"Many years ago, at the time I bought this thermometer1, I was a very young doctor, full of hope, just starting out in business. I fancied2 myself a very good doctor, but I found that the rest of the world did not seem to think so. And for many months after I began I did not get a single patient. I had no one to try my new thermometer on. I tried it on myself quite often. But I was always so frightfully healthy I never had any temperature anyway. I tried to catch a cold. I didn't really want a cold, you understand, but I did want to make sure that my new thermometer worked. But I couldn't even catch a cold. I was very sad—healthy but sad.
"Well, about this time I met another young doctor who was in the same fix as myself—having no patients. Said he to me: 'I'll tell you what we'll do, let's start a sanitarium.'"
"What's a sanitarium?" asked Gub-Gub.
"A sanitarium," said the Doctor, "is a sort of mixture between a hospital and a hotel—where people stay who are invalids3.... Well, I agreed to this idea. Then I and my young friend—his name was Phipps, Dr5. Cornelius Q. Phipps—took a beautiful place way off in the country, and we furnished6 it with wheel chairs and hot-water bottles and ear trumpets7 and the things that invalids like. And very soon patients came to us in hundreds and our sanitarium was quite full up and my new thermometer was kept very busy. Of course, we made a lot of money, because all these people paid us well. And Phipps was very happy.
"But I was not so happy. I had noticed a peculiar9 thing: none of the invalids ever seemed to get well and go away. And finally I spoke10 of this to Phipps.
"'My dear Dolittle,' he answered, 'go away?—of course not! We don't want them to go away. We want them to stay here, so they'll keep on paying us.'
"'Phipps,' I said, 'I don't think that's honest. I became a doctor to cure people—not to pamper11 them.'
"Well, on this point we fell out and quarreled. I got very angry and told him I would not be his partner any longer—that I would pack up and go the following day. As I left his room, still very angry, I passed one of the invalids in his wheel chair. It was Sir Timothy Quisby, our most important and expensive patient. He asked me, as I passed, to take his temperature, as he thought he had a new fever. Now, I had never been able to find anything wrong with Sir Timothy and had decided12 that being an invalid4 was a sort of hobby with him. So, still, very angry, instead of taking his temperature, I said quite rudely: 'Oh, go to the Dickens!'
"Sir Timothy was furious13. And, calling for Dr. Phipps, he demanded that I apologize. I said I wouldn't. Then Sir Timothy told Phipps that if I didn't he would start an invalids' strike. Phipps got terribly worried and implored14 me to apologize to this very special patient. I still refused.
"Then a peculiar thing happened. Sir Timothy, who had always so far seemed too weak to walk, got right out of his wheel chair and, waving his ear trumpet8 wildly, ran around all over the sanitarium, making speeches to the other invalids, saying how shamefully15 he had been treated and calling on them to strike for their rights.
"And they did strike—and no mistake. That night at dinner they refused to take their medicine—either before or after meals. Dr. Phipps argued with them, prayed them, implored them to behave like proper invalids and carry out their doctors' orders. But they wouldn't listen to him. They ate all the things they had been forbidden to eat, and after dinner those who had been ordered to go for a walk stayed at home, and those who had been ordered to stay quiet went outside and ran up and down the street. They finished the evening by having a pillow16 fight with their hot-water bottles, when they should have been in bed. The next morning they all packed their own trunks and left. And that was the end of our sanitarium.
"But the most peculiar thing of all was this: I found out afterward17 that every single one of those patients had got well! Getting out of their wheel chairs and going on strike had done them so much good they stopped being invalids altogether. As a sanitarium doctor, I suppose I was not a success—still, I don't know. Certainly I cured a great many more patients by going out of the sanitarium business than Phipps ever did by going into it."
点击收听单词发音
1 thermometer | |
n.温度计,寒暑表 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 fancied | |
adj.想象的;幻想的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 invalids | |
病人,残疾者( invalid的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 invalid | |
n.病人,伤残人;adj.有病的,伤残的;无效的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 Dr | |
n.医生,大夫;博士(缩)(= Doctor) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 furnished | |
adj.配备了家具的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 trumpets | |
喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 ); 小号; 喇叭形物; (尤指)绽开的水仙花 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 trumpet | |
n.喇叭,喇叭声;v.吹喇叭,吹嘘 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 pamper | |
v.纵容,过分关怀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 furious | |
adj.狂怒的,暴怒的,强烈的,激烈的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 implored | |
恳求或乞求(某人)( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 shamefully | |
可耻地; 丢脸地; 不体面地; 羞耻地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 pillow | |
n.枕头;枕垫;vt.作…的枕头;垫;枕于;vi.靠在枕上 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 afterward | |
adv.后来;以后 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |