THE CAPTAIN'S PRESCRIPTION.

Kumara Times, Issue 515, 22 May 1878, Page 2

THE CAPTAIN'S PRESCRIPTION.

Mark Twain, in the Atlantic f.r November, writes : talk to-day, it came out that whaleships carry no doctors. The captain adds the doctorship to his own duties. He not only gives the medicines, but sets broken nnibs after notions of his own, or saws them off and svars the stump when amputation seems best. The captain is provided with a medicine chest, with the medicine numbered instead of named. A book of directions goes witii this. It describes diseases and symptoms, and says :— ‘ Give a spoonful ot Na. 9 once an h air,’ or ‘ Give ten grains of No. I every halfhour, A'C. One ot our sea captains cum: annas a skipper in the North Pacific, wno was in a state of great surprise and perplexity. Sail he, “Then’s something rotten about thi t nvdiciuu chnst mtsiness. One of my men was side—nothing much the matter. I looked in the book; it snd give him a teaspomiful of No. 15. I went to the medicine chest and I saw I was out of No, 15, I judged I’d got to get. up a combination somehow that would fill ihe bill, si> I hove into the fellow half a teaspoonfu! of No. 8, and half a teaspoonful of No. 7, and I’ll be hanged if it didn’t kill him in 15 minutes. There’s sonething about this medicine chest that’s too many for me ! ’”