Round the fountain.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Round the fountain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    220/238 (page 110)
    THE SIXTH CHRONICLE OF CHRISTOPHER. On Hygiene. The constant, monotonous and unrelieved contemplation of diseased humanity is liable to engender an undesirable morbidity in medical students, which I have always advised to be counteracted as much as possible by appli- cation to secular interests in their leisure hours. Accord- ingly, as Philbrick and I lounged in the Square at about 1.30, basking in the unaccustomed luxury of a half-holiday (our chief had abandoned his “ full-day ” for a profes- sional visit into the country), we debated the rival attractions of a stroll up West, a visit to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a matinee at the 0 Gaiety. The god out of the machine to decide our discussion turned out to be the then senior surgeon of the Hospital picking his way elegantly across the Square to his wards, followed by his little band of zealots. With remarkably swift determination we agreed to take a bus-man’s holiday and we joined his train. We were charmed with our new friend. He had not the preciseness of our own chief, nor his wealth of anec- dote and aphorism, but the practical aspect of all his teachings we very soon learnt to admire. He had shown us how to floor a malingering chauffeur ; at my special request he had described in detail his method for per- forming an operation upon a region of the body for which no