es
us to publish, for the benefit of medical students in general, and those
about to go up in particular, the following
CODE OF INSTRUCTIONS
TO BE OBSERVED BY THOSE PREPARING FOR EXAMINATION AT THE HALL.
1. Previously to going up, take some pills and get your hair cut. This not
only clears your faculties, but improves your appearance. The Court of
Examiners dislike long hair.
2. Do not drink too much stout before you go in, with the idea that it
will give you pluck. It renders you very valiant for half an hour and then
muddles your notions with indescribable confusion.
3. Having arrived at the Hall, put your rings and chains in your pocket,
and, if practicable, publish a pair of spectacles. This will endow you
with a grave look.
4. On taking your place at the table, if you wish to gain time, feign to
be intensely frightened. One of the examiners will then rise to give you a
tumbler of water, which you may, with good effect, rattle tremulously
against your teeth when drinking. This may possibly lead them to excuse
bad answers on the score of extreme nervous trepidation.
5. Should things appear to be going against you, get up a hectic cough,
which is easily imitated, and look acutely miserable, which you will
probably do without trying.
6. Endeavour to assume an off-hand manner of answering; and when you have
stated any pathological fact--right or wrong--_stick to it_; if they
want a case for example, invent one, "that happened when you were an
apprentice in the country." This assumed confidence will sometimes bother
them. We knew a student who once swore at the Hall, that he gave opium in
a case of concussion of the brain, and that the patient never required
anything else. It was true--he never did.
7. Should you be fortunate enough to pass, go to your hospital next day
and report your examination, describing it as the most extraordinary
ordeal of deep-searching questions ever undergone. This will make the
professors think well of you, and the new men deem yon little less than a
mental Colossus. Say, also, "you were complimented by the Court." This
advice is, however, scarcely necessary, as we never know a student pass
who was not thus honoured--according to his own account.
* * * * *
All things being arranged to his satisfaction, he deposits his papers
under the care of Mr. Sayer, and passes the interval before the fatal day
much in the same state of mind as a con
|