Part 11
On another occasion, Watson relates that, at the request of Holmes, who wanted Watson to come to live with him at Baker Street, he sold his small Kensington practice at a rather good figure to a young doctor. A few years later, he found that the purchaser was a distant relative of Holmes, and it was the latter who actually had put up the money (_The Adventure of the Norwood Builder_).
Dr. Watson takes sly digs at specialists. Once he remarks that a certain individual was an excellent antagonist, and that he was as cool as ice, silky voiced and soothing as a fashionable consultant (_The Adventure of the Illustrious Client_). And another time, he states that he read in his friend’s eye the arrogance which a learned specialist might experience who had been called to see a case only to find the patient had measles (_The Adventure of the Abbey Grange_).
As to the drugs used in Watson’s day, only about a dozen are mentioned. Among them were ammonia, amyl nitrite, brandy, caffeine, ether, chloroform, iodoform, carbolic acid, curare, and silver nitrate. A survey made in England in the early part of this century showed that physicians considered from twenty to twenty-five drugs necessary to practice medicine satisfactorily. If a survey were made today, it is likely that more would be listed, because during the past few years potent antibiotic agents have been discovered and great strides have been made in chemotherapy. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the famous poet-physician, if living today, could not write as he did in the last century: “If the whole materia medica (excepting opium and ether) as now used could be sunk to the bottom of the sea it would be all the better for mankind--and all the worse for the fishes.”
We may think of the faithful Dr. Watson answering a call, perhaps late at night, his stethoscope concealed in his hat, and his trusty medical bag filled with the acceptable drugs. We can picture him further, riding along in his hansom--the lights of which shine dimly through the fog--rattling over the cobblestones of the old London streets, carrying on the tradition of his noble profession. And we pray that this priceless tradition will continue as long as mankind suffers from illnesses of the mind or body.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Cassamajor, Louis, “Brain Fever,” _Journal of the American Medical Association_, CXLIX (1952), 1443-46.]
[Footnote 2: Klein, W. E., and R. H. Bradshaw, “Portuguese Man-of-War Sting,” _Armed Forces Medical Journal_, II (March, 1951), 509-512.]
[Footnote 3: Waite, C. L., “Medical Problems of an Underwater Demolition Team,” _Armed Forces Medical Journal_, II (Sept., 1951), 1317-26.]
[Footnote 4: Sollman, T., _A Manual of Pharmacology_ (Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders Co., 6th ed., 1946), p. 104.]
[Footnote 5: H. T. Webster, “Observations on Sherlock Holmes as an Athlete and Sportsman,” _The Baker Street Journal_, III (1948), No. 1, pp. 24-31.]
[Footnote 6: H. T. Webster, _op. cit._]
=TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES= Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced. Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed. Inconsistent hyphens left as printed.