My first client was the peasant José from Dos Hermanas. The doctor and I had stopped there to make a call, after which we planned to continue on to see another sick man in Alcalá de Guadaira. As we announced on the square in Hermanas that I treated animals, the aforementioned José appeared and said that his cow had cut itself badly on a fence while trying, who knows why, to jump over it. The doctor let me go, giving me some final instructions on the healing of wounds with tobacco and wishing me luck. He would continue on with Jesús towards Alcalá de Guadaira, and they would pass by on their way back in the evening to pick me up from the square in Hermanas. I took a pouch of tobacco and some instruments and went to José’s house. His cow had cut itself on the underside of its belly. They had covered the wound with walnut leaves to stop the bleeding, without much success — the leaves were red with blood, a very strange sight indeed. The cow was lying on the hay in the barn, exhausted and surrounded by José’s noisy children, and even though it looked weak, I knew that as soon as I began to treat the wound she would go wild, so we called in two more men and even tied her back legs to a beam so she couldn’t run away or kick anybody. In the meantime, I boiled the tobacco infusion, and when everything was ready I began working on the wound. I will not recount in detail how everything went — suffice to say that everything went successfully. Of course, the healing effect of the tobacco would become apparent the next day at the earliest and the treatment needed to continue for a week or so, nevertheless, certain signs of improvement were immediately apparent. The bleeding stopped. The tobacco leaves began sucking the impurities from the wound, as we could clearly see when we changed them. The cow calmed down. Overall, things had gotten off to a good start.
“I’m beginning a new life,” I said to myself, as I smoked a cigarella in the yard in front of the barn. “Today, July 5, 1586, I am beginning a new life.”
I charged José half of what the sublimatum would’ve cost him and still came out with a tenfold profit, even though I left him tobacco juice and quite a few leaves to apply to the wound over the coming week. He was so impressed that he also brought me a lame donkey with badly festering wounds on its legs, as well as a dog with mange on its neck. I fixed them up, too. José merely clicked his tongue and swore, but with those curses the peasants use to express satisfaction and which they usually only say halfway, finishing them off by spitting through their teeth. He was, as I said, very impressed.
“And so this stuff, señor, this tobacco, it can really cure all these diseases? Well, f. .”
“Absolutely, José,” I assured him. “What do you think this is, after all? This is a great new medicine. From the Indies. These wounds are nothing for it. It is even an antidote for the crossbow shooter’s herb.”
“Yes, yes, señor. What was that herb?” asked José.
“Long story.” I waved dismissively. “We needn’t bother with the fine points of the pharmacopeia. Why the devil should you need to know that?”
“Yes, yes, señor,” José replied.
They always say that: “Yes, yes, señor.” For all their vulgar language, the peasants are in fact meek, obedient people. I suspect this is why everyone does whatever they want with them. However, as meek and obedient as they may be, if you snatch one of their calves or move the fence even a yard, they’ll slice you to ribbons without batting an eye. Strange people, a bit crazy. If I didn’t know from medicine that all people are of one and the same animal species — that, say, the townspeople of Sevilla or Madrid and these peasants are of one and the same race — I would definitely have my doubts. It is true that they appear outwardly similar, but that isn’t definitive proof. The horse and the mule also look alike, but they are different species. “Who knows?” I would say. And then I would give that example with the horse and the mule. But thanks to medicine, I know with certainty that we really are talking about the very same creatures. Say what you will, education has its advantages. Yes, small ones, that’s true. But if you don’t have any other advantages, as is usually the case, what else is there?
When I was done at José’s, some of his neighbors called me over to their places, because they had sick animals as well and because the price of my tobacco treatments was such a bargain compared to sublimatum that, even though peasants are in principle tightfisted, they couldn’t resist. I promised to drop by at the end of the week and hurried towards the square, since it was already dark. I found the doctor and Jesús waiting for me there. The doctor did not scold me for being late, but instead asked me how things had gone and seemed pleased by my story. He made things even easier for me by allowing me to go around to the villages by myself with Jesús on certain days, Saturday and Sunday, when he did not travel in principle — incidentally, the doctor was travelling less and less frequently, since it was simply no longer necessary and it bored him; instead, he preferred to treat the well-to-do townspeople of Sevilla, who now made up the greater part of his clientele. In the end, he even agreed that when we only had one call on a given day, after Jesús had driven him to that address, Jesús and I could go around to the villages, while the doctor himself would return home on foot. In the evening, Jesús and I would stop by the house he had visited to pick up his bag of instruments and medicine.