Those of you who are familiar with this blog may recall my past references to the visits
from my little, quixotic friend, aspiring actor and occasional model, Horatio H. Hamster Esq.
I never know when to expect him, and after so many months of his absence, I was
surprised again yesterday, when he stopped in to say hello.
We exchanged our mutual greetings and gratitude for surviving the pandemic thus far,
while he was maintaining the proper social distance. I couldn't avoid noticing that he was
wearing his laurels, and I wondered if that represented a new academic achievement of
some kind, or perhaps a costume for a play by Euripides. Since I was aware that all
of the performances at his theater, ( the unique Quadruped Playhouse ), had been
cancelled due to the plague, his overall classical persona peaked my curiosity.
So, I asked him how he had been spending his time.
The distance between us made it a bit difficult to hear exactly what he was saying,
so it sounded to me like he said, that he had been paying tribute to the enduring legacy
of the hypocritic oaf.
"Did you say,"hypocritic oaf", I asked?
"No, no!", he shouted. "I said Hippocratic Oath!" And then he added a further,
distinct correction, saying " The hypocritic oaf is what lives in the White House!"
I apologized for my mistake, and invited him to come closer, so that he wouldn't
have raise his voice, as he told me about his latest efforts to help defeat the pandemic.
His reference to the Hippocratic Oath, provided a clue to what the middle initial "H" in
his name stands for, at the present time. That part of his identity always seems to change,
in accordance with his involvement, in each, new crusade. So I asked him if that
middle "H" could possibly stand for Hippocrates, and he admitted that, yes indeed,
the name was that of the famous Periclean Greek Asclepiad , who was the father
of modern medicine.
When I asked him if he had any personal association with Hippocrates, he said
only that it was an old family name, and that a distant branch of his family still lives on
the Greek island of Kos, where Hippocrates was born. He added, that during this
world-wide crisis, the name had provided extra incentive, for him to help promote
better health-care, and therefore he had been very busy, giving staged readings of
the Hippocratic Oath, to graduating classes of doctors.
I was hesitant to question his idealistic efforts, but I did ask if he was being well
received. He then acknowledged that his reception had been a mixed bag: some
young doctors thought he would be more useful in medical research departments,
and some others failed to give him the proper attention during his heart-felt recitations.
I could understand his difficulty. I would never be so impolite as to mention
anything about his size to him, but there is no denying that he is vertically challenged.
Even so, despite some rejections, he said his dedication to the cause, has not
wavered. He remains determined to continue to promote the truth of the scientific
approach to the study of medicine, which was begun by Hippocrates, even before
the existence of the modern, scientific instruments of our medical practice today.
Horatio struck as dignified a pose as he could muster, and he proclaimed that we
must do all that we can, to counter the lies about the deadly coronavirus, and the
claims of false cures, which eminent daily from the nation's White House!
Referring again to the noble oath of Hippocrates, he said that it's foremost tenant
is to, "first of all, do no harm", but that the sociopathic oaf in the White House is
doing just the opposite, issuing steady streams of false information and continually
promoting false cures, all for his own political benefit.
I couldn't help but be impressed by Horatio's steadfast and unwavering loyalty,
to the crusade for scientific truth in medicine, as this deadly plague rages on.
His visit was short, as usual when he is involved in a noble, patriotic cause.
And then later, as he was preparing to leave, I asked him if he had gathered a
general consensus, about the health of our nation, from all of the doctors he had
talked with, during his tour of medical colleges. He replied that he had gathered
just such an accepted and factual diagnosis of what is ailing all of us, and he gladly
summarized the diagnosis for me.
"The doctors agree that, for the past four years, we have all been suffering from
one gigantic and unrelenting pain-in-the-ass!" he said. "It has kept us all in a long,
constant state of such stressful anxiety and depression, that we haven't been able
to sit down and rest comfortably, in that whole time!"
"But fortunately, as they all are reminding us, we now have an important, federal,
doctor's appointment, to keep, in early November, to get that big, ugly, and inflamed,
orange boil, lanced and removed, so that we will all once again be able to sit down
and comfortably relax!"
"There is no excuse for anyone to miss that medical appointment", he concluded.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Eugene P. McNerney
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