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THE

ECLECTIC MUSEUM

OF

FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

NOVEMBER, 18 4 3.

LIFE OF A TRAVELLING PHYSICIAN.

From the Edinburgh Review.

The Life of a Travelling Physician, from his
First Introduction to Practice; including
Twenty Years' Wanderings through the
greater part of Europe. 3 vols. 8vo. Lon-

don: 1843.

interior of foreign life could have enabled him to delineate; joined with the shrewd judgments of a cosmopolite on the world about him. A little more knowledge of languages, we should have thought, would have done him no harm; his German is somewhat elementary; his sins against French orthography (albeit an accomplishment on which he prides himself) unparTHIS is a rambling, discursive book;-the donable; while with Polish and Russian, work of a clever and acute observer; but though he lived sixteen years in these nowise remarkable for either thinking or countries, he does not seem to possess any style. It has been put together with as lit- acquaintance. He at least disfigures the tle pains as we ever remember to have seen names of places and people in a manner exemplified in the operation of book-mak-only equalled by the most slovenly of moding. But it is, upon the whole, amusing; and it leads us to think favorably of the author himself. Sir George Lefevre (for so the writer is confidently named in some of the periodical publications of the day) has seen much of life-a great deal more than he chooses to communicate; and in what he has here revealed, it is not always easy to distinguish between 'dichtung' and wahrheit ;'-to borrow the title of Goethe's Memoirs, which he has himself chosen by way of motto. Nothing, at any rate, can be more careless than his manner of throwing together his loose remarks on men and The travelling physician' first introthings; nothing more commonplace than duces himself to us in his capacity of medtwo-thirds of the matter with which he has ical student; having just picked up knowfilled up the predestined and favorite num- ledge enough to fancy himself the victim ber of three volumes. But the remaining of all the ills which flesh is heir to. It was portion consists of quaint anecdote, and under this conviction that he started on his descriptions of scenes and characters, such travels, after obtaining his degree at Edinas only an intimate acquaintance with the burgh. Each pain and ache,' says he, VOL. III. No. III. 19

ern tourists. But as he has managed to live and thrive without them, so he succeeds in giving his reader a tolerable insight into many things, of which some writers of greater pretensions convey no idea. Altogether, had we been consulted, in our consulting capacity, as to whether these records of the life of our medical friend should be given to the public, we should have felt some difficulty in advising on the case: as it is, we are glad that no opportunity was afforded us of giving the austerer counsel.

After the termination of this engagement,

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every comfortable sensation which I expe- | health; and we hear no more of his conrienced, seemed to indicate the last stage of sumption. consumption. I was continually feeling my pulse, taking a deep inspiration to discover we find him again in London, exerting himwhether I had any pain in my chest, atten- self to get on' in the usual course of his tive to every little symptom which might profession. He nearly succeeded in a great tend to strengthen the opinion which I had canvass for a Dispensary; but at last, alformed of my case. I had two objects to though he could prove by his books that he attain, and their mutual accomplishment had secured two-thirds of the bona fide subwas necessary to my existence. I had to scribers, the candidate whom he feared the regain my own health, and to procure the least created upwards of a hundred old means of so doing by endeavoring to restore women, whose proxies threw me,' he says, the health of others.' 'into the minority! I was in a rage, and The unpromising resource of East or the directors were in a rage, and a council West India practice was of course the first was called, and a law was passed which prething which offered itself under these pecu-vented such proceedings for the future; but liar circumstances; but fortunately, as it had no retrospective influence, and it did turned out for our physician, his endeavors not help me.' for employment in those quarters did not succeed; and in September 1819, after a period of that trying and anxious uncertainty which is usually allotted to the young pilgrim in his outset in that profession-one of the roughest passages in the life of all, and one with the sufferings of which there day, and only thought of the morrow as able to procure him possibly more entertainment than is the least sympathy to be met with-he the day. He seldom read, and if he did, it was found himself comfortably established as only a pamphlet, or the last new novel published travelling physician to Lord then leav- by Avocat. With politics he never troubled ing England in the last stage of consump-himself, or he had, perhaps, been too much troution. We might, were it proper, fill up the bled by them. As regards general litrerature, blank with the name of a Scottish nobleman however, he seemed to be quite au fait; he knew the merits of most authors, and could of no ordinary character; one of those san- equally point out their defects. Speak of chemguine temperaments so often found in con- istry, he seemed thoroughly acquainted with junction with predisposition to this malady; the principles of the science. Physics he had a the projector of schemes of singular mag-natural talent for, and was often occupied in innitude, who lived, like many similar projectors, a little before his time, and would have found in our days a much wider field of action, and fellow-visionaries as zealous as himself.

After three or four more years of hard study, anxious expectations, and no fees, he accepts a situation with Prince- -, at Paris, as family physician for five years.

"The Prince was a man who lived for the

venting some plan to counteract the loss in vertical motion. He was a very fair mathematician. He was an excellent modern linguist, and could nothing of the classics. His conversation was speak half a dozen languages fluently. He knew replete with anecdote, for his memory was most English physicians had not then attained retentive, and he turned every thing he heard to the melancholy learning with which they his own account: he made it in fact his own. So now estimate the several varieties of air far from appearing to have neglected his educaand temperature in the regions to which tion, he seemed on the contrary to have studied a they recommend the victims of that appal-derived from what he had picked up in convergreat deal; and yet his whole information was ling complaint. They consigned their pa-sation, and little from books. His social powers tients to various by-places of the newly were great, and as he was not pedantic, but galopened Continent; but with results much lant and amiable in the extreme, so he was the same. Spain was talked of for winter- adored by the fair sex. ing-then Montpelier-then Toulouse-by Segur of the famous Potemkin would apply and Pau was finally determined on, where in many respects to the Prince. the southern breezes blow freshly from the glittering icy wall of the Pyrenees, full in sight. Qui diable vous a conseillé de venir ici?' said the Basques, as they pointed to their mountains. The first breezes of spring heralded the departure of the poor invalid, and procured the doctor his release, and a pleasant solitary tour in the Pyrenees, where a village Esculapius seems to have laughed him out of his fancies about his

The character drawn

"I may observe, that his occupations were most trivial. He would rise at five o'clock, put on his robe-de-chambre, and sit at his table in his study till ten or eleven o'clock A. M. During the whole of this time he was employed in sketching something upon paper, chewing the corner of his pocket-handkerchief, and taking snuff; lifted his head from the table until he was sumwholly absorbed in these occupations, he hardly moned to breakfast. Then his latent faculties became free, and he would converse during the whole of this repast with his maître d'hôtel, or

more? Now be candid, and speak the truth boldly: you know that I cannot do without you.' "There is nothing like making an appeal to a man's feelings; it is by far the best way of attacking him. The cook felt the full power of the concluding part of the sentence-'I cannot do without you.'

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"Why, sir, I admit that yours is an excellent situation; but you know, sir, that it is not equal to my expenses. I like society-to treat my friends handsomely. I am addicted to play: enfin j'ai une petite maîtresse; and you must be aware, Prince, that, all these things considered, your wages are not sufficient.'

"Good,' said the Prince: this is precisely the point to which I hoped to bring you. Tell me how much all this costs you over and above what I give you and I will make up the difference; only do not rob me.'

his cook, if he had no other company. He seldom, however, was driven to such expedients; for as his table had the first reputation, there were seldom wanting guests in the shape of cousins, or nephews, or even of intimate friends. This repast, which generally lasted an hour, was always taken in the robe-de-chambre; and then he retired again to his cabinet, where he remained until it was time to dress himself for the more important duties of the day; such as are performed by a man with plenty of money, and without any official occupation, in the most dissipated city in Europe. It was a promenade with the Duchess of or the Countess of -; perhaps it was in paying court to the King, or more probably in doing nothing at all, with which he occupied himself till dinner-time. "If the time previous to this important epoch of the day, for to him la vie c'était le diner, was not all disposed of, he quietly undressed and went to bed, where he slept as soundly as at midnight, until his valet announced to him that it was time to dress. Then his imagination awoke, and he was employed in anticipating the quality of the repast till he found himself seated by the fair Duchess, and in the act of saying the prettiest thing in the world, or relishing a delightful mouthful of some choice dish. This was his element; he shone here as a bright star in the gastronomic firmament; but what greater eulogium can be paid him, than the one pronounced We must find room for a couple of other upon him by his own cook, who, in speaking of portraits from the same Prince's household him, and discussing his different merits, observ-gallery-his French and Russian valets, ed, that it was a pleasure to serve him; for, said Baptiste and Nicholas-each, like the cook, an arrant thief; but the one a thief of honor, the other of a religious turn. Thus says the Prince himself respecting them:

he, 'Monsieur le Prince est essentiellement cuisinier.'"-Vol. i. p. 108.

The artist in question had been cook to two Empresses, and was a man of merit, but an inveterate thief notwithstanding.

"The cook laid his hand upon his heart for a minute, and looking with an affectionate, and even grateful expression towards his master, replied in a suppressed sigh, 'Non, monseigneur ; je prefere de vous voler.' Having said this he burst into tears, and hid his face in a cotton handkerchief. The Prince, seeing his distress, clapped him upon the shoulder, and encouraged him by saying, 'Bien, mon cher, très bien, comme tu le voudras.”—Vol. i. p. 112.

faithful servant enough in his way, but were I to "Were I to ask the former, who is a good and ask him, I say, to do any thing more than he "He had attended several courses of chemis- thought consistent with his dignity, and the glotry, and was always busy in inquiry. He ob- Were I to command him in the field, he would ry of the French name, he would spit in my face. served to me once, indeed, with great emphasis, willingly rush into the cannon's mouth, and this that with respect to cooks and physicians it might be said truly, that their education was not in mere obedience to my individual comnever finished.' Though the man was a Gas-mand, but with the idea of serving his country con, there were some good points in his charac-through me, and doing his duty as a soldier. ter. He was honest enough to confess his dishonesty.

"The Prince, once shut up with him in his carriage, and proceeding gloomily along the road which leads to Smolensko, (soon after the termination of the campaign which reduced that city to ashes,) wishing no doubt to change his train of ideas, burst like a torrent upon his un-suspecting artist with the emphatic demand'Why do you rob me so? The poor astounded cook, who was at the very moment probably devising some plan of peculation, to make up for the time lost in a long, and for him unprofitable, journey of some weeks' duration, replied in an agitated tone, Sir, sir, I don't rob you, I only only -only make the usual profits of my Stop,' said the Prince, 'I am not angry with you: I know that you rob me; but I wish to make an arrangement with you. Why do you do it? I give you a handsome salary, you have many perquisites, and what need have you of

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thing which I tell him to do, because it is I who Whereas that bear, as you call him, does every tell him to do it. He never stops to consider whether I have the right to command him or but then he will burn the other off for my sake. It is true, he will rob me with one hand, Such is human nature; such the difference between unpolished and civilized life.

not.

"The difference of character in these two servants was strikingly illustrated when they were under my care. Baptiste had injured his leg, and the wound spreading, he became alarmed: seeing, also, that I did not look as if I gave him much hope, he inquired with much agitation'Est ce que Monsieur le Docteur en ait une mauvaise opinion?"

"We shall see, Baptiste: drink no wine.'

"The following day, as I entered his room, he first pointed to the bottle of wine, which was uncorked, and then undid his bandages with fear

and trembling. Baptiste,' I pronounced, and he trembled. 'Cela a changé de face, Baptiste.' 'Tant mieux, Monsieur le Docteur, tant mieux; mais Monsieur parle très bien Français ! What satisfaction did he experience in paying me this compliment!

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expression startled me a little, and the more so as it was in a hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain. 'Tout ce qui est ultra este bête,' said the doctor, as he was criticising the conduct of one of his patients, who, not having attended to the doctor's injunctions, was suffering for his disobedience by confinement to his bed.

"Permettez-mois de vous presenter le Médecin de mon frère,' said the lady of the house, interrupting him, 'c'est un Anglais.' The doctor rose and bowed in honor of my country. Several commonplace phrases were interchanged between us; but nothing which passed denoted any thing extraordinary in the mental endowments of the phrenologist. Still, as I gazed upon his brow, I seemed to see indelibly imprinted the iron character of his soul; the stern, unyielding physiognomy which scarce allowed a smile to play upon it. His countenance was one, however, expressive of great intellect; for thus far we will go, but no farther, that the head is the 'mansion of the mind, and the index of its "And how is poor N-?' inquired the hostess.

"Now, how did Nicholas conduct himself under bodily suffering? He had received a kick from a horse, which had produced a considerable contusion. I was absent when the accident happened; but upon my return I found Nicholas stretched upon a mechanical bed. It was impossible to keep my countenance. He was beating his breast with one hand with all his might, and holding a Bible in the other. I asked him how he felt, he replied, Grèces à Dieu, Monsieur le Docteur.' He continued his lamentations morning, noon, and night. It happened to be in Lent, and nobody could persuade him to touch a bit of meat; and he said grace over every glass of water which was given him to drink. His friends who came to see him got so tired of his misereres, and so disappointed at find-powers.' ing no good cheer, that they soon abandoned him. When left quite to himself, he held sweet converse therewith; and thumping his breast, and turning round the image of the Virgin, he soliloquized, 'Eh bien bon Dieu, tu m'as tappé fort-tu as bien fait, j'ai été un grand pécheur. Then he crossed himself again. Laissez-moi échapper cette fois-ci-Oh bon Dieu-je confesserai à l'avenir trois fois par semaine.' Thus did he amuse himself for days and weeks, until, the bones uniting, (for he had broken his thigh,) he began to stump about as usual; and as he improved in health, his piety decreased in fervor." -Vol. i. p. 137.

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Oh, voilà encore un animal,' replied the doctor. 'He has taken some offence at what I said to him yesterday, and I suppose I shall not be sent for again. Indeed, I hardly think that he will live through the night.'

"Good God! is the poor old chamberlain so near his end as you say?

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He has lived long enough,' he replied, 'to be wiser than he is. He took offence at something which I said to him, and which wounded his pride; but it was true, and had I not wrapped the bird in warm towels, it certainly would have died.'

"Pray, be more explicit,' continued the lady, and tell me what has passed. You know that we are related, and I take a great interest in all

that concerns the old

In this curious family our physician seems to have spent his time pleasantly enough, between Paris in the winter, and Dieppe in the summer. He gives us very little of his French reminiscences; but we extract the following sketch of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, then in the full bloom of their respective theories. The rival thumaturgi were men of very different char-subject, and which sooner or later will put an

acters:

"Dr. Spurzheim's physiognomy indicated every thing which was kind and benevolent, and he was what he appeared. A better man never lived. He had, perhaps, too great faith in his own opinions. As to the countenance of Gall, I should say that it indicated that feeling had been absorbed in interest, and that it betrayed a disbelief in every thing, and even in his own system; and if the world judges rightly, such was really the case. In conversing with several of the French professors upon this subject, I found them unanimously of this opinion.Spurzheim croit au moins à tout ce qu'il dit, comme un bon enfant. Gall n'y croit pas un mot.' Such was the opinion in Paris.

"I first met with Dr. Gall at a patient's breakfast-table. He was busily employed in eating dried salmon, for which his organs of taste seemed to have been particularly created. His first

will know all the gossip of the town, I was sit"Why, then,' continued the doctor, 'if you ting yesterday by his bedside, and had paid him rather a longer visit than usual, when one of those convulsive fits of asthma to which he is so

end to his existence, began to manifest its attack. I rose to go away, and see my poor patient at home, and who wanted my care; but the asthmatic man made signs to me to stay with him till the fit was over. 1 told the attendants that I was in a hurry, that I had a patient at home waiting for me. They pressed my remaining, but I insisted that I could not; for unless I hastened to wrap the peacock, who had caught cold, in warm towels, he might perhaps die.'

"Good God!' said the hostess,' and was this the patient who interested you so? and could you leave a human being in his sufferings, to look after a peacock?'

"It is a great favorite of my's,' and he stopped himself. Your relation, the Mareschal, sent it to me from Poland. I would not lose it for any money; and when I could do good in the one case and none in the other, is there any thing so monstrous in it, pray?"-Vol. i. p. 144.

The father of Phrenology was by no

means popular with his brethren of the pro- | ladies' man, for ladies like to hear about wonderfession at Paris; and was considered guilty ful things, and with all such he is conversant; of many deviations from orthodox practice. Among others, he was in the habit of denoting the drugs in his prescriptions by numbers, to which only a few confidential chemists had the key-by which means he effectually precluded not only the patient but the faculty from criticising his exhibitions. He was once persuaded to become a candidate for the Academy of Sciences, but was blackballed by every voter but one-M. Geoffroi de Saint-Hilaire, his proposer.

but dead languages require study and application, and these it does not enter into his heart to conceive. He has studied truly in a great book, and retains the best part of its contents; but this is a book which owes nothing to the art of printing. When in a library, he is completely out of his element, though by his conversation you would suppose he was quite at home; and, without ever having read a volume, he is more the mere bookworm who has been groping in it for years, but who, with all his labor and information, cannot make himself agreeable in society for a single hour. The other loses nothing that he hears; he gains his knowledge as he does his florins, by the toil of others; and he is the calls he has upon them. They are both satisfied with both when they are sufficient for equally necessary to him; he can live neither without money nor without society; he procures both at a cheap rate, inheriting the one, which affords him the means of purchasing the other: nor is he content with a modicum of either. If

conversant with the facts therein contained than

he is in society he must enjoy it—he must shine

in it.

"Few people have more active or penetrating minds, better memories, and a more happy method of converting every kind of information to an useful currency.'-Vol. i. p. 277.

a

At the end of the stipulated five years, the physician accepts an invitation to winter with the Prince in Poland, and to proceed thence, via Odessa, to St. Petersburg; and here the really interesting part of his narrative begins. Travelling in the society of a party of high rank, he saw at least the outside of Polish high life, such as it is, or was found in the great castles of the interior, some three years before the Revolution, which spread such bitter desolation, not over the kingdom of Poland only, in which its chief military events took place, but wherever the Polish language was spoWhether it be the effect of bad education, ken; for from every corner of that ancient or of his irrepressible restless nature, and realm, some of the noblest of its children sort of practical epicureanism which looks made their way to take a part in the strug on life as not worth the trouble of serious gle. It is but a gloomy picture which he investigation, the Pole studies nothing; and draws of Polish society. The old destiny his knowledge is confined to what may be weighs still on the nation, and generations creditable in conversation. His life passes of trial have not yet redeemed it-patriot-in a routine of crowded, uninteresting sociism without unity, bravery without energy, ety, with little excitement but that of gamand genius without application. A hunbling; the vice and ruin of his race from dred thousand of the nobility of this devo- the earliest period. The Russian is in mated country have peopled the deserts of Siberia since Catharine first placed its y respects a similar being; but then the Russian of rank, whatever may be his crown on the head of her paramour. Few years have passed in which some of her children have not departed on that pilgrim age without hope; where the last prayer of parting friends is, that they may never meet again. And, in these last times, every part of Europe has been witness to the heroism, and the dignity, with which her high-mind-gendered by such habits as are unfortunateed exiles have endured their unequalled ly inevitable in a community of nobles and privations. Yet the Pole, at home, seems to be the same reckless being as ever-exhibiting the same insignificant, listless ways of living, the same mixture of indolence and impatience, the same mobility of temperament, which fills his painstaking German neighbor with astonishment, dislike, and self-exaltation.

"The nobleman of the present day is a linguist, because chance has made him so; he can talk of wars and battles, because they have been familiar to him from his cradle; he is a perfect

qualifications as an individual, fills a post cal machine in the world, which gives his as a component part of the mightiest politilife a very different significance from the wretched, purposeless existence of the Polish nobility.

One curious effect of the selfishness en

slaves, is that excessive fear of death which is apt to steal over the rich and prosperous, and vents itself in a thousand strange eccentricities.

"I should say that the Poles were more certain in succeeding in their attempt to kill time than the English, and that they were more apprehensive also that time would kill them. I have been consulted by many of them, not for any particular complaint, but for the sake of ascertaining my opinion as to the probability of their longer or shorter duration upon earth.

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