The reason is that when I am really ill I want some one who believes me.
That is something which the clean-shaven doctor seldom does. He is of
the breezy, modern school which maintains that nine patients out of ten
are only the victims of their own imagination. He greets you in a jolly,
brotherly fashion, takes your pulse, and says: "Oh, well, I guess you're
not going to die this trip," and he roars, as if it were the greatest
joke in the world to call up the picture of such dreadful possibilities.
When he prescribes, it is in a half-apologetic, half-quizzical manner,
and almost with a wink, as if he were to say, "This is a game, old man,
but I suppose it's as honest a way of earning one's living as most
ways." While he writes out his directions, he comments: "There is
nothing the matter with you, and you will take this powder three times a
day with your meals. It is just a case of too much tobacco supplemented
by a fertile fancy. Rub your chest with this before you go to bed and
avoid draughts. And what you need is not medicine but the active
agitation for two hours every day of the two legs which the Lord gave
you, and which you now employ exclusively for making your way to and
from the railway station.
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