University of Virginia Library

CUPPING ON THE STERNUM.

I had been a student of medicine about three weeks,
and had got as far as cupping, cathartics, and castor oil,
in the noble science of physic, when, as I was sitting in
the office, investigating by induction the medicinal properties
of a jar of tamarinds, I received a note from my
preceptor which ran thus:—

"Mr. L.—You will please take the large cups and
scarificator, together with a large blister, up to Mr. J.,
and cup his negro girl Chaney very freely over the
sternum; after you have cupped her, apply the blister
over the same, as she has inflammation of the lungs."

In anatomy, the sternum is that portion of the osseous
system known in common parlance as the "breast
bone," but at that time I was ignorant of the fact. I
had not studied anatomy, and in my ignorance and simplicity

of heart, imagined that the doctor wanted her to
be cupped and blistered "a posteriori," or in other
words, over the "seat," and that he had put the "um"
to the "stern" in the note, merely for sport, or, it might
have been the Latin termination of the word "stern."
Filled with a sense of the delicacy and momentous
import of my duty, I provided myself with the necessaries,
and proceeded to cup Chaney on the sternum.

By way of parenthesis, let me create an idea of my
patient, so that you may appreciate the field of my
operation.

Just imagine a butcher's block five feet long and four
feet through at the butt, converted into a fat bouncing
negro wench, with smaller blocks appended for limbs,
and you will have a faint conception of the figure and
proportions of the delectable portion of humanity upon
whom my curative capabilities were to be exhibited.

"How are you to-day, Chaney?" said I, as entering
the cabin of my patient, I stood before her.

"Oh, massa young doctor," said she, "I does feel
'mazing bad—the mis'ry in my bosom almost broke
my heart; I can scasely perspere," (re-spire, I suppose
she meant, as, judging from the big drops which, like
ebony beads, chased each other down her gleaming
neck, I thought that she perspired beautifully.)

"I am very sorry to hear it, Chaney; the doctor has
sent me up here to cup and blister you, and I hope it
will relieve you entirely."

"Well, the Lord's will and the doctor's be done;
this anguished sister be's ready"—and she proceeded
to divest her bosom of its concealments, thinking that
she had to be cupped over the seat of the pain; but it

was a different seat than that, which my cups were destined
to exhaust the atmosphere from.

"Stop, Chaney, I was not told to cup you on the
breast, but on the sternum, so you'll have to turn over!"

"What!" shrieked she, rising straight up in the bed,
a great deal whiter in the face than she had been for
many a day; "you cup me on de starn! Massa
young doctor, tell me, for de lub of prostituted 'manity,
is you in airnest? Oh no, certainly, you is just joking
—just making 'musement of de 'stresses of dis female!"

"No, Chaney, there is no mistake. The doctor says
you must be cupped there, and it must and shall be
done, so get ready."

"Oh, massa doctor, you must be mistaken—you must
indeed! De pain no dere, but in my breast! How
cupping dere goin' cure pain in de breast, eh? Tell
me dat!"

"Well, Chaney, I don't know that I can do that,
exactly, but I suppose it will be by sympathy. You
know the stern and the bosom are not many feet apart.
Any how, I am going to cup you there, if I have to call
in help, so you had better consent."

Chaney, seeing that there was no retreat, agreed at
last to the operation. Click! click! went the scarificator,
and amidst the shouts of the patient and my awful
solicitude for fear I might cut an artery, the "deed was
did." But no blood flowed, nothing but grease, which
trickled out slowly like molasses out of a worm hole.
I saw that the cups were too infatuated to draw blood
from that quarter, so I removed them and applied the
blister, and I expect fly-ointment was in demand about
that time.

[ILLUSTRATION]

"What!" shrieked she, rising straight up in the bed, a great deal whiter in the
face than she had been for many a day; "You cup me on de starn!"

When the doctor returned, after an absence of several
hours, he found the patient entirely relieved, and a
blister drawn with about a tubful of water in its interior.
I reckon she used chairs mighty little for a few weeks,
and she hated the idea of the operation so bad that she
burnt up a bran new dress just because it was bumbazine,
and reminded her, by the first syllable, of the seat of
"Cupping on the Sternum."