"Naw, suh; naw, suh; I ain't gwine take it," and Rastus shuffled out.
M.D.--"Would you have the price if I said you needed an operation?"
MANNING--"Would you say I needed an operation if you thought I didn't have the price?"--_Life_.
"How do you pronounce 'pneumonia'?" asked the French boy, who had come to England to learn the language.
His only chum told him.
"That's odd," replied the young Gaul. "It says in this story I am reading that the doctor pronounced it fatal."
Mr. Roger W. Babson says that in looking up appendicitis cases he learned that in 17 per cent. of the operations for that disease the post-mortem examinations showed that the appendix was in perfect condition.
"The whole subject," he adds, "reminds me of a true story I heard in London recently. In the hospitals there, the ailment of the patient, when he is admitted, is denoted by certain letters, such as 'T. B.'
for tuberculosis. An American doctor was examining these history slips when his curiosity was aroused by the number on which the letters 'G.O.K.' appeared. He said to the physician who was showing him around:
"'There seems to be a severe epidemic of this G.O.K. in London. What is it, anyhow?'
"Oh, that means 'God only knows,'" replied the English physician.
The fashionable physician walked in, in his breezy way, and nodded smilingly at his patient.
"Well, here I am, Mrs. Adams," he announced. "What do you think is the matter with you this morning?"
"Doctor, I hardly know," murmured the fashionable patient languidly.
"What is new?"
"When I was a boy," said the gray-haired physician, who happened to be in a reminiscent mood, "I wanted to be a soldier; but my parents persuaded me to study medicine."
"Oh, well," rejoined the sympathetic druggist, "such is life. Many a man with wholesale aspirations has to content himself with a retail business."
The eminent physicians had been called in consultation. They had retired to another room to discuss the patient's condition. In the closet of that room a small boy had been concealed by the patient's directions to listen to what the consultation decided and to tell the patient who desired genuine information.
"Well, Jimmy," said the patient, when the boy came to report, "what did they say?"
"I couldn't tell you that," said the boy. "I listened as hard as I could, but they used such big words I couldn't remember much of it.
All I could catch was when one doctor said:
"'Well, we'll find that out at the autopsy.'"
YOUNG WOMAN (to be neighbor at dinner)--"Guess whom I met today, doctor?"
DOCTOR--"I'm afraid I'm not a good guesser."
"You're too modest. Aren't you at the top of your profession?"--_Life_.
DOCTOR--"My dear sir, it's a good thing you came to me when you did."
"Why, Doc? Are you broke?"--_Life_.
"It's a little hard for young doctors to get a start."
"I know. I'm raising whiskers."
"They will help. And I'll loan you some of my magazines for 1876 to put in your anteroom."
PATIENT--"I want to see doctor. Be this the place?"
DOCTOR--"This is where I practice."
PATIENT--"Don't want no person for to practice on me; I want a doctor for to cure me."
FRIEND--"To what do you attribute your rapid rise in your profession?"
SURGEON--"It has been my rule all along never to perform an operation unless I was sure it would be a success either way."
A doctor who had a custom of cultivating the lawn and walk in front of his home every spring engaged O'Brien to do the job. He went away for three days and when he returned found O'Brien waiting for his money.
The doctor was not satisfied with his work and said: "O'Brien, the walk is covered with gravel and dirt, and in my estimation it's a bad job."
O'Brien looked at him in surprise for a moment and replied: "Shure, Doc, there's many a bad job of yours covered with gravel and dirt."
"You say this doctor has a large practice?"
"It's so large that when a patient has nothing the matter with him he tells him so."
_Why She Objected_
An old woman's son was seriously ill and the attending surgeon advised an operation. But the mother bitterly objected.
"I don't believe in operations!" she exclaimed. "Even the Scriptures is agin it. Don't the Bible say plain and flat: 'What God hath j'ined togither, let not man put asunder'?"
REDD--"The doctor said he'd have me on my feet in a fortnight."
GREENE--"And did he?"