A Book About Doctors

Nor is this by any means a complete list of Sir Richard's works; for he was also a voluminous medical writer, and author of a "History of the Conspiracy against the Person and Government of King William the Third, of glorious memory, in the year 1695."

Dryden, unable to clear himself of the charge of pandering for gain to the licentious tastes of the age, responded to his accuser by calling him an "ass," a "pedant," a "quack," and a "canting preacher."

The former of the kings alluded to is James the Second, Blackmore having obtained his fellowship of the College of Physicians, April 12, 1687, under the new charter granted to the college by that monarch; the latter being William the Third, who, in recognition of the doctor's zeal and influence as a Whig, not less than of his eminence in his profession, made him a physician of the household, and knighted him.

Pope says:—

The bard of Twickenham had of course a few ill words for Blackmore. In the Dunciad he says:—

Elsewhere, in the same poem, the little wasp of poetry continues his hissing song:—

Such being the tone of the generals, the reader can imagine that of the petty scribblers, the professional libellers, the coffee-house rakes, and literary amateurs of the Temple, who formed the rabble of the vast army against which the doctor had pitted himself, in defence of public decency and domestic morality. Under the title of "Commendatory Verses, on the author of the two Arthurs, and the Satyr against Wit, by some of his particular friends," were collected, in the year 1700, upwards of forty sets of ribald verses, taunting Sir Richard with his early poverty, with his having been a school-master, with the unspeakable baseness of—living in the city. The writers of these wretched dirty lampoons, that no kitchen-maid could in our day read without blushing, little thought what they were doing. Their obscene stupidity has secured for them the lasting ignominy to which they imagined they were consigning their antagonist. What a crew they are!—with chivalric Steel and kindly Garth, forgetting their better natures, and joining in the miserable riot! To "The City Quack"; "The Cheapside Knight"; "The Illustrious Quack, Pedant, Bard"; "The Merry Poetaster of Sadler's Hall"—such are the titles by which they address the doctor, who had presumed to say that authors and men of wit ought to find a worthier exercise for their intellects than the manufacture of impure jests.

Colonel Codrington makes his shot thus—

The same dull sarcasms about killing patients and whipping boys into blockheads are repeated over and over again. As if to show, with the greatest possible force, the pitch to which the evil of the times had risen, the coarsest and most disgusting of all these lampoon-writers was a lady of rank—the Countess of Sandwich. By the side of her Ladyship, Afra Behn and Mistress Manley become timid blushing maidens. A better defence of Sir Richard than the Countess's attack on him it would be impossible to imagine.

And after all—the slander and the maledictions—Sir Richard Blackmore gained the victory, and the wits who never wearied of calling him "a fool" were defeated. The preface to "Prince Arthur" provoked discussion; the good sense and better taste of the country were roused, and took the reformer's side of the controversy. Pope and his myrmidons, it was true, were still able to make the beau monde merry about the city knight's presumption—but they could not refute the city knight's arguments; and they themselves were compelled to shape their conduct, as writers, in deference to a new public feeling which he was an important instrument in calling into existence. "Prince Arthur" appeared in 1695, and to the commotion caused by its preface may be attributed much of the success of Jeremy Collier's "Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the Stage," which was published some three years afterwards.

As a poet Sir Richard Blackmore can command only that praise which the charitable bestow on goodness of intention. His muse was a pleasant, well-looking, right-minded young lady, but nothing more. But it must be remembered, before we measure out our criticisms on his productions, that he never arrogated to himself the highest honours of poesy. "I am a gentleman of taste and culture, and though I cannot ever hope to build up the nervous lines of Dryden, or attain the polish and brilliance of Congreve, I believe I can write what the generation sorely needs—works that intelligent men may study with improvement, devout Christians may read without being offended, and pure-minded girls may peruse without blushing from shame. 'Tis true I am a hard-worked doctor, spending my days in coffee-houses, receiving apothecaries, or driving over the stones in my carriage, visiting my patients. Of course a man so circumstanced must fail to achieve artistic excellence, but still I'll do my best." Such was the language with which he introduced himself to the public.

His best poem, The Creation, had such merit that his carping biographer, Johnson, says, "This poem, if he had written nothing else, would have transmitted him to posterity one of the first favourites of the English muse"; and Addison designated the same poem "one of the most useful and noble productions in our English verse."

Of Sir Richard's private character Johnson remarks—"In some part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school—a humiliation with which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him when he became conspicuous enough to excite malevolence; and let it be remembered, for his honour, that to have been a schoolmaster is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life."

CHAPTER XI.

THE GENEROSITY AND THE PARSIMONY OF PHYSICIANS.

Of the generosity of physicians one need say nothing, for there are few who have not experienced or witnessed it; and one had better say nothing, as no words could do justice to such a subject. This writer can speak for at least one poor scholar, to whose sick-bed physicians have come from distant quarters of the town, day after day, never taking a coin for their precious services, and always in their graceful benevolence seeming to find positive enjoyment in their unpaid labour. In gratitude for kindness shown to himself, and yet more for beneficence exhibited to those whom he loves, that man of the goose-quill and thumbed books would like to put on record the names of certain members of "the Faculty" to whom he is so deeply indebted. Ah, dear Dr. —— and Dr. —— and Dr. ——, do not start!—your names shall not be put down on this cheap common page. Where they are engraved, you know!

Cynics have been found in plenty to rail at physicians for loving their fees; and one might justly retort on the Cynics, that they love nothing but their fees. Who doesn't love the sweet money earned by his labour—be it labour of hand or brain, or both? One thing is sure—that doctors are underpaid. The most successful of them in our own time get far less than their predecessors of any reign, from Harry the Eighth downwards. And for honours, though the present age has seen an author raised to the peerage, no precedent has as yet been established for ennobling eminent physicians and surgeons.

Queen Elizabeth gave her physician-in-ordinary £100 per annum, besides diet, wine, wax, and other perquisites. Her apothecary, Hugo Morgan, must too have made a good thing out of her. For a quarter's bill that gentleman was paid £83 7s. 8d., a large sum in those days; but then it was for such good things. What Queen of England could grudge eleven shillings for "a confection made like a manus Christi, with bezoar stone and unicorn's horn"?—sixteen pence for "a royal sweetmeat with incised rhubarb"?—twelve pence for "Rosewater for the King of Navarre's ambassador"?—six shillings for "a conserve of barberries, with preserved damascene plums, and other things for Mr. Raleigh"?—two shillings and sixpence for "sweet scent to be used at the christening of Sir Richard Knightley's son"?

Coytier, the physician of Charles the XI. of France, was better paid by far. The extent to which he fleeced that monarch is incredible. Favour after favour he wrung from him. When the royal patient resisted the modest demands of his physician, the latter threatened him with speedy dissolution. On this menace the king, succumbing to that fear of death which characterized more than one other of his family, was sure to make the required concession. Theodore Hook's valet, who was a good servant in the first year of his service, a sympathizing friend in the second, and a hard tyrant in the third, was a timid slave compared with Coytier. Charles, in order to be freed from his despotism, ordered him to be dispatched. The officer, intrusted with the task of carrying out the royal wishes, waited on Coytier, and said, in a most gentlemanlike and considerate manner, "I am very sorry, my dear fellow, but I must kill you. The king can't stand you any longer." "All right," said Coytier, with perfect unconcern, "whenever you like. What time would it be most convenient for you to kill me? But still, I am deuced sorry for his Majesty, for I know by occult science that he can't outlive me more than four days." The officer was so struck with the announcement, that he went away and forthwith imparted it to the king. "Liberate him instantly—don't hurt a hair of his head!" cried the terrified monarch. And Coytier was once again restored to his place in the king's confidence and pocket.

Henry Atkins managed James the First with some dexterity. Atkins was sent for to Scotland, to attend Charles the First (then an infant), who was dangerously ill of a fever. The king gave him the handsome fee of £6000. Atkins invested the money in the purchase of the manor of Clapham.

Radcliffe, with a rare effort of generosity, attended a friend for a twelvemonth gratuitously. On making his last visit his friend said, "Doctor, here is a purse in which I have put every day's fee; and your goodness must not get the better of my gratitude. Take your money." Radcliffe looked, made a resolve to persevere in benevolence, just touched the purse to reject it, heard the chink of the gold pieces in it, and put the bag into his pocket. "Singly, sir, I could have refused them for a twelvemonth; but, all together, they are irresistible," said the doctor, walking off with a heavy prize and a light heart.

Louis XIV. gave his physician and his surgeon 75,000 crowns each, after successfully undergoing a painful and at that time novel operation. By the side of such munificence, the fees paid by Napoleon I. to the Faculty who attended Marie Louise in March, 1811, when the Emperor's son was born, seem insufficient. Dubois, Corvisart, Bourdier, and Ivan were the professional authorities employed, and they had among them a remuneration of £4000, £2000 being the portion assigned to Dubois.

Even more than fee gratefully paid does a humorous physician enjoy an extra fee adroitly drawn from the hand of a reluctant payer. Sir Richard Jebb was once paid three guineas by a nobleman from whom he had a right to expect five. Sir Richard dropped the coins on the carpet, when a servant picked them up and restored them—three, and only three. Instead of walking off Sir Richard continued his search on the carpet. "Are all the guineas found?" asked his Lordship looking round. "There must be two still on the floor," was the answer, "for I have only three." The hint of course was taken and the right sum put down. An eminent Bristol doctor accomplished a greater feat than this, and took a fee from—a dead commoner, not a live lord. Coming into his patient's bed-room immediately after death had taken place, he found the right hand of the deceased tightly clenched. Opening the fingers he discovered within them a guinea. "Ah, that was for me—clearly," said the doctor putting the piece into his pocket.

Reminding the reader, in its commencement, of Sir Richard Jebb's disappointment at the three-guinea fee, the following story may here be appropriately inserted. A physician on receiving two guineas, when he expected three, from an old lady patient, who was accustomed to give him the latter fee, had recourse to one part of Sir Richard's artifice, and assuming that the third guinea had been dropt through his carelessness on the floor, looked about for it. "Nay, nay," said the lady with a smile, "you are not in fault. It is I who dropt it."

There is an abundance of good stories of physicians fleecing their lambs. To those that are true the comment may be made—"Doubtless the lambs were all the better for being shorn." For the following anecdote we are indebted to Dr. Moore, the author of "Zeluco." A wealthy tradesman, after drinking the Bath waters, took a fancy to try the effect of the Bristol hot wells. Armed with an introduction from a Bath physician to a professional brother at Bristol, the invalid set out on his journey. On the road he gave way to his curiosity to read the doctor's letter of introduction, and cautiously prying into it read these instructive words: "Dear sir, the bearer is a fat Wiltshire clothier—make the most of him."

Benevolence was not a virtue in old Monsey's line; but he could be generous at another's expense, when the enjoyment his malignity experienced in paining one person counterbalanced his discomfort at giving pleasure to another. Strolling through Oxford market he heard a poor woman ask the price of a piece of meat that lay on a butcher's stall.

"A penny a pound!" growled the man to whom the question was put, disdaining to give a serious answer to such a poverty-stricken customer.

"Just weigh that piece of beef, my friend," said Monsey, stepping up.

"Ten pounds and a half, sir," observed the butcher, after adjusting the scales and weights.

"Here, my good woman," said Monsey, "out with your apron, and put the beef into it, and make haste home to your family."

Blessing the benevolent heart of the eccentric old gentleman, the woman did as she was bid, took possession of her meat, and was speedily out of sight.

"And there, my man," said Monsey, turning to the butcher, "is tenpence halfpenny, the price of your beef."

"What do you mean?" demanded the man.

"Simply that that's all I'll pay you. You said the meat was a penny a pound. At that price I bought it of you—to give to the poor woman. Good morning!"

A fee that Dr. Fothergill took of Mr. Grenville was earned without much trouble. Fothergill, like Lettsom, was a Quaker, and was warmly supported by his brother sectarians. In the same way Mead was brought into practice by the Nonconformists, to whom his father ministered spiritually. Indeed, Mead's satirists affirmed that when his servant (acting on instructions) had called him out from divine service, the parson took his part in the "dodge" by asking the congregation to pray for the bodily and ghostly welfare of the patient to whom his son had just been summoned. Dissenters are remarkable for giving staunch support, and thorough confidence, to a doctor of their own persuasion. At the outbreak of the American war, therefore Grenville knew that he could not consult a better authority than the Quaker doctor, Fothergill, on the state of feeling amongst the Quaker colonists. Fothergill was consequently summoned to prescribe for the politician. The visit took the form of an animated discussion on American affairs, which was brought to a conclusion by Grenville's putting five guineas into the physician's hand, saying—"Really, doctor, I am so much better, that I don't want you to prescribe for me." With a canny significant smile Fothergill, keeping, like a true Quaker, firm hold of the money, answered, "At this rate, friend, I will spare thee an hour now and then."

Dr. Glynn, of Cambridge, was as benevolent as he was eccentric. His reputation in the fen districts as an ague doctor was great, and for some years he made a large professional income. On one occasion a poor peasant woman, the widowed mother of an only son, trudged from the heart of the fens into Cambridge, to consult the doctor about her boy, who was ill of an ague. Her manner so interested the physician, that though it was during an inclement winter, and the roads were almost impassable to carriages, he ordered horses, and went out to see the sick lad. After a tedious attendance, and the exhibition of much port wine and bark (bought at the doctor's expense), the patient recovered, and Glynn took his leave. A few days after the farewell visit, the poor woman again presented herself in the consulting room.

"I hope, my good woman," said Glynn, "your son is not ill again?"

"No, sir, he was never better," answered the woman, gratefully; "but we can't get no rest for thinking of all the trouble that you have had, and so my boy resolved this morning on sending you his favourite magpie."

In the woman's hand was a large wicker basket, which she opened at the conclusion of the speech, affording means of egress to an enormous magpie, that hopped out into the room, demure as a saint and bold as a lord. It was a fee to be proud of!

The free-will offerings of the poor to their doctors are sometimes very droll, and yet more touching. They are presented with such fervour and simplicity, and such a sincere anxiety that they should be taken as an expression of gratitude for favours past, not for favours to come. The writer of these pages has known the humble toilers of agricultural districts retain for a score of years the memory of kind services done to them in sickness. He could tell of several who, at the anniversary of a particular day (when a wife died, or child was saved from fever, or an accident crushed a finger or lacerated a limb), trudge for miles over the country to the doctor's house, and leave there a little present—a pot of honey, a basket of apples, a dish of the currants from the bush which "the doctor" once praised, and said was fit for a gentleman's garden.

Of eminent physicians Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh was as remarkable for his amiability as for his learning. It was his custom to receive from new pupils at his own house the fees for the privilege of attending his lectures. Whilst thus engaged one day, he left a student in his consulting-room, and went into an adjoining apartment for a fresh supply of admission tickets. In a mirror the doctor saw the student rise from his seat, and sweep into his pocket some guineas from a heap of gold (the fees of other students) that lay on the consulting-room table. Without saying a word at the moment, Dr. Gregory returned, dated the admission ticket, and gave it to the thief. He then politely attended him to the door, and on the threshold said to the young man, with deep emotion, "I saw what you did just now. Keep the money. I know what distress you must be in. But for God's sake never do it again—it can never succeed." The pupil implored Gregory to take back the money, but the doctor said, "Your punishment is this, you must keep it—now you have taken it." The reproof had a salutary effect. The youth turned out a good and honest man.

An even better anecdote can be told of this good physician's benevolence. A poor medical student, ill of typhus fever, sent for him. The summons was attended to, and the visit paid, when the invalid proffered the customary guinea fee. Dr. Gregory turned away, insulted and angry. "I beg your pardon, Dr. Gregory," exclaimed the student, apologetically, "I didn't know your rule. Dr. —— has always taken one." "Oh," answered Gregory, "he has—has he? Look you, then, my young friend; ask him to meet me in consultation, and then offer him a fee; or stay—offer me the fee first." The directions were duly acted upon. The consultation took place, and the fee was offered. "Sir," exclaimed the benevolent doctor, "do you mean to insult me? Is there a professor who would in this University degrade himself so far as to take payment from one of his brotherhood—and a junior?" The confusion of the man on whom this reproof was really conferred can be imagined. He had the decency, ere the day closed, to send back to the student all the fees he had taken of him.

Amongst charitable physicians a high place must be assigned to Brocklesby, of whom mention is made in another part of these pages. An ardent Whig, he was the friend of enthusiastic Tories as well as of the members of his own body. Burke on the one hand, and Johnson on the other, were amongst his intimate associates, and experienced his beneficence. To the latter he offered a hundred-a-year for life. And when the Tory writer was struggling with the heavy burden of increasing disease, he attended him with affectionate solicitude, taking no fee for his services—Dr. Heberden, Dr. Warren, Dr. Butler, and Mr. Cruikshank the surgeon, displaying a similar liberality. It was Brocklesby who endeavored to soothe the mental agitation of the aged scholar's death-bed, by repeating the passage from the Roman satirist, in which occurs the line:—

"Fortem posce animum et mortis terrore carentem."

Burke's pun on Brocklesby's name is a good instance of the elaborate ingenuity with which the great Whig orator adorned his conversation and his speeches. Pre-eminent amongst the advertising quacks of the day was Dr. Rock. It was therefore natural that Brocklesby should express some surprise at being accosted by Burke as Dr. Rock, a title at once infamous and ridiculous. "Don't be offended. Your name is Rock," said Burke, with a laugh; "I'll prove it algebraically: Brock—b = Rock; or, Brock less b makes Rock." Dr. Brocklesby, on the occasion of giving evidence in a trial, had the ill fortune to offend the presiding judge, who, amongst other prejudices not uncommon in the legal profession, cherished a lively contempt for medical evidence. "Well, gentlemen of the jury," said the noble lawyer in his summing up, "what's the medical testimony? First we have a Dr. Rocklesby or—Brocklesby. What does he say? First of all he swears—he's a physician."

Abernethy is a by-word for rudeness and even brutality of manner; but he was as tender and generous as a man ought to be, as a man of great intelligence usually is. The stories current about him are nearly all fictions of the imagination; or, where they have any foundation in fact, relate to events that occurred long before the hero to whom they are tacked by anecdote-mongers had appeared on the stage. He was eccentric—but his eccentricities always took the direction of common sense; whereas the extravagances attributed to him by popular gossip are frequently those of a heartless buffoon. His time was precious, and he rightly considered that his business was to set his patients in the way of recovering their lost health—not to listen to their fatuous prosings about their maladies. He was therefore prompt and decided in checking the egotistic garrulity of valetudinarians. This candid expression of his dislike to unnecessary talk had one good result. People who came to consult him took care not to offend him by bootless prating. A lady on one occasion entered his consulting-room, and put before him an injured finger, without saying a word. In silence Abernethy dressed the wound, when instantly and silently the lady put the usual fee on the table, and retired. In a few days she called again, and offered the finger for inspection. "Better?" asked the surgeon. "Better," answered the lady, speaking to him for the first time. Not another word followed during the rest of the interview. Three or four similar visits were made, at the last of which the patient held out her finger free from bandages and perfectly healed. "Well?" was Abernethy's monosyllabic inquiry. "Well," was the lady's equally brief answer. "Upon my soul, madam," exclaimed the delighted surgeon, "you are the most rational woman I ever met with."

To curb his tongue, however, out of respect to Abernethy's humour, was an impossibility to John Philpot Curran. Eight times Curran (personally unknown to Abernethy) had called on the great surgeon; and eight times Abernethy had looked at the orator's tongue (telling him, by-the-by, that it was the most unclean and utterly abominable tongue in the world), had curtly advised him to drink less, and not abuse his stomach with gormandizing, had taken a guinea, and had bowed him out of the room. On the ninth visit, just as he was about to be dismissed in the same summary fashion, Curran, with a flash of his dark eye, fixed the surgeon, and said—"Mr. Abernethy, I have been here on eight different days, and I have paid you eight different guineas; but you have never yet listened to the symptoms of my complaint. I am resolved, sir, not to leave the room till you satisfy me by doing so." With a good-natured laugh, Abernethy, half suspecting that he had to deal with a madman, fell back in his chair and said—"Oh! very well, sir; I am ready to hear you out. Go on, give me the whole—your birth, parentage, and education. I wait your pleasure. Pray be as minute and tedious as you can." With perfect gravity Curran began—"Sir, my name is John Philpot Curran. My parents were poor, but I believe honest people, of the province of Munster, where also I was born, at Newmarket, in the county of Cork, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty. My father being employed to collect the rents of a Protestant gentleman of small fortune, in that neighbourhood, procured my admission into one of the Protestant free-schools, where I obtained the first rudiments of my education. I was next enabled to enter Trinity College, Dublin, in the humble sphere of a sizar—" And so he went steadily on, till he had thrown his auditor into convulsions of laughter.

Abernethy was very careful not to take fees from patients if he suspected them to be in indigent circumstances. Mr. George Macilwain, in his instructive and agreeable "Memoirs of John Abernethy," mentions a case where an old officer of parsimonious habits, but not of impoverished condition, could not induce Abernethy to accept his fee, and consequently forbore from again consulting him. On another occasion, when a half-pay lieutenant wished to pay him for a long and laborious attendance, Abernethy replied, "Wait till you're a general; then come and see me, and we'll talk about fees." To a gentleman of small means who consulted him, after having in vain had recourse to other surgeons, he said—"Your recovery will be slow. If you don't feel much pain, depend upon it you are gradually getting round; if you do feel much pain, then come again, but not else. I don't want your money." To a hospital student (of great promise and industry, but in narrow circumstances), who became his dresser, he returned the customary fee of sixty guineas, and requested him to expend them in the purchase of books and securing other means of improvement. To a poor widow lady (who consulted him about her child), he, on saying good-bye in a friendly letter, returned all the fees he had taken from her under the impression that she was in good circumstances, and added £50 to the sum, begging her to expend it in giving her child a daily ride in the fresh air. He was often brusque and harsh, and more than once was properly reproved for his hastiness and want of consideration.

"I have heard of your rudeness before I came, sir," one lady said, taking his prescription, "but I was not prepared for such treatment. What am I to do with this?"

"Anything you like," the surgeon roughly answered. "Put it on the fire if you please."

Taking him at his word, the lady put her fee on the table, and the prescription on the fire; and making a bow, left the room. Abernethy followed her into the hall, apologizing, and begging her to take back the fee or let him write another prescription; but the lady would not yield her vantage-ground.

Of operations Abernethy had a most un-surgeon-like horror—"like Cheselden and Hunter, regarding them as the reproach of the profession." "I hope, sir, it will not be long," said a poor woman, suffering under the knife. "No, indeed," earnestly answered Abernethy, "that would be too horrible." This humanity, on a point on which surgeons are popularly regarded as being devoid of feeling, is very general in the profession. William Cooper (Sir Astley's uncle) was, like Abernethy, a most tender-hearted man. He was about to amputate a man's leg, in the hospital theatre, when the poor fellow, terrified at the display of instruments and apparatus, suddenly jumped off the table, and hobbled away. The students burst out laughing; and the surgeon, much pleased at being excused from the performance of a painful duty, exclaimed, "By God, I am glad he's gone!"

The treatment which one poor fellow received from Abernethy may at first sight seem to militate against our high estimate of the surgeon's humanity, and dislike of inflicting physical pain. Dr. ——, an eminent physician still living and conferring lustre on his profession, sent a favourite man-servant with a brief note, running—"Dear Abernethy, Will you do me the kindness to put a seton in this poor fellow's neck? Yours sincerely, ——." The man, who was accustomed and encouraged to indulge in considerable freedom of speech with his master's friends, not only delivered the note to Abernethy, but added, in an explanatory and confiding tone, "You see, sir, I don't get better, and as master thinks I ought to have a seton in my neck, I should be thankful if you'd put it in for me." It is not at all improbable that Abernethy resented the directions of master and man. Anyhow he inquired into the invalid's case, and then taking out his needles did as he was requested. The operation was attended with a little pain, and the man howled, as only a coward can howl, under the temporary inconvenience. "Oh! Lor' bless you! Oh, have mercy on me! Yarra—yarra—yarr! Oh, doctor—doctor—you'll kill me!" In another minute the surgeon's work was accomplished, and the acute pain having passed away, the man recovered his self-possession and impudence.

"Oh, well, sir, I do hope, now that it's done, it'll do me good. I do hope that."

"But it won't do you a bit of good."

"What, sir, no good?" cried the fellow.

"No more good," replied Abernethy, "than if I had spat upon it."

"Then, sir—why—oh, yarr! here's the pain again—why did you do it?"

"Confound you, man!" answered the surgeon testily. "Why did I do it?—why, didn't you ask me to put a seton in your neck?"

Of course the surgical treatment employed by Abernethy in this case was the right one; but he was so nettled with the fellow's impudence and unmanly lamentations, that he could not forbear playing off upon him a barbarous jest.

If for this outbreak of vindictive humour the reader is inclined to call Abernethy a savage, let his gift of £50 to the widow lady, to pay for her sick child's carriage exercise, be remembered. Apropos of £50, Dr. Wilson of Bath sent a present of that sum to an indigent clergyman, against whom he had come in the course of practice. The gentleman who had engaged to convey the gift to the unfortunate priest said, "Well, then, I'll take the money to him to-morrow." "Oh, my dear sir," said the doctor, "take it to him to-night. Only think of the importance to a sick man of one good night's rest!"

Side by side with stories of the benevolence of "the Faculty," piquant anecdotes of their stinginess might be told. This writer knew formerly a grab-all-you-can-get surgeon, who was entertaining a few professional brethren at a Sunday morning's breakfast, when a patient was ushered into the ante-room of the surgeon's bachelor chambers, and the surgeon himself was called away to the visitor. Unfortunately he left the folding-doors between the breakfast-room and the ante-room ajar, and his friends sitting in the former apartment overheard the following conversation:

"Well, my friend, what's the matter?"—the surgeon's voice.

The visitor's voice—"Plaze, yer honner, I'm a pore Hirish labourer, but I can spill a bit, and I read o' yer honner's moighty foine cure in the midical jarnal—the Lancet. And I've walked up twilve miles to have yer honner cure me. My complaint is ——"

Surgeon's voice, contemptuously—"Oh, my good man, you've made a mistake. You'd better go to the druggist's shop nearest your home, and he'll do for you all you want. You couldn't pay me as I require to be paid."

Visitor's voice, proudly and triumphantly—"Och, an' little ye know an Irish gintleman, dochter, if ye think he'd be beholden to the best of you for a feavor. Here's a bit o' gould—nocht liss nor a tin shillin' piece, but I've saved it up for ye, and ye'll heve the whole, tho' its every blissed farthing I hev."

The surgeon's voice altered. The case was gone into. The prescription was written. The poor Irish drudge rose to go, when the surgeon, with that delicate quantity of conscience that rogues always have to make themselves comfortable upon, said, "Now, you say you have no more money, my friend. Well, the druggist will charge you eighteenpence for the medicine I have ordered there. So there's eighteenpence for you out of your half-sovereign."

We may add that this surgeon was then, at a moderate computation, making three thousand a year. We have heard of an Old Bailey barrister boasting how he wrung the shillings (to convert the sovereigns already paid with his brief into guineas) from the grimed hands of a prisoner actually standing in the dock for trial, ere he would engage to defend him. But compared with this surgeon the man of the long robe was a disinterested friend of the oppressed.

A better story yet of a surgeon who seized on his fee like a hawk. A clergyman of ——shire, fell from a branch of a high pear-tree to the grass-plot of the little garden that surrounded his vicarage-house, and sustained, besides being stunned, a compound fracture of the right arm. His wife, a young and lovely creature, of a noble but poor family, to whom he had been married only three or four years, was terribly alarmed, and without regulating her conduct by considerations of her pecuniary means, dispatched a telegraphic message to an eminent London surgeon. In the course of three or four hours the surgeon made his appearance, and set the broken limb.

"And what, sir," the young wife timidly asked of the surgeon, when he had come down-stairs into her little drawing-room, "is your fee?"

"Oh, let's see—distance from town, hundred miles. Yes. Then my fee is a hundred guineas!"

Turning deadly pale with fright (for the sum was ten times the highest amount the poor girl had thought of as a likely fee) she rose, and left the room, saying, "Will you be kind enough to wait for a few minutes?"

Luckily her brother (like her husband, a clergyman, with very moderate preferment) was in the house, and he soon made his appearance in the drawing-room. "Sir," said he, addressing the operator, "my sister has just now been telling me the embarrassment she is in, and I think it best to repeat her story frankly. She is quite inexperienced in money matters, and sent for you without ever asking what the ordinary fee to so distinguished a surgeon as yourself, for coming so far from London, might be. Well, sir, it is right you should know her circumstances. My brother-in-law has no property but his small living, which does not yield him more than £400 per annum, and he has already two children. My sister has no private fortune whatever, at present, and all she has in prospect is the reversion of a trifling sum—at a distant period. Poverty is the only stigma that time has fixed upon my family. Now, sir, under the circumstances, if professional etiquette would allow of your reducing your fee to the straitened finances of my sister, it really would—would be—"

"Oh, my dear sir," returned the surgeon, in a rich, unctuous voice of benevolence, "pray don't think I'm a shark. I am really deeply concerned for your poor sister. As for my demand of a hundred guineas, since it would be beyond her means to satisfy it, why, my dear sir, I shall be only too delighted to be allowed—to take a hundred pounds!"

The fee-loving propensities of doctors are well illustrated by the admirable touches of Froissart's notice of Guyllyam of Harseley, who was appointed physician to Charles the Sixth, King of France, during his derangement. The writer's attention was first called to Friossart's sketch of the renowned mad-doctor by his friend Mr. Edgar—a gentleman whose valuable contributions to historical literature have endeared his name to both young and old. Of the measures adopted by Guyllyam for the king's cure the readers of Froissart are not particularly informed; but it would appear, from the physician's parting address to the "dukes of Orlyance, Berrey, Burgoyne, and Burbone," that his system was, in its enlightened humanity, not far behind that adopted at the present day by Dr. Conolly and Dr. Forbes Winslow. But, however this may be, Guyllyam's labours must be regarded as not less consonant with sound nosological views than those of the afflicted monarch's courtiers, until it can be shown that his treatment was worse than leaving Nature to herself. "They," says Froissart, "that were about the kynge sente the kynge's offrynge to a town called Aresneche, in the countie of Heynaulte, between Cambrey and Valancennes, in the whiche towne there was a churche parteyning to an Abbey of Saynt Waste in Arrasce wherein there lyeth a saynte, called Saynt Acquayre, of whom there is a shrine of sylver, which pylgrimage is sought farre and nere for the malady of the fransey; thyder was sent a man of waxe, representynge the Frenche Kynge, and was humbly offred to the Saynt, that he might be meane to God, to asswage the kynge's malady, and to sende him helthe. In lykewise the kynge's offrynge was sent to Saynt Hermyer in Romayes, which saynt had meryte to heal the fransey. And in lykewise offrynges were sent into other places for ye same entent."

The conclusion of Guyllyam's attendance is thus described:—"Trewe it is this sycknesse that the kyng took in the voyage towards Bretagne greatly abated the ioye of the realme of France, and good cause why, for when the heed is sicke the body canne have no ioye. No man durste openly speke thereof, but kepte it privy as moche as might be, and it was couertly kept fro the queene, for tyll she was delyuered and churched she knewe nothynge thereof, which tyme she had a doughter. The physician, myster Guyllyam, who had the chefe charge of healynge of the kynge, was styll aboute hym, and was ryght dyligent and well acquyted hymselfe, whereby he gate bothe honour and profyte; for lytell and lytell he brought the kynge in good estate, and toke away the feuer and the heate, and made hym to haue taste and appetyte to eate and drinke, slepe and rest, and knowledge of every thynge; howebeit, he was very feble, and lytell and lytell he made the kynge to ryde a huntynge and on hawkynge; and whanne tydynges was knowen through France howe the kynge was well mended, and had his memory again, every man was ioyfull and thanked God. The kynge thus beyng at Crayell, desyred to se the quene his wyfe and the dolphyn his sonne; so the quene came thyder to hym, and the chylde was brought thyder, the kynge made them good chere, and so lytell and lytell, through the helpe of God, the kynge recouered his helthe. And when mayster Guyllyam sawe the kynge in so good case he was ryght ioyfull, as reasone was, for he hade done a fayre cure, and so delyuered him to the dukes of Orlyance, Berrey, Burgoyne, and Burbone, and sayd: 'My lordes, thanked be God, the kynge is nowe in good state and helth, so I delyuer him, but beware lette no mane dysplease hym, for as yet his spyrytes be no fully ferme nor stable, but lytell and lytell he shall waxe stronge; reasonable dysporte, rest, and myrthe shall be moste profytable for hym; and trouble hym as lytell as may be with any counsayles, for he hath been sharpely handeled with a hote malady.' Than it was consydred to retaygne this mayster Guyllyam, and to gyve hym that he shulde be content with all, whiche is the ende that all physicians requyre, to haue gyftes and rewardes; he was desyred to abyde styll about the kynge, but he excused hymselfe, and sayd howe he was an olde impotent man, and coulde note endure the maner of courte, wherfore he desyred to returne into his owne countrey. Whan the counsayle sawe he wolde none otherwyse do, they gaue him leaue, and at his departing gave him a thousand crownes, and retayned hym in wages with four horses whansover he wolde resorte to the courte; howbeit, I beleve he never came there after, for whan he retournd to the cytie of Laon, there he contynued and dyed a ryche man: he left behynde him a xxx thousand frankes. All his dayes he was one of the greatest nygardes that ever was: all his pleasure was to get good and to spende nothynge, for in his howse he neuer spente past two souses of Parys in a day, but wolde eate and drinke in other mennes howses, where as he myght get it. With this rodde lyghtly all physicyons are beaten."[19]

The humane advice given by Guyllym countenances the tradition that cards were invented for the amusement of his royal patient.

CHAPTER XII.

BLEEDING.

Fashion, capricious everywhere, is especially so in surgery and medicine. Smoking we are now taught to regard as a pernicious practice, to be abhorred as James the First abhorred it. Yet Dr. Archer, and Dr. Everard in his "Panacea, or a Universal Medicine, being a discovery of the wonderful virtues of Tobacco" (1659), warmly defended the habit, and for long it was held by the highest authorities to be an efficacious preservative against disease. What would schoolboys now say to being flogged for not smoking? Yet Thomas Hearne, in his diary (1720-21) writes—"Jan. 21, I have been told that in the last great plague in London none that kept tobacconists' shops had the plague. It is certain that smoking was looked upon as a most excellent preservative. In so much, that even children were obliged to smoak. And I remember that I heard formerly Tom Rogers, who was yeoman beadle, say, that when he was that year, when the plague raged, a school-boy at Eton, all the boys of that school were obliged to smoak in the school every morning, and that he was never whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoaking."

Blood-letting, so long a popular remedy with physicians, has, like tobacco-smoking for medicinal purposes, fallen into disuse and contempt. From Hippocrates to Paracelsus, who, with characteristic daring, raised some objections to the practice of venesection, doctors were in the habit of drawing disease from the body as vintners extract claret from a cask, in a ruddy stream. In the feudal ages bleeding was in high favour. Most of the abbeys had a "flebotomaria" or "bleeding-house," in which the sacred inmates underwent bleedings (or "minutions" as they were termed) at stated periods of the year, to the strains of psalmody. The brethren of the order of St. Victor underwent five munitions annually—in September, before Advent, before Lent, after Easter, and at Pentecost.

There is a good general view of the superstitions and customs connected with venesection, in "The Salerne Schoole," a poem of which mention continually occurs in the writings of our old physicians. The poem commences with the following stanza:—