Now, as you don’t pretend to doctor according to the rules of the reg’lar faculty, as they call ’em, I don’t see the need of your being so high flown.”
“I tell you, ma’am, there is a certain dignity in the profession, which ought to be supported by a suitable selection of long, sonorous words. But your interruption, ma’am, has broken the concatenation of my ideas. Pray, Miss Agnes, do you recollect what I was speaking of?”
“Perspiration, I believe, sir.”
“Ay, ay—that word has restored the concatenation. When a copious perspiration has ensued, a reaction will be necessary. To effect this reaction, I shall apply what I call a refrigeratory plaster—in other words, a cooler. I shall, in the next place, in order to impart a proper pliancy to the cords, envelop the diseased part of the limb in a cloth completely saturated in a limpid salve, which I call a grand mollification salve, but which you may, if you please, term a laxer—the invention of which caused me to grow pale by the midnight lamp. The laxer must be succeeded by a double compound astrictory, which you will better understand by the appellation of bracer, the application of which will complete the cure, and make your ankle as much stronger than it was before the accident as it was then stronger than a baby’s.”
