Our dentist is dead. The receptionist calls last week and leaves a message breaking the news. Was old, fell ill, succumbed. A dead man’s hands have been in my mouth. The line of succession has already been worked out. We orphaned patients have been divvied up among the surviving dudes at the practice, and we’ve been punted over to some slightly less senior torturer for the next time we go in for our bloodlettings, our waterpikkings, our medieval floss-and-scrapes, etc.

Also last week is my first actual visit to a Canadian doctor — I finally get around to it after only three years, oops. My first taste of free socialized health care! It is just a quick physical. The usual pokings and proddings, questions and jottings. Weighed and measured, stethoscoped and blood-pressured, turn and cough, thanks now fuck off. The doctor pronounces me Relatively Young And Healthy. I sense quackness.

Shortly thereafter I happen upon the lyrics to Groucho Marx’s “Doctor Hackenbush”, a song left out of A Day at the Races. Though I appreciate that he rhymes “tonsilectomy” with “send a check to me”, the part that sticks is:

DOCTOR   My diagnosis never fails, I know just what to do!

Whenever anybody ails, I’m sympathetic too!

My heart within me melts!

CHORUS   His heart within him melts!

DOCTOR   No matter what I treat ’em for, they die from something else!