The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 137: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

NATURE’S BETTER FEELINGS 119 Bacchus, and not enough to Aisculapius. We have no busi- ness to take brandy, curagoa, and hock with soda-water of a morning; much less ought we to go to bed in a state of obfuscation four nights out of the seven. We are knocking nails in our coffin; we are killing ourselves rapidly. We must turn over a new leaf.’ All this was very sage and very sapient, no doubt, and I could not help agreeing with the great physician. In fact, I had come to the very same con- clusions myself before I visited him. He went on with a long tirade, which I do not, however, mean to inflict upon you, my dear Venetia, but all that he said amounted to this: that I had certainly done myself a great deal of harm by dissipation, but that I possessed a constitution naturally strong, and that the evil was not beyond reparation; that I ought to go to the seaside and bathe, give up drinking almost entirely, live upon mutton, roast or boiled, and go to bed early; and that if I would do all this, I should soon see the beneficial results. He however added that he thought it just as well I should have another opinion on the subject, as he did not like me to act solely on his responsibility. 1 accord- ingly asked whom he would recommend me to consult, whereupon he declared that it did not much matter; any eminent physician would do, but if there were one who, amongst all, had devoted himself to the effects of hard living upon the human constitution, that man was the far-famed and the very celebrated Doctor Thurston.” ‘‘ And what did you do then? ”’ asked Venetia. - “Oh, of course I went to Doctor Thurston,” continued the baronet, in his half-serious, half-jocular manner. ‘ The same scene was enacted all over again, with very trifling alterations.. For Doctor Thurston declared that it was by no means necessary to have come to him since I had received the advice of such an able, eminent, and highly talented physician as Doctor Copperas, but that since his (Doctor Thurston’s) opinion was asked, he could only say he fully coincided with every tittle of the suggestions offered by Doctor Copperas, with the trifling difference, perhaps, that in addition to mutton boiled and roasted, I might sometimes take it broiled in the shape of chops. Accordingly, I went away highly gratified that these two learned men so nearly coincided with each other, and of course I thought it a libel upon the profession to talk about doctors differing.”’ (C(O) nn) GDoOo KS { r )