لخّصلي

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read about the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch - hay fever, I fancy it was.I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid's knee.Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without my being aware of it; and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with from boyhood.There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me. I sat and pondered.I forgot which was the first distemper I plunged into - some fearful, devastating scourge, I know - and, before I had glanced half down the list of 'Premonitory symptoms', it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it. I sat for a while frozen with horror; and then in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages.I came to typhoid fever - read the symptoms - discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it - wondered what else I had got; turned up st Vitus's Dance - found, as I expected, that I had that too - began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom , and so started alphabetically - read up ague , and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight .I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases generally.I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with.Why hadn't I got housemaid housemaid's knee?After a while a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed.I crawled out a decrepit wreck.Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and so far as that was concerned, I might live for years.Why this invidious reservation?I tried to examine myself.

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read about the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch - hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases generally. I forgot which was the first distemper I plunged into - some fearful, devastating scourge, I know - and, before I had glanced half down the list of 'Premonitory symptoms', it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it. I sat for a while frozen with horror; and then in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever - read the symptoms - discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it - wondered what else I had got; turned up st Vitus's Dance - found, as I expected, that I had that too - began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom , and so started alphabetically - read up ague , and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight . Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee. I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn't I got housemaid housemaid's knee? Why this invidious reservation? After a while a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid's knee.Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without my being aware of it; and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with from boyhood.There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me. I sat and pondered. I thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view, what an acquisition I should be to a class! Students would have no need 'to walk the hospitals', if they had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk round me, and after that, take their diploma. Then I wandered how long I had live. I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at first feel any pulse at all. Then all of a sudden, it seemed to start off. I pulled out my watch and timed it. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute. I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. It had stopped beating. I have since been induced to come to the opinion that it must have been there all the time, and must have been beating, but I cannot account fot it. I patted myself all over my front, from what I call my waist up to my head, and I went a bit round each side, and a little way up the back. But I could not feel or hear anything. I tried to look at my tongue. I stuck it out as for ever it would go, and I shut one eye, and tried to examing it with the other. I could only see the tip, and the only thing that I could gain from that was to feel more certain than before that I had scarlet fever. I walked into that reading-room a happy healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck. I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I'm ill; so I thought I would do hom a good turn by going to him now. "What a doctor wants' I said, 'is practice. He shall have me. He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, commonplace patients. With only one or two diseases each. 'So I went straight up and saw him, and he said: "Well, what's the matter with you"?