Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Medical Treatment, Physiology, Disease

    Describes Mr Punch's proposal to offer free medical advice for 'Mr. Golightly Teazle', an 'afflicted gentleman' whose 'sudden and alarming condition' was announced in the Saturday Review. Having explained Mr Punch's experience in cases similar to that of Teazle—which evidently concerns the possibility of treating an affliction in one part of the body by applying a remedy to another—presents his reassurances that the constitution of Teazle is not 'liable to the serious attack of which he complains'. Notes Mr Punch's belief that a patient typically 'mistakes the nature of his own disorder' and that Teazle is suffering not from 'verbum sapienti' in the region of the heart, but something 'in a less vital and delicate part of his organism'. Following Marshall Hall's notion of the 'reflex action of the nerves of sensation', Mr Punch suggests that Teazle is suffering from 'very considerable cerebral irritation', and the 'foul state' of his tongue indicates 'a lurking fever in the system'.