As for Mr. Nosnibor, he had received his eleventh flogging on the day of
my arrival. I saw him later on the same afternoon, and he was still
twinged; but there had been no escape from following out the
straightener's prescription, for the so-called sanitary laws of Erewhon
are very rigorous, and unless the straightener was satisfied that his
orders had been obeyed, the patient would have been taken to a hospital
(as the poor are), and would have been much worse off. Such at least is
the law, but it is never necessary to enforce it.
On a subsequent occasion I was present at an interview between Mr.
Nosnibor and the family straightener, who was considered competent to
watch the completion of the cure. I was struck with the delicacy with
which he avoided even the remotest semblance of inquiry after the
physical well-being of his patient, though there was a certain yellowness
about my host's eyes which argued a bilious habit of body. To have taken
notice of this would have been a gross breach of professional etiquette.
I was told, however, that a straightener sometimes thinks it right to
glance at the possibility of some slight physical disorder if he finds it
important in order to assist him in his diagnosis; but the answers which
he gets are generally untrue or evasive, and he forms his own conclusions
upon the matter as well as he can.
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