Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1877 — Mathematics and Medicine. [ARTICLE]

Mathematics and Medicine.

Among other talks to-day it came out that whale-ships carry no doctors. The Captain adds the doctorship to his own duties. He not only gives medicines, but sets broken limbs after notions of his own, or saws them off and sears the stump when amputation seems best. The Captain is provided with a medi-cine-chest, with the medicines numbered instead of named. A book of directions goes with this. It describes diseases and symptoms and says: “ Give a teaspoonful of No. 9 once an hour,” or “Give ten grains of No. 12 every half hour,” etc. One of our sea Captains came across a skipper in the North Pacific who was in a state of great surprise and perplexity. Said he: “There’s something rotten about this medicine-chest business. One of my men was sick—nothing much the matter, I looked in the book; it said give him a teaspoonful of No. 15. I went to the medicine-chest and I see I was out of No. 15. I judged I’d got to get up a combination somehow that would fill the bill, so I hove into the fellow half a teaspoonful of No. 8 and a half a teaspoonful of No. 7, and I’ll be hanged if it didn’t kill him in fifteen minutes! There's something about this medicinechest system that’s too many for me I” —Mark Twain, in Atlantic for November. The Boston Councilmen have voted not to pay for alcoholic beverages in any municipal entertainment.