PART IV Introducing Doctor Aubrey Paunchbulb

Lacking the requisite constitution for his chosen vocation, Doctor Aubrey Paunchbulb had fared rather worse than his professional brethren. His inherent unsuitability for the task in hand had not been immediately apparent; indeed, he had excelled in his original stationing, as Saintless Niche on Manifold’s resident bonesetter. He had also received several accolades for his enthusiastic zeal in amateur gynaecology. Unfortunately, for the last two years he had barely endured a posting at the Royal Farcy Foundling Hospital, seven miles south south west of Manifold, which had been utterly overwhelmed by the unexpected ravages of disease. In the good doctor's opinion, cleanliness had been wanting for quite some time at Farcy, with not one of the little wretches being in true full health.

For as long as he could remember, the ulcerated legions of Farcy had formed an unending queue at his door. Some able to stand, supported by a Good Samaritan, others laid prostrate on stretchers; they were there from the first light of dawn, right through until the Vesper bell rang out at dusk. Its steady knell resonating across the muster quadrangle of the hospital, came to mean only one thing to the overwhelmed Paunchbulb: the end of surgery for the day and the blessed relief this brought, upon which he would take a light supper of dry biscuits and water, which, squeamish and queasy, was all his stomach could bear, then take to his bed.

The dictum- ‘Where there is pus- let it out!’ rang through his dreams accompanied by a sickening torrent of vile images; gelatinous wound secretions, inflammatory exudate, devitalised tags of skin, malignant pustules, sodden, proud flesh, soft and boggy to the touch. And the smells.... smells which would defy the descriptions of the most ardent raconteur. Until this time, he would not have believed that one dreamt with all five of one's senses. Suffice to say, the peculiar mawkish odour of pus and the rapid, heavy breath of his little patients combined to create an intolerable stench, of which it seemed impossible to rid himself.

And so it was with a sense of impending, suffocating nausea that he awoke each morning, his senses reeling. Somehow the repugnant odours from his night terrors seemed to follow him, seeping out into what should have been the fresh reality of morning.  Ablutions would be followed by cup after cup of sweet, strong black tea, after which he would unlock his door once more, propping it open widely, sacrificing his patients' privacy in lieu of the occasional welcome waft of uncontaminated air.

Thus he spent his every waking hour and so too his resting interludes, ceaslessly applying caustic potash, poultices and dusting powders, ointments and other greasy dressings, without respite, leaving him mentally and emotionally bankrupt.

Once, he had taken pride in his highly tuned sense of smell, now he longed for anosmia. This, coupled with a fertile imagination, was perhaps where the seed of mental instability first took root. Night after endless night a nocturnal hysteria seemed to grip him. Often, the children, themselves dwelling miserably in the blank limbo of shallow sleep endemic to those in constant pain, would hear him cry out in delirious terror, and pity him.

This exhaustion of the vital powers led to him being found from time to time, sitting, staring, with a peculiar placid expression of the countenance, as that of a clock, which has forgotten to be wound. As the doctor's robustitude lessened, he became a distinct and constant menace, until finally, he was removed to the Whipple Van Buren Asylum for the Blatantly Deranged, where, under the jaundiced eye of Nurse Abalone, he made a painfully slow and ultimately incomplete recovery.

Partially due to a recent rise in the number of the insane, he was released, only to take on his own medical practice in town, where he could once again make himself useful to the more debilitated inhabitants of the district. Perhaps unwisely, he chose to return to general practice, although he would always regret not keeping a finger in, in gynaecology. He specialised in chiropody, spending his days maintaining the toes and feet of old people, handling their dry, horny, shrivelled and semi-transparent appendages with dexterous care.

His evenings were his own, however, and these he spent in his private rooms, to the rear of the surgery, tinkering with innumerable tinctures and decoctions, spirits and distillations, apothecarical spices, extracts and other, ill-advised and questionable ingredients. It was his firm belief that with just the right balance of ingredients to his concoction, he would one day have the ability to cure every malady that had the misfortune to stray into his path; from pottymouth to poultice, from blebs to bulbiform nipples; all with just one sip of his singular olio.

Only under times of extreme duress was there any inkling of his former turmoil, when he was known to bark out sinister and graphically disturbing expletives.

One poor lady who bore witness to one of his more extreme tirades, was a Miss Hortence Palmipede, a committed nonagenarian spinster, whose malodorous feet brought on one such  hysterical attack. Four deep and ghastly fissures with attending extensive ramifications in the sole of her right foot had given rise to an intolerable stench, which had become a source of annoyance and discomfort to all others who had the misfortune to find themselves within a few yards of the afflicted woman. On her right heel, Paunchbulb had discovered a sac containing a semi-fluid substance resembling custard, but no sooner had he noted this in his journal, than the familiar pangs of gastric uneasiness overtook him. Gallantly ignoring the deplorable sensation, he swiftly made good with a generous use of the sharp-spoon. But alas, it proved too much.

'Jack hammering dildos!' he gagged into his kerchief. 'Miss Palmipede, I must congratulate you on your outstandingly rank trotters!' No sooner had this admittedly only partially unwarranted exclamation escaped his lips, than he took a despondent, sharp, shuddering breath, and slumped back in his chair, eyes glazing over, becoming torpid and dull. His mind had retreated in on itself; all sight and thought were now beyond him, except for the ethereal tinitus of the vesper bells of Farcy, resonating in his ears.

A minuscule phial of viscous fluid, of unknown decoction, slipped from Paunchbulb's clammy paw, now lying limbre as a rag on his slack thighs, only to shatter on the wood block floor. A fuming liquid of a bluish hue seeped into the tessellations of the parquet, leaving an indelible indigo stain.

In her haste to leave, Miss Palmipede painfully slammed one of her own somewhat pendulous mammae in the door. From this perturbing ordeal, she would suffer extensive bruising, but would never again permit herself to be seen by any doctor, despite the astonishing spectrum of colours presented by her injury, and its severely swollen margin.