Post by Monique Adelina De'Ath on Nov 17, 2021 11:15:21 GMT
Case No.1 - The Bishop's Backside!
In the interests of medical advancement, and to ready my portfolio for future submission to His Majesty when I apply to be Royal Physician, I have decided it best that I compile my patient notes into their respective cases.
Now, being a busy man, me being Paris's Premier Physician etc etc, I have had a number of cases to deal with before but this is to be my first documented case and details to the layman how a docteur's working life is far from being an easy one, not for us the glory of the battlefield, the medals, the lavish Royal Balls that greet a returning hero, the women (yes, ok well there are the tarts of the Ladies Slipper but you get my drift) and the bestowed country estates. No, for a docteur it's an arduous existence, often grappling with a variety of sores, tumors, festering pustules, hemorrhoid's, clap and worse!! There are many who say the real heroes of France are the medical men and not the soldiery!
This case that I detail now is a prime example of such and so allow me to elaborate....picture the scene.....a Bishop's Palace, set in it's own grounds, an imposing building of opulent splendor, as becomes a home to one of the senior members of the clergy. At 9.30am one's good self arrives, at the invite of said Bishop, and knocks on the door....
Knock, Knock...
A somewhat aged housekeeper answered "Oh Docteur De'Ath, thank the good Lord that you have arrived, it's been simply terrible! His Grace has been suffering from another one of his 'tummy trouble' episodes, oh how we have been desperate for your services as I don't think we could have lasted a day longer! Here, you better put one of these on".
I was surprised to be handed a large peg, similar to the one being worn by the housekeeper, for the purposes of placing upon my nose.
"I dare to say it's like hell in there docteur, the stench is just awful and not matter how many times we clean up after him barely a half hour passes before we're met by a fresh - and I use that word in it's loosest sense - wave of flatulence and...and...it's accompanying after effects"!
Entering the mansion I instantly appreciated the need for the peg, I had to hold onto the wall to avoid stumbling! Sweet Jesus, I thought to myself, this is reminiscent of the Paris Guards latrines but 10 times worse, it was clearly going to be a tough case!
"His Grace's rooms are just along here docteur, be careful of the prostrate choir boys along the passageway here. These poor lads have been acting in teams to attend the Bishop and those off-shift have to recover their senses by laying out anywhere they can find, or as far as they get before they collapse! A couple of them have turned green but it wears off after a while".
Despite the peg I felt my stomach turning as a certain sense of dread and foreboding crept up on me, what was I going to find, could I both treat the symptoms as well as establish a cure? Did the old devil have any silverware or jewelry that he might not miss if the opportunity presented itself, I mean he was only offering a measly 70 livres and this was easily a 300 livres job if the stench was anything to go by!! After what seemed like an age being led through a maze of corridors and rooms the housekeeper stopped outside a door, one with a large red cross painted on it, and outside of which hung several incense sticks and a church thurible that was also pumping out incense in a losing battle to overpower the ghastly odor emanating from inside.
"Please go in docteur, His grace is inside. If you don't mind I'll just wait outside or, perhaps, a little further down the corridor. Shout if you need anything".
Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound, as the English say! Steadying myself for a moment I respectfully knocked and then opened the door, stepping tenuously inside. The first thing that struck me were the unconscious bodies of two more choir boys, almost fetal in their prone positions, and another choirboy who was sitting alongside a large, fourposter, bed. The poor lad seemed to be fighting consciousness and had a towel wrapped around his face, his desperate eyes locked upon mine before he staggered to his feet and lurchingly stumbled past me out of the door, a moment or two later I heard the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor.
My attention turned to the, now, only other conscious person in the room, an elderly man who was the occupant of the bed and was dressed in a grubby, stained, nightshirt.
"Your Grace, I assume, I'm docteur De'Ath, you sent for me....something about a boweldisaster problem"?
Two weeks I spent at that place, two weeks grappling with the worse case of 'Jerusalem Jig' that I've ever encountered! The old devil was like a open sewer, a combination of the audio of a full artillery battery coupled with a burst pipe! Late at night I worked upon a cure, there had to be a reason for this severity? Checking on his background I discovered he'd previously been to the Holy Lands, but many years ago so that couldn't be the cause now, it had to be something else...THEN...it hit me....his diet....could that be it.....? Now, call me a genius but I was correct! Turns out he was receiving regular shipments of dates, figs, prunes and chilies from a priest who was still over there and every time he got a fresh shipment....went through him like a sluice pipe.
Sending a couple of the choirboys out to the market to get a month's supply of nappies, wooden mallet, a large cork and large jar of goose fat I knew what I had to do.
"Now, Your grace, if you can just bend over the side of the bed there, lift up your night shirt, I'd advise you also to take a firm grip of the headboard too.....ok, all ready....let me slap on a bit of this goose fat down here....where's the mallet gone...plus that cork...ah, here we are....now you may feel a slight moment of discomfort......."
After we'd got the bishop down off the ceiling, he was put into his bed and a strict diet of eggs and barley prescribed for 2 weeks. Happy to say I had a real triumph with that case, left the old devil feeling 10 years younger and he was so impressed he asked me to call again as his now family docteur! What's more I still recall the words of that housekeeper as I left...
"God bless you Docteur De'Ath, you've been the savior of us all, you're a marvellous man...they should give you a Knighthood for all you do".
Never were more truer words said, I thought......
In the interests of medical advancement, and to ready my portfolio for future submission to His Majesty when I apply to be Royal Physician, I have decided it best that I compile my patient notes into their respective cases.
Now, being a busy man, me being Paris's Premier Physician etc etc, I have had a number of cases to deal with before but this is to be my first documented case and details to the layman how a docteur's working life is far from being an easy one, not for us the glory of the battlefield, the medals, the lavish Royal Balls that greet a returning hero, the women (yes, ok well there are the tarts of the Ladies Slipper but you get my drift) and the bestowed country estates. No, for a docteur it's an arduous existence, often grappling with a variety of sores, tumors, festering pustules, hemorrhoid's, clap and worse!! There are many who say the real heroes of France are the medical men and not the soldiery!
This case that I detail now is a prime example of such and so allow me to elaborate....picture the scene.....a Bishop's Palace, set in it's own grounds, an imposing building of opulent splendor, as becomes a home to one of the senior members of the clergy. At 9.30am one's good self arrives, at the invite of said Bishop, and knocks on the door....
Knock, Knock...
A somewhat aged housekeeper answered "Oh Docteur De'Ath, thank the good Lord that you have arrived, it's been simply terrible! His Grace has been suffering from another one of his 'tummy trouble' episodes, oh how we have been desperate for your services as I don't think we could have lasted a day longer! Here, you better put one of these on".
I was surprised to be handed a large peg, similar to the one being worn by the housekeeper, for the purposes of placing upon my nose.
"I dare to say it's like hell in there docteur, the stench is just awful and not matter how many times we clean up after him barely a half hour passes before we're met by a fresh - and I use that word in it's loosest sense - wave of flatulence and...and...it's accompanying after effects"!
Entering the mansion I instantly appreciated the need for the peg, I had to hold onto the wall to avoid stumbling! Sweet Jesus, I thought to myself, this is reminiscent of the Paris Guards latrines but 10 times worse, it was clearly going to be a tough case!
"His Grace's rooms are just along here docteur, be careful of the prostrate choir boys along the passageway here. These poor lads have been acting in teams to attend the Bishop and those off-shift have to recover their senses by laying out anywhere they can find, or as far as they get before they collapse! A couple of them have turned green but it wears off after a while".
Despite the peg I felt my stomach turning as a certain sense of dread and foreboding crept up on me, what was I going to find, could I both treat the symptoms as well as establish a cure? Did the old devil have any silverware or jewelry that he might not miss if the opportunity presented itself, I mean he was only offering a measly 70 livres and this was easily a 300 livres job if the stench was anything to go by!! After what seemed like an age being led through a maze of corridors and rooms the housekeeper stopped outside a door, one with a large red cross painted on it, and outside of which hung several incense sticks and a church thurible that was also pumping out incense in a losing battle to overpower the ghastly odor emanating from inside.
"Please go in docteur, His grace is inside. If you don't mind I'll just wait outside or, perhaps, a little further down the corridor. Shout if you need anything".
Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound, as the English say! Steadying myself for a moment I respectfully knocked and then opened the door, stepping tenuously inside. The first thing that struck me were the unconscious bodies of two more choir boys, almost fetal in their prone positions, and another choirboy who was sitting alongside a large, fourposter, bed. The poor lad seemed to be fighting consciousness and had a towel wrapped around his face, his desperate eyes locked upon mine before he staggered to his feet and lurchingly stumbled past me out of the door, a moment or two later I heard the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor.
My attention turned to the, now, only other conscious person in the room, an elderly man who was the occupant of the bed and was dressed in a grubby, stained, nightshirt.
"Your Grace, I assume, I'm docteur De'Ath, you sent for me....something about a bowel
Two weeks I spent at that place, two weeks grappling with the worse case of 'Jerusalem Jig' that I've ever encountered! The old devil was like a open sewer, a combination of the audio of a full artillery battery coupled with a burst pipe! Late at night I worked upon a cure, there had to be a reason for this severity? Checking on his background I discovered he'd previously been to the Holy Lands, but many years ago so that couldn't be the cause now, it had to be something else...THEN...it hit me....his diet....could that be it.....? Now, call me a genius but I was correct! Turns out he was receiving regular shipments of dates, figs, prunes and chilies from a priest who was still over there and every time he got a fresh shipment....went through him like a sluice pipe.
Sending a couple of the choirboys out to the market to get a month's supply of nappies, wooden mallet, a large cork and large jar of goose fat I knew what I had to do.
"Now, Your grace, if you can just bend over the side of the bed there, lift up your night shirt, I'd advise you also to take a firm grip of the headboard too.....ok, all ready....let me slap on a bit of this goose fat down here....where's the mallet gone...plus that cork...ah, here we are....now you may feel a slight moment of discomfort......."
After we'd got the bishop down off the ceiling, he was put into his bed and a strict diet of eggs and barley prescribed for 2 weeks. Happy to say I had a real triumph with that case, left the old devil feeling 10 years younger and he was so impressed he asked me to call again as his now family docteur! What's more I still recall the words of that housekeeper as I left...
"God bless you Docteur De'Ath, you've been the savior of us all, you're a marvellous man...they should give you a Knighthood for all you do".
Never were more truer words said, I thought......