“But I like the animals better than the ‘best people’,” said the Doctor.
“You are ridiculous,” said his sister, and walked out of the room.
So, as time went on, the Doctor got more and more animals…

Kenny Hunter's I Goat, Spitalfields Square, Old Spitalfields Market, Horber Square, Tower Hamlets, E1
and the people who came to see him got less and less.
Till at last he had no one left…
except the Cat’s-meat-Man, who didn’t mind any kind of animals.
But the Cat’s-meat Man wasn’t very rich and he only got sick once a year–at Christmas-time, when he used to give the Doctor sixpence for a bottle of medicine.
From Hugh Lofting’s The Story of Dr Dolittle (1920)























