Show 11 ll t DOCTORS CANE IS OBSOLETE until recent time times no medical man made a professional visit without it the physicians cane is a very ancient cl ent pait of his insignia it is now disused but up to very ancient times no doctor of mt medicine dicine would have presumed to pay a professional visit or even to bo be seen in public without this mystical mys ticul u wand and long as a foot mans stick smooth and varnished with a heavy gold knob or crossbar cross bar at the top it waa on an instrument with which down to the present century a mry prudent aspirant to medi medical practice was provided the celebrated gold headed cane which radcliffe mead askew pitcairn and baellic successively bore is preserved in the college of physicians bearing the arms anns which those gentlemen assumed ossum eJ or were rare entitled to in one respect it differed from the ghisi cinns cane proper it had a crossbar almost like ta crook uli whereas a physicians wand ought to hae banc a knob at the top this knob in olden times was hollow and contained n vinaigrette vinai 0 rette chich the man inan of once ence always hold held to his nose when hen he approached a sick person so that its fumes might protect him from the noxious exhalations of his patient john cordy A book about doctors |