Читать книгу Geoffery Gambado - Cobbold Richard - Страница 3

Gambado himself seeing the world in a six miles' tour

It is time we should speak something of this celebrated person, and account for his present position and appearance. He is very unlike any modern physician. A hundred years ago, however, we have no doubt that such was a fac-simile of this noble specimen of an equestrian medical proficient. It is a hundred years ago since the original sketch of him was made, which we have endeavoured to copy. We have to account for finding him in such a position. First, Who was he? What was he? Where did he live? What did he do? And how came he into notice at all?

Most men are born somewhere! and except they become noted for something they have done, it is very seldom that any inquiry is made about them at all. Neither the place of their birth, nor the locale of their fame, or name, or habitation, of their death, or marriage, is made of any moment whatsoever.

Alas! those who are most ambitious of fame, seldom get it whilst they live; and very few, ever, as literary men, are exalted to a title, like Lord Macaulay; whilst those often feel they are praised for what they own they do not deserve, are more humbled by their reputation, than they are exalted.

It was said to Gambado, in the day of his greatest reputation, "We will certainly have you in Westminster Abbey?"

"Thank you, my dear fellow," was his reply; "I would rather eat a mutton chop with you at the Mermaid Tavern, in the street I was born in, than lie along with John Milton, (who was born in the next street to mine), or with any of those worthies, Shakspeare, Raleigh, or Ben Jonson; who can no longer eat a mutton chop with us at their old Tavern:

He was born in Bread-street, in Cheapside: and in the first year of the reign of George the Third, A.D. 1760, he was in full practice and celebrity, and could not be less than forty years of age. As to whom he married, and what became of his wife and one lovely daughter, we know not. They appear conspicuously only in the last pages of this narrative, and were evidently in the enjoyment of all their great master's reputation, as well as in the keeping up with him in partaking of his own favourite panacea for all complaints, viz. – the riding on horseback.

But how came he to take up this exercise? to stick to it? and to recommend it as he did upon every occasion? Simply, as he told every one, because he found in it a sure and certain remedy for that dreadful nervous disease, commonly known by the name of the "Blue Devils."

Few things gave greater offence in that day to the Faculty, than Dr. Gambado's system of practice. He prescribed very little, if any, medicine: he certainly gave none to those whom he considered did not require it. He knew the power of a strong mind over a weak body, and what too great fatigue of either would produce. He knew well, moreover, the danger of entertaining too much imagination upon any complaint. He was acknowledged by all to be well versed in the physical construction of the human frame; and especially of that most complicated portion, the nervous system, to which he had paid such scientific attention that his Vocabulary of Nervous Constitutions was his great work, that won for him much scientific fame, and got him the honour of being elected F.R.S. before he attained such practical success as made his fortune. He did make a great fortune; and he was honest enough to confess that he owed the enjoyment of it, if not the possession of it, entirely to a Horse-dealer.

He was, himself, at one period of his life, so completely prostrated in his own nervous system, that, from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet, he was completely unstrung. He was constantly in the habit of going to church with his wife and daughter, at St. Stephen's, Walbrook, one of Sir Christopher Wren's most beautiful specimens of architecture; but in his depression he shunned the company of those he loved best on earth, and almost forsook his God and his duty, imagining himself totally forsaken of Him and every friend. He had no pleasure in any thing. His very profession was a burthen to him, and night and day he did nothing but mope. What would have become of him, his wife and daughter, his practice, his home, and his society, had he not, as he used to say, met with an angel, in the shape of a horse-dealer?

He was strolling, one evening, in a very melancholy mood, down Friday-street, not far from his own home, as he passed by the livery stables of John Tattsall, as the name was then spelt. John knew the doctor, and capped him with "A beautiful evening, sir."

The Doctor stopped, and looking very woefully in his face, said, "Yes, John, very beautiful to those who are well."

"Yes sir, and to those who are sick, too; and I wish they could enjoy it."

"John, I am very ill myself, and have been so for some time. I shall not write many more prescriptions!"

"I hope you won't, sir; I hope you won't."

"Why so, John? why so?"

"Because you gentlemen prescribe so much advice, and so seldom follow any good advice yourselves, that you are sure to die sooner than any other men. You all know too much about other people, and very little about yourselves."

"You are a blunt fellow, John; but I do not like you the less for that. You once consulted me, did you not?"

"Yes, sir, and you told me the truth; and I liked you all the better for it. You told me plainly there was nothing the matter with me. 'Go home,' you said, 'drink a glass of cold water just before you get into bed; and if that do not do you more good than any medicine I can give you, then come to me again, bring me another guinea, and I will give you the same advice.' I did as you advised, and it was the best cold water cure that ever was effected: I have never been ill since. But, Doctor, I have heard that you are out of sorts. One good turn deserves another, and if you will follow my advice, only for one week, you shall be a different man to what you now are. You shall soon earn your hundreds; and only give me one guinea in the hundred, and you will make my fortune and your own too."

"What is your advice? I will agree to the terms."

"Well, Doctor, let me tell you the truth. You have done too much, – studied too much, – wrote too much, – thought too much, – and have overdone everything, and now find you can do nothing. You are fast sinking into that lapsed condition in which you will soon become an inmate of Bedlam, if you go on as you have done of late. You grow enormously fat, and are getting like the pig in my stye, and will soon be snoring, snoring, snoring, all day long, a plague to yourself and everyone else. If you do not follow my advice, you will be a dead man before you ever eat another Christmas turkey."

"What is it, John?"

"Ride out six miles on horseback, every morning at six o'clock, – and six miles back again, – and that for six days; and if, at the end of that time, your lethargic state is not improved, then say, John Tattsall is a good-for-nothing humbug, and deserves to be well horsewhipped."

"But, John, I never rode on horseback in my life: never was in the habit of it. I do not think I ever could."

"Master, you must try, if you would not die."

Now the Doctor did not like the thought of dying, though he had seen so much of it when it touched others. A strange kind of nervous sensation ran through him, – not through his veins, for he was one who wrote against "vasicular nerves," – but it ran through his system, as he thought of John's words, "Master, you must try, if you would not die."

"Well John, – I will try, – but you must teach me!" "Come, master, that's right; nothing like trying to amend our ways before it's too late, as good Doctor Cassock said. So a good beginning, well followed up, and, barring accident, I see no reason, Doctor, why you should not live for forty years longer. You know well, that a man overworked, like any other animal, is soon worn out; and a man who does no work, very soon dies. Just come and look at a nice little Norway cob I have in my stable; quiet and gentle as a lamb. A very few turns down my ride, will give you a seat in the saddle, and you shall be again a happy man."

The Doctor got into the saddle that very evening; and nobody saw him, but John; and if the stable boys peeped out and smiled, they got a little back-handed tip with their master's whip, and were glad to hide their diminished heads in the straw. He went home a little more cheerful; played a game of backgammon with his wife, and kissed the cheek of his only child Kate, and seemed a little better. To the surprise of his family, he ordered hot water into his dressing-room, at half-past five in the morning; and, of course, it was thought he was going to take a journey. He did so; but when he went out, he said, "I shall breakfast at half-past eight o'clock."

So the Doctor took a six miles' tour every morning, for six days. He improved daily; and though he rode very awkwardly at first, holding on by the reins, and keeping his brow bent and his eye intent upon the Norway Cob's ears, his daily exercise did him a world of good; and before the week was out, he began to find himself a different creature. At the end of the week, he gave John Tattsall fifty guineas for the Cob; and a friendship, founded upon mutual accommodation, subsisted between them, to the day of their deaths.

So was a horse-dealer made an angel or messenger of health to the mournful spirit or unstrung nerves of Doctor Geoffery Gambado. He had the honesty to own it. The Doctor perfectly recovered his right mind and bodily health; and, like a wise man, who well knows that the same thing which does him good may do others the same, he took more patients to John Tattsall's livery stables than he ever sent to the sea side, to Madeira, to Buxton, or to Margate, Ramsgate, or any other gate whatsoever. John kept horses to suit all comers and all customers, and found Doctor Gambado the most grateful of all, because he always owned that, beneath a good Providence, he did him great good.

The Doctor's fame rapidly increased with the increase of his health. He soon became the very first Physician in nervous complaints. He knew the cause of nervous degeneracy, – no man better. He recommended Tattsall to all such patients as he found likely to be benefitted by him; and they were not a few. His letters, if they could be collected, would be found as direct to the point as the Wellington despatches.

"John, – I want just such a horse as cured me, to cure an old fool like myself.

Yours, &c. – Gambado."

John, like a well-tutored chemist, understood the peculiar character of the Doctor's prescriptions, which, unlike a quack's, were generally written in a plain, legible hand, without any ad captandum humbug. John had horses from twenty-five to five-hundred guineas each.

But as the Doctor's fame increased, so, it might be truly said, the follies of "hypochondriacism" began to be exposed. People, and especially those of the Great Faculty, were jealous of the Doctor's reputation. It is always a sign of a little mind to be envious, or jealous of another man's celebrity. Take it for granted, when you hear a man speak slightingly of another, set that man down, whoever he is, for a conceited ass himself, or an ambitious, if not an envious and wretched man. Better speak nothing, than speak evil of another; better correct an evil thought, than have to repent of an evil act. Some called the Doctor a mere visionary practitioner, or a mere veterinary surgeon, or a quack, or anything else. But he kept on his course. We have selected a few of the strange cases that came before him a hundred years ago.