an illness which had begun in a

remarkably hot August. At last, indeed, in the conflict between his

desire not to hurt Lydgate and his anxiety that no "means" should be

lacking, he induced his wife privately to take Widgeon's Purifying

Pills, an esteemed Middlemarch medicine, which arrested every disease

at the fountain by setting to work at once upon the blood. This

co-operative measure was not to be mentioned to Lydgate, and Mr.

Powderell himself had no certain reliance on it, only hoping that it

might be attended with a blessing.

But in this doubtful stage of Lydgate's introduction he was helped by

what we mortals rashly call good fortune. I suppose no doctor ever

came newly to a place without making cures that surprised somebody--cures

which may be called fortune's testimonials, and deserve as much

credit as the written or printed kind. Various patients got well while

Lydgate was attending them, some even of dangerous illnesses; and it

was remarked that the new doctor with his new ways had at least the

merit of bringing people back from the brink of death. The trash

talked on such occasions was the more vexatious to Lydgate, because it

gave precisely the sort of prestige which an incompetent and

unscrupulous man would desire, and was sure to be imputed to him by the

simmering dislike of the other medical men as an encouragement on his

own part of ignorant puffing. But even his proud outspokenness was

checked by the discernment that it was as useless to fight against the

interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog; and "good fortune"

insisted on using those interpretations.




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