“It’s a gr-reat medicine he give ye.  It will do ye good no matther what ye do with it.  I wud first thry poorin’ some iv it in me hair.  If that don’t help ye see how far ye can throw th’ bottle into th’ river.  Ye feel betther already.  Ye ought to write to th’ medical journals about th’ case.  It is a remarkable cure.  ’M——­ H——­ was stricken with excruciating tortures in th’ gastric regions followin’ an unusually severe outing in th’ counthry.  F’r a time it looked as though it might be niciss’ry to saw out th’ infected area, but as this wud lave an ugly space between legs an’ chin, it was determined to apply Jam.  Gin.  VIII.  Th’ remedy acted instantly.  Afther carryin’ th’ bottle uncorked f’r five minyits in his inside pocket th’ patient showed signs iv recovery an’ is now again in his accustomed health.’

“Yes, sir, if I was a doctor I’d be ayether laughin’ or cryin’ all th’ time.  I’d be laughin’ over th’ cases that I was called into whin I wasn’t needed an’ cryin’ over th’ cases where I cud do no good.  An’ that wud be most iv me cases.

“Dock O’Leary comes in here often an’ talks medicine to me.  ’Ye’ers is a very thrying pro-fissyon,’ says I.  ‘It is,’ says he.  ‘I’m tired out,’ says he.  ‘Have ye had a good manny desprit cases to-day?’ says I.  ’It isn’t that,’ says he, ‘but I’m not a very muscular man,’ he says, ‘an’ some iv th’ windows in these old frame houses are hard to open,’ he says.  Th’ Dock don’t believe much in dhrugs.  He says that if he wasn’t afraid iv losin’ his practice he wudn’t give annybody annything but quinine an’ he isn’t sure about that.  He says th’ more he practises medicine th’ more he becomes a janitor with a knowledge iv cookin’.  He says if people wud on’y call him in befure they got sick, he’d abolish ivry disease in th’ ward except old age an’ pollyticks.  He says he’s lookin’ forward to th’ day whin th’ tillyphone will ring an’ he’ll hear a voice sayin’:  ’Hurry up over to Hinnissy’s.  He niver felt so well in his life.’  ‘All right, I’ll be over as soon as I can hitch up th’ horse.  Take him away fr’m th’ supper table at wanst, give him a pipeful iv tobacco an’ walk him three times around th’ block.’

“But whin a man’s sick, he’s sick an’ nawthin’ will cure him or annything will.  In th’ old days befure ye an’ I were born, th’ doctor was th’ barber too.  He’d shave ye, cut ye’er hair, dye ye’er mustache, give ye a dhry shampoo an’ cure ye iv appindicitis while ye were havin’ ye’er shoes shined be th’ naygur.  Ivry gineration iv doctors has had their favrite remedies.  Wanst people were cured iv fatal maladies be applications iv blind puppies, hair fr’m the skulls iv dead men an’ solutions iv bat’s wings, just as now they’re cured be dhrinkin’ a tayspoonful iv a very ordhinary article iv booze that’s had some kind iv a pizenous weed dissolved in it.

“Dhrugs, says Dock O’Leary, are a little iv a pizen that a little more iv wud kill ye.  He says that if ye look up anny poplar dhrug in th’ ditchnry ye’ll see that it is ’A very powerful pizen of great use in medicine.’  I took calomel at his hands f’r manny years till he told me that it was about the same thing they put into Rough on Rats.  Thin I stopped.  If I’ve got to die, I want to die on th’ premises.