OUR IDIOSYNCRASIES.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9272, 25 November 1895, Page 4

OUR IDIOSYNCRASIES.

Dr. George D. Pollock's address to th» etudente at St. George's Hospital was an exceedingly interesting one. Hβ advised the learners to study the idiosyncrasies of patients. A relative of bis, ho aaid, could not partake of rice, one of the most innocentt products of the vegetable kingdom, with* oat most alarming symptoms. Some friends, wishing to teet the matter, had some biscuits prepared with but a single grain oi rice in each one. His relative parcook of two or three of these biuouite, and, be* coming uncomfortable, left the table, declanog that if he were not' morally certain that he had not partaken of rice h« ehould aay he had been poisoned by it. H« bad beard of a case in which a man could not eat gooseberries without a certain rasa manifeetijjg itself, who, at a fashionable party, soou after the champagne had beea banded rouud, pulled up his sleevea and:, ■bowed * friend that) particular rash »p* :

Bearing. What applied to gooseberries Applied to drugs, and doctors should be careful of prescribing those which the patient said did not agree with him. MR GLADSTONE AND MR STANLEY. Mr Gladstone's great crime in the eyes of Mr Stanley, who has been giving his opinions on the subject in the course of his Canadian tour, is his infallibility, and in proof (e»ys the Chronicle) he told this anecr dote :— I was having an interview with Mr Gladgtone on the African slave trade, which I tithed htm to suppress. I had a great map of Africa placed before him. •• There," eaid I, " is the harbour of Mombase, into which you could put the whole British fleet—ihe finest harbour in the world." . •• Who made it? was the quick question. '* Nature, sir," said I, quietly. •» Oh, no " —very emphatically— ,. Nature makes roadsteads ; man makes harbours." '• Excuse mc, sir, Nature makes harbours, too, and this is one of them." He ehook his head. He was Prime Minister of England. I would not argue with him. Well, I put my finger on Lake Victoria, and said:-"Here you have the second largest inland ssa in the world after Lake Superior, and the source of the Nile." I talked away about it until I found he was notpajiDg the slightest attention to what I was saying, but was looking intently at some mountains on the map. •« What do they call those mountains V' "Gordon Bennett-Mackay, sir." "And who gave those mountains suoh ridiculous names ?" •« I did, sir; it was I who discovered them." " No, no," was Mr Gladstone's reply, " those mountains were discovered twentvsix centuries ago by Herodotus."