CH. III. -- Gil Blas enters into Doctor Sangrado's service, and becomes a famous practitioner.

I DETERMINED to throw myself in the way of Signor Arias de Londona, and to look out for a new berth in his register; but as I was on my way to No Thoroughfare, who should come across me but Doctor Sangrado, whom I had not seen since the day of my master's death. I took the liberty of touching my hat. He kenned me in a twinkling, though I had changed my dress; and with as much warmth as his temperament would allow him; Hey day! said he, the very lad I wanted to s ee; you have never been out of my thought. I have occasion for a clever fellow about me, and pitched upon you as the very thing, if you can read and write. Sir, replied I, if that is all you require, I am your man. In that case, rejoined he, we need look no fu rther. Come home with me; it will be all comfort: I shall behave to you like a brother. You will have no wages, but everything will be found you. You shall eat and drink according to the true faith, and be taught to cure all diseases. In a word, you shall rather be my young Sangrado than my footman. I closed in with the doctor's proposal, in the hope of becoming an Esculapius under so inspired a master. He carried me home on the spur of the occasion, to i nstal me in my honourable employment; which honourable employment consisted in writing down the name and residence of the patients who sent for him in his abse nce. There had indeed been a register for this purpose, kept by an old domestic; but she had not the gift of spelling accurately, and wrote a most perplexing hand. This account I was to keep. It might truly be called a bill of mortality; for my memb ers all went from bad to worse during the short time they continued in this system. I wa s a sort of book-keeper for the other world, to take places in the stage, and to see that the first come were the first served. My pen was always in my hand, for Doctor Sangr ado had more practice than any physician of his time in Valladolid. He had got into reputation with the public by a certain professional slang, humoured by a medica l face, and some extraordinary cases, more honoured by implicit faith than scrupul ous investigation. He was in no want of patients, nor consequently of property. He did not keep the best house in the world; we lived with some little attention to economy. The usual bill of fare consisted of peas, beans, boiled apples or cheese. He considered th is food as best suited to the human stomach, that is to say, as most amenable to the gri nders, whence it was to encounter the process of digestion. Nevertheless, easy as was t heir passage, he was not for stopping the way with too much of them: and, to be sure, he was in the right. But though he cautioned the maid and me against repletion in r espect of solids, it was made up by free permission to drink as much water as we liked. Far

from prescribing us any limits there, he would tell us sometimes -- Drink, my children; health consists in the pliability and moisture of the parts. Drink wat er by pails full, it is a universal dissolvent; water liquefies all the salts. Is the course of the blood a little sluggish? this grand principle sets it forward: too rapid? its ca reer is checked. Our doctor was so orthodox on this head, that he drank nothing himself but water, though advanced in years. He defined old age to be a natural consumption which dries us up and wastes us away: on this principle, he deplored the ignoran ce of those who call wine old men's milk. He maintained that wine wears them out and corrodes them, and pleaded with all the force of eloquence against that liquor, fatal in common both to the young and old, that friend with a serpent in its bosom, that pleasure with a dagger under its girdle.GIL BLAS -77In spite of these fine arguments, at the end of a week a looseness ensued, with some twinges, which I was blasphemous enough to saddle on the universal dissolve nt, and the new- fashioned diet. I stated my symptoms to my master, in the hope he would relax the rigour of his regimen, and qualify my meals with a little wine, but his hostility to that liquor was inflexible. If you have not philosophy enough, said he, for pure water, there are innocent infusions to strengthen the stomach against the n ausea of aqueous quaffings. Sage, for example, has a very pretty flavour: and if you w ish to heighten it into a debauch, it is only mixing rosemary, wild poppy, and other si mples, but no compounds. In vain did he crack off his water, and teach me the secret of composing delicious messes. I was so abstemious, that, remarking my moderation, he said -In good sooth, Gil Blas, I marvel not that you are no better than you are; you do n ot drink enough, my friend. Water taken in a small quantity serves only to separate the particles of bile and set them in action; but our practice is to drown them in a copious drench, Fear not, my good lad, lest a superabundance of liquid should either wea ken or chill your stomach; far from thy better judgment be that silly fear of unadul terated drink. I will ensure you against all consequences; and if my authority will not serve your turn, read Celsus. That oracle of the ancients makes an admirable panegyric on water; in short, he says in plain terms that those who plead an inconstant stoma ch in favour of wine, publish a libel on their own bowels, and make their organization a pretence for their sensuality. As it would have been ungenteel in me to have run riot on my entrance into the career of practice, I affected thorough conviction; indeed, I thought there was something in it. I therefore went on drinking water on the authority of Celsus, or, to

speak in scientific terms, I began to drown the bile in copious drenches of that unadulterated liquor; and though I felt myself more out of order from day to day , prejudice won the cause against experience. It is evident, therefore, that I was in the right road to the practice of physic. Yet I could not always be insensible to th e qualms which increased in my frame, to that degree, as to determine me on quitting Doct or Sangrado. But he invested me with a new office which changed my tone. Hark you, my child, said he to me one day, I am not one of those hard and ungrateful maste rs, who leave their household to grow grey in service without a suitable reward. I a m well pleased with you, I have a regard for you, and without waiting till you hav e served your time, I will make your fortune. Without more ado, I will initiate yo u in the healing art, of which I have for so many years been at the head. Other physi cians make the science to consist of various unintelligible branches; but I will short en the road for you, and dispense with the drudgery of studying natural philosophy, pharmacy, botany, and anatomy. Remember, my friend, that bleeding and drinking warm water are the two grand principles; the true secret of curing all the diste mpers incident to humanity. Yes, this marvellous secret which I reveal to you, and whi ch nature, beyond the reach of my colleagues, has failed in rescuing from my pen, i s comprehended in these two articles -- namely, bleeding and drenching. Here you h ave the sum total of my philosophy; you are thoroughly bottomed in medicine, and may raise yourself to the summit of fame on the shoulders of my long experience. You may enter into partnership at once, by keeping the books in the morning, and goi ng out to visit patients in the afternoon. While I dose the nobility and clergy, yo u shall labour in your vocation among the lower orders; and when you have felt your grou nd a little, I will get you admitted into our body. You are a philosopher, Gil Blas , though you have never graduated; the common herd of them, though they have graduated in ALAIN-REN LESAGE -78due form and order, are likely to run out the length of their tether without kno wing their right hand from their left. I thanked the doctor for having so speedily enabled me to serve as his deputy; and, by way of acknowledging his goodness, promised to follow his system to the end of my career, with a magnanimous indifference about the aphorisms of Hippocrates . But that engagement was not to be taken to the letter. This tender attachment to water went against the grain, and I had a scheme for drinking wine every day snugly am ong the patients. I left off wearing my own suit a second time, to take up one of my master's, and look like an inveterate practitioner. After which I brought my med ical

theories into play, leaving them to look to the event whom it might concern. I b egan on an alguazil in a pleurisy; he was condemned to be bled with the utmost rigour of the law, at the same time that the system was to be replenished copiously with w ater. Next I made a lodgment in the veins of a gouty pastry-cook, who roared like a li on by reason of gouty spasms. I stood on no more ceremony with his blood than with tha t of the alguazil, and laid no restriction on his taste for simple liquids. My prescr iptions brought me in twelve rials; an incident so auspicious in my professional career, that I only wished for the plagues of Egypt on all the hale subjects of Valladolid. As I was coming out of the pastry-cook's whom should I meet but Fabricio, a total strange r since the death of the licentiate Sdillo! He looked at me with astonishment for s ome seconds; then set up a laugh with all his might, and held his sides. He had no r eason to be grave, for I had a cloak trailing on the ground, with a doublet and breeches of four times my natural dimensions. I was certainly a complete original. I suffered him to make merry as long as he liked, and could scarcely help joining in the ridicule; but I kept a guard on my muscles to preserve a becoming dignity in public, and the bet ter to enact the physician, whose part in society is not that of a buffoon. If the absu rdity of my appearance excited Fabricio's merriment, my affected gravity added zest to it ; and when he had nearly exhausted his lungs -- By all the powers, Gil Blas, quoth he, thou art in complete masquerade. Who the devil has dressed you up in this manner? Fai r and softly, my friend, replied I, fair and softly, be a little on your good beha viour with a modern Hippocrates. Understand me to be the substitute of Doctor Sangrado, the most eminent physician in Valladolid. I have lived with him these three weeks. H e has bottomed me thoroughly in medicine; and, as he cannot perform the obsequies of a ll the patients who send for him, I visit a part of them to take the burden off his conscience. He does execution in great families, I among the vulgar. Vastly well , replied Fabricio; that is to say, he grants you a lease on the blood of the comm onalty, but keeps to himself the fee-simple of the fashionable world. I wish you joy of your lot; it is a pleasanter line of practice among the populace than among great fol k. Long live a snug connection in the suburbs! a man's mistakes are easily buried, and h is murders elude all but God's revenge. Yes, my brave boy, your destiny is truly enviable; in the language of Alexander, were I not Fabricio, I could wish to be Gil Blas.

To show the son of Nunez, the barber, that he was not much out in his reckoning on my present happiness, I chinked the fees of the alguazil and the pa strycook; and this was followed by an adjournment to a tavern, to drink to their perfect recovery. The wine was very fair, and my impatience for the well-known smack mad e me think it better than it was. I took some good long draughts, and without gain saying the Latin oracle, in proportion as I poured it into its natural reservoir, I fel t my accommodating entrails to owe me no grudge for the hard service into which I pre ssed them. As for Fabricio and myself, we sat some time in the tavern, making merry a t the expense of our masters, as servants are too much accustomed to do. At last, seei ng theGIL BLAS -79night approach, we parted, after engaging to meet at the same place on the follo wing day after dinner.