Genre:

Extract, Reportage, Spoof

Subjects:

Hospitals, Disease, Medical Treatment, Pharmaceuticals, Analytical Chemistry, Reading

    Introduces some extracts from the 'Annual Report' of the 'excellent institution' named in the title, with a description of a recent 'epidemic'—caused by an agent who was 'arrested (for debt)'—of cases of 'Broken hearts'. The extracts are spoof medical reports for heartbroken and emotionally fraught patients, classifying the diseases under such headings as 'love at first sight' and 'a heated and artificial atmosphere, engendered by an indiscriminate reading of foreign romances'. The extracts then detail the symptoms of the illnesses and the methods used to cure the patients, including the 'exhibition' to a young woman of the 'deleterious' contents of 'billets-doux' given to her by 'an unscrupulous practitioner', and showing a young woman with a 'morbid devotion to her favourite author' that the latter was in fact 'an elderly gentleman, irritable, and addicted to snuff'.