"I can't oblige you there, Wrench," said Mr. Hawley, thrusting his
hands into his trouser-pockets.
"My dear fellow," said Mr. Toller, striking in pacifically, and looking
at Mr. Wrench, "the physicians have their toes trodden on more than we
have. If you come to dignity it is a question for Minchin and Sprague."
"Does medical jurisprudence provide nothing against these
infringements?" said Mr. Hackbutt, with a disinterested desire to offer
his lights. "How does the law stand, eh, Hawley?"
"Nothing to be done there," said Mr. Hawley. "I looked into it for
Sprague. You'd only break your nose against a damned judge's decision."
"Pooh! no need of law," said Mr. Toller. "So far as practice is
concerned the attempt is an absurdity. No patient will like
it--certainly not Peacock's, who have been used to depletion. Pass the
wine."
Mr. Toller's prediction was partly verified. If Mr. and Mrs. Mawmsey,
who had no idea of employing Lydgate, were made uneasy by his supposed
declaration against drugs, it was inevitable that those who called him
in should watch a little anxiously to see whether he did "use all the
means he might use" in the case. Even good Mr. Powderell, who in his
constant charity of interpretation was inclined to esteem Lydgate the
more for what seemed a conscientious pursuit of a better plan, had his
mind disturbed with doubts during his wife's attack of erysipelas, and
could not abstain from mentioning to Lydgate that Mr. Peacock on a
similar occasion had administered a series of boluses which were not
otherwise definable than by their remarkable effect in bringing Mrs.
Powderell round before Michaelmas from an illness which had begun in a
remarkably hot August. At last, indeed, in the conflict between his
desire not to hurt Lydgate and his anxiety that no "means" should be
lacking, he induced his wife privately to take Widgeon's Purifying
Pills, an esteemed Middlemarch medicine, which arrested every disease
at the fountain by setting to work at once upon the blood. This
co-operative measure was not to be mentioned to Lydgate, and Mr.
Powderell himself had no certain reliance on it, only hoping that it
might be attended with a blessing.
But in this doubtful stage of Lydgate's introduction he was helped by
what we mortals rashly call good fortune. I suppose no doctor ever
came newly to a place without making cures that surprised somebody--cures
which may be called fortune's testimonials, and deserve as much
credit as the written or printed kind. Various patients got well while
Lydgate was attending them, some even of dangerous illnesses; and it
was remarked that the new doctor with his new ways had at least the
merit of bringing people back from the brink of death. The trash
talked on such occasions was the more vexatious to Lydgate, because it
gave precisely the sort of prestige which an incompetent and
unscrupulous man would desire, and was sure to be imputed to him by the
simmering dislike of the other medical men as an encouragement on his
own part of ignorant puffing. But even his proud outspokenness was
checked by the discernment that it was as useless to fight against the
interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog; and "good fortune"
insisted on using those interpretations.