All the
names of patients under treatment are pinned upon a big
board. We sit round with note books open, and distribute
those who must be seen between us. By the time this is
done and the horses in, it is half-past eleven. Then
away we all FLY upon our several tasks: Horton in
a carriage and pair to see the employers; I in a dog cart
to see the employed; and McCarthy on his good Irish
legs to see those chronic cases to which a qualified man
can do no good, and an unqualified no harm.
Well, we all work back again by two o'clock, when we
find dinner waiting for us. We may or may not have
finished our rounds. If not away we go again. If we
have, Horton dictates his prescriptions, and strides off
to bed with his black clay pipe in his mouth. He is the
most abandoned smoker I have ever met with, collecting
the dottles of his pipes in the evening, and smoking them
the next morning before breakfast in the stable yard.
When he has departed for his nap, McCarthy and I get to
work on the medicine. There are, perhaps, fifty bottles
to put up, with pills, ointment, etc. It is quite half-
past four before we have them all laid out on the shelf
addressed to the respective invalids. Then we have an
hour or so of quiet, when we smoke or read, or box with
the coachman in the harness room. After tea the
evening's work commences. From six to nine people are
coming in for their medicine, or fresh patients wishing
advice.
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