第23章

There were Ophthalmoscopes and Rhinoscopes and Otoscopes and Laryngoscopes and Stethoscopes; and Thermometers and Spirometers and Dynamometers and Sphygmometers and Pleximeters; and Probes and Probangs and all sorts of frightful inquisitive exploring contrivances; and scales to weigh you in, and tests and balances and pumps and electro-magnets and magneto-electric machines; in short, apparatus for doing everything but turn you inside out.

Dr.Benjamin set me down before his one window and began looking at me with such a superhuman air of sagacity, that I felt like one of those open-breasted clocks which make no secret of their inside arrangements, and almost thought he could see through me as one sees through a shrimp or a jelly-fish.First he looked at the place inculpated, which had a sort of greenish-brown color, with his naked eyes, with much corrugation of forehead and fearful concentration of attention; then through a pocket-glass which he carried.Then he drew back a space, for a perspective view.Then he made me put out my tongue and laid a slip of blue paper on it, which turned red and scared me a little.Next he took my wrist; but instead of counting my pulse in the old-fashioned way, he fastened a machine to it that marked all the beats on a sheet of paper,--for all the world like a scale of the heights of mountains, say from Mount Tom up to Chimborazo and then down again, and up again, and so on.In the mean time he asked me all sorts of questions about myself and all my relatives, whether we had been subject to this and that malady, until I felt as if we must some of us have had more or less of them, and could not feel quite sure whether Elephantiasis and Beriberi and Progressive Locomotor Ataxy did not run in the family.

After all this overhauling of myself and my history, he paused and looked puzzled.Something was suggested about what he called an "exploratory puncture." This I at once declined, with thanks.

Suddenly a thought struck him.He looked still more closely at the discoloration I have spoken of.

--Looks like--I declare it reminds me of--very rare! very curious!

It would be strange if my first case--of this kind--should be one of our boarders!

What kind of a case do you call it?--I said, with a sort of feeling that he could inflict a severe or a light malady on me, as if he were a judge passing sentence.

--The color reminds me,--said Dr.B.Franklin,--of what I have seen in a case of Addison's Disease, Morbus Addisonii.

--But my habits are quite regular,--I said; for I remembered that the distinguished essayist was too fond of his brandy and water, and Iconfess that the thought was not pleasant to me of following Dr.

Johnson's advice, with the slight variation of giving my days and my nights to trying on the favorite maladies of Addison.

--Temperance people are subject to it!--exclaimed Dr.Benjamin, almost exultingly, I thought.

--But I had the impression that the author of the Spectator was afflicted with a dropsy, or some such inflated malady, to which persons of sedentary and bibacious habits are liable.[A literary swell,--I thought to myself, but I did not say it.I felt too serious.]

--The author of the Spectator!--cried out Dr.Benjamin,--I mean the celebrated Dr.Addison, inventor, I would say discoverer, of the wonderful new disease called after him.

---And what may this valuable invention or discovery consist in?--Iasked, for I was curious to know the nature of the gift which this benefactor of the race had bestowed upon us.

--A most interesting affection, and rare, too.Allow me to look closely at that discoloration once more for a moment.Cutis cenea, bronze skin, they call it sometimes--extraordinary pigmentation--a little more to the light, if you please--ah! now I get the bronze coloring admirably, beautifully! Would you have any objection to showing your case to the Societies of Medical Improvement and Medical Observation?

[--My case! O dear!] May I ask if any vital organ is commonly involved in this interesting complaint?--I said, faintly.

--Well, sir,--the young Doctor replied,--there is an organ which is--sometimes--a little touched, I may say; a very curious and ingenious little organ or pair of organs.Did you ever hear of the Capsulae, Suprarenales?

--No,--said I,--is it a mortal complaint?--I ought to have known better than to ask such a question, but I was getting nervous and thinking about all sorts of horrid maladies people are liable to, with horrid names to match.

--It is n't a complaint,--I mean they are not a complaint,--they are two small organs, as I said, inside of you, and nobody knows what is the use of them.The most curious thing is that when anything is the matter with them you turn of the color of bronze.After all, Ididn't mean to say I believed it was Morbus Addisonii; I only thought of that when I saw the discoloration.

So he gave me a recipe, which I took care to put where it could do no hurt to anybody, and I paid him his fee (which he took with the air of a man in the receipt of a great income) and said Good-morning.

--What in the name of a thousand diablos is the reason these confounded doctors will mention their guesses about "a case," as they call it, and all its conceivable possibilities, out loud before their patients? I don't suppose there is anything in all this nonsense about "Addison's Disease," but I wish he hadn't spoken of that very interesting ailment, and I should feel a little easier if that discoloration would leave my forehead.I will ask the Landlady about it,--these old women often know more than the young doctors just come home with long names for everything they don't know how to cure.But the name of this complaint sets me thinking.Bronzed skin! What an odd idea! Wonder if it spreads all over one.That would be picturesque and pleasant, now, wouldn't it? To be made a living statue of,--nothing to do but strike an attitude.Arm up--so--like the one in the Garden.John of Bologna's Mercury--thus on one foot.