Miss Kilmansegg is born into a family possessing vast wealth in gold. At her
Christening 'the Book of Pray'r was so overrun / With gilt devices, it shone in
the sun / Like a copy—a presentation one— / Of
Humboldt'sHumboldt, Alexander von (Friedrich Wilhelm
Heinrich Alexander von)
(1769–1859)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> "El Dorado" (17). As a young
woman her horse runs away with her, and she is dazzled by 'A Kaleidoscope
jumble of shapes and tints' (33). Badly injured, she has a leg amputated and
replaced by one in solid gold. It was considered 'the great event, / Through
every circle in life it went, / Like the leg in a pair of compasses' (40).
'[W]ith men of scientific rank, / It made as much stir as the fossil shank / Of
a Lizard coeval with Adam!' (41). Of all evil spirits, there is none so much as
that of 'Party' which requires a 'cooling, antiphlogistic speech' (44). Miss
Kilmansegg has a dream in which men of all spheres, including 'The Man of
Science', worship her (62); she becomes transmuted into a golden
idol—'gold, all gold, from her gold little toe / To her organ of
Veneration!' (63). At her wedding, the page 'look'd, so splendidly clad, / Like
a Page of the
"Wealth of Nations"Smith, Adam 1776.
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols,
London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell
CloseView the register entry >>'
(72).
The narrator's father, uncle, and aunt are discussing the war with China.
His aunt cannot understand going to war over opium, which she had always
thought 'a lulling, soothing sort of thing, more likely to compose people's
passions than to stir them up' (108). She thinks the 'Sulphur question' quite a
different thing: 'That's all about brimstone and combustibles; and it would
only be of a piece if we were to send our men-of-war, and frigates, and
fireships, to bombard Mount Vesuvius'. The narrator's father laughs to himself
at the 'proposed Grand Display of Pyrotechnics!'. (109)
The poem addresses the proposal that the
Zoological Society GardensZoological Society of London —Gardens
CloseView the register entry >>
should be closed on Sundays. Each verse ends with an appeal to the fictional
embodiment of canting propriety: 'But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?'. Hood
points out that the gardens are not sites of carousing like tea gardens or
public houses. He asks: 'What is the brute profanity that shocks / The
super-sensitively serious feeling', and makes some droll suggestions, such as
pelicans 'presenting bills on Sunday' (122). Various other comic speculations
are made concerning possible behavioural misdemeanours of the animals. Hood
thinks Sabbatarians resemble zoo-keepers, in wishing to cage up people like
beasts. He cannot think Sunday would be 'a bit diviner' for stopping happy
children from thronging 'to the gates of Eden Minor'; nor can he understand why
natural history should be considered 'Unnatural because it's Sunday'
(125). He asks rhetorically how the beasts are to feed 'sinful fantasy' in view
of the moral example which they set, and their status as 'Creatures of the
Great Creator's hand'. 'Better it were if, in his best of suits, / The artisan,
who goes to work on Monday, / Should spend a leisure hour amongst the brutes, /
Than make a beast of his own self on Sunday' (126). Hood enquires: 'what raised
so Protestant a fuss / [...] But that the Papists, like some Fellows, thus /
Had somehow mixed up Dens with their Theology?' (127). The illustration
captioned 'Dens'Dens, Pieter
(1690–1775)
WBI CloseView the register entry >>TheologyDens, Peter 1832.
Dens's Theology: Extracts from Peter Dens, On the Nature of Confession, and
Obligation of the Seal, 8 vols, Maynooth: [n.pub.]
CloseView the register entry >>' (facing 128) depicts a
crocodile in formal dress offering a lion in a cage a joint of meat in one hand
and a pamphlet in the other, the only legible words on which are 'Tract' and
'Flesh'. The illustration 'A Screw Loose' (126) depicts a terrified man with
his hair standing on end recoiling from a snake, which has reared up into a
corkscrew shape, and which has evidently escaped from some cages in the
background. Hood concludes that if the 'Saints Zoological' are allowed their
canting with respect to lions, then 'sure as fate they will deny us next / To
see the Dandelions on Sunday' (128). The 'Note' following discusses the claim
of Sabbatarians that all kinds of breaking (including house-breaking and the
breaking of heads) result from Sabbath-breaking. It begins with an anecdote
about a Scottish professor who, caught hammering at a geological specimen on a
Sunday walk, was gravely accosted by a peasant who said: 'Eh! Sir, you think
you are only breaking a stone, but you are breaking the Sabbath' (128). The
illustration captioned 'Holding Forth' (130) depicts a man in sober attire
feeding a bear from the wall of an enclosure by holding out a bun on a long
stick.
Millingen 1837, Millingen, John
Gideon 1837. Curiosities of Medical Experience, 2 vols,
London: Richard Bentley
CloseView the register entry >>Bright
1827–31, Bright,
Richard 1827–31. Reports of Medical Cases, Selected with a
View of Illustrating the Symptoms and Cure of Diseases by a Reference to Morbid
Anatomy, 2 vols, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green
CloseView the register entry >>LancetLancet
(1823–1900+)
Waterloo
Directory CloseView the register entry >>Wilson
1799–1804, Wilson,
Alexander Philip 1799–1804. A Treatise on Febrile Diseases,
Including Intermitting, Remitting, and Continued Fevers, Winchester:
Robbins; London: Cadell and Davies [and 3 others]; Edinburgh: Bell and
Bradfute
CloseView the register entry >>Percival 1819, Percival,
Edward 1819. Practical Observations on the Treatment, Pathology,
and Prevention of Typhus Fever, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and
Browne
CloseView the register entry >>Macculloch 1828, Macculloch,
John 1828. An Essay on the Remittent and Intermittent Diseases,
Including Generically, Marsh Fever and Neuralgia: Comprising under the Former,
Various Anomalies, Obscurities, and Consequences, and, Under a New Systematic
View of the Latter, Treating of Tic Douloureux, Sciatica, Headach, Ophthalmia,
Toothach, Palsy and Many Other Modes and Consequences of this Generic
Disease, 2 vols, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green
CloseView the register entry >>Pym 1815, Pym, William 1815.
Observations upon the Bulam Fever: Which has of Late Years Prevailed in the
West Indies, on the Coast of America, at Gibralta, Cadiz, and other Parts of
Spain; with a Collection of Facts Proving it to be a Highly Contagious
Disease, London: J. Callow
CloseView the register entry >>Dickinson 1819, Dickinson,
Nodes 1819. Observations on the Inflamatory Endemic, Incidental
to Strangers in the West Indies from Temperate Climates, Commonly Called the
Yellow Fever [...]: To which is Added an Appendix Containing Abstracts
of Official Reports, London: Callow, Underwood, and Burgess and Hill
CloseView the register entry >>Lavater
1775–78, Lavater, Johann
Kaspar 1775–78. Physiognomische Fragmente, zur
Beförderung der Menschenkenntinis und Menschenliebe, 4 vols, Leipzig;
Weidmanns Erben und Reich; Winterthur: Heinrich Steiner und Compagnie
CloseView the register entry >>Le Brun 1698, Le Brun,
Charles 1698. Conférence de Monsieur Le Brun premier
peintre du Roy de France, chancelier et directeur de L'Academie de peinture et
de sculpture. Sur L'expression générale &
particulière, Paris: E. Picart le Rom
CloseView the register entry >>Armstrong 1818, Armstrong,
John 1818. Practical Illustrations of the Scarlet Fever, Measles,
and Pulmonary Consumption: With Observations on the Efficacy of Sulphureous
Waters in Chronic Complaints, London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy
CloseView the register entry >>Cooke 1831, Cooke, William
1831. Caution to the Public; or, Hints upon the Nature of Scarlet Fever,
Designed to Shew, that this Disease Arises from a Peculiar and Absolute Virus,
and is Specifically Infectious in its Mildest as well as in its Most Malignant
Form; Including Practical Remarks Upon Asiatic Cholera, and other
Epidemics, 2nd edn, London: Highley
CloseView the register entry >>Buchan 1769, Buchan,
William 1769. Domestic Medicine; or, The Family Physician: Being
an Attempt to Render the Medical Art More Generally Useful, by Shewing People
What is in Their Own Power Both with Respect to the Prevention and Cure of
Diseases. Chiefly Calculated to Recommend a Proper Attention to Regimen and
Simple Medicines, Edinburgh: Balfour, Auld and Smellie
CloseView the register entry >>Arnott
1827–29, Arnott, Neil
1827–29. Elements of Physics; or, Natural Philosophy, General and
Medical, Explained Independently of Technical Mathematics, 2 vols, London:
Underwood
CloseView the register entry >>Brome 1640Brome, Richard
1640. The Sparagus Garden: A Comedie. Acted in the yeare 1635 by the then
Company of Revels, at Salisbury Court, London: Francis Constable
CloseView the register entry >>
The narrator is addressed by an ignorant sailor: 'Verily, the marine zoology
already possessed a sea-urchin, a sea-cow, a sea-bear, a sea-dog, a sea-horse,
and now there is a sea-ass!' (137). The narrator professes that since he is
writing on a Quaker subject, he cannot be provoked: 'I am no longer one of
those who wear a nose like the nob of a surgeon's night-bell, and must rouse up
whenever it is pulled' (138).
The story concerns a Quaker, Jaspar Duffle, who has scarlet fever. A long
digression details the interjection of a 'medical student from Lant Street',
who argues that all medical authority and reason is against the idea of a
Quaker having a fever. He claims: 'They've no nervous irritability—no
peccant humours—no nothing to ferment with—all cold and phlegmatic'
(141). To the student's suggestion that Quakers have a low pulse-rate, the
narrator replies that they would be interesting to sound 'with a moral
stethoscope'. The medical student considers morals 'all twaddle'; he has
sounded a Quaker with 'the real instrument—a capital tool, made by
John WeissWeiss, John
(fl. 1831–51)
WBI Clifton
1993 CloseView the register entry >> himself'.
The student gravely invokes lists of medical authorities, often mixing the
names of real experts with comic and sometimes fabricated names. He refers to a
medical case being possibly in 'Boerhaave'sBoerhaave, Hermann
(1668–1738)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> Dogmas' (the reference is
probably to his
AphorismsBoerhaave,
Hermann 1709. Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis: In
usum doctrinæ domesticæ, Lugduni Batavorum: Johannen vander
Linden
CloseView the register entry >>), but
continues: 'or
Reed's,Reed, Andrew
(1787–1862)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> or
Murray'sMurray, Patrick Aloysius
(1811–82)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>',
naming religious leaders currently prominent for their dogmatic views. (142) He
insists: 'Ask
BellBell, Sir Charles
(1774–1842)
DSB
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> if he's
HandyBell, Charles
1833. The Hand: Its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design,
London: Richard Phillips
CloseView the register entry >>, or go to the surgeons,
SeddonSeddon, Thomas
(1793–1864)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> [a leading
cabinet-maker], or
CubittCubitt, Thomas
(1788–1855)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >> [a leading
master-carpenter], or
CarpenterCarpenter, William Benjamin
(1813–85)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>, any of our top-sawyers'
(143).
In another digression the narrator details the interjections of 'Prudence'
concerning the difficulty of identifying 'Truth': 'the terrestrial truth, at
least, is as subject to modification as our mortal selves;—for instance,
/ GEOGRAPHICALLY / AND / CHRONOLOGICALLY' (144). Prudence
gives as an example of the first, the 'Great American Sea Serpent', which while
a real truth in New York, would shrink away to nothing as it crossed the
Atlantic, so that off Greenwich it 'would have no longitude at all' (145).
Prudence gives examples of the second proposition, that 'Truth is affected
Chronologically'. A century ago, even 'Credulity' would have 'scouted' the
Megatherium or Mastodon, but 'now we have
MantellMantell, Gideon Algernon
(1790–1852)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>-pieces of their bones'. (146)
According to Prudence, there are 'more such prodigies to come true'. A field
trip of the 'Royal GeologistsGeological Society of London
CloseView the register entry >>—with Von Hammer at
their head'—is imagined taking place in Tilgate Forest in the year 2000.
They are represented at work like labourers and artisans, turning up fossilized
objects of the nineteenth century: 'a petrified bachelor's-button', 'a stone
tom-tit', 'a marble gooseberry-bush', and so on. (147) In search of larger
finds, they exhume 'another and a greater Bony Part' (148). The process is
described in detail: it is the 'first Lord-knows-what that has been discovered
in the world!' They decide that it is a dragon and speculate that all the
legends of St George are true; however 'a stony-hearted Professor of Fossil
Osteology' announces that all the teeth are molar, and that it lived on
'undressed salads'. (149) Prudence provides a tale of preposterous Chinese
whispers to explain how
Izaak WaltonWalton, Izaak
(1593–1683)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> came
to tell his disciples that 'Barnacles produce Geese!' (152).
The narrator gives an account of Duffle's delerium, sometimes in spoof
medical phraseology ('De Beurre's theory of Mental Deliquescence' (152)), with
physiognomical and phrenological observations. Duffle exemplifies the
'psychological fact, well known to physicians, that a man or woman in a
delerium will prove to be acquainted with matters whereof they were supposed to
be [...] ignorant' (178). A long digression on the evils of curiosity involves
a phrenological description of a murderer. The illustration captioned 'The Very
Head and Front of my Offending / Hath This Extent, No More' (186) depicts a
criminal in chains being phrenologically examined while a studiously attentive
group stands around.
Duffle's health not improving, his wife sends for the principal apothecary
at Tottenham, Jonathan Brumby. An account is given of his humorous dealings, as
'what is called a Parish Doctor', with 'some sort of Nurse in the parochial
Infirmary, [who] was waiting for the poor people's medicaments' (188). He has a
reputation as a very clever man, partly because of a punning misunderstanding
of his interest in 'Metaphysics' (192). He bleeds for everything: 'his Lancet
beat
Wakley'sWakley, Thomas
(1795–1862)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>
hollow—as to the numbers who took it in' (193). Enraged by reading a
pamphlet against bleeding (Wiesécké 1837Wiesécké,
Henri 1837. De l'influence pernicieuse des saignées,
Paris: Béchet Jeune
CloseView the register entry >>), he
bleeds Duffle to a very great extent. The bandage comes off in the night, and
Duffle looses further blood, dreaming that he has been vaccinated again by
Edward JennerJenner, Edward
(1749–1823)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>,
and that it is 'warm milk from the cow' that is flowing from his arm (196).
A digression follows in which the narrator discusses with Prudence the
dangers of writing a narrative on a medical subject without appropriate
expertise. Prudence asks: 'Are you sure that you are qualified to practise even
at Hottentottenham, and to treat a Black Fever, let alone a Scarlet?' (197),
and queries: 'you never, by Magnetic Clairvoyance, looked through and through
your sick neighbours, till, like Dr. Hornbook, you could name and prescribe for
every disease in the parish?' (198–99). Duffle's recovery is dependent on
the narrator's skill, who through ignorance might at last be obliged to 'make
him survive by a miracle' (199). Prudence observes that a new version of
Robinson CrusoeDefoe, Daniel
1719. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of
York, Mariner: Who Lived Eight and Twenty Years, All Alone in an Un-inhabited
Island on the Coast of America, Near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque;
Having Been Cast On Shore By Shipwreck, Whereon All the Men Perished But
Himself. With an Account How He Was At Last as Strangely Deliver'd By
Pyrates, London: W. Taylor
CloseView the register entry >> has been
rendered necessary as a result of its medical errors, which must have resulted
in the death of the hero. In another digression, Prudence makes the claim that
even 'professional men' sometimes make errors 'which end often in Tragedy, and
sometimes in Comedy, or Farce'. The story is told of 'Doctor Seaward, who
conceived the notion [...] that all complaints of the head [...] were to be
cured by Sea-Sickness' and decided (unsuccessfully) to prove it experimentally.
(202) A report to the same effect by 'French Physicians' is quoted (207). The
illustration captioned 'A Pleasure-Boat' (207) depicts a portly man inspecting
a small sailing boat named 'The Stomach Pump'. The narrator considers the cures
that different kinds of therapists would have recommended for Duffle's
desperate condition, including a 'Counter-Irritator' and 'Dr. ***** [who] would
have supplied him with a tube, and advised a good blow-out' (209).
A 'regular Physician' is sent for; he is found inveighing against the use of
brandy and salt as a cure, which he considers 'one of the signs of the times'
(211). He contrasts the period when doctors wore their own peculiar costume and
made a mystery of their art with the present period, in which the inception of
'cheap Encyclopedias and Penny Magazines' has resulted in patients insisting on
'analysing' their physic because it shows they are 'scientific!' (213). The
illustration 'So much for Brandy and Salt!' (212) depicts a dishevelled and
drunken-looking young man in seventeenth-century dress, leaning against a tree
stump with a broken bottle in one hand and a salt-box in the other; the word
'Montem' inscribed on the tree stump indicates that he has taken part in a
festival of that name, held by the scholars of Eton College, in which they
processed in fancy dress to Salt Hill, near Slough.
The physician reports that a blood transfusion is Duffle's only hope. His
wife is most alarmed at this new idea and the mental images that it brings to
mind, but the physician describes the nature of the procedure. A fine athletic
man is found for the operation, which is described despite the imagined
protestations of readers: 'Faugh! What an age it is for Cant and Pseudo
Humanity! And yet who leaves off animal food?' (223). The doctor tells the
blood donor that the lawyers will have to settle the question of their
consanguinity and the question of whether the donor has any claim on Duffle's
'heritable property' (225). The illustration captioned 'That is my Blood You
are Putting into You!' depicts a man with a kerchief tied around his neck
eating black-pudding, as an apparition of a pig addresses him. Duffle recovers,
and claims the transfusion made him 'more alive than before' (231). He
witnesses a fist fight, against his wishes, only to discover that one
competitor is his own blood donor, whom he has wished to thank. When the donor
is knocked out, Duffle enters the ring and avenges him with a single massive
blow.
An afterword notes that the idea of transfusion is two centuries old,
probably being consequent on
Harvey'sHarvey, William
(1578–1657)
DSB CloseView the register entry >> 'great
discovery' of the circulation of the blood. He quotes as evidence a comic play
of
Richard BromeBrome, Richard
(1590–1652)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>,
where blood transfusion is mooted with the object of improving social standing,
a purpose 'very different' from that actuating transfusion 'as now practised by
'Dr. Blundell'Blundell, James
(1790–1878)
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>
(236).
Race, Disease, Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment,
Quackery
Pompey, a black servant, appears as an apparition to his white lover,
Phoebe, to explain the circumstances of his death. Having contracted a fever,
his master sent for a doctor; but 'though to physic he was bred, / And pass'd
at
Surgeon's HallRoyal College of Surgeons
CloseView the register entry >>, / To make his post
a sinecure / He never cured at all!' (239). The doctor thought his case looked
'very black' and prescribed cayenne and gamboge, and then madder and turmeric,
but without turning his fever 'To Scarlet or to Yellow', and without preventing
his 'dying black' (239–40).
Disability, Antiseptics, Statistics, Political Economy, Class, Medical
Treatment, Instruments, Medical Practitioners, Surgery, Quackery,
Pharmaceuticals, Physiology
The poem recounts that Dame Eleanor Spearing was exceptionally deaf. She was
deaf as 'Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy; / Whose organs, for fear of our
modern sceptics, / were plugg'd with gums and antiseptics' (252). She
consequently missed out on village gossip, a great privation, since 'she had
much of the spirit that lies / Perdu in a notable set of Paul Prys, / By
courtesy called Statistical Fellows— / A prying, spying, inquisitive
clan, / Who have gone upon much of the self-same plan, / Jotting the Labouring
Class's riches' (254). She had tried numerous treatments, but all remedies
failed 'though some it was clear / (Like the brandy and salt / We now exalt) /
Had made a noise in the public ear' (255). She is visited by a pedlar who tries
to sell her an ear trumpet at a high price having made exaggerated claims: 'The
last New Patent—and nothing comes nigh it / For affording the Deaf, at
little expense, / The sense of hearing, and the hearing of sense!' (257). He
contrasts its advantages with the disadvantages of aural surgery, and disputes
the effectiveness of such surgery. He recounts the instance of a Welshman who
'came from Glamorgan / On purpose to try a surgical spell', and paid a guinea
only to have an 'acoustical drug' administered instead, which deafened him
further: 'That's the way with your surgical gentry'. (263) The pedlar reflects
on the difficulty of persuading the public to 'purchase a blessing' whether
'the Soothing American Syrup', 'Infallible Pills for the human frame, / Or
Rowland's O-don't-o (an ominous name)' (265).
An endnote gives a putative extract from an apparently fictitious work:
'"Quid Pro Quo; or, A Theory of Compensations. By P. S." (perhaps Peter Shard),
folio edition'. The extract, in archaic language, cites the occurrence of
tinnitus in many deaf people as an instance of 'Mother' nature's tender
kindness in making amends for any grievances. It gives a physiological
explanation of the phenomenon in terms of the 'general Relaxing of the delicate
and subtile Fibres of the Human Nerves, and mainly such as belong and propinque
to the Auricular Organ' (284).
Comic Annual, 2nd ser. 1 (1842), 289–92.
Speculations of a Naturalist. "Can an Oyster Think?"
Discusses the sedentary habits of the oyster in humorous terms, and declares
that it seems primâ facie impossible that such a creature should
think. 'In spite of
SpurzheimSpurzheim, Johann Christoph
(1776–1832)
DSB CloseView the register entry >>, who affirms that the substance
of the human brain resembles that of an oyster, it is difficult to believe that
there is any intellectual faculty in such a lump of animal
blanc-mange—that it ever even thinks of thinking' (290). It is difficult
to establish whether it has any thoughts. Even if it did have 'cogent Thoughts
on the Corporation and Testaceous Acts' it is 'inevitably condemned to keep its
Thoughts to itself'. Hood reports that his servant has brought a crab with an
oyster attached to its carapace from the fish-market; he notes 'there is much
seeming sagacity in the selection of an Amphibious reptile' to provide for
'occasional travels on land'. (291)
Hood introduces a letter from 'an officer in the Prussian service', with
whom he has often hunted and fished. His friend reminds him of the face of the
Polish captain when 'he saw us at our pike exercise, in the garden, myself with
the rod, and you, like a grave physician, with your stop-watch in your hand, to
give the patient his lawful time before death—so that the Captain mistook
the operation for some scientifical experiment in Hydrostatics' (298). The
Prussian officer has 'a sporting aim at a question which has not hitherto been
hit by
Sir John
HerschelHerschel, Sir John Frederick William
(1792–1871)
DSB
ODNB CloseView the register entry >>, or your
British
AssociationBritish Association for the Advancement of Science
CloseView the register entry >>—namely, why there should be so many falling
meteors in the November month?' He suggests that there must be 'so many
shooting stars, because it is in the shooting season—but the astronomers
must find out at what sorts of game'.
Medical Practitioners, Comparative Anatomy, Dissection, Menageries,
Human Species, Cruelty, Physiognomy
The illustration captioned 'Suspended Animation' (323) depicts animals
hanging from a tree: a monkey by its tail, a parrot by its beak, and a spider
by a thread. The introduction reports that a 'Professional Friend, who was
engaged in the study of Comparative Anatomy' had become 'desirous of dissecting
a Monkey' and had purchased one from a menagerie, requesting it to be killed
and sent to him (323). When it arrived the next day, it was accompanied by a
letter from 'James Baycroft' reporting the circumstances of its death. Because
of its resemblance to a human, Baycroft and his coadjutor had decided to hang
the monkey, which had proved difficult because of its 'repetid climing up the
rope with his hind legs'. They hoped they would be paid an additional sum
because of the 'shock to feelings with a hanimal we'd bean acquainted with for
so manny years'. (324) Baycroft wished that there had been a 'siantificle
Gentleman' present 'to studdy his dying fizzogomony'. He asks whether he and
his coadjutor might be 'present at the cuttin on him up, having knowed him so
long at the Managery it wood be a Pleasure to see the last on him and partikly
his Interium wether like our own specius inside as well as out'. (325) An
afterword reports that the animal was, in fact, still alive and jumped out when
the hamper was opened, and that the doctor allowed him to 'live out his natural
term' (326).