ABSTRACT
I studied hard; learned the Linnean names and doses of drugs; attended seven surgical operations; worked from nine to nine daily, Sundays included; made mercury ointment in the old style by turning a pestle in a mortar for three days in succession, to amalgamate the quicksilver with the pig's grease; made up what the doctor called his ‘Cathartic acid bitter mixture’, as a sort of fill-up for every purgative bottle, and almost every disease that ‘flesh is heir to’; made up boluses ... drew a tooth for sixpence ... did many things during that six months which gave me a distaste for the practice of medicine ...
