Wonders will never cease. A new system of medical diagnosis has been discovered and according to some the middle finger of either hand contains within its narrow limits all the information necessary for a doctor—a professor of the new practice—to decide from what particular complaint the patient is suffering. Some of the signs are easy to read. For instance should it be swollen and hot to the touch the merest tyro would say it was inflamed and, probably poisoned should the nail be black and blue and the patient complain of a localized pain it may be assumed that he has pinched it in the door. There are a number of other ills which may as easily be recognized, but the science has gone a little further. Now, a patient need only visit the practitioner of this new science, produce a middle finger, preferably on the hand, and leave the man of science to do the rest. A minute examination of this member will discover whether the sufferer is incommoded by a guniboil or a pair of tight boots. It will infallibly lead to the detection of any and every ill.
Tur Ixvesticator at Worx.
To be perfectly frank, we do not know exactly how far the method? goes. We do not know whether splints applied to the middle finger will cure a broken leg or whether q, correct liniments thoroughly rabhed into the digit will remedy that nakedness of the apex which comes from too much study or advancing years. There is a grent deal about the new science of which we are ignorant, but we do know that 9 Chinese doctor practising it called on a friend of ours just recently and demanded to see one of his middle fingers. He was obligingly accommodated and the doctor grasping the finger firmly turned it this way and that, beneath a gaze that penetrated all the mysteries of this newly discovered arcana, and after murniuring a few Chinese equivalents of "Tut tut. handed him the following circular, which, he explained, was written by an American lawyer A Cnuvesr Doctor Comes Firstty Firstly I come here, and don't understand the dialect. I have this kind of commerce, but no one knows. I know well all the kinds of sickness. The man who is sick, don't speak out before give me your hand to seo the middle finger, at once, I know well what sick you're. Tf you don't believe, in hurry, I must If I know what sick' "you're, me do well yourself If you will do well' yourself, I must tell a nighprise. If you think that my medicine is dear, you may don't do well yourself, please, let me sce your middle finger to see you're sick or not, to want a lift But you may tell this commerce to the every men.
It is to be gathered that if the doctor guesses correctly he charges <a nighprise"—and we don't blame
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.