Punch,  47 (1864), 73.

Professional Love Song. The Medical Assistant

Anon

Genre:

Song, Drollery

Subjects:

Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment, Taxonomy, Education, Instruments


    Written from the perspective of a medical assistant whose duties include minding 'the Surgery bell' and rolling 'the frequent pills', proceeds to describe his beloved as 'a banker's only child' who is the 'beauty of the shire'. He notes how his 'counter-irritant, the [surgery] boy' observes his reaction to Bella when 'she goes riding by', and how his medical surgery is disrupted by the recollection of Bella: for example 'the merest glimpse of Bella's nose nosology upsets'. Goes on to describe his ambition to be educated at Guy's Hospital and to 'live on pulse' until he is the 'boast of my market natal town', but then feels palpitations which 'no stethescope can tell'. The palpitations are evidently caused by his knowledge of the fact that Bella is to be married to a General J, an event that dissipates his hopes of 'sitting by the Surgery fire' and of giving Bella 'the sweet emulsion of a kiss'. Concludes by lamenting the fact that there is no medical treatment for his condition.



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