Homepage

Contents

In the old days of, say, twenty years ago, when a man got sick he went to a doctor. The doctor looked at him, examined him, told him what was wrong with him, and gave him some medicine and told him to go to bed. The patient went to bed, took the medicine, and either got better or didn't.
   All of this was very primitive, and it is very gratifying to feel that we have got quite beyond it.
   Now, of course, a consulting doctor first makes a diagnosis. The patient is then handed on to a "heart-man" for a heart test, and to a "nerve-man" for a nerve test. Then, if he has to be operated on, he is put to sleep by an anaesthetist, and operated on by an operating surgeon, and waked up by a resurrectionist.
   All that is excellent - couldn't be better.

   But just suppose that the other professions began to imitate it! And just suppose that the half professions that live in the reflection of the bigger ones start in on the same line!
   We shall then witness little episodes in the routine of our lives such as that which follows:

   "Mr. Follicle will see you now," said the young lady attendant.
   The patient entered the inner sanctum of Dr. Follicle, generally recognized as one of the greatest capillary experts in the profession. He carried after his name the degrees of Cap. D. from Harvard, Doc. Chev. from Paris, and was an Honorary Shampoo of half a dozen societies.
   The expert ran his eye quickly over the face of the incoming patient. His trained gaze at once recognized a certain roughness in the skin, as if of a partial growth of hair just coming through the surface, which told the whole tale. He asked, however, a few questions as to personal history, parentage, profession, habits, whether sedentary or active, and so on, and then with a magnifying glass made a searching examination of the patient's face.
   He shook his head.
   "I think," he said, "there is no doubt about your trouble. You need a shave."
   The patient's face fell a little at the abrupt, firm announcement. He knew well that it was the expert's duty to state it to him flatly and fairly. He himself in his inner heart had known it before he had come in. But he had hoped against hope: perhaps he didn't need it after all, perhaps he could wait; later on, perhaps, he would accept it. Thus he had argued to himself, refusing, as we all refuse, to face the cruel and inevitable fact.
   "Could it be postponed for a day or so more?" he asked. "I have a good many things to do at the office."
   "My dear sir," said the expert firmly, "I have told you emphatically that you need a shave. You may postpone it if you wish, but if you do I refuse to be responsible."
   The patient sighed.
   "All right," he said, "if I must, I must. After all, the sooner it's done, the sooner it's over. Go right ahead and shave me."
   The great expert smiled. "My dear sir," he said, "I don't shave you myself. I am only a consulting hairologist. I make my diagnosis, and I pass you on to expert hands."
   He pushed a bell.
   "Miss Smith," he said to the entering secretary, "please fill out a card for this gentleman for the Shaving Room. If Dr. Scrape is operating get him to make the removal of the facial hair. Dr. Clicker will then run the clippers over his neck. Perhaps he had better go right to the Soaping Room from here; have him sent down fully soaped to Dr. Scrape."
   The young lady stepped close to the expert and said something in a lower tone, which the patient was not intended to hear.
   "That's unfortunate," murmured the specialist.
   "It seems that we, have no soapist available for at least an hour or so. Both our experts are busy-an emergency case that came in this morning, involving the complete removal of a full beard. Still, perhaps Dr. Scrape can arrange something for you. And now," he continued, looking over some notes in front of him, "for the work around the ears. Have you any preference for anyone in particular? I mean any professional man of your own acquaintance whom you would like to call in?"
   "Why, no," said the patient, "can't Dr. What's-his-name do that too?"
   "He could," said the consultant, "but only at a certain risk, which I hesitate to advise. Snipping the hair about and around the ears is recognized as a very delicate line of work, which is better confided to a specialist. In the old days in this line of work there were often some very distressing blunders and accidents due purely to lack of technique - severance of part of the ear, for example."
   "All right," said the patient," I'll have a specialist."
   "Very good," said the hairologist, "now as to a shampoo - I think we had better wait till after the main work is over and then we will take special advice according to your condition. I am inclined to think that your constitution would stand an immediate shampoo. But I shouldn't care to advise it without a heart test. Very often a premature shampoo in cold weather will set up a nasal trouble of a very distressing character. We had better wait and see how we come along."
   "All right," said the patient.
   "And now," added the expert more genially, "at the end of all of it, shall we say - a shine?"
   "Oh, yes, certainly."
   "A shine, very good, and a brush-up? To include the hat? Yes, excellent. Miss Smith, will you conduct this gentleman to the Soaping Room?"
   The patient hummed and hawed a little. "What about the fee?" he asked.
   The consultant waved the question aside with dignity. "Pray do not trouble about that," he said,
   "all that will be attended to in its place."

   And when the patient had passed through all the successive stages of the high-class expert work indicated, from the first soap to the last touch of powder, he came at the end, with a sigh of relief, to the special shoe-shining seat and the familiar coloured boy on his knees waiting to begin. Here, at last, he thought, is something that hasn't changed. "Which foot?" asked the boy.
   "How's that?" said the man. "Oh, it doesn't matter - here, take the right."
   "You'll have to go to the other chair," said the boy, rising up from his knees. "I'm left-handed. I only do the left foot."

Source: Leacock, Stephen. " Further Progress in Specialization." The Iron Man and the Tin Woman and Other Futurities. London: John Lane the Bodley Head, 1929. pp. 6-10

Top