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Dr Bullock’s Annals – Diary of a Victorian Doctor

Dr Vernon Coleman

January 1st 1853

Yesterday, on the last day of the Year of Our Lord 1852, I completed the fifth year of my Apprenticeship with Dr Hildebrand Challot, Apothecary, Barber Surgeon and until today the only professional medical man in the village of Muckleberry Peverell.

This morning, at six, I awoke Dr Challot to remind him that my Apprenticeship has been completed. He awakened for just long enough to confirm that I am now a fully licensed practitioner, Surgeon and Apothecary and entitled to call myself Doctor John Bullock.

I am, in consequence of my having completed my full Apprenticeship in all the healing arts, as dignified under the terms of our agreement, legally entitled to perform all those activities associated with the noble profession of Medicine. I am licensed to dispense medicaments, operate on the sick (or, indeed, the well), remove gangrenous limbs, extract teeth, shave away unwanted hair on the scalp, face or other body parts and facilitate extreme Purgings of the bowel. I am allowed to do all these things without supervision and, most vitally, am entitled to charge a fee for my services as a Surgeon-Barber and for what medicaments I might consider essential. Naturally, the fees I charge have to be accounted for and Dr Challot takes three quarters of my regular earnings.

In a way, my life will not change notably. It is true that I am now officially entitled to practice without supervision but I have been practising without supervision for a good while.

Indeed, I have been running the Practice pretty much by myself since Dr Challot first succumbed to the gout, the dropsy and a deeply troubled liver and prescribed for himself more or less permanent Bed rest with six meals a day, unlimited supplies of porter and mead and the constant attentions of two nurses who are permanently by his bedside or, more often within the bed, warming the cockles of his heart and, no doubt, other parts.

Dr Challot is a short, roundish fellow, no more than five feet four inches in height in his boots. He is as bald as the proverbial coot and wears a thick beard which is, he claims, a leftover from the Crimean War but he was never close to the Crimean War. Indeed, he wasn’t alive when it was fought. He wears the beard because he is a constitutional lusk and far too lazy to shave. For as long as I can remember it has been a motto of his to put off until tomorrow anything you cannot be bothered to do today.

After confirming my elevation in professional status, Dr Challot kindly presented me with my own Leech pot containing what he claims are 24 fine river Leeches. He took the pot from the cupboard beside his and handed it to me, with all the pride and delicacy that might be afforded by the Archbishop of Canterbury handling the Royal Crown, to celebrate the conclusion of my indentureship.

The pot and contents stank something fearful, and at first I thought he had used it in lieu of his chamber pot (which as is usual had not been emptied for several days) but on examination I could see that it was the foul looking Leeches which were responsible for the unpleasant stink. I suspect that the Leeches were brought in by Osbert Gibbon, a pot boy from the Peacock Inn who, I know for a fact, collects the Leeches he sells to us from the stagnant pond adjacent to the cesspit at the Everard Blossom’s stinky farm. Osbert is a professional liar, a Thief and a rascal on his good days and although he is but 14-years-old, he already has signs of the pox, caught I have no doubt from one of the Barmaids at the Peacock, neither of whom are better than they ought to be and both of whom are reputed to be willing to blow the grounsils with any man who can spare one and a half farthings. They both have suppurating sores on the lips that are visible to all and sundry and there are doubtless matching sores present on those lips which are not so immediately on show.

On close examination of my graduation gift, I could see that at least four of the Leeches were dead and putrefying, and it is not my intention to begin my work as a fully qualified Doctor by using putrefying Leeches so I fed them to the cat which did not seem to mind the putrefaction and ate them with relish, smacking his lips with apparent delight.

Dr Challot, customarily never entirely sober, was not too drunk to remind me (as though it were necessary) that according to the terms of the Apprenticeship which my naïve but well-meaning father signed for me when I was 16-years-old, I am obliged to work as his practice Assistant for ten more years or until one of us dies. If I wish to leave this employment I must pay Dr Challot a penalty of 30 guineas. The chances of my ever acquiring 30 guineas are about as remote as the chances of Queen Victoria summoning me to the Palace and begging me to stick three brace of my putrefying Leeches upon her Royal personage.

As Dr Challot spoke, I tried to work out whether or not he had acquired an additional chin. Several editions of that notable feature had already been published and it seems that there has not yet been an end to it. If Dr Challot had been blessed with friends I suspect that even they would have agreed that despite his shortage of stature there was probably too much of him.

Five years ago my father handed over 100 guineas for me to be indentured. This which was the sum total of his savings and when he died two years later there was not one penny left to me. I have no doubt that my father meant well but I would have much preferred it if he had not Apprenticed me but had merely handed me the 100 guineas. Still, one road is as good as another when you have no particular destination in mind.

As an Apprentice, I received free board and lodging. My board consisted of a small room in the attic which I shared with a large and ever expanding family of rodents and my keep, shared with the cat, was a barely edible diet of Turnip soup and stale bread. I once worked out that in five years I had drunk 1,478 bowls of Turnip soup.

My circumstances have now changed considerably for during the period of my Assistantship I will be entitled to keep one quarter of the fees collected for my labours when treating existing patients of the practice. In theory, one third of the remaining three quarters will go for the purchase of medicaments and for the upkeep of the surgery premises, and the other two thirds will go to Dr Challot to be spent on essentials such as wine, beer and the two gorbellied and ever-drunken strumpets who he ambitiously describes as Professional Nurses when making up patients’ bills. There is a clause in the contract which gives me the right to keep all the fees which are paid in relation to the care of new patients and all fees paid in respect of new treatments which are my own invention. I suspect that Dr Challot would have smiled when this clause was inserted for, since there are no other Doctors in the village of Muckleberry Peverell, all existing citizens are already, ipso facto, patients of Dr Challot’s practice.

And the chances of my inventing a new treatment seem as remote as the aforesaid likelihood of my being invited to attend Buckingham Palace with my new pot of Leeches tucked under my arm.

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ABIGAIL REPORTS's avatar

THATCHER WAS HATED BECAUSE SHE FORCED FREE LOADERS TO WORK BY CUTTING OFF GOVERNMENT AID AND REFORMING GOVERNMENT, THE BRITS WERE BROKE, ALL BUT THE RICH/ROYALS. REAGAN AND MANY AMERICANS PRAISED HER.

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