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318
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
·
James Wilson Hyde
282
These
are
some
of
the
more
curious
instances
of
the
loss
of
books--the
loss
being
ordinarily
ascribed
either
to
change
of
residence,
to
the
book
being
dropped
in
the
street,
or
to
its
being
burnt
with
waste-paper.
CHAPTER
XXII.
REPLIES
TO
MEDICAL
INQUIRIES.
For
many
years
past
it
has
been
incumbent
upon
all
candidates
seeking
employment
in
the
Post-office,
as
in
other
public
departments,
to
undergo
medical
examination,
with
the
view
of
securing
healthy
persons
for
the
service;
and
in
the
course
of
such
examinations
the
medical
officer
requires
to
make
inquiry
into
the
state
of
health
of
the
candidates'
parents,
brothers,
sisters,
&c.,
the
information
being
elicited
in
forms
to
be
filled
up
by
the
candidates.
Though
it
is
not
to
be
expected
that
persons
entering
as
postmen,
messengers,
and
so
on,
should
exhibit
perfection
in
their
orthography,
still,
in
referring
to
the
more
common
troubles
that
afflict
the
human
frame,
some
approach
to
an
intelligible
description
of
diseases
might
be
hoped
for.
Dr
Lewis,
who
held
the
post
of
medical
officer
in
the
General
Post-office,
London,
for
many
years,
recorded
the
following
examples
of
answers
received
to
his
questions:--
"Father
had
sunstroke,
and
I
caught
it
of
him."
"My
little
brother
died
of
some
funny
name."
"A
great
white
cat
drawed
my
sister's
breath,
and
she
died
of
it."
A
parent
died
of
"Apperplexity";
another
died
of
"Parasles."
One
"caught
Tiber
fever
in
the
Hackney
Road";
another
had
had
"goarnders";
a
third
"burralger
in
the
head."
Some
of
the
other
complaints
were
described
as
"rummitanic
pains,"
"carracatic
fever,"
"indigestion
of
the
lungs,"
"toncertina
in
the
throat,"
"pistoles
on
the
back."
One
candidate
stated
that
"his
sister
was
consumpted,
now
she's
quite
well
again";
while
the
sister
of
another
was
stated
to
have
"died
of
compulsion."
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