Madame Bovary
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‘But,’ Leon went on, addressing himself to Madame
Bovary, ‘nothing, it seems to me, is more pleasant—when
one can,’ he added.
‘Moreover,’ said the druggist, ‘the practice of medicine
is not very hard work in our part of the world, for the
state of our roads allows us the use of gigs, and generally,
as the farmers are prosperous, they pay pretty well. We
have, medically speaking, besides the ordinary cases of
enteritis, bronchitis, bilious affections, etc., now and then
a few intermittent fevers at harvest-time; but on the
whole, little of a serious nature, nothing special to note,
unless it be a great deal of scrofula, due, no doubt, to the
deplorable hygienic conditions of our peasant dwellings.
Ah! you will find many prejudices to combat, Monsieur
Bovary, much obstinacy of routine, with which all the
efforts of your science will daily come into collision; for
people still have recourse to novenas, to relics, to the
priest, rather than come straight to the doctor of the
chemist. The climate, however, is not, truth to tell, bad,
and we even have a few nonagenarians in our parish. The
thermometer (I have made some observations) falls in
winter to 4 degrees Centigrade at the outside, which gives
us 24 degrees Reaumur as the maximum, or otherwise 54
degrees Fahrenheit (English scale), not more. And, as a