of tumour, and
I was mistaken in describing it as such,« but answered, »Indeed! ah! I saw it
was a surgical case, not of a fatal kind.« He had been inwardly annoyed,
however, when he had asked at the Infirmary about the woman he had recommended
two days before, to hear from the house-surgeon, a youngster who was not sorry
to vex Minchin with impunity, exactly what had occurred: he privately pronounced
that it was indecent in a general practitioner to contradict a physician's
diagnosis in that open manner, and afterwards agreed with Wrench that Lydgate
was disagreeably inattentive to etiquette. Lydgate did not make the affair a
ground for valuing himself or (very particularly) despising Minchin, such
rectification of misjudgments often happening among men of equal qualifications.
But report took up this amazing case of tumour, not clearly distinguished from
cancer, and considered the more awful for being of the wandering sort; till much
prejudice against Lydgate's method as to drugs was overcome by the proof of his
marvellous skill in the speedy restoration of Nancy Nash after she had been
rolling and rolling in agonies from the presence of a tumour both hard and
obstinate, but nevertheless compelled to yield.
    How could Lydgate help himself? It is offensive to tell a lady when she is
expressing her amazement at your skill, that she is altogether mistaken and
rather foolish in her amazement. And to have entered into the nature of diseases
would only have added to his breaches of medical propriety. Thus he had to wince
under a promise of success given by that ignorant praise which misses every
valid quality.
    In the case of a more conspicuous patient, Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, Lydgate
was conscious of having shown himself something better than an everyday doctor,
though here too it was an equivocal advantage that he won. The eloquent
auctioneer was seized with pneumonia, and having been a patient of Mr.
Peacock's, sent for Lydgate, whom he had expressed his intention to patronise.
Mr. Trumbull was a robust man, a good subject for trying the expectant theory
upon - watching the course of an interesting disease when left as much as
possible to itself, so that the stages might be noted for future guidance; and
from the air with which he described his sensations Lydgate surmised that he
would like to be taken into his medical man's confidence, and be represented as
a partner in his own cure. The auctioneer heard, without much surprise, that his
was a constitution which (always with due watching) might be left to itself, so
as to offer a beautiful example