he was just upon the point of dying, his friend, Mr. F.O. WARD,
visited him, and, to amuse him, related some of his adventures in
the low parts of the metropolis in his capacity as a sanitary
commissioner. "Pray desist," said Hood; "your anecdote gives me the
back-slum-bago." The proximity of death could no more deprive poor
Artemus of his power to jest than it could Thomas Hood. When
nothing else was left him to joke upon, when he could no longer seek
fun in the city streets, or visit the Tower of London and call it "a
sweet boon," his own shattered self suggested a theme for jesting.
He commenced this paper "On Health." The purport of it, I believe,
was to ridicule doctors generally; for Artemus was bitterly
sarcastic on his medical attendants, and he had some good reasons
for being so. A few weeks before he died, a German physician
examined his throat with a laryngoscope, and told him that nothing
was the matter with him except a slight inflammation of the larynx.
Another physician told him that he had heart disease, and a third
assured him that he merely required his throat to be sponged two or
three times a day, and take a preparation of tortoise shell for
medicine, to perfectly recover! Every doctor made a different
diagnosis, and each had a different specific. One alone of the many
physicians to whom Artemus applied seemed to be fully aware that the
poor patient was dying of consumption in its most formidable form.
Not merely phthisis, but a cessation of functions and a wasting away
of the organs most concerned in the vital processes. Artemus saw
how much the doctors were at fault, and used to smile at them with a
sadly scornful smile as they left the sick room. "I must write a
paper," said he, "about health and doctors." The few paragraphs
which follow are, I believe, all that he wrote on the subject.
Whether the matter became too serious to him for further jesting, or
whether his hand became too weak to hold the pen, I cannot say. The