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Show CHAPTER VII.MEDICSMONG the medical faction, where, nominally, are brewed remedies for all Dis-eased conditions in the republic, the wheels of government should run most smoothly; whether they do or not,-ah, that is another question. The High Chief Potentate Doctor sits throned in his council chamber, poring over some massy volume,-unheeding while his subjects, in queer caps and aprons, the badge of their servitude, rush, with drawn anxious faces, through his halls, and clamor at his door for audience. The air reeks with unholy, other-world odors, and shrieks with blood-curdling, unpronounceable names, like the laughter of fiends. From long living in such a morbid atmosphere there has come to be a gleam, uncanny in the eyes of iVIedics; they have fallen into two classes-Live Ones and Dead Ones-the latter, by Darwin's formula of survival, become the prey of their fiercer companions. We shudder and draw the curtain. If ever two of these creatures, feminine and masculine, pause in their rending of flesh and gloating over bones and quivering tendons, to whisper long hours in corners secluded, we can but wonder at the touch, even here, of the human.88 |
