Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.
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able and extremely erudite physican, Professor Pillem. He likewise has elegantly equipped offices, and is much given to plate-glass mirrors, crystal test tubes, and green retorts ; he includes the laboratory idea in the decoration of his consultation room, and has produced a sensation among business men about town; for Pillem is probably better acquainted with fashionable kidneys than any other doctor in the city, and he is also famed for giving new and expensive remedies; at present he is running chloride of gold, carbonate of diamond, and acetate of pearl. Pillem has attained great popularity, and does an enormous business; he works four horses constantly. The cadaveric physican whom we saw administer the hypodermic injection is Professor Killem, an extremely retiring but very learned man. He has acquired a large practice by frequenting a fashionable up-town church; he is of a sweet, gentle, confiding disposition, and never misses attending the funerals of his many patients. Like Billem and Pillem, he is a voluminous author, and his latest work, "A Treatise on the Use of Bananas in In- fantile Colic," has had a large sale. However, he has only arrived at the dignity of owning two horses, and boasts of twelve thousand dollars income per annum." " Enough! " cried Athothis, impatiently. " I care nothing about the business affairs of these gentlemen; but can see at once from their stylish appearance that they are fashionable doctors. I have noticed, for a hun- dred years back, that physicians were gaining business sagacity and becoming money-getters, a decided improve- ment on the philosophical sages of yore, who were happy with a crust of bread and the wick wherewith to burn the midnight oil. I do not wonder that the financial success 4