at Plymouth, and died 11 November, 1873. The other sons were Charles
Octavius, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge; Dr. Christian Budd,
of North Tawton; and Francis Nonus, born 1823, became eighth Wrangler
in 1846, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, called to the Bar,
Lincoln’s Inn, 1848, practised as barrister for many years at Bristol,
bought a little property at Batworthy, Chagford, on the Teign, where he
made a fine collection of flint weapons and tools found in his fields,
where was once a “station” for their manufacture.
Doctor John Wreford Budd, as already said, practised in Plymouth. He
was a man of rough manners, blunt and to the point in all he said. When
Roundell Palmer was electioneering in Plymouth in 1847 he stayed with
Budd, who was very proud of his guest. Meeting Mr. William Collier in
the street, he stopped him, and without any preliminaries said: “Can
your cook make soup as clear as sherry? Mine can, sir--soup like that
every day, whilst Mr. Palmer was staying with me.”
Another time, when he had some friends to lunch, there was some delay.
He took out his watch, placed it before him on the table, and turning
to Mrs. Budd, said: “What a thing this onpunctuality is! If it be not
brought to table in two minutes, I’ll dra’e it all out at the window,”
spoken in the broadest Devonian dialect.
A gentleman writes: “An excellent cook came to us from the service of
Dr. Budd. She was epileptic, and the Doctor’s violence increased her
trouble. With us she remained for many years until age made her unfit
for work. She told me that once preparations were well advanced for
a dinner party, when the Doctor came down to the kitchen, as was his
wont. She had been plucking a brace of pheasants, and some blood from
the beaks had stained her apron. This defilement roused the Doctor
to such frenzy that he seized and flung out of the window or smashed
up all the prepared dishes. As the guests were due to arrive very
shortly, Mrs. Budd, in a state of distraction, sent all over the town
for such cold joints, sweets, etc., as could be obtained from hotels,
confectioners, and other caterers. With this scratch meal she was
obliged to regale her guests, without being able to explain the reason
of the novelty. But some inkling of the truth came to be known or was
guessed by her visitors.
“Dr. Stewart, of Plymouth, told me one day that a friend of his passing
Dr. Budd’s house was startled by the sudden descent of a leg of mutton
in the street, flung out of the window by the irate Doctor because
either somewhat over-or underdone.
“Dr. Budd would often, when giving a dinner party, rise at the
conclusion of the first courses, saying ‘I shan’t take any sweets,’
would go to the fireside and fill a long ‘churchwarden’ clay, then,
leaning against the mantelpiece, calmly smoke and join in the
conversation of the guests as they continued at table.
“He was a tall, heavily-built man, with a full, high-coloured face, not
intellectual in appearance, and with warm brown hair and side whiskers.”
He was out shooting one day with Mr. Calmady. A pheasant rose, and both
men raised their guns, and the bird came down like lead.
“That’s my burd,” shouted Budd.
“I really think not; I am sure I brought it down,” said Mr. Calmady.
“It’s my burd, I zay. I’ll swear to it. Never missed in my life, any
more than blundered in my profession. It’s mine.”
“Very well. Yours it shall be.”
Up rose another pheasant. Each hastened to load, when it turned out
that the Doctor’s gun had not been discharged at all.
A gentleman writes me: “My mother remembers travelling by train in the
same carriage with the Doctor. Two other men also got in; and one, who
may have been the worse for liquor, began grossly to insult the other;
whereupon the Doctor interfered and took the part of the insulted
man. ‘What business is this of yours?’ shouted the offender. At this
moment the train drew up in the Plymouth station. Dr. Budd jumped out,
turned up his sleeves, squared his fists, and shouted, ‘Now then, you
blackguard, I’ll show you what I have to do with it,’ and knocked him
down on the platform.”
A friend took Budd out in his yacht. As the vessel skimmed through the
smooth waters of the Sound--“He’s a fool, a cursed fool,” said Budd,
“he who has the means and don’t keep a yacht.”
Presently the boat shot out beyond the breakwater, and began to pitch.
Budd turned livid, and his lips leaden. “He’s a fool, a cursed fool,”
said he, after he had stooped over the side, “he who, having the means,
keeps a yacht; and he’s a cursed fool who, having a friend that has a
yacht, allows himself to be over-persuaded to go out with him.”
Mrs. Calmady was in a very poor way. The doctors had bled her and
allowed her only slops, and the poor lady was reduced to death’s door.
As a last resource Dr. Budd was called in. “Chuck the slops away, and
chuck the doctors after them, with their pills and lancets,” roared
Budd. “Give her three or four glasses of champagne a day, a bowl of
beef-tea every three hours, beefsteaks, mutton-chops, and oysters.”
In fact, Dr. J. W. Budd broke through the wretched system that
prevailed of bleeding and giving lowering diet for every kind of
malady, which was the Sangrado system of the day.
A girl was shown to him in a sort of box, almost like a coffin. He had
been called in to examine her, and he said that he would undertake to
cure her if she were taken to his house and his treatment were not
interfered with.
“But, oh! Doctor,” said the mother, “dearest Evangeline can eat nothing
but macaroons.”
“In--deed!”
“And, oh! Doctor, she cannot bear the light; and the shutters have to
be kept fast, and even the blinds down. The least ray of light causes
her excruciating pain.”
“Ha! Humph!”
“And, Doctor Budd, she cannot stand; she lies always in that box; and,
what is more, she can’t speak, only moans and mutters.”
“I understand. Send her to me.”
So the box was brought. To accommodate it a hearse was hired--no cab or
carriage would contain it in a horizontal position.
The chest with the hysterical girl in it was carried into one of Budd’s
rooms in his house, where the shutters were closed and the curtains
drawn.
The weeping mother departed after giving strict injunctions to the
Doctor not to allow any noise to be made in the house, no doors to
be slammed, or poor darling Evangeline would go into convulsions--so
highly strung were her sensitive nerves.
“Humph!” said Budd, and saw the good lady depart. He allowed ten
minutes to elapse, and then he went upstairs, stamping on each step,
threw open the door of the room in which his patient lay, and shouted--
“Halloo! What tomfoolery is this? I’ll soon make an end to it.” He went
to the window, drew back the curtains, threw open the shutters, and let
the sun stream into the apartment.
The girl began to moan and cry.
“Stop that nonsense!” said he. “I’m not like that fool of a mother of
yours to believe in your whims. Get out of that box this instant.”
The girl began to tremble, but made no attempt to obey.
Budd went to a drawer and pulled out a pistol. Then to a cupboard and
emptied a draught into a glass.
“Now, then,” said he, “which shall it be, pistol or poison? I’ll gripe
you with the dose till you squeal with good reason, or put a bullet
into you--whichever you prefer. It’s all one to me, but out of that box
you jump.”
And jump she did, and fell on her knees before Dr. Budd.
“Oh! please, please, do not kill me!”
“I am not going to kill you if you do what you are told. Sit down
there,” indicating a chair.
The girl complied. He rang the bell, and when a servant appeared he
ordered a beefsteak and a small bottle of porter and bread. These were
speedily brought into the room.
“Now, then,” said the Doctor, “eat and drink and enjoy yourself.”
“I--I--I can only eat macaroons.”
“Macaroons be d---- d. You eat that steak and you drink that porter,”
roared Budd, “or”--and he proceeded to cock and present the pistol.
The girl tremblingly obeyed, but presently became interested in the
succulent beef and some crisp potatoes, and the porter she sipped
first, and then drank, and drained the tumbler.
“That will do for to-day,” said Budd. “I have sent for your out-of-door
clothes, and to-morrow morning you shall trundle a hoop round Princess
Square. Now I leave you a packet of illustrated books. You dine with me
this evening at seven.”
Another hysterical girl he dealt with and cured even more
expeditiously. He was shown into the room where she lay in bed, and was
informed that she could not rise. The Doctor begged to be left alone
in the room with her.
When all were gone forth, he locked the door; then proceeded to divest
himself of his coat, next of his waistcoat, and when he began to
unhitch his braces--
“Now, then, make room--I’m coming to bed!”
“Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!” screamed the girl, and pulled violently at the
bell.
“All right, madam,” said Budd when the mother arrived on the spot;
“she’s cured now. Get this little maid up instantly, and vacate the bed
for me. If there be any more nonsense, madam, send for me.”
A small girl had a tiresome nervous cough. Dr. Budd was called in. He
heard her cough. Then he suddenly took her up in his arms and planted
her on the mantelshelf.
“There!” said he. “Balance yourself here for half an hour.” He pulled
out his watch. “If you cough you will infallibly tumble over among
the fire-irons and cut your head. You are a nice little girl, you are
an active little girl, you are a pretty little girl; but you have one
cussed fault which makes every one hate you, and I’m going to cure you
of that. No coughing. The fire is burning, and if you do fall I suspect
your skirts will catch fire, and you will be frightfully burnt, besides
having your cheek cut open by the fender.”
A young lady was one day brought to the Doctor by her parents, who were
very anxious about her, as she was in a depressed condition of mind,
out of which nothing roused her. Budd promised to give every attention
to the case, and requested the parents to leave her with him at his
residence in Princess Place. Soon afterwards he bade his coachman
put to and take the young lady out for a drive. “And mind,” said the
Doctor, “you upset the carriage.”
His orders were obeyed. The landau was upset in a ditch, and the young
lady appeared screaming at the window to be extricated. “No more apathy
now,” said Budd; and sent her home cured.
Budd, with all his roughness, was a kind-hearted and liberal man.
His surgery was at the “Cottage,” in Westwell Street, and thousands
streamed there every year full of implicit faith in Budd’s powers. A
child was one day brought to the “Cottage,” a puny little sufferer.
The Doctor, with his quick eye, saw that the case was critical; and
although this was a free patient, he immediately had it sent to his own
home in Princess Square, with strict orders that it was to be well fed
and cared for; and it remained there for several days under his care
without fee or reward.
A tradesman in Plymouth, living not long ago and in good circumstances,
was at that time a man of straitened means. He was attacked by Asiatic
cholera. Dr. Budd was called in, and saw that the case was severe and
required every care; and he attended morning, noon, and night--on some
days almost hourly--for a fortnight or three weeks, and at last the
patient was cured. Then, with trembling lips, he asked Dr. Budd for his
bill, thinking he would have to pay thirty or forty pounds. The Doctor
replied: “You are a struggling tradesman, and cannot afford to pay
much; if you cannot rake together five pounds, pay me what you can.”
A girl suffering from S. Vitus’s dance was brought to him. He looked
hard at her. “Humph! Every time you make one of those jerks, I’ll force
you to kiss me,” said the Doctor. This succeeded--for, according to the
general opinion, Dr. Budd was “mortal ugly.”
A boy patient was fencing with his questions. Budd put the poker in
the fire, and when it was red-hot took it to the bedside, and with a
severe look and voice declared that he would at once apply it if the
lad did not answer fully to his questions. The threat produced the
immediate result of eliciting the replies he required, so as to enable
him to diagnose the case.
Dr. Budd had an aptitude to diagnose his patient at a glance. At one
time a young schoolmaster of Willinghull, aged twenty-two, named
Horswell, visited him. He had formerly been in Plymouth, and knew the
fame of Dr. Budd. As he had broken down in health, he returned to
Plymouth. Two doctors had assured him that he would soon recover, but
he thought he would obtain an opinion from Dr. Budd. This physician
examined him, and told him in his usual blunt manner that he was food
for worms. His right lung was gone, and his left was affected. “I
shan’t give you medicine. Eat and drink well, and keep out of the cold,
and you will hold on for ten months--no longer.”
Horswell got better and returned to his duties at the Wesleyan School
at Willinghull. He wrote frequently to his friends, and told them how
much better he was, and jeered at Budd’s prediction.
About eight months after his return he announced to his friends in
Plymouth that he was about to be married, and again alluded to Budd’s
prediction, and promised to write announcing his wedding. That letter
never came; but instead of it one with a black edge, informing his
friends that Horswell had broken a blood-vessel and had died suddenly;
and a _post-mortem_ examination proved that the right lung had long
been gone, and a portion of the left.
A drunken man fell into Sutton Pool. It was late in the evening, and
very dark at the time, but a tradesman in the locality happening to
hear the splash, raised the alarm. With great presence of mind, he
laid hold of a number of newspapers, set them on fire, and threw
them into the water. By this light the drowning man was seen and
recovered, and taken into a public-house. Every means was adopted to
restore animation. Several medical men were soon in attendance, and
they pronounced the man out of danger. Dr. Budd put in his appearance
somewhat late, and, shaking his head, pronounced the man’s condition
to be hopeless. The man slept well that night, and next day ate his
breakfast and dinner as usual. The doctors all called to see him in
the morning, and all, with the exception of Dr. Budd, pronounced him
out of danger; but Budd stepped forward and asked the man if he was
prepared to die, “for,” said he, “you will be dead before six o’clock
this evening.” No one present, not even the man himself, believed the
statement, as all was going on so favourably. But Budd was right, and
before sundown the man was dead. Dr. Budd considered it impossible that
he should recover from the blood-poisoning caused by taking into his
stomach the poisonous deposits in Sutton Pool.
A miserly old fellow who was well off in worldly goods visited Dr. Budd
at his “Cottage” in Westwell Street, and, thinking to save the guinea
fee, dressed himself in rags. The Doctor recognized him, but listened
patiently to the old man’s tale, and then asked him where he lived, to
which the man replied by naming a very poor part of the village near
his own residence and using a feigned name.
The Doctor said: “Do you know who lives in that big house in the place
with the door that has a pediment over it?” To which the old man
replied “Yes,” and mentioned his own name.
“Then,” said Dr. Budd, “call on that gentleman on your way home and
tell him that the devil will have him in a fortnight.”
A few days beyond the fortnight the old gentleman actually died.
A Dartmoor small farmer came to him one day, suffering from congestion
of the lungs. “You go home, and to bed at once,” said Dr. Budd; “and
here’s a draught for you to take internally, and here are some leeches
to apply externally.”
“Please, your honour, to write it down,” said John.
“Can you read?”
“Yes, I reckon, but my Mary can’t.”
So Dr. Budd wrote the instructions.
A week or fortnight later the patient called again. He was recovered.
“Well,” said the Doctor, “you took my prescriptions?”
“Aye, I reckon I did--and drashy things they were.”
“You put the leeches on?”
“I reckon I put ‘em in, sir. I read what you’d wrote and we understood
you to say that they was to be fried, so my Mary, her put the pan on
th’ vire, and a pat o’ butter and a shred o’ onion, and fried ’em, live
as they were. But they was cruel nasty, like bits of leather. But Lord!
for mussy’s sake, Doctor, don’t ax me to ate any more o’ them things.
I’d rayther take a whole box o’ pills all to wance.”
A gentleman called on him one day just before Budd sat down to dinner,
and brought with him his brother suffering from lock-jaw.
“I’m not going to be interfered with at my dinner for you or the King,”
said Budd; then to his servant, “Here, George, lay two plates for these
gentlemen, the one who can’t speak place opposite me at the bottom of
the table, and for the other gentleman in the middle on my left.”
Whether they would or no, the two visitors were obliged to comply;
they knew the imperious nature of the Doctor, and that unless he were
humoured, he would kick them out of the house and refuse to attend to
the patient.
A roast leg of mutton was placed before Dr. Budd; he proceeded to carve
a great slice, then took it and threw the slab of meat in the face of
the gentleman on his left, who staggered back and hastily seized his
napkin to wipe his face and sweep the juice from his shirt-front and
waistcoat. But before he had cleansed himself, slap came another slice
of mutton in his face, and then a third. At this the man with the
lock-jaw burst into a roar of laughter.
“There,” said Budd, “I have cured you: you will have to pay for a new
waistcoat for your brother, it’s messed with grease.”
Budd was sent for to visit a poor man who was bad with quinsy, could
not swallow, could not even speak. Said the Doctor to the patient’s
wife, “I be coming to dine with you, I and my assistant John.”
“Lor’ a mussy, sir, I ain’t got nothing fit for gentlevolks to dine on
here,” said the amazed woman.
“Here’s a guinea,” said Budd. “Go and get us a bottle of wine and make
us apple dumplings, and plenty of these latter. Will be here at one
o’clock.”
At the appointed hour, Budd and his assistant arrived. The table was
spread with a clean cloth, and humble but neat ware was placed on
it--all in the room where the patient was lying gasping for breath.
Budd and John seated themselves one at each end of the table; and the
dumplings were produced, round, hard, hot, and steaming. Budd took
one up in his hands, turned it about, and, all at once, threw it at
the head of his assistant, and caught him full crash between the
eyes. John sprang up. “Two can play at that game!” shouted he, and
catching up another dumpling threw it at the Doctor, who dodged, and
the apple burst its crust and remained clinging to the wall. This was
the beginning of a war of pelting with dumplings; and it so tickled the
patient that he burst out laughing and burst the quinsy.
He was visiting a labouring man who was weak, and Budd saw that what he
needed more than physic was good nourishing diet. Now that day he was
having mock-turtle soup at his table, so he sent a bowl of it to his
patient. The man looked into the bowl, saw the pieces of calf’s head
floating in it, shook his head, thrust it away, and said, “I can’t take
that, there’s too much of a surgeon’s trade in it to suit my stomach,
sure ’nuff.”
Budd was visiting a farmer in the country. Every time he left, a
prentice boy on the farm came with an anxious face to inquire how his
master was.
The Doctor was touched with the intense interest the lad took in the
condition of his master. One day as he left and the boy asked after the
farmer, Budd shook his head and said, “I fear it’s going bad with him.”
Thereupon the boy burst out into a loud bohoo of tears and sobs.
“There, there,” said the Doctor, “don’t take on so, my lad. It can’t be
helped.”
“Oh, you’d take on if you was in my place,” sobbed the youth, “for
missus makes us eat all the stock, pigs and what not, as dies on the
farm.”
He was visited in his consulting room by a patient who had lock-jaw.
“Come upstairs,” said he; “I can do nothing with you here.” He threw
open the door and preceded the man up the flight of stairs. When he had
got some way up he suddenly lurched against his patient, upset him,
and sent him rolling heels over head to the bottom of the staircase.
The man yelled out from the bottom, “Confound you, Doctor, you’ve
broken my arm!”
“Oh! is that all? I can set that. I have already loosened your jaw.”
He visited the late Mrs. Radford, an aged lady.
“What you want,” said he, “I’ll tell you. Get a boat and a pair of
sculls and row round Plymouth Sound; do that or be d---- d.”
“Doctor,” replied she, “I can’t do one--and I won’t be the other, not
even to please you.”
When he resided in George Street, Devonport, the young officers often
came to him to try, as the saying is now, “to pull his leg”; but they
rarely got the better of him. Once a couple called with grave faces to
inform him that a comrade had swallowed a blue-bottle fly, and that it
was buzzing about in his interior and made him feel very ill. Doctor
John went to an outhouse and returned with a fat spider, and gave it
to the young officers. “There,” said he; “tell your friend to swallow
that, and it will soon settle the blue-bottle.”
On another occasion, some officers whom he had served invited him to
dine at the mess with them, but, “No,” said he; “I never dine from
home.”
“Very well,” said they, “dine with you we will; and, if you will allow
us, we will order a dinner to be served in your own house.”
“No objection to that,” said Budd, and he protested afterwards that
they had given him the best dinner and the best wine he had ever eaten
and drunk in his life.
From Devonport he removed to Westwell Street, Plymouth, and this became
the Mecca of the poor, whom he attended with as much consideration as
the richest patients; and everyone took his or her turn; no favour was
shown to one who could pay above another who could not.
Dr. John Budd would attend at the workhouse, to see the sick there. One
day the master said to him, “There is Jose here again. He pretends that
he is doubled up with lumbago, or something of that sort. The fellow,
I believe, is a malingerer; he hates work, and he loves to be in the
infirmary and have extra rations.”
“I’ll deal with him,” said Budd; and he was shown into the ward where
Jose lay groaning and crying out.
“Where is it, man?” asked the Doctor.
“Oh, sir! cruel pains right across my body. I can’t walk; I can scarce
breathe. Oh! oh! oh!” and he began to howl.
“I must examine your back,” said the Doctor. “You must be placed on the
table and your spine bared.”
So the moaning rascal was placed, face downwards, on the board, and his
hands and feet tied. He did not like that; he said it hurt him “cruel
bad.” But it had to be done, and he was stripped to the waist.
“I’ll try Carne’s Balls on him,” said Dr. Budd. The fellow, looking out
of the corners of his eyes, saw an apparatus introduced, a couple of
iron balls like large bullets, with handles to them; then a spirit lamp
was lighted, and the balls were heated in the flame.
“I think I feel easier, sir,” said Jose, who did not relish the
preparations.
“But we’re going to make you quite well,” said the medical
practitioner; and flinging his leg across Jose’s hams he sat astride on
him, and signed to his assistant to hand him the heated balls.
With these he began to pound the patient in the small of the back. They
were not red hot, but nearly so, and the purpose of the application
was to raise round blisters.
Jose yelled. “Take it patiently,” said Budd; “it will do you good. Heat
the balls again.”
Further dabbing with the implement; vociferous yells from the patient.
“I am well! I’ve no more pain. Have mercy on me!”
At last he was disengaged and sent back to bed. Next day away went
Jose blistered in the back; not another visit from the Doctor would he
abide. Nor did he appear again in the Plymouth workhouse. The man was
well known elsewhere, and the master had communicated with other heads
of workhouses in Devon. A few weeks later Jose turned up at Newton
Abbot, and applied for admission into the workhouse; he was suffering
badly, very badly, with spasms in the heart. He was taken to the
infirmary, at once recognized, and the surgeon sent for.
“Humph!” said the medical man. “This is a case for Carne’s Balls, I
see. I’ve heard of him from Dr. Budd.”
“I’ll be shot if you try them on me!” roared Jose. “Let me go--I’m
better--I’m well.”