If he chose to preserve crutches and sticks, as they do
in the mediaeval churches, he might, I am sure, paper his
consulting room with them. A favourite device of
his with an impressionable patient is to name the exact
hour of their cure. "My dear," he will say, swaying some
girl about by the shoulders, with his nose about three
inches from hers, "you'll feel better to-morrow at a
quarter to ten, and at twenty past you'll be as well as
ever you were in your life. Now, keep your eye on the
clock, and see if I am not right." Next day, as likely
as not, her mother will be in, weeping tears of joy; and
another miracle has been added to Cullingworth's record.
It may smell of quackery, but it is exceedingly useful to
the patient.
Still I must confess that there is nothing about
Cullingworth which jars me so much as the low view which
he takes of our profession. I can never reconcile myself
to his ideas, and yet I can never convert him to mine; so
there will be a chasm there which sooner or later may
open to divide us altogether. He will not acknowledge
any philanthropic side to the question. A profession, in
his view, is a means of earning a livelihood, and the
doing good to our fellow mortals, is quite a secondary
one.
"Why the devil should we do all the good, Munro?" he
shouts. Eh, what? A butcher would do good to the race,
would he not, if he served his chops out gratis through
the window? He'd be a real benefactor; but he goes on
selling them at a shilling the pound for all that.
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