THE BLOOMSBURY COLLEGE.
Tama is nothing provoking more provokg than, after having put our- selves into a passion for a friend, to see him all at once shake hands with Ins opponent2 leaving us without explanation, to get cool as we may. Within the last three or four months John Bull has been urged by his medical advisers to manifest alarm at Sir James Graham's Bill ; and, with his usual deference for pro- fessional men, he has accordingly worked himself into a consider- able flurry. Visions of unqualified practitioners forcing them-
selves into his house, and, with a ferocity unknown even to high- waymen, remorselessly taking both his money and his life, have haunted him ever since : he has seen that any one may do him a mischief—that if he fall sick, even his very servants may blister him at their pleasure—that his gardener may physic him for the gravel, and his butler breathe a vein with as much impunity as if the precious stream were nothing more than the customary claret ; and that for all this he is to have no other consolation than the knowledge that if his tormentors sue him for a fee, the law will put them into the same category with their patient, and not allow them to "recover."
And now he finds that all this emotion has been thrown away. Mr. Wakley, who was foremost in stirring up the panic, has sud- denly fraternized with the objects of his denunciations, leaving his excited partisan to burst in ignorance of the cause. At an inquest held a few days back on a Mr. Cordwell, it was found "that the deceased died from exhaustion, caused by loss of blood from his intestinal canal, produced by natural disease." This verdict was in strict accordance with the medical testimony, which "could not attribute the haemorrhage to any particular cause." But although the medical men were unable to see their way, the jurors were more enlightened. It appeared that the deceased had been kept for a period of ten days forbid- den all sustenance but water and toast-and-water,—a discipline the contemplation of which, after a four-hours sitting, seemed to the twelve tradesmen of Bloomsbury sublimely horrible. To mark this sense of horror, and to protect humanity from such treatment, something therefore was to be done. It is true that, on the second day of his fast, the patient had said that he didn't think food would stay on his stomach if he took it; and that when a single spoonful of beef-tea was, near the close of the
period, given to him, he "threw it all up inflammatory we know also, that it is not without precedent in cases for a patient to remain thus long without food, and in fact much longer, yet ultimately recover ; and also, that starvation is not exactly calculated to produce hoemorrhag.e. And probably the Jury knew all this too : but with juries, just now, excited against the Poor-law, starvation in any shape is decidedly unpo- pular, and something therefore must be done to put it down. No doubt, Dr. Curie, by whom the abstinence was ordered, thought he had reasons for prescribing it, and was not anxious to lose his patient; perhaps he could have explained those reasons if he had been called upon to do so : but this would have accumulated hor- ror on horror's head. To hear a man deliberately proclaim the cold rules of science in justification of a ten-days fast, would have been too much for flesh and blood : so that misery was avoided, and the Jury passed to the more pleasing task of listening to what had been done by his successors. On the tenth day, two other practitioners were called in—men who had bowels ; and the list of the " things " they tried upon the patient was enough to warm a juryman's heart. To the man who not long before had rejected a spoonful, half a cup of beef-tea was now administered, and arrow-root, and champagne, and chicken-broth, and brandy- " one thing after another, to see what his stomach would retain." " Them's the practitioners for me!" must have been the mental ejaculation of every one who heard them' and the bright detail sealed at once Dr. Curie's condemnation. It is true that, "after all, the deceased became worse—his stomach not appearing to be able to retain any food" ; and that, after three days of the gene- rous diet, the unfortunate patient died: but that perhaps was owing to the previous starvation. If food had been given to him at an early stage—at the time when he thought it wouldn't stay on his stomach, or a day or two before he rejected the spoonful of beef-tea—it would have nourished him, no doubt: and so the Jury unanimously resolved, that they "could not refrain from expressing the strongest feelings of indignation and disgust at hearing it proved that the afflicted gentleman had been cruelly exposed to a system of stervation2 he having during at least ten days been allowed nothing but plain (?) cold water, by the express direction of his medical attendant."
Now, this medical attendant, it appears, is a qualified prac- titioner, from the University of Paris—perhaps the first school of medicine in the world ; and has enjoyed for several years a high repute in London. But then, what can a Frenchman know of the proper times for administering food to Englishmen ? The bakers and publicans and grocers of London, in solemn inquest assembled, are the men to read him a lesson on dietetic rules ; and not only on these points, but even on medicine too, for they are practical people, acquainted with drugs and knowing what can-be done with them.
And Mr. Wakley, so long the opponent of all " unqualified " persons, suddenly exalts them before the public, and, with "con- siderable emphasis," cordially agrees in the propriety of their passing judgment on the qualified practitioner. Even the in-
quest itself seems to have been got up to give him a public oppor- tunity of deserting the cause he had so long advocated ; for it is unusual to put the county to the charge of holding inquests on
those who have died of protracted illness and under the attend- ance of three physicians. Be this as it may, the results will be
serious ; since they will establish a rule in medical practice, that
however critical may be the nature of the complaint, the prac- titioner, if he would escape "indignation and disgust," must allow food to his patient,—unless' indeed, he can procure au- thority by invoking Mr. Wakley's Council of Health, at thegBlue Boar, Great Russell Street, St. Giles's.
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