A physician engaged a nurse, recently graduated, for a case of delirium tremens. The physician succeeded in quieting his patient and left some medicine, instructing the nurse to administer it to him if he "began to see snakes again."

At the next call the physician found the patient again raving. To his puzzled inquiry the nurse replied that the man had been going on that way for several hours, and that she had not given him any medicine.

"But didn’t I tell you to give it to him if he began to see snakes again?" asked the physician.

"Yes doctor. But he didn’t see snakes this time," replied the nurse confidently. "He saw red, white, and blue turkeys with straw hats on."