"A truce with your cant phrase and your solemn foppery, Lundin," in
such terms she accosted the man of art, "and let me know instantly, if
thou canst tell, whether this lady hath swallowed aught that is less
than wholesome?"
"Nay, but, good lady--honoured patroness--to whom I am alike bonds-man
in my medical and official capacity, deal reasonably with me. If this,
mine illustrious patient, will not answer a question, saving with
sighs and moans--if that other honourable lady will do nought but yawn
in my face when I inquire after the diagnostics--and if that other
young damsel, who I profess is a comely maiden--"
"Talk not to me of comeliness or of damsels," said the Lady of
Lochleven, "I say, are they evil-disposed?--In one word, man, have
they taken poison, ay or no?"
"Poisons, madam," said the learned leech, "are of various sorts. There
is your animal poison, as the lepus marinus, as mentioned by
Dioscorides and Galen--there are mineral and semi-mineral poisons, as
those compounded of sublimate regulus of antimony, vitriol, and the
arsenical salts--there are your poisons from herbs and vegetables, as
the aqua cymbalariae, opium, aconitum, cantharides, and the
like--there are also--"
"Now, out upon thee for a learned fool! and I myself am no better for
expecting an oracle from such a log," said the Lady.
"Nay, but if your ladyship will have patience--if I knew what food
they have partaken of, or could see but the remnants of what they have
last eaten--for as to the external and internal symptoms, I can
discover nought like; for, as Galen saith in his second book _de
Antidotis_--"
"Away, fool!" said the Lady; "send me that hag hither; she shall
avouch what it was that she hath given to the wretch Dryfesdale, or
the pilniewinks and thumbikins shall wrench it out of her finger
joints!"
"Art hath no enemy unless the ignorant," said the mortified Doctor;
veiling, however, his remark under the Latin version, and stepping
apart into a corner to watch the result.
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