“Surely, sir, the Almighty gave us all that is in our bodies, and not Aristotle, nor any Grecian man,” objected Gerard humbly.
“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 malcontent with quadrupeds, dissected apes, as coming nearer to man, and bled like a Trojan. Then came Theophilus, who gave us the nerves, the lacteal vessels, and the pia mater.”
This worried Gerard. “I cannot lie still and hear it said that mortal man bestowed the parts which Adam our father took from Him, who made him of the clay, and us his sons.”
“Was ever such perversity?” said the doctor, his colour rising. “Who is the real donor of a thing to man? he who plants it secretly in the dark recesses 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 garrulous patients are ill to cure, especially in fever; I say, then, that Eristratus gave us the cerebral nerves and the milk vessels; nay, more, he was the inventor of lithotomy, whatever you may say. Then came another whom I forget; you do somewhat perturb 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 sect of yesterday who about the year 1000 did fall in with the writings of those very Greeks, and read them awry, having no concurrent light of their own? for their demigod, and camel-driver, Mahound, impostor in science as in religion, had strictly forbidden them anatomy, 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 jeopardy, a little warmth is civic, humane, and honourable. Now there is settled of late in this town a pestilent Arabist, a mere empiric, who, despising anatomy, and scarce knowing Greek from Hebrew, hath yet spirited away half my patients; and I tremble for the rest. Put forth thine ankle; and thou, Hans, breathe on the chafer.”
Whilst matters were in this posture, 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 cauterize him; that was all.
“Ay! indeed; and yon imp, 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 spawn of Ishmael. For me, I have no faith in such tricksy expedients; 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 purgatory 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 hissing flesh lets him know their meaning. Now listen to what I have seen. When a soldier bleeds from a wound in battle, these leeches 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 nought of what is sure to come in a few hours, and seeing like brute 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 exhausted. Hundreds have I seen so scratched and pricked 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 slays a veteran may well lay a milk-and-water bourgeois 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, “Woe be to you, unlearned man, if you come between a physician and his patient; and woe be to you, misguided youth, if you listen to that man of blood.”
“Much obliged,” said Denys, with mock politeness; “but I am a true man, and would rob no man of his name. I do somewhat in the way of blood, but not worth mention in this presence. For one I slay, you slay a score; and for one spoonful of blood I draw, you spill a tubful. The world is still gulled by shows. We soldiers vapour with long swords, and even in war be-get two foes for every one we kill; but you smooth gownsmen, with soft phrases and bare bodkins, 'tis you that thin mankind.”
“A sick chamber is no place for jesting,” cried the physician.
“No, doctor, nor for bawling,” said the patient peevishly.
“Come, young man,” said the senior kindly, “be reasonable. Cuilibet in sua arte credendum est. My whole life has been given to this art. I studied at Montpelier; the first school in France, and by consequence in Europe. There learned I Dririmancy, Scatomancy, Pathology, Therapeusis, and, greater than them all, Anatomy. For there we disciples of Hippocrates and Galen had opportunities those great ancients never knew. Goodbye, quadrupeds and apes, and paganism, and Mohammedanism; we bought of the churchwardens, we shook the gallows; we undid the sexton's work of dark nights, penetrated with love of science and our kind; all the authorities had their orders from Paris to wink; and they winked. Gods of Olympus, how they winked! The gracious king assisted us: he sent us twice a year a living criminal condemned to die, and said, 'Deal ye with him as science asks; dissect him alive, if ye think fit.'”
“By the liver of Herod, and Nero's bowels, he'll make me blush for the land that bore me, an' if he praises it any more,” shouted Denys at the top of his voice.
Gerard gave a little squawk, and put his fingers in his ears; but speedily drew them out and shouted angrily, and as loudly, “you great roaring, blaspheming bull of Basan, hold your noisy tongue!”
Denys summoned a contrite look.
“Tush, slight man,” said the doctor, with calm contempt, and vibrated a hand over him as in this age men make a pointer dog down charge; then flowed majestic on. “We seldom or never dissected the living criminal, except in part. We mostly inoculated them with such diseases as the barren time