By your leave, I desire just to call your attention,
And will barely suggest that I simply would mention
The fact that the science of beauty is rarely
Brought into physic, — at least not quite fairly!
For men love their lager, and dinners, and wine.
And women, and horses, and everything fine;
But physic goes begging, at least, if not so,
The patient goes begging to let him ” go slow.”
Now aesthetics most surely and certainly should,
By all that is great and everything good,
Be brought into physic; for what shall we do
With mankind in a fever, “too utterly too?”
And nothing that ‘s lovely, and nothing that ‘s bright,
With a storm coming on and the land out of sight 1
In place of the old-fashioned course of emetics,
Why not give a dose of exquisite aesthetics ?
Bring your patient to health on a bed of soft roses,
Surrounded by lilies, and sunflowers, and posies I
Now, the knife of surgeon — as an entering wedge —
Should be shining and bright, with no ” feather edge,”
And should penetrate kindly and gently and sure,
With a loving respect for all human gore.
The patient should lie in an easy repose,
With a flower on his breast (a. carnation rose),
And be perfectly calm and collected, unruffled,
While gently his sighs by a sunflower are muffled.
Again, when we reach the domain of the eye —
That beautiful organ so like to the sky—
The delicate, sensitive, beautiful slash
Iridectomy calls for, should be done with a gash
So fine in its features, so graceful in curve,
That nature will halt to admire its sweet swerve.
And then — now, you members who do much of this
Will want to get out your old student ‘s hiss —
In the line of obstetrics, where is the face
That never saw loveliness in such a place ?
Your patient, of course, is having some pain!
But they ‘re sweet, if they ‘re frequent enough, and again,
They certainly will, and its lovely to know,
Produce a production 1 a blossom, a blow!
In cases like this there should be no annoy;
The nurse and attendants all pregnant with joy,
Should buoy up the patient (no pun — understand!)
And bring the whole cargo to light and to land.
Again, in prognosing any kind of disease.
It is well to avoid getting up any breeze
By telling the patients they ‘re likely to die,
When the trouble in fact may be all in your eye,
And the patient as safe as old Aristotle,
When he stranded on Greece like a castor oil bottle I
Just tell ’em you ‘ll fetch ’em out all high and dry,
That all things are lovely and the goose hangeth high!
That the bright shining sun will be struck by a comet,
Before the hearse starts, and they ever get on it!
That the lilies which float in the sunlight ‘s broad gleam
Will pull out their roots and start up the stream
Before they e ‘er launch in Charon ‘s old shell
Which crosses the river and paddles for — well.
Encourage your patients, and teach them to know
That there ‘s something to live for, to blossom and grow;
Don ‘t give up the case ’till flowers cease to bloom,
Because sadness comes o ‘er you, despondence, and gloom!
Don ‘t take a back seat while blossoms still flutter. For there ‘s flowers in physic ” too utterly utter! “
By: Dr. E. B. Ward
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