e honest and truthful, though the heavens
fall.

CHAPTER XXIX.

STANDING PATIENTS.

Medical men well know--should any such condescend to look over this
volume--what is meant when I affirm that I was not long in securing to
myself a good share of _standing patients_. They are the dread, not to
say the curse, of the profession. And yet they abound. They are found
throughout the length and breadth of the land, and in great numbers.

They are a class of persons, not always of one sex, who hang
continually, like an incubus, on the physician, and yet are forever a
disadvantage to him. They are never well enough to let him alone, and
yet seldom ill enough to require much medical advice or treatment. And
yet, medicine they will have, of somebody, even if they go to the
apothecary for it, without so much as the semblance of a medical
prescription of any sort. But then, after all, they are seldom reduced
to any such necessity. They usually have on hand prescriptions enough of
some sort. A dearth of Yankee physicians--could such a thing possibly
occur--would still leave us a supply of Indian doctors, mesmeric
doctors, nutritive doctors, etc., etc., to say nothing of doctresses, in
liberal abundance, ever ready to prescribe.

When I succeeded Dr. ----, in the chair of medicine, surgery, etc., at
----, I received, as if by contract, if not by inheritance, his whole
stock of standing patients. They were not slow to _call on_, sometimes
to _call in_, the new doctor. Nor was I often long in the house before
comparisons began to be made between my predecessor and myself. They did
not, of course, directly traduce or slander Dr. ----, but they were very
careful to intimate that, having got his name up, he had grown careless
about his patients, especially such of them as did not belong to his
clique, political or sectarian; and that, on this account, they were
almost willing to part with him, and to receive and accept as his
substitute one who was not only younger and more active, but also less
tinctured with conservatism and aristocracy!

A very large amount of valuable time was spent during the first year of
my practice as a physician, in endeavors to do good to these very
devoted and loving and loyal patients; for if they did not always call
me when I had occasion to pass their doors, I knew full well they
expected me, and so I usually called. Besides, in many an instance I was
sent for in post haste, with entreaties that