They tapped the patient; so he died. They all made rhymes with "sighs" and Now such as hate new-fashioned toys Began to look extremely glum ; 66 'skies," And loathed their puddings and buttered rolls, They said that rattles were made for boys, And dieted, much to their friends' sur And vowed that his buzzing was all a hum. There was an old lady had long been sick, And what was the matter none did know: prise, On pickles and pencils and chalk and coals. So fast their little hearts did bound, Her pulse was slow, though her tongue So over all their chests he found A slight post-mortem, if you please, Surviving friends would gratify. The six young damsels wept aloud, Which so prevailed on six young men, That each his honest love avowed, Whereat they all got well again. This poor young man was all aghast ; The price of stethoscopes came down ; And so he was reduced at last To practise in a country town. The doctors being very sore, A stethoscope they did devise, That had a rammer to clear the bore, With a knob at the end to kill the flies. Now use your ears, all you that can, But don't forget to mind your eyes, Or you may be cheated, like this young man, By a couple of silly, abnormal flies. EXTRACTS FROM A MEDICAL POEM. THE STABILITY OF SCIENCE. To call our kind by such ungentle names; Yet, if your rashness bid you vainly dare, Think of their doom, ye simple, and beware! See where aloft its hoary forehead rears The towering pride of twice a thousand years! Far, far below the vast incumbent pile Sleeps the gray rock from art's Ægean isle; Its massive courses, circling as they rise, Swell from the waves to mingle with the skies; There every quarry lends its marble spoil, And clustering ages blend their common toil; The Greek, the Roman, reared its ancient walls, The silent Arab arched its mystic halls; In that fair niche, by countless billows laved, Trace the deep lines that Sydenham engraved ; On yon broad front that breasts the changing swell, Mark where the ponderous sledge of Hunter fell; THE feeble sea-birds, blinded in the By storms, that square buttress look where Louis stands, stone yet warm from his uplifted hands; And the rude granite scatters for their And say, O Science, shall thy life-blood pains freeze, Those small deposits that were meant for When fluttering folly flaps on walls like brains. Yet the proud fabric in the morning's sun Stands all unconscious of the mischief done; Still the red beacon pours its evening rays For the lost pilot with as full a blaze, Nay, shines, all radiance, o'er the scat tered fleet Of gulls and boobies brainless at its feet. I tell their fate, though courtesy disclaims |