Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

WEEKDAYS AND SABBATH 87

in this left arm of mine. I couldn't lift it. So I went to my family doctor. 'X-rav treatment,' that learned man tells me. But X-rays don't help. 'Go to a specialist' another doctor tells me. So I visit the professor. He examines me, he carries out a telephone conversation with my heart. He taps on my chest and my back. Finally he says 'You are perfectly healthy and you owe me twenty five guilders.' I give him the banknote but the pain in my arm remains. He scribbles some Latin on a scrap of paper. If you please, ten guilders for the Chemist. But I still cannot move my arm. Then my wife says to me 'You know what you should do? You should rub some of the rotten concoction of your on that arm.' I reply,'You are meshugge, that stuff is for my customers, not for me. Do you think that Rabinowitz the pastry-cook eats his own cakes?' But you know how these things go, when you are in pain and you want to run up a wall in order to get rid of it. Finally, I let my wife have her way. I rub that stuff on my own arm and lo and behold, the next day the pain is gone. See it for yourself, here, this arm which I couldn't move... Now I can move it in a normal way. Costs only one quarter...

Next to Doctor Herman is the stand of two brothers, Jacob and Marcus. The first is a specialist in the treatment of corns, the other has spent his life studying toothaches.

The secret of Jacob's medicine for corns is a pain-killing ointment which he spreads on the patient's toes. He tells him "Take of your shoes, mister."

"Yes."

"Now take of your socks."

"I've taken them off already."