236 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
other of the tom fooleries which are enacted by the members of 
the medical profession in the enlightened Island of England, 
he very gravely informed his patient that his malady was to be 
attributed to no other cause than that of having purloined an 
article which did not belong to him, and that his sufferings were 
to be considered as a direct punishment for so flagitious an act. 
The cure however came next into consideration, and although 
Capt. Ross put on the portentous gravity of the physician, con¬ 
tracting his eyebrows and appearing as if he were thinking of 
saving the world from a second deluge, so abstracted did he 
stand in thought, yet he differed from the practice of the English 
physicians, for his prescription referred not to either an emetic or 
an aperient bolus, but he informed his wonder-stricken patient, 
that no chance whatever remained of his recovery until he had 
restored the stolen property, on the contrary that his pains would 
increase daily in their poignancy, and he would be rendered for 
ever after incapable of killing a seal or enjoying the flavor of 
the flesh of the rib of a walrus. These Capt. Ross knew to 
be two of the greatest privations, which an Esquimaux can 
undergo, and he therefore politically selected them, as most 
likely to work upon the ignorance and credulity of the untutored 
savage, who after having looked upon him for some minutes with 
the eye of astonishment, mingled with an expression of fear, 
darted away, and taking the direction of the huts, was soon out 
of sight. A patient of this kind would cut a sorry figure within 
the bills of mortality of the metropolis, or rather a physician 
within the same district would, indeed, cut a most lamentable 
appearance if his patient after receiving his advice and prescrip¬ 
tion, instead of lodging a sovereign in the palm of his hand, were 
to take to his heels, and in the most unceremonious manner leave 
him to the enjoyment of his own company. If however the 
talent and ability of a physician are to be estimated according 
to the efficacy of his prescriptions, no one has a greater right to 
boast of his success than Capt. Ross, in the effect which his 
prescription produced upon the Esquimaux, for in a very short 
time, his patient was observed hastening towards the ship, and on 
being admitted into the presence of Capt. Ross, he delivered to 
