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CHAPTER XVII--THE AMATEUR M.D.
When we sailed from San Francisco on the Snark I knew as much about
sickness as the Admiral of the Swiss Navy knows about salt water.
And here, at the start, let me advise any one who meditates going to
out-of-the-way tropic places. Go to a first-class druggist--the
sort that have specialists on their salary list who know everything.
Talk the matter over with such an one. Note carefully all that he
says. Have a list made of all that he recommends. Write out a
cheque for the total cost, and tear it up.
I wish I had done the same. I should have been far wiser, I know
now, if I had bought one of those ready-made, self-acting, fool-
proof medicine chests such as are favoured by fourth-rate ship-
masters. In such a chest each bottle has a number. On the inside
of the lid is placed a simple table of directions: No. 1,
toothache; No. 2, smallpox; No. 3, stomachache; No. 4, cholera; No.
5, rheumatism; and so on, through the list of human ills.
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