Maladies, Distempers, and General Ill Spirits

Confined to the maladies and viruses circulating a single planet of the cosmos, a doctor of medicine might have their work cut out for them. When the field of potential and very possible disease is opened to countless galaxies and even more countless worlds, it's a wonder there are any physicians still left in practice.

      The Sanatorium for Chronic Maladies, Distempers, and General Ill Spirits is a humble institution found on the Hendevour Belt of Presin Major. One of the planet's more affluent municipalities, Hendevour hosts all manner of beings from across the Fifteen Galaxies, and naturally many of their lingering diseases as well. The Sanatorium, one of thousands in the British Empire alone, has a workload that would put your average planetary scaffolder to shame.

      Plucking a random date from the institute's records (13th June of the year gone) we can see what the doctors have had to contend with:

• Seven cases of Hobb's Crust, necessitating the application of a fine hammer and chisel.
• The utter madness of Fletchel's Gibbering Lunacy, contracted by a Ms Tallywhacker after one too many pipes inhaled on the Julip moon.
• Three Bukosi spats whose Periwinkle Fever turned them a peculiar shade of violet, which precipitated an initial diagnosis of cholera until Doctor Minster was reminded that the ammonia-based Bukosi never take in water.
• A case of scuppered bowel, originally written off as callipated bladder by the Far Acre Centre for Aches and Pains. The physician in question, Doctor Malpractor, has since been laid off for reasons claimed to be "blindingly obvious".
• The Fleeting Terrors, for which the sonorously-voiced Doctor Aarner offered to read the patient (87) a soothing bedtime story.
• A malingering case of whooping kidney the patient had been living with since Christmas.
• A gentlewoman apparently drunk on some cocktail imbalance who believed herself to have contracted fatal space blindness. The Sanatorium staff reliably informed her that her species lacked eyes, and prescribed a nice lie down in a dark room. The gentlewoman thanked them, offered a lewd nasal wink, and departed.
• The intriguing case of a Kandoleen named Bertie Pespic admitted via a wheelbarrow, who, according to his carer, awoke one morning to discover all of his bones had fallen off. Pespic remained remarkably chipper about the whole affair, and was carefully draped over a hatstand for the duration of his treatment.

      Clearly, the cosmos would be lost without the dedicated and highly patient staff of clinics such as the Sanatorium for Chronic Maladies. The centre boasts one of the highest success rates in the Armillary Sphere, and more often than not its outpatients leave with a spring in their step, a shake to their tail, and a susurrus across their polyps—with the exception of Mr. Pespic, who unfortunately slipped off his hook and was briefly mistaken for an unusually vocal doormat.