St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student

To-night its reign of noise is o’er;
Courage, boys, we’ll have it down!
Long its strength defied
Every dodge we tried;
But its nuts no more shall bear it,
From the hinge to-night we’ll tear it.

    – Cruikshank’s Almanack.

Jack Murphy gave his party. The winter session was nearly over, and in a few days the students would be all dispersed to the bosoms of their families. For several days past their spirits had been rising, and their fun even at lecture and in the wards was scarcely restrained within moderate bounds. Work was kept up with difficulty, and many of the men were leaving daily. Eight of the choicest spirits of the school turned up on the appointed night. There was not one of them who had not borne the brunt of battle, and won his spurs on a contested field. There was big, heavy Tom Lennard. He was the hero of the smash-up at the Chelsea Alcazar, a not very reputable, but much patronized, place of entertainment, with an open-air dancing platform. There was a fête one summer night there, and an attack on the place was organized by the young medicos of the hospital. The police knew nothing of the proposed attempt, and their numbers were too few to interfere much with their destructive sport. After satisfying their vengeance for some affront they had previously suffered at the hands of the proprietors, they marched through the town in the small hours of the morning, shouting, bellowing, and singing at the top of their alcoholized voices, and upsetting everybody and everything that came in their way. At the houses on either side of their path they threw stones, half bricks, and other missiles, to the terror and alarm of the peaceful inhabitants, and the danger of any sick person who might be in them. A large brickbat, hurled by the powerful hand of Tom Lennard, fell plump on the bed of an old gentleman who lay dying, and his friends were naturally very angry with the perpetrators of such dastardly violence. The destroying army of young gentlemen roughs passed on, leaving behind them very distinct traces of the wreck they had wrought. There were loud outcries against the police, and the whole business made a great stir in the press. Somehow, Tom Lennard’s conduct was discovered by the authorities of his hospital; he was then at St. Luke’s, but was expelled with the loss of all his fees. It was felt that he had somewhat exceeded the natural hilarity of an embryo surgeon, and he was advised to migrate. He migrated to St. Bernard’s, where he had reason to hope the tone of the governing body was less severe. This exploit, and the fact that he was at least a confessor, if not a martyr, in the cause of student life, made him immensely popular with his fellows, and he was always in request when anything was “on.” Tom was a splendid specimen of the muscular student, if student it were correct to term him. He was never known to study anything, con amore, but practical jokes, billiards, football, and midnight revelry. He did fairly well at the examinations by coaches and hard cramming. He was magnificent at “tips” for remembering needful points. All the nerves, arteries, origin and insertion of muscles; infectious diseases, their symptoms and treatment; everything medical and surgical that any examiner had been ever known to ask a question about was by this ingenious fellow reduced to a simple formula of catch words, constituting an original system of artificial memory. Everybody who wanted a good tip for anatomical or other difficulties went to Lennard, and came away with a cabalistic arrangement of ludicrous words, that to most men were more difficult to remember than the facts they were intended to represent. To himself, however, they must have been amazingly useful, as he certainly did pass his exams, and it is no less certain that he seldom did any work, and never really understood what he did manage to get through. He was full of good nature, and always ready to “help any lame dog over a stile,” as he called it; so the needy men went to him when they wanted to borrow; and the helpless idiots who could not learn in the ordinary way, but resorted to royal roads and short cuts, got his tips, and made so mixed and bungling a use of them, that this patent method frequently completed the downfall of those who essayed to bend Ulysses’ bow.

There was Tim Finnigan, “a broth of a bhoy,” from the wilds of Galway, all fun and frolic, but good at learning, and witty as ever trod a bog or broke a head. It was he who led the raid on the Statuary Exhibition near Queen’s College one Saturday night, and carried the great nude gods and goddesses into the adjoining churchyard; so that when the good folk went to early mass, they were confronted by Venuses and Apollos, impudently airing themselves under the trees by the pathway, “mit nodings on.” The maiden lady, whose parlour window overlooked the churchyard, was horrified when she came down to breakfast that Sunday morning, to see a dreadful great plaster man unblushingly staring at her in the undraped similitude of a Greek athlete. The church was served by an order of French religious, and the agony of the poor fathers at the shocking display, rivalling the groves of Blarney, outside their monastic church was painful to behold. Tim Finnigan was present when they discovered the exhibition on their premises, and he declared he never afterwards could believe that a Frenchman had any sense of humour. Poor Tim was discovered to have been the hero of this freak, and that was why he left Queen’s College and turned up at St. Bernard’s. The maiden lady who had caught the vision of the athlete thought expulsion a punishment all too light for him.

There was “Darkey” Dobbs; he was not christened Darkey, his swarthy complexion was the cause of his nickname. He had great mechanical ability, which he brought to bear on his practical jokes. His rapid knack of getting brass plates off doors and railings, his skill at wrenching knockers and bell-handles without alarming the owners, made him an indispensable companion of a night’s fun. It was Darkey who invented the celebrated coffee-stall joke. Four fellows hired a “growler” early one winter’s morning in the main road by the hospital. Three of them got out of the cab and called for coffee, and treated cabby; and while the attention of the stall-keeper was arrested in serving his new customers, the fourth occupant of the vehicle quietly got out, and, unperceived by anybody, tied a long cord to one of the posts of the stall and connected it with the shafts. Cabby remounted, his fares discharged him and decamped, and he drove off dragging the stall behind the vehicle, upsetting all the cups and platters, and wrecking the whole concern. It was said that the stall-keeper’s language was “not of a kind to adorn any Sunday-school book;” when the rope was cut, and the damage calculated, he found to his great grief that a pound would not cover it. It was a good deal for the poor fellow to lose, but the amusement to the perpetrators of the joke was immense, and “the greatest good of the greatest number” was one of the articles of a creed they firmly held.

Then there was “Camel” Campbell, called “Camel” on account of his humpy shoulders, though he was christened Horace. He was the hero of a droll adventure in Great Titchfield Street. Passing through that thoroughfare early one Sunday morning with four or five stalwart fellows of the same kidney, they found a groggy old gentleman who could not gain admittance to his house because his wife had bolted the door, and his latch-key did not avail him. What did Camel and his mates do but in a moment pick him up, and, swinging him backwards and forwards two or three times to get a good impetus, shoot him feet foremost like a bolt from a catapult, smash through the parlour window, where he landed on the table amidst the crash of broken glass, and the disintegrated bust of Psyche that erstwhile beamed upon the street from under a handsome shade. Not one of them was caught; they dispersed by different routes, and got clear away before the leaden feet of the policeman had brought him on the scene.

It must not for a moment be supposed that all, or even the majority, of the men were as much devoted to boisterous amusements as those we have been describing. The quiet, hard workers found means to keep themselves aloof from such revelling, though even they, under the charm of the influence the leading spirits exercised over the generous, light-hearted youths who compose the majority of medical students, sometimes abandoned themselves to the spirit of devilry which often broke loose when the day’s work was over.

Very hard workers, who went in for the greater prizes and scholarships, were obliged to live at a distance from the place, that they might be under the less temptation to this sort of thing.

The assembled guests were in high spirits to-night. Though they had done very little of the work they were supposed to have got through, and had attended scarcely half of the lectures they ought to have heard, they had succeeded in getting their papers signed; and, with but two exceptions, they had as much credit given them on their schedules for honest work as if they had been the most assiduous and conscientious of students. So they sang their songs and retold their stories, drank their beer, smoked their tobacco, played nap, and laughed and talked as only youngsters full of life and spirits can who lead the Bohemian life of a medico.

Lennard was inclined to be sentimental and romantic. “What adventures,” said he, “we should hear if the corpses in that dissecting-room over yonder could tell their histories! Unclaimed all of them! Think what that means. How low one must sink when nobody comes forward to ask the parish to bury you at its own expense! Let me conjure up a history for you of the seven subjects on the tables where we have been at work to-day. I will begin at my own, where I am ‘doing my leg.’”

“Ah! I am glad you said ‘doing.’ I should have demurred to ‘dissecting,’ had you said that,” threw in Murphy.

Disregarding the interruption, Lennard went on: “This old man – not so very old, about sixty I should say – has good features and toil-worn hands; was, let us say, an unfrocked parson: fell into bad ways, family disowned him; left his old associates, or they left him; gradually sank lower and lower; sold little things in the street; lived at threepenny lodging-houses; got ill; taken into the parish infirmary; died, and came here. Think of all he must have gone through! How he would remember his happy youth at school, at Oxford, his ordination, his good aspirations, the society he mixed in, and the remorse that embittered his life. This sort of thing is common enough. That woman on the next table, with the spinal fracture, a tight-rope dancer in her early days; used to delight the habitués of Old Vauxhall; one night fell and broke her back. Folk soon got tired of helping her. Her husband made her happy, and was good to her; till, in old age, he died, and she was left bedridden and without means. Even the church folk got tired of the case. She went into the workhouse, died, and so came here. All this as likely as not. Think of those long years of suffering! From the last dazzling lights and gaiety of Vauxhall, to the gradually beworsening room where she lay a cripple for so many years, while her husband did his best to cheer her, and make her as easy as he could. Behind her is a coloured woman not more than forty. How came she here? A stranger from beyond the seas, knowing nothing of our language, brought here by friends who held out hopes of gain and pleasure, and then left her sick and dying in St. George’s Workhouse, down by the London Docks.”

“Oh! hang it all, Lennard!” cried Mahoney; “you are preaching like a teetotal orator. Confound it, we can’t stand the whole seven of ’em. That’s enough! Why, what could the old parson want more than to give a medical school like ours his ‘body of divinity’? He has preached a better sermon in the hands of Professor Sturge than he ever did at church, and his illustrations are much more telling, I dare say; and he makes no reservations now. I can imagine nothing more honourable than to devote one’s body to a dissecting-room out of mere gratitude to a science that has helped us in life. But this is a dismal strain we are in. Give us your song, Williams; dear old Albert Smith’s ‘Student’s Alphabet.’”

Williams laid aside his pipe, and took a pull at the tankard of ale on the mantel board, and began: —

THE STUDENT’S ALPHABET

Oh, A was an Artery, filled with injection;
And B was a Brick, never caught at dissection.
C were some Chemicals – Lithium and Borax;
And D was the Diaphragm, flooring the thorax.

Chorus

Fol de rol lol,
Fol de rol lay,
Fol de rol, tol de rol, tol de rol lay.
E was an Embryo in a glass case;
And F a Foramen that pierced the skull’s base.
G was a Grinder who sharpen’d the tools;
And H means the Half-and-half drunk at the schools.

Fol de rol lol, etc

I was some Iodine, made of sea-weed;
J was a Jolly Cock, not used to read.
K was some Kreosote, much over-rated;
And L were the Lies which about it were stated.

Fol de rol lol, etc

M was a Muscle – cold, flabby, and red;
And N was a Nerve, like a bit of white thread.
O was some Opium a fool chose to take;
And P were the Pins used to keep him awake.

Fol de rol lol, etc

Q were the Quacks, who cure stammer and squint;
R was a Raw from a burn, wrapped in lint.
S was a Scalpel, to eat bread and cheese;
And T was a Tourniquet, vessels to squeeze.

Fol de rol lol, etc

U was the Unciform bone of the wrist;
V was the Vein which a blunt lancet missed.
W was Wax, from a syringe that flowed;
X was the ’Xaminers, who may be blowed!

Fol de rol lol, etc

Y stands for You all, with best wishes sincere;
And Z for the Zanies who never touch beer.
So we’ve got to the end, not forgetting a letter;
And those who don’t like it may grind up a better.

Fol de rol lol, etc

One of the party, a Mr. Randall, a second year’s man, was very groggy, and it was rather unlucky that he was called out to a maternity case in the midst of all this enjoyment. Not that he took it to heart much, indeed he went with alacrity. He had to prove attendance on fifty cases before he could compete for the Obstetric prize, and as this would bring his number up to forty-three, it was important not to miss it; so he left the company with many ribald jokes aimed at him, and was soon in attendance on the unfortunate woman whose life, and that of her babe, were entrusted to his care. The young man meant well, but he would have been less scandalous to the assembled matrons had he been sober. It seemed, however, so natural for a hospital student to be slightly elevated, and the class of medical men who sent their boozy unqualified assistants to look after their poorer clients had so familiarized them with vinous doctors, that he got a better reception than he deserved. Sometimes very terrible accidents arose in this way, but nothing ever came of the investigations that followed. The staff of the hospital, with their great names and solemn opinions, were always at the service of the students to extricate them from a difficulty; and had they amputated a patient’s head while serving their hospital, there were plenty of good men with a string of letters to their names, who would have been found to swear at the inquest that the treatment was justified on high medical authority under the circumstances. This is called medical esprit de corps, and it is born, bred, and educated in our great medical schools.

Under the ægis of this protection there is very little that a student cannot do with a live or a dead human subject. Nice for the subject, especially if a live one! The interesting object of Mr. Randall’s attendance on the evening in question recovered her health, and ultimately died a natural death.

After Randall had started, Dobbs was called upon to tell a story. He was good at this sort of thing; had written several capital tales for the press, and was generally suspected of being engaged upon a medical novel.

“Well, lads,” said he, after mixing himself a whisky and soda, “I will tell you a true story to-night. I don’t think any of you know it, save perhaps one or two. I don’t always feel in the vein for telling it, but to-night I do. So here goes.

“It was one day towards the end of November, four years ago, when the great fog lasted three whole days and nights without lifting. London was in total darkness, save for the feeble ghostly glimmer the gaslights gave here and there. There were few men about the place, but I was working hard for a prize and could not leave town – every spare moment was passed in the dissecting-room. On the afternoon of the day I refer to, two or three fellows came bothering me to go and play billiards with them. They were half screwed, and I was occupied with my work and didn’t want their company. So as soon as I got rid of them I took my ‘part’ down to the vaults below, where the coffins are kept waiting for the weekly visit of the undertaker. I lit the gas, and soon got absorbed in my work. It must have been about four o’clock when I went below, because the fellows who had been bothering me had just left the Anatomy Lecture, and nobody knew of my having done so at all. When one gets interested in the brachial plexus, the flight of the hours isn’t noticed, and I was first recalled to the fact that it was closing time at the schools by hearing the heavy slam of the great iron door at the top of the steps leading down to the vaults. Dropping my scalpel with a rush, I made for the staircase, and in real terror of being locked in for the night, shouted to be let out. No answer came; all I could hear was the banging of more doors, fainter and fainter, as they were more distant; and then, hearing the thud of the great outer door, knew I was imprisoned for the night, with no chance of escape. When I returned to my vault, of course the gas was turned off – the porters had seen to that – and I was in total darkness. I had a box of vestas in my pocket I had fortunately bought of an urchin as I came in, and luckily had plenty of tobacco. Lighting a match, I began to explore the place more carefully than I had done. I did not look for any means of getting out, as I knew there were none; but I was very anxious not to spend the night in darkness. On a shelf over the door there were a lot of bottles and jars, containing the various fluids used in preserving the subjects. To my great delight there was a big bottle of oil, and then I knew I was all right for a light. This was something, at all events. Knocking a large glass bottle to bits, I managed to make the bottom of it into a fairish sort of lamp; and then, with a few slices of cork and some of my wax matches, I rigged up two very decent floating wicks, and set them alight. The glimmer was faint, and served rather to increase the gloominess of the place, and exhibited my sleeping apartment in a rather unpleasant aspect.”

“Why didn’t you burn the door?” asked Elsworth. “They always did that in Dumas’ tales.”

“How could he when it’s iron, you donkey? Shut up; it seems you never do any quiet dissections,” said a young house surgeon.