A Victim to One Hundred and Seven Fatal Maladies
from “Three Men in a Boat” by Jerome K. Jerome
I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment. I got down the book and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves and began to study diseases, generally. I forgot which was the first, and before I had glanced half down the list of “premonitory symptoms”, I was sure that I had got it.
I sat for a while frozen with horror; and then in despair I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever - read the symptoms - discovered that I had typhoid fever - began to get interested in my case, and so started alphabetically.
Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I looked through the twenty-six letters, and the only disease I had not got was housemaid’s knee.
I sat and thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view. Students would have no need to “walk the hospitals” if they had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma.
Then I wondered how long I had to live. I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at first feel any pulse at all. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed to start off. I pulled out my watch and timed it. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute. I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. It had stopped beating. I patted myself all over my front, from what I call my waist up to my head, but I could not feel or hear anything. I tried to look at my tongue. I stuck it out as far as ever it would go, and I shut one eye and tried to examine it with the other. I could only see the tip, but I felt more certain than before that I had scarlet fever.
I had walked into the reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a miserable wreck.
I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I’m ill. So I went straight up and saw him, and he said:
“Well, what’s the matter with you?”
I said: “I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is short and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is not the matter with me. Everything else, however, I have got.”
And I told him how I came to discover it all.
Then he opened me and looked down me, and took hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn’t expecting it - a cowardly thing to do, I call it. After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out.
I did not open it, I took it to the nearest chemist’s, and handed it in. The man read it, and then handed it back. He said he didn’t keep it.
I said: “You are a chemist?”
He said: “I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative store and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you.” I read the prescriptions. It ran: “1 lb. beefsteak, with 1 pt. bitter beer every six hours. 1 ten-mile walk every morning. 1 bed at 11 sharp every night. And don't stuff up your head with things you don't understand.”
I followed the directions with the happy result that my life was preserved and is still going on.
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1)An old gentleman came to see the doctor. The man was very ill. The doctor looked at him and said, “No medicine can help you. If you want to be well again, you must have a good rest. Go to a quiet place for a month, go to bed early, eat more roast beef, drink lots of milk but don’t smoke more than one cigarette a day.”
A month later the gentleman came into the doctor’s office. He was a different man.
“Oh, doctor!” he said. “Thank you very much. Everything is fine and I am well again. But, doctor, it’s not easy to begin smoking at my age.”
2)Hob was sitting in the doctor’s waiting-room. On the chairs at the wall other patients were sitting. They all looked sad except Hob who was reading an exciting story in a magazine. Just then the doctor came in to say that he was ready to see the next person. Hob got up and went into the consulting room.
Before Hob could say a word the doctor said, “Now what’s the trouble? Sit down there and we’ll have a look at you. Unfasten your jacket and your shirt, please. I’ll listen to your heart.” Hob tried to speak, but the doctor interrupted him and ordered him to say “ninety-nine”. Hob said it. “Now let me see your throat, open your mouth wide.” The doctor had a good look and then he said, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with you.” “I know there isn’t,” said Hob, "I just came to get a bottle of medicine for my uncle."
3)A man went to his doctor and requested treatment for his ankle. After a careful examination, the doctor asked:
“How long have you been going about like this?”
“Two weeks.”
“Why, man, your ankle is broken! How didn’t you come to me at first?”
“Well, doctor, every time I say something is wrong with me, my wife goes at me and says I’ll have to get over my habit of smoking.”
4) – Yousay he left no money.
- No. You see, he lost his health getting wealthy and lost his wealth trying to get healthy.
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1) Patient: Doctor, I think that I've been bitten by a vampire.
Doctor: ...
2) A man goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor, wherever I touch, it hurts.”
The doctor asks, “What do you mean?”
The man says, …
3)The doctor to the patient: “You are very sick.”
The patient to the doctor: “Can I get a second opinion?”
The doctor again: …
4)Patient: Doctor, I have a pain in my eye whenever I drink tea.
Doctor: …
5)Patient: Doctor! You’ve got to help me! Nobody ever listens to me. No one ever pays any attention to what I have to say.
Doctor: …
6)Question: What did the doctor say when the invisible man called to make an appointment?
Answer: …
7) -I have an awful toothache.
- I’d have that tooth taken out if it was mine.
- …
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1)Patient: Doctor, I think that I’ve bitten by a vampire.
Doctor: Drink this glass of water.
Patient: Will it make me better?
Doctor: No, but I’ll be able to see if your neck leaks.
2)A man goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor, wherever I touch, it hurts.”
The doctor asks, “What do you mean?”
The man says, “When I touch my shoulder, it really hurts. If I touch my knee - OUCH! When I touch my forehead, it really, really hurts.”
The doctor says, “I know what’s wrong with you - you've broken your finger!”
3)The doctor to the patient: “You are very sick.”
The patient to the doctor: “Can I get a second opinion?”
The doctor again: “Yes, you are very ugly too ...”
4)Patient: Doctor, I have a pain in my eye whenever I drink tea.
Doctor: Take the spoon out of the mug before you drink.
5)Patient: Doctor! You've got to help me! Nobody ever listens to me. No one ever pays any attention to what I have to say.
Doctor: Next please!
6)Question: What did the doctor say when the invisible man called to make an appointment?
Answer: Tell him I can’t see him today.
7) -I have an awful toothache.
- I'd have that tooth taken out if it was mine.
- If it was yours, I would, too.
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At the Doctor's
a) A patient enters the room and tells the doctor what he/ she is suffering from.
b) The doctor asks the patient to strip to the waist and then examines him/ her.
c) The patient asks the doctor what’s wrong with him/ her. He/ she seems to be worried.
d) The doctor tries to comfort the patient and writes out a prescription.
At the Dentist's
a) A patient complains of a bad toothache.
b) The dentist asks him/ her to sit down and examines his/ her mouth. One of his / her teeth should be pulled out.
c) The patient is afraid. He/ she feels sick and giddy.
d) The dentist pulls out his/ her tooth and shows it to the patient who brightens up and looks happy.
At the Bedside
a) A boy complains of a sore throat.
b) His mother is worried. She takes his temperature, it’s normal. His throat is all right.
c) Then the boy pretends to have a stomach-ache and a headache, to be sick and giddy.
d) His mother understands he is feigning illness and orders him to go to school.
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