A Book About Doctors

CHAPTER XIX.

LETTSOM.

High amongst literary, and higher yet amongst benevolent, physicians must be ranked John Coakley Lettsom, formerly president of the Philosophical Society of London. A West Indian, and the son of a planter, he was born on one of his father's little islands, Van Dyke, near Tortola, in the year 1744. Though bred a Quaker, he kept his heart so free from sectarianism, and his life so entirely void of the formality and puritanic asceticism of the Friends, that his ordinary acquaintance marvelled at his continuing to wear the costume of the brotherhood. At six years of age he was sent to England for education, being for that purpose confided to the protection of Mr. Fothergill, of Warrington, a Quaker minister, and younger brother of Dr. John Fothergill. After receiving a poor preparatory education, he was apprenticed to a Yorkshire apothecary, named Sutcliffe, who, by industry and intelligence, had raised himself from the position of a weaver to that of the first medical practitioner of Settle. In the last century a West Indian was, to the inhabitants of a provincial district, a rare curiosity; and Sutcliffe's surgery, on the day that Lettsom entered it in his fifteenth year, was surrounded by a dense crowd of gaping rustics, anxious to see a young gentleman accustomed to walk on his head. This extraordinary demonstration of curiosity was owing to the merry humour of Sutcliffe's senior apprentice, who had informed the people that the new pupil, who would soon join him, came from a country where the feet of the inhabitants were placed in an exactly opposite direction to those of Englishmen.

Sutcliffe did not find his new apprentice a very handy one. "Thou mayest make a physician, but I think not a good apothecary," the old man was in the habit of saying; and the prediction in due course turned out a correct one. Having served an apprenticeship of five years, and walked for two the wards of St. Thomas's Hospital, where Akenside was a physician, conspicuous for supercilious manner and want of feeling, Lettsom returned to the West Indies, and settled as a medical practitioner in Tortola. He practised there only five months, earning in that time the astonishing sum of £2000; when, ambitious of achieving a high professional position, he returned to Europe, visited the medical schools of Paris and Edinburgh, took his degree of M.D. at Leyden on the 20th of June, 1769, was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London in the same year, and in 1770 was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

From this period till his death, in 1815 (Nov. 20), he was one of the most prominent figures in the scientific world of London. As a physician he was a most fortunate man; for without any high reputation for professional acquirements, and with the exact reverse of a good preliminary education, he made a larger income than any other physician of the same time. Dr. John Fothergill never made more than £5000 in one year; but Lettsom earned £3600 in 1783—£3900 in 1784—£4015 in 1785-and £4500 in 1786. After that period his practice rapidly increased, so that in some years his receipts were as much as £12,000. But although he pocketed such large sums, half his labours were entirely gratuitous. Necessitous clergymen and literary men he invariably attended with unusual solicitude and attention, but without ever taking a fee for his services. Indeed, generosity was the ruling feature of his life. Although he burdened himself with the public business of his profession, was so incessantly on the move from one patient to another that he habitually knocked up three pairs of horses a-day, and had always some literary work or other upon his desk, he nevertheless found time to do an amount of labour, in establishing charitable institutions and visiting the indigent sick, that would by itself have made a reputation for an ordinary person.

To give the mere list of his separate benevolent services would be to write a book about them. The General Dispensary, the Finsbury Dispensary, the Surrey Dispensary, and the Margate Sea-bathing Infirmary, originated in his exertions; and he was one of the first projectors of—the Philanthropic Society, St. Georges-in-the-Fields, for the Prevention of Crimes, and the Reform of the Criminal Poor; the Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts; the Asylum for the Indigent Deaf and Dumb; the Institution for the Relief and Employment of the Indigent Blind; and the Royal Humane Society, for the recovery of the apparently drowned or dead. And year by year his pen sent forth some publication or other to promote the welfare of the poor, and succour the afflicted. Of course there were crowds of clever spectators of the world's work, who smiled as the doctor's carriage passed them in the streets, and said he was a deuced clever fellow to make ten thousand a-year so easily; and that, after all, philanthropy was not a bad trade. But Lettsom was no calculating humanitarian, with a tongue discoursing eloquently on the sufferings of mankind, and an eye on the sharp look-out for his own interest. What he was before the full stare of the world, that he was also in his own secret heart, and those private ways into which hypocrisy cannot enter. At the outset of his life, when only twenty-three years old, he liberated his slaves—although they constituted almost his entire worldly wealth, and he was anxious to achieve distinction in a profession that offers peculiar difficulties to needy aspirants. And when his career was drawing to a close, he had to part with his beloved countryseat because he had impoverished himself by lavish generosity to the unfortunate.

There was no sanctimonious affectation in the man. He wore a drab coat and gaiters, and made the Quaker's use of Thou and Thee; but he held himself altogether apart from the prejudices of his sect. A poet himself of some respectability, he delighted in every variety of literature, and was ready to shake any man by the hand—Jew or Gentile. He liked pictures and works of sculpture, and spent large sums upon them; into the various scientific movements of the time he threw himself with all the energy of his nature; and he disbursed a fortune in surrounding himself at Camberwell with plants from the tropics. He liked good wine, but never partook of it to excess, although his enemies were ready to suggest that he was always glad to avail himself of an excuse for getting intoxicated. And he was such a devoted admirer of the fair sex, that the jealous swarm of needy men who envied him his prosperity, had some countenance for their slander that he was a Quaker debauchee. He married young, and his wife outlived him; but as a husband he was as faithful as he proved in every other relation of life.

Saturday was the day he devoted to entertaining his friends at Grove Hill, Camberwell; and rare parties there gathered round him—celebrities from every region of the civilized world, and the best "good fellows" of London. Boswell was one of his most frequent guests, and, in an ode to Charles Dilly, celebrated the beauties of the physician's seat and his humane disposition:—

The concluding line is an allusion to the Lord Chancellor's residence at Dulwich.

In person, Lettsom was tall and thin—indeed, almost attenuated: his face was deeply lined, indicating firmness quite as much as benevolence; and his complexion was of a dark yellow hue. His eccentricities were numerous. Like the founder of his sect, he would not allow even respect for royalty to make an alteration in his costume which his conscience did not approve; and George III., who entertained a warm regard for him, allowed him to appear at Court in the ordinary Quaker garb, and to kiss his hand, though he had neither powder on his head, nor a sword by his side. Lettsom responded to his sovereign's courtesy by presenting him with some rare and unpurchasable medals.

Though his writings show him to have been an enlightened physician for his time, his system of practice was not of course free from the violent measures which were universally believed in during the last century. He used to say of himself,

But his prescriptions were not invariably of a kind calculated to depress the system of his patient. On one occasion an old American merchant, who had been ruined by the rupture between the colonies and the mother country, requested his attendance and professional advice. The unfortunate man was seventy-four years of age, and bowed down with the weight of his calamities.

"Those trees, doctor," said the sick man, looking out of his bed-room window over his lawn, "I planted, and have lived to see some of them too old to bear fruit; they are part of my family: and my children, still dearer to me, must quit this residence, which was the delight of my youth, and the hope of my old age."

The Quaker physician was deeply affected by these pathetic words, and the impressive tone with which they were uttered. He spoke a few words of comfort, and quitted the room, leaving on the table as his prescription—a cheque for a large sum of money. Nor did his goodness end there. He purchased the house of his patient's creditors, and presented it to him for life.

As Lettsom was travelling in the neighbourhood of London, a highwayman stopped his carriage, and, putting a pistol into the window, demanded him to surrender his money. The faltering voice and hesitation of the robber showed that he had only recently taken to his perilous vocation, and his appearance showed him to be a young man who had moved in the gentle ranks of life. Lettsom quickly responded that he was sorry to see such a well-looking young man pursuing a course which would inevitably bring him to ruin; that he would give him freely all the money he had about him, and would try to put him in a better way of life, if he liked to call on him in the course of a few days. As the doctor said this, he gave his card to the young man, who turned out to be another victim of the American war. He had only made one similar attempt on the road before, and had been driven to lawless action by unexpected pennilessness. Lettsom endeavoured in vain to procure aid for his protégé from the commissioners for relieving the American sufferers; but eventually the Queen, interested in the young man's case, presented him with a commission in the army; and in a brief military career, that was cut short by yellow fever in the West Indies, he distinguished himself so much that his name appeared twice in the Gazette.

On one of his benevolent excursions the doctor found his way into the squalid garret of a poor woman who had seen better days. With the language and deportment of a lady she begged the physician to give her a prescription. After inquiring carefully into her case, he wrote on a slip of paper to the overseers of the parish—

"A shilling per diem for Mrs Moreton. Money, not physic, will cure her.

"Lettsom."

Of all Lettsom's numerous works, including his contributions to the Gentleman's Magazine, under the signature of "Mottles," the anagram of his own name, the one most known to the general reader, is the "History of some of the Effects of Hard Drinking." It concludes with a scale of Temperance and Intemperance, in imitation of a thermometer. To each of the two conditions seventy degrees are allotted. Against the seventieth (or highest) degree of Temperance is marked "Water," under which, at distances of ten degrees, follow "Milk-and-Water," "Small Beer," "Cyder and Perry," "Wine," "Porter," "Strong Beer." The tenth degree of Intemperance is "Punch"; the twentieth, "Toddy and Crank"; the thirtieth, "Grog and Brandy and Water"; the fortieth, "Flip and Shrub"; the fiftieth, "Bitters infused in Spirits, Usquebaugh, Hysteric Water"; the sixtieth, "Gin, Aniseed, Brandy, Rum, and Whisky," in the morning; the seventieth, like the sixtieth, only taken day and night. Then follow, in tabular order, the vices, diseases, and punishments of the different stages of Intemperance. The mere enumeration of them ought to keep the most confirmed toper sober for the rest of his days:—

"Vices.—Idleness, Peevishness, Quarrelling, Fighting, Lying, Swearing, Obscenity, Swindling, Perjury, Burglary, Murder, Suicide.

"Diseases.—Sickness, Tremors of the Hands in the Morning, Bloatedness, Inflamed Eyes, Red Nose and Face, Sore and Swelled Legs, Jaundice, Pains in the Limbs, Dropsy, Epilepsy, Melancholy, Madness, Palsy, Apoplexy, Death.

"Punishments.—Debt, Black Eyes, Rags, Hunger, Hospital, Poor-house, Jail, Whipping, the Hulks, Botany Bay, Gallows!"

This reads like Hogarth's Gin Lane.

CHAPTER XX.

A FEW MORE QUACKS.

The term quack is applicable to all who, by pompous pretences, mean insinuations, and indirect promises, endeavour to obtain that confidence to which neither education, merit, nor experience entitles them.—Samuel Parr's Definition.

Of London's modern quacks, one of the most daring was James Graham, M. D., of Edinburgh, who introduced into England the juggleries of Mesmer, profiting by them in this country scarcely less than his master did on the Continent. His brother married Catherine Macaulay, the author of the immortal History of England, which no one now-a-days reads; the admired of Horace Walpole; the lady whose statue during her life-time, was erected in the chancel of the church of St. Stephen's, Walbrook. Graham's sister was married to Dr. Arnold, of Leicester, the author of a valuable book on Insanity.

With a little intellect and more knavery, Dr. Graham ran a course very similar to Mesmer. Emerging from obscurity in or about the year 1780, he established himself in a spacious mansion in the Royal Terrace, Adelphi, overlooking the Thames, and midway between the Blackfriars and Westminster Bridges. The river front of the house was ornamented with classic pillars; and inscribed over the principal entrance, in gilt letters on a white compartment, was "Templum Æsculapio Sacrum." The "Temple of Health," as it was usually spoken of in London, quickly became a place of fashionable resort. Its spacious rooms were supplied with furniture made to be stared at—sphynxes, dragons breathing flame, marble statues, paintings, medico-electric apparatus, rich curtains and draperies, stained glass windows, stands of armour, immense pillars and globes of glass, and remarkably arranged plates of burnished steel. Luxurious couches were arranged in the recesses of the apartments, whereon languid visitors were invited to rest; whilst the senses were fascinated with strains of gentle music, and the perfumes of spices burnt in swinging censers. The most sacred shrine of the edifice stood in the centre of "The Great Apollo Apartment," described by the magician in the following terms:—"This room is upwards of thirty feet long, by twenty wide, and full fifteen feet high in the ceiling; on entering which, words can convey no adequate idea of the astonishment and awful sublimity which seizes the mind of every spectator. The first object which strikes the eye, astonishes, expands, and ennobles the soul of the beholder, is a magnificent temple, sacred to health, and dedicated to Apollo. In this tremendous edifice are combined or singly dispensed the irresistible and salubrious influences of electricity, or the elementary fire, air, and magnetism; three of the greatest of those agents of universal principles, which, pervading all created being and substances that we are acquainted with, connect, animate, and keep together all nature;—or, in other words, principles which constitute, as it were, the various faculties of the material soul of the universe: the Eternally Supreme Jehovah Himself being the essential source—the Life of that Life—the Agent of those Agents—the Soul of that Soul—the All-creating, all-sustaining, all-blessing God!—not of this world alone—not of the other still greater worlds which we know compose our solar system! Not the creator, the soul, the preserver of this world alone—or of any of those which we have seen roll with uninterrupted harmony for so many thousands of years!—not the God of the millions of myriads of worlds, of systems, and of various ranks and orders of beings and intelligences which probably compose the aggregate of the grand, the vast, the incomprehensible system of the universe!—but the eternal, infinitely wise, and infinitely powerful, infinitely good God of the whole—the Great Sun of the Universe!"

This blasphemy was regarded in Bond Street and Mayfair as inspired wisdom. It was held to be wicked not to believe in Dr. Graham. The "Temple" was crowded with the noble and wealthy; and Graham, mingling the madness of a religious enthusiast with the craft of a charlatan, preached to his visitors and prayed over them with the zeal of Joanna Southcote. He composed a form of prayer to be used in the Temple, called "the Christian's Universal Prayer," a long rigmarole of spasmodic nonsense, to the printed edition of which the author affixed the following note: "The first idea of writing this prayer was suggested by hearing, one evening, the celebrated Mr Fischer play on the hautboy, with inimitable sweetness, his long-winded variations on some old tunes. I was desirous to know what effect that would have when extended to literary composition. I made the experiment as soon as I got home, on the Lord's Prayer, and wrote the following in bed, before morning:"

About the "Temple of Health" there are a few other interesting particulars extant. The woman who officiated in the "Sanctum Sanctorum" was the fair and frail Emma—in due course to be the wife of Sir William Hamilton, and the goddess of Nelson. The charges for consulting the oracle, or a mere admission in the Temple, were thus arranged. "The nobility, gentry, and others, who apply through the day, viz., from ten to six, must pay a guinea the first consultation, and half a guinea every time after. No person whomsoever, even personages of the first rank, need expect to be attended at their own houses, unless confined to bed by sickness, or to their room through extreme weakness; and from those whom he attends at their houses two guineas each visit is expected. Dr Graham, for reasons of the highest importance to the public as well as to himself, has a chymical laboratory and a great medicinal cabinet in his own house; and in the above fixed fees either at home or abroad, every expense attending his advice, medicines, applications, and operations, and influences, are included—a few tedious, complex, and expensive operations in the Great Apollo apartment only excepted."

But the humour of the man culminated when he bethought himself of displaying the crutches and spectacles of restored patients, as trophies of his victories over disease. "Over the doors of the principal rooms, under the vaulted compartments of the ceiling, and in each side of the centre arches of the hall, are placed walking-sticks, ear-trumpets, visual glasses, crutches, &c., left, and here placed as most honourable trophies, by deaf, weak, paralytic, and emaciated persons, cripples, &c., who, being cured, have happily no longer need of such assistances."

Amongst the furniture of the "Temple of Health" was a celestial bed, provided with costly draperies, and standing on glass legs. Married couples, who slept on this couch, were sure of being blessed with a beautiful progeny. For its use £100 per night was demanded, and numerous persons of rank were foolish enough to comply with the terms. Besides his celestial bed and magnetic tomfooleries, Graham vended an "Elixir of Life," and subsequently recommended and superintended earth-bathing. Any one who took the elixir might live as long as he wished. For a constant supply of so valuable a medicine, £1000, paid in advance, was the demand. More than one nobleman paid that sum. The Duchess of Devonshire patronized Graham, as she did every other quack who came in her way; and her folly was countenanced by Lady Spencer, Lady Clermont, the Comtesse de Polignac, and the Comtesse de Chalon.

Of all Dr. Graham's numerous writings one of the most ridiculous is "A clear, full, and faithful Portraiture, or Description, and ardent Recommendation of a certain most beautiful and spotless Virgin Princess, of Imperial descent! To a certain youthful Heir-Apparent, in the possession of whom alone his Royal Highness can be truly, permanently, and supremely happy. Most humbly dedicated to his Royal Highness, George, Prince of Wales, and earnestly recommended to the attention of the Members of both Houses of Parliament." When George the Third was attacked for the first time with mental aberration, Graham hastened down to Windsor, and obtaining an interview there with the Prince Regent, with thrilling earnestness of manner assured his Royal Highness that he would suffer in the same way as his father unless he married a particular princess that he (Dr. Graham) was ready to introduce to him. On the Prince inquiring the name of the lady, Graham answered, "Evangelical Wisdom." Possibly the royal patient would have profited, had he obeyed the zealot's exhortation. The work, of which we have just given the title, is a frantic rhapsody on the beauties and excellence of the Virgin Princess Wisdom, arranged in chapters and verses, and begins thus:—

"CHAP. 1."

"Hear! all ye people of the earth, and understand; give ear attentively, O ye kings and princes, and be admonished; yea, learn attentively, ye who are the rulers and the judges of the people."

"2. Let the inhabitants of the earth come before me with all the innocency and docility of little children; and the kings and governors, with all purity and simplicity of heart.

"3. For the Holy Spirit of Wisdom! or celestial discipline! flees from duplicity and deceit, and from haughtiness and hardness of heart; it removes far from the thoughts that are without understanding; and will not abide when unrighteousness cometh in."

The man who was fool enough to write such stuff as this had, however, some common sense. He detected the real cause of the maladies of half those who consulted him, and he did his utmost to remove it. Like the French quack Villars, he preached up "abstinence" and "cleanliness." Of the printed "general instructions" to his patients, No. 2 runs thus:—"It will be unreasonable for Dr Graham's patients to expect a complete and lasting cure, or even great alleviation of their peculiar maladies, unless they keep their body and limbs most perfectly clean with frequent washings, breathe fresh open air day and night, be simple in the quality and moderate in the quantity of their food and drink, and totally give up using deadly poisons and weakeners of both body and soul, and the canker-worms of estates, called foreign tea and coffee, red port wine, spirituous liquors, tobacco and snuff, gaming and late hours, and all sinful and unnatural and excessive indulgence of the animal appetites, and of the diabolical and degrading mental passions. On practising the above rules, and a widely-open window day and night, and on washing with cold water, and going to bed every night by eight or nine, and rising by four or five, depends the very perfection of bodily and mental health, strength, and happiness."

Many to whom this advice was given thought that ill-health, which made them unable to enjoy anything was no worse an evil than health brought on terms that left them nothing to enjoy. During his career Graham moved his "Temple of Health" from the Adelphi to Pall-Mall. But he did not prosper in the long-run. His religious extravagances for a while brought him adherents, but when they took the form of attacking the Established Church, they brought on him an army of adversaries. He came also into humiliating collision with the Edinburgh authorities.

Perhaps the curative means employed by Graham were as justifiable and beneficial as the remedies of the celebrated doctors of Whitworth in Yorkshire, the brothers Taylor. These gentlemen were farriers, by profession, but condescended to prescribe for their own race as well, always, however, regarding the vocation of brute-doctor as superior in dignity to that of a physician. Their system of practice was a vigorous one. They made no gradual and insidious advances on disease, but opened against it a bombardment of shot and shell from all directions. They bled their patients by the gallon, and drugged them by the stone. Their druggists, Ewbank and Wallis of York, used to supply them with a ton of Glauber's salts at a time. In their dispensary scales and weights were regarded as the bugbears of ignoble minds. Every Sunday morning they bled gratis any one who liked to demand a prick from their lancets. Often a hundred poor people were seated on the surgery benches at the same time, waiting for venesection. When each of the party had found a seat the two brothers passed rapidly along the lines of bared arms, the one doctor deftly applying the ligature above the elbow, and the other immediately opening the vein, the crimson stream from which was directed to a wooden trough that ran round the apartment in which the operations were performed. The same magnificence of proportion characterized their administration of kitchen physic. If they ordered a patient broth, they directed his nurse to buy a large leg of mutton, and boil it in a copper of water down to a strong decoction, of which a quart should be administered at stated intervals.

When the little Abbé de Voisenon was ordered by his physician to drink a quart of ptisan per hour he was horrified. On his next visit the doctor asked,

"What effect has the ptisan produced?"

"Not any," answered the little Abbé.

"Have you taken it all?"

"I could not take more than half of it."

The physician was annoyed, even angry that his directions had not been carried out, and frankly said so.

"Ah, my friend," pleaded the Abbé, "how could you desire me to swallow a quart an hour?—I hold but a pint!"

This reminds us of a story we have heard told of an irascible physician who died, after attaining a venerable age, at the close of the last century. The story is one of those which, told once, are told many times, and affixed to new personages, according to the whim or ignorance of the narrator.

"Your husband is very ill—very ill—high fever," observed the Doctor to the poor labourer's wife; "and he's old, worn, emaciated: his hand is as dry as a Suffolk cheese. You must keep giving him water—as much as he'll drink; and, as I am coming back to-night from Woodbridge, I'll see him again. There—don't come snivelling about me!—my heart is a deuced deal too hard to stand that sort of thing. But, since you want something to cry about, just listen—your husband isn't going to die yet! There, now you're disappointed. Well, you brought it on yourself. Mind lots of water—as much as he'll drink"

The doctor was ashamed of the feminine tenderness of his heart, and tried to hide it under an affectation of cynicism, and a manner at times verging on brutality. Heaven bless all his descendants, scattered over the whole world, but all of them brave and virtuous! A volume might be written on his good qualities; his only bad one being extreme irascibility. His furies were many, and sprung from divers visitations; but nothing was so sure to lash him into a tempest as to be pestered with idle questions.

"Water, sir?" whined Molly Meagrim. "To be sure, your honour—water he shall have, poor dear soul! But, your honour, how much water ought I to give him?"

"Zounds, woman! haven't I told you to give him as much as he'll take?—and you ask me how much! How much?—give him a couple of pails of water, if he'll take 'em. Now, do you hear me, you old fool? Give him a couple of pails."

"The Lord bless your honour—yes," whined Molly.

To get beyond the reach of her miserable voice the Doctor ran to his horse, and rode off to Woodbridge. At night as he returned, he stopped at the cottage to inquire after the sick man.

"He's bin took away, yer honour," said the woman, as the physician entered. "The water didn't fare to do him noan good—noan in the lessest, sir. Only then we couldn't get down the right quantity, though we did our best. We got down better nor a pail and a half, when he slipped out o' our hands. Ah, yer honour! if we could but ha' got him to swaller the rest, he might still be alive! But we did our best, Doctor!"

Clumsy empirics, however, as the Taylors were, they attended people of the first importance. The elder Taylor was called to London to attend Thurlow, Bishop of Durham, the brother of Lord Chancellor Thurlow. The representative men of the Faculty received him at the bishop's residence, but he would not commence the consultation till the arrival of John Hunter. "I won't say a word till Jack Hunter comes," roared the Whitworth doctor; "he's the only man of you who knows anything." When Hunter arrived, Taylor proceeded to his examination of the bishop's state, and, in the course of it, used some ointment which he took from a box.

"What's it made of?" Hunter asked.

"That's not a fair question," said Taylor, turning to the Lord Chancellor, who happened to be present. "No, no, Jack. I'll send you as much as you please, but I won't tell you what it's made of."

CHAPTER XXI.

ST. JOHN LONG.

In the entire history of charlatanism, however, it would be difficult to point to a career more extraordinary than the brilliant though brief one of St. John Long, in our own cultivated London, at a time scarcely more than a generation distant from the present. Though a pretender, and consummate quack, he was distinguished from the vulgar herd of cheats by the possession of enviable personal endowments, a good address, and a considerable quantity of intellect. The son of an Irish basket-maker, he was born in or near Doneraile, and in his boyhood assisted in his father's humble business. His artistic talents, which he cultivated for some time without the aid of a drawing-master, enabled him, while still quite a lad, to discontinue working as a rush-weaver. For a little while he stayed at Dublin, and had some intercourse with Daniel Richardson the painter; after which he moved to Limerick county, and started on his own account as a portrait-painter, and an instructor in the use of the brush. That his education was not superior to what might be expected in a clever youth of such lowly extraction, the following advertisement, copied from a Limerick paper of February 10, 1821, attests:—

"Mr John Saint John Long, Historical and Portrait Painter, the only pupil of Daniel Richardson, Esq., late of Dublin, proposes, during his stay in Limerick, to take portraits from Ittalian Head to whole length; and parson desirous of getting theirs done, in historical, hunting, shooting, fishing, or any other character; or their family, grouped in one or two paintings from life-size to miniature, so as to make an historical subject, choseing one from history."

"The costume of the period from whence it would be taken will be particularly attended to, and the character of each proserved."

"He would take views in the country, terms per agreement. Specimens to be seen at his Residence, No. 116, Georges Street, opposite the Club-house, and at Mr James Dodds, Paper-staining Warehouse, Georges Street.

"Mr Long is advised by his several friends to give instructions in the Art of Painting in Oils, Opeak, Chalk, and Water-colours, &c., to a limited number of Pupils of Respectability two days in each week at stated hours."

"Gentlemen are not to attend at the same hour the Ladies attend at. He will supply them in water-colours, &c."

How the young artist acquired the name of St. John is a mystery. When he blazed into notoriety, his admirers asserted that it came to him in company with noble blood that ran in his veins; but more unkind observers declared that it was assumed, as being likely to tickle the ears of his credulous adherents. His success as a provincial art-professor was considerable. The gentry of Limerick liked his manly bearing and lively conversation, and invited him to their houses to take likenesses of their wives, flirt with their daughters, and accompany their sons on hunting and shooting excursions. Emboldened by good luck in his own country, and possibly finding the patronage of the impoverished aristocracy of an Irish province did not yield him a sufficient income, he determined to try his fortune in England. Acting on this resolve, he hastened to London, and with ingratiating manners and that persuasive tongue which nine Irishmen out of ten possess, he managed to get introductions to a few respectable drawing-rooms. He even obtained some employment from Sir Thomas Lawrence, as colour-grinder and useful assistant in the studio; and was elected a member of the Royal Society of Literature, and also of the Royal Asiatic Society. But like many an Irish adventurer, before and after him, he found it hard work to live on his impudence, pleasant manners, and slender professional acquirements. He was glad to colour anatomical drawings for the professors and pupils of one of the minor surgical schools of London; and in doing so picked up a few pounds and a very slight knowledge of the structure of the human frame. The information so obtained stimulated him to further researches, and, ere a few more months of starvation had passed over, he deemed himself qualified to cure all the bodily ailments to which the children of Adam are subject.

He invented a lotion or liniment endowed with the remarkable faculty of distinguishing between sound and unsound tissues. To a healthy part it was as innocuous as water; but when applied to a surface under which any seeds of disease were lurking, it became a violent irritant, creating a sore over the seat of mischief, and stimulating nature to throw off the morbid virus. He also instructed his patients to inhale the vapour which rose from a certain mixture compounded by him in large quantities, and placed in the interior of a large mahogany case, which very much resembled an upright piano. In the sides of this piece of furniture were apertures, into which pipe-stalks were screwed for the benefit of afflicted mortals, who, sitting on easy lounges, smoked away like a party of Turkish elders.

With these two agents St. John Long engaged to combat every form of disease—gout, palsy, obstructions of the liver, cutaneous affections; but the malady which he professed to have the most complete command over was consumption. His success in surrounding himself with patients was equal to his audacity. He took a large house in Harley Street, and fitted it up for the reception of people anxious to consult him; and for some seasons every morning and afternoon (from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.) the public way was blocked up with carriages pressing to his door. The old and the young alike flocked to him; but nine of his patients out of every ten were ladies. For awhile the foolish of every rank in London seemed to have but one form in which to display their folly. Needy matrons from obscure suburban villages came with their guineas to consult the new oracle; and ladies of the highest rank, fashion, and wealth, hastened to place themselves and their daughters at the mercy of a pretender's ignorance.

Unparalleled were the scenes which the reception-rooms of that notorious house in Harley Street witnessed. In one room were two enormous inhalers, with flexible tubes running outwards in all directions, and surrounded by dozens of excited women—ladies of advanced years, and young girls giddy with the excitement of their first London season—puffing from their lips the medicated vapour, or waiting till a mouth-piece should be at liberty for their pink lips. In another room the great magician received his patients. Some he ordered to persevere in inhalation, others he divested of their raiment, and rubbed his miraculous liniment into their backs, between their shoulders or over their bosoms. Strange to say, these lavations and frictions—which invariably took place in the presence of third persons, nurses or invalids—had very different results. The fluid, which, as far as the eye could discern, was taken out of the same vessel, and was the same for all, would instantaneously produce on one lady a burning excoriation, which had in due course to be dressed with cabbage-leaves; but on another would be so powerless that she could wash in it, or drink it copiously, like ordinary pump-water, with impunity. "Yes," said the wizard, "that was his system, and such were its effects. If a girl had tubercles in her lungs, the lotion applied to the outward surface of her chest would produce a sore, and extract the virus from the organs of respiration. If a gentleman had a gouty foot, and washed it in this new water of Jordan, at the cost of a little temporary irritation the vicious particles would leave the affected part. But on any sound person who bathed in it the fluid would have no power whatever."

The news of the wonderful remedy flew to every part of the kingdom; and from every quarter sick persons, wearied of a vain search after an alleviation of their sufferings, flocked to London with hope renewed once more. St. John Long had so many applicants for attention that he was literally unable to give heed to all of them; and he availed himself of this excess of business to select for treatment those cases only where there seemed every chance of a satisfactory result. In this he was perfectly candid, for time after time he declared that he would take no one under his care who seemed to have already gone beyond hope. On one occasion he was called into the country to see a gentleman who was in the last stage of consumption; and after a brief examination of the poor fellow's condition, he said frankly—

"Sir, you are so ill that I cannot take you under my charge at present. You want stamina. Take hearty meals of beefsteaks and strong beer; and if you are better in ten days, I'll do my best for you and cure you."

It was a safe offer to make, for the sick man lived little more than forty-eight hours longer.

But, notwithstanding the calls of his enormous practice, St. John Long found time to enjoy himself. He went a great deal into fashionable society, and was petted by the great and high-born, not only because he was a notoriety, but because of his easy manners, imposing carriage, musical though hesitating voice, and agreeable disposition. He was tall and slight, but strongly built; and his countenance, thin and firmly set, although frank in expression, caused beholders to think highly of his intellectual refinement, as well as of his decision and energy. Possibly his personal advantages had no slight influence with his feminine applauders. But he possessed other qualities yet more fitted to secure their esteem—an Irish impetuosity of temperament and a sincere sympathy with the unfortunate. He was an excellent horseman, hunting regularly, and riding superb horses. On one occasion, as he was cantering round the Park, he saw a man strike a woman, and without an instant's consideration he pulled up, leaped to the ground, seized the fellow bodily, and with one enormous effort flung him slap over the Park rails.

But horse-exercise was the only masculine pastime he was very fond of. He was very temperate in his habits; and although Irish gentlemen used to get tipsy, he never did. Painting, music, and the society of a few really superior women, were the principal sources of enjoyment to which this brilliant charlatan had recourse in his leisure hours. Many were the ladies of rank and girls of gentle houses who would have gladly linked their fortunes to him and his ten thousand a year.[20] But though numerous matrimonial overtures were made to him, he persevered in his bachelor style of life; and although he was received with peculiar intimacy into the privacy of female society, scandal never even charged him with a want of honour or delicacy towards women, apart from his quackery. Indeed, he broke off his professional connection with one notorious lady of rank, rather than gratify her eccentric wish to have her likeness taken by him in that remarkable costume—or no costume at all—in which she was wont to receive her visitors.

In the exercise of his art he treated women unscrupulously. Amidst the crowd of ladies who thronged his reception-rooms he moved, smiling, courteous, and watchful, listening to their mutual confidences about their maladies, the constitutions of their relations, and their family interests. Every stray sentence the wily man caught up and retained in his memory, for future use. To induce those to become his patients who had nothing the matter with them, and consequently would go to swell the list of his successful cases, he used the most atrocious artifices.

"Ah, Lady Emily, I saw your dear sister," he would say to a patient, "yesterday—driving in the Park—lovely creature she is! Ah, poor thing!"

"Poor thing, Mr. Long!—why, Catherine is the picture of health!"

"Ah," the adroit fellow would answer, sadly, "you think so—so does she—and so does every one besides myself who sees her; but—but—unless prompt remedial measures are taken that dear girl, ere two short years have flown, will be in her grave." This mournful prophecy would be speedily conveyed to Catherine's ears; and, under the influence of that nervous dread of death which almost invariably torments the youthful and healthy, she would implore the great physician to save her from her doom. It was not difficult to quiet her anxious heart. Attendance at 41, Harley Street, for six weeks, during which time a sore was created on her breast by the corrosive liniment, and cured by the application of cabbage-leaves and nature's kindly processes, enabled her to go out once more into the world, sounding her saviour's praises, and convinced that she might all her life long expose herself to the most trying changes of atmosphere, without incurring any risk of chest-affection.

But Mr. Long had not calculated that, although nine hundred and ninety-nine constitutions out of every thousand would not be materially injured by his treatment, he would at rare intervals meet with a patient of delicate organization, on whom the application of his blistering fluid would be followed by the most serious consequences. In the summer of the year 1830, two young ladies, of a good Irish family, named Cashin, came to London, and were inveigled into the wizard's net. They were sisters; and the younger of them, being in delicate health, called on Mr. Long, accompanied by her elder sister. The ordinary course of inhalation and rubbing was prescribed for the invalid; and ere long, frightened by the quack's prediction that, unless she was subjected to immediate treatment, she would fall into a rapid consumption, the other young lady submitted to have the corrosive lotion rubbed over her back and shoulders. The operation was performed on the 3rd of August. Forthwith a violent inflammation was established: the wound, instead of healing, became daily and hourly of a darker and more unhealthy aspect; unable to bear the cabbage-leaves on the raw and suppurating surface, the sufferer induced her nurse to apply a comforting poultice to the part, but no relief was obtained from it. St. John Long was sent for, and the 14th (just eleven days after the exhibition of the corrosive liniment), he found his victim in a condition of extreme exhaustion and pain, and suffering from continued sickness. Taking these symptoms as a mere matter of course, he ordered her a tumbler of mulled wine, and took his departure. On the following day (Sunday, 15th) he called again, and offered to dress the wound. But the poor girl, suddenly waking up to the peril of her position, would not permit him to touch her, and, raising herself with an effort in her bed, exclaimed—

"Indeed, Mr. Long, you shall not touch my back again—you very well know that when I became your patient I was in perfect health, but now you are killing me!" Without losing his self-command at this pathetic appeal, he looked into her earnest eyes, and said, impressively—

"Whatever inconvenience you are now suffering, it will be of short duration, for in two or three days you will be in better health than you ever were in your life."

But his words did not restore her confidence. The next day (the 16th) Mr., now Sir Benjamin, Brodie was sent for, and found on the wretched girl's back an inflamed surface about the size of a plate, having in the centre a spot as large as the palm of his hand, which was in a state of mortification. The time for rescue was past. Sir Benjamin prescribed a saline draught to allay the sickness; and within twenty-four hours Catherine Cashin, who a fortnight before had been in perfect health and high spirits—an unusually lovely girl, in her 25th year—lay upon her bed in the quiet of death.

An uproar immediately ensued; and there was an almost universal cry from the intelligent people of the country, that the empiric should be punished. A coroner's inquest was held; and, in spite of the efforts made by the charlatan's fashionable adherents, a verdict was obtained from the jury of man-slaughter against St. John Long. Every attempt was made by a set of influential persons of high rank to prevent the law from taking its ordinary course. The issue of the warrant for the apprehension of the offender was most mysteriously and scandalously delayed: and had it not been for the energy of Mr. Wakley, who, in a long and useful career of public service, has earned for himself much undeserved obloquy, the affair would, even after the verdict of the coroner's jury, have been hushed up. Eventually, however, on Saturday, October 30, St. John Long was placed in the dock of old Bailey, charged with the manslaughter of Miss Cashin. Instead of deserting him in his hour of need, his admirers—male and female—presented themselves at the Central Criminal Court, to encourage him by their sympathy, and to give evidence in his favour. The carriages of distinguished members of the nobility brought fair freights of the first fashion of May-fair down to the gloomy court-house that adjoins Newgate; and belles of the first fashion sat all through the day in the stifling atmosphere of a crowded court, looking languishingly at their hero in the dock, who, from behind his barrier of rue and fennel, distributed to them smiles of grateful recognition. The Judge (Mr. Justice Park) manifested throughout the trial a strong partisanship with the prisoner; and the Marchioness of Ormond, who was accommodated with a seat on the bench by his Lordship's side, conversed with him in whispers during the proceedings. The summing up was strongly in favour of the accused; but, in spite of the partial judge, and an array of fashionable witnesses in favour of the prisoner, the jury returned a verdict of guilty.

As it was late on Saturday when the verdict was given, the judge deferred passing sentence till the following Monday. At the opening of the court on that day a yet greater crush of the beau monde was present; and the judge, instead of awarding a term of imprisonment to the guilty man, condemned him merely to pay a fine of £250, or to be imprisoned till such fine was paid. Mr. St. John Long immediately took a roll of notes from his pocket, paid the mulct, and leaving the court with his triumphant friends, accepted a seat in Lord Sligo's curricle, and drove to the west end of the town.

The scandalous sentence was a fit conclusion to the absurd scenes which took place in the court of the Old Bailey, and at the coroner's inquest. At one or the other of these inquiries the witnesses advanced thousands of outrageous statements, of which the following may be taken as a fair specimen:—

One young lady gave evidence that she had been cured of consumption by Mr. Long's liniment; she knew she had been so cured, because she had a very bad cough, and, after the rubbing in all the ointment, the cough went away. An old gentleman testified that he had for years suffered from attacks of the gout, at intervals of from one to three months; he was convinced Mr. Long had cured him, because he had been free from gout for five weeks. Another gentleman had been tortured with headache; Mr. Long applied his lotion to it—the humour which caused his headache came away in a clear limpid discharge. A third gentleman affirmed that Mr. Long's liniment had reduced a dislocation of his child's hip-joint. The Marchioness of Ormond, on oath, stated that she knew that Miss Cashin's back was rubbed with the same fluid as she and her daughters had used to wash their hands with; but she admitted that she neither saw the back rubbed, nor saw the fluid with which it was rubbed taken from the bottle. Sir Francis Burdett also bore testimony to the harmlessness of Mr. Long's system of practice. Mr. Wakley, in the Lancet, asserted that Sir Francis Burdett had called on Long to ask him if his liniment would give the Marquis of Anglesea a leg, in the place of the one he lost at Waterloo, if it were applied to the stump. Long gave an encouraging answer; and the lotion was applied, with the result of producing not an entire foot and leg—but a great toe!

Miss Cashin's death was quickly followed by another fatal case. A Mrs. Lloyd died from the effects of the corrosive lotion; and again a coroner's jury found St. John Long guilty of manslaughter, and again he was tried at the Old Bailey—but this second trial terminated in his acquital.

It seems scarcely creditable, and yet it is true, that these exposures did not have the effect of lessening his popularity. The respectable organs of the Press—the Times, the Chronicle, the Herald, the John Bull, the Lancet, the Examiner, the Spectator, the Standard, the Globe, Blackwood, and Fraser, combined in doing their best to render him contemptible in the eyes of his supporters. But all their efforts were in vain. His old dupes remained staunch adherents to him, and every day brought fresh converts to their body. With unabashed front he went everywhere, proclaiming himself a martyr in the cause of humanity, and comparing his evil treatment to the persecutions that Galileo, Harvey, Jenner, and Hunter underwent at the hands of the prejudiced and ignorant. Instead of uncomplainingly taking the lashes of satirical writers, he first endeavored to bully them into silence, and swaggering into newspaper and magazine offices asked astonished editors how they dared to call him a quack. Finding, however, that this line of procedure would not improve his position, he wrote his defence, and published it in an octavo volume, together with numerous testimonials of his worth from grateful patients, and also a letter of cordial support from Dr. Ramadge, M.D., Oxon., a fellow of the College of Physicians. In a ridiculous and ungrammatical epistle, defending this pernicious quack, who had been convicted of manslaughter, Dr. Ramadge displayed not less anxiety to blacken the reputation of his own profession, than he did to clear the fame of the charlatan whom he designated "a guiltless and a cruelly persecuted individual!!!" The book itself is one of the most interesting to be found in quack literature. On the title-page is a motto from Pope—"No man deserves a monument who could not be wrapped in a winding-sheet of papers written against him"; and amongst pages of jargon about humoral pathology, it contains confident predictions that if his victims had continued in his system, they would have lived. The author accuses the most eminent surgeons and physicians of his time of gross ignorance, and of having conspired together to crush him, because they were jealous of his success and envious of his income. He even suggests that the same saline draught, prescribed by Sir Benjamin Brodie, killed Miss Cashin. Amongst those whose testimonials appear in the body of the work are the then Lord Ingestre (his enthusiastic supporter), Dr. Macartney, the Marchioness of Ormond, Lady Harriet Kavanagh, the Countess of Buckinghamshire, and the Marquis of Sligo. The Marchioness of Ormond testifies how Mr. Long had miraculously cured her and her daughter of "headaches," and her youngest children of "smart attacks of feverish colds, one with inflammatory sore throat, the others with more serious bad symptoms." The Countess of Buckinghamshire says she is cured of "headache and lassitude"; and Lord Ingestre avows his belief that Mr. Long's system is "preventive of disease," because he himself is much less liable to catch cold than he was before trying it.

Numerous pamphlets also were written in defence of John St. John Long, Esq., M.R.S.L., and M.R.A.S. An anonymous author (calling himself a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Member of the Middle Temple), in a tract dated 1831, does not hesitate to compare the object of his eulogy with the author of Christianity. "But who can wonder at Mr Long's persecutions? The brightest character that ever stept was persecuted, even unto death! His cures were all perverted, but they were not the less complete; they were miraculous, but they were not the less certain!"

To the last St. John Long retained his practice; but death removed him from the scene of his triumphs while he was still a young man. The very malady, his control over which he had so loudly proclaimed, brought his career—in which knavery or self-delusion, doubtless both, played a part—to an end. He died of consumption, at the age of thirty-seven years. Even in the grave his patients honoured him, for they erected an elegant and costly monument to his memory, and adorned it with the following inscription.

"It is the fate of most men
To have many enemies, and few friends.
This monumental pile
Is not intended to mark the career,
But to shew
How much its inhabitant was respected
By those who knew his worth,
And the benefits
Derived from his remedial discovery.
He is now at rest,
And far beyond the praises or censures
Of this world.
Stranger, as you respect the receptacle of the dead
(As one of the many who will rest here),
Read the name of
John Saint John Long
without comment."

Notwithstanding the exquisite drollery of this inscription, in speaking of a plebeian quack-doctor (who, by the exercise of empiricism, raised himself to the possession of £5000 per annum, and the intimate friendship of numbers of the aristocracy) as the victim of "many enemies and few friends," it cannot be said to be open to much censure. Indeed, St. John Long's worshippers were for the most part of that social grade in which bad taste is rare, though weakness of understanding possibly may not be uncommon.

The sepulchre itself is a graceful structure, and occupies a prominent position in the Kensal Green cemetery, by the side of the principal carriage-way, leading from the entrance-gate to the chapel of the burial-ground. Immediately opposite to it, on the other side of the gravel drive, stands, not inappropriately, the flaunting sepulchre of Andrew Ducrow, the horse-rider, "whose death," the inscription informs us, "deprived the arts and sciences of an eminent professor and liberal patron." When any cockney bard shall feel himself inspired to write an elegy on the west-end grave-yard, he will not omit to compare John St. John Long's tomb with that of "the liberal patron of the arts and sciences," and also with the cumbrous heap of masonry which covers the ashes of Dr. Morrison, hygeist, which learned word, being interpreted, means "the inventor of Morrison's pills."

To give a finishing touch to the memoir of this celebrated charlatan, it may be added that after his death his property became the subject of tedious litigation; and amongst the claimants upon it was a woman advanced in years, and of an address and style that proved her to belong to a very humble state of life. This woman turned out to be St. John Long's wife. He had married her when quite a lad, had found it impossible to live with her, and consequently had induced her to consent to an amicable separation. This discovery was a source of great surprise, and also of enlightenment to the numerous high-born and richly-endowed ladies who had made overtures of marriage to the idolized quack, and, much to their surprise, had had their advances adroitly but firmly declined.

There are yet to be found in English society, ladies—not silly, frivolous women, but some of those on whom the world of intellect has put the stamp of its approval—who cherish such tender reminiscences of St. John Long, that they cannot mention his name without their eyes becoming bright with tears. Of course this proves nothing, save the credulity and fond infatuation of the fair ones who love. The hands of women decked Nero's tomb with flowers.