In Lighter Vein

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 22, 29 May 1902, Page 19

In Lighter Vein

(By ' Quip.')

Superstitions.

Allopath v. Homoeopath.

a *» Correspondence, cuttings, etc., intended for this department should be addressed ' QUIP," N.Z. Tablet Office, Dunedin and should reach this office on or before Monday morning. 'There's nothing like a little judicious levity.' R. L. Stevenson.

It is true that New Zealand is in the volcanic line (aa if it were some commercial traveller), but I have expert authority for stating that the recent discussion in Dunedin anent medical etiquette has nothing to do with the cataclysm in Caribbee. The simple fact of the matter is that, as somebody has remarked before, doctors differ and patients die. It appears that amongst medical men there are two schools, or to speak more correctly, kindergartens, the allopathic and the homoeopathic ; and the members of the former don't 'play speaks' with the members of the latter, or let them ' play in their yard' or ' holler down their rain-barrels.' Lay persons can hardly tell one school from another. Both kinds dig you in the rib^ and feel your tongue, and ask you to poke out your puli-e, and cough and come again. And both kinds write worse hands than a bey in Standard 11. But there is a difference. The allopath principle is to cure by producing in the patient unlike symptoms to these of the complaint treated. For instance, if you are suffering from cacoethes loquendi or a gumboil on your back, the allopath will keep puttering about with you until he has succeeded in giving you a hob-nailed liver or the plague. The homoeopathic principle is to cure by producing in the patient like symptoms to those of the complaint treated. Thus if you have broken your leg with an axe, the first thing a homoeopath will do is to break your other leg with au axe. The one point upon which all agree is that payment by results is aa invention of the gentleman who <joe 3 about, as Artemus Ward says, ' like a roarin» line aeekiu' whom he may devour suinbody.'

There is one thing in favor of the doctors —namely, they have done away with the necessity of having witches or seventh sons of seventh sons about the place. In 'ye good olde day,' ' ere doctors learned to kill And multiplied with theirs the weekly bill, 1 if a man had anything between a broken back and that tired feeling, he would apply to the aforesaid seventh son of a seventh son for a drink of boiled weeds, gathered with the left hand on a moonlight night while he stood facing nor'-east by south and repeated something like 'Sockdologer, sojk'lologer.' Now he goes to the doctor and teems to get just as well, bo-ne people laugh at these old auperstitions. Nevertheless some of them contain a good deal ofstn3e. A White Island man kept a horsishoe over his kitchen door for a long time. At last it brought him good luck by falling on the head of his biggest creditor, giving him concussion of the brain. And everybody must adajt that it is unlucky to get run over by a train on a Wednesday. It is also said to be unlucky to get married on a Friday. That is true, anyway. Why should Friday be an exception ?

Many of these old sayings become changed in the course of time and so lose all significance. You have often heard it stated that when your right hand is itching, it is a sign you are going to get money. The correct version is that whea yoar right hand ia itchy, it ia a sign that a papillary irritation has been set up, and needs that gentle titillation known as rubbing as a corrective. In the same way. gymnasts say that if ym wear goloshes you will pet sore eyes What is m -ant ip, that if you wear another fellow's goloshes y-rn wiT get soro . yes. The other fellow will give them to you.