parents, Dr. Campbell of Largs, I knew very well. Good, genial, and
accomplished, he was a perfect gentleman, and equally at home dining with
Sir Thomas Brisbane, or drinking a cup of tea at some old woman's kitchen
fireside. He read the _Lancet_, and tried all new medicines, and
repeatedly, when going to London, at his request I procured the most
recent instruments for him. He was intimate with Dr. Chalmers, Lord
Jeffrey, Lord Moncrieff, Lord Cardwell, etc. In telling me of experiments
with Perkin's metallic tractors, and that the same results were obtained
with wooden ones, showing the power of imagination, he gave me a recent
curious illustration. He had lately had the old fashioned little panes of
glass taken out of the windows of his house, and plate glass inserted.
His mother, who did not know of the change, calling one afternoon, sat on
an easy chair, close by the gable window, knitting. On suddenly looking
round she said, "Oh John, I've been sitting all this time by an _open_
window," and forthwith she began to sneeze! She actually took cold, and
even afterwards could scarcely be persuaded that it had _not_ been an open
window, for she said she felt the cold! The doctor told me of an old
maiden lady who consulted him, and who, when he prescribed in a general
way, insisted on knowing exactly what ailed her. He said she was only
slightly nervous, and would soon be all right. This did not at all please
her, and she at once loudly protested--"Me nervous! There is not a nerve
in my whole body!"
A West India merchant, one of his patients whom I knew, he also told me,
one day said to him, "Doctor, for forty years I never knew I had a
stomach, and now I can think of nothing else!"
At the cholera time Dr. Campbell was laid down by the disease. The fact
spread like wildfire over the village, and, at once, prayer-meetings for
his recovery were called by the public bellman, meetings of _all_ the
different denominations, including the Roman Catholics (Dr. Campbell was a
Free Church Elder), and there were truly heartfelt rejoicings in the whole
district over his recovery.
I once asked him how he managed to get in his fees, since he never refused
to visit when sent for. He said that one year, from curiosity, he kept an
account of his gratuitous visits, and it ran into three figures; but he
never took the trouble to note them again, as it served no purpose.
Many years ago he went to his rest, and, at his request, during his last
illness, I paid him a farewell visit.
There are few finer descriptions of the country doctor than that contained
in Ian Maclaren's "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," a book which speaks
directly home to every true Scottish heart.
Dr. Campbell, in his large-hearted and genial Christian charity,
scientific research, and philosophical acquirements, always reminded me of
Sir Thomas Browne, "the beloved physician" of Norwich.
The following pleasing incident, relating to a medical man, came under my
own notice. I often visited a country minister, an intimate friend, a
learned man, and a genius, the quaint originality of whose observations
often reminded me of Fuller, the Church historian, or Charles Lamb.
Although of limited means, the Rev. Robert Winning, of Eaglesham, was ever
hospitable; if he knew of any poor student, he would invite him to the
manse for a month, on the plea that he would help to prepare him for his
examination in Hebrew and Greek. The old manse servant, also an original,
was paid a sum of money as compensation for refusing tips from visitors.
One day, seeing an advertisement of a new book in a magazine I was
reading, Mr. Winning remarked to me, "Andrew, I wish you would buy that
book, _cut the leaves_, and lend it to me to read!"
One evening a message reached him from the village inn, saying that a
doctor had come to an urgent case, which required him to stay over night,
that there was no room in the inn, and asking if the minister could give
him a bed. His wife, knowing the house was full, asked her husband what
they should do. His reply was, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Give him a room,
though we have to sleep on the floor." He was accordingly hospitably
entertained.
Some time after, the minister took ill. The medical guest heard of it,
went to see the local doctor, and, with his consent, visited the minister
twice a week, from a distance of nine miles, and for a period of some four
months, till his death. When the widow afterwards sent for his account, he
said there was none, for it had been more than discharged on the first
evening he had spent at the manse.
Dr. Stark, of Glasgow, who attended my family for years, was a skilful
practitioner, but eccentric. He generally made light of trifling ailments,
but was most energetic when aroused by any appearance of danger. I knew of
his being suddenly called in to see an old lady who was far gone in an
advanced stage of cholera. He at once asked to be shown over the house,
looked at the different fireplaces, but as none of them suited his
purpose, he went to the kitchen, threw off his coat, took out the range,
made a fire in the recess that would have roasted an ox, had the old lady
carried down in blankets and placed before it, worked energetically with
her the whole night, and brought her through. In a similar way he once
stayed over night and saved the life of one of my boys. One day I called
at his house, and, finding him with a bad cold, eyes red and watery,
throat husky, said, "Doctor, if you found me so, you would prescribe
placing the feet in hot water and mustard, warm gruel, medicine, and going
to bed! Physician, heal thyself!" The doctor's Shakespearian reply was,
"Do you think I am such a fool as to take physic?"
Once when accompanying me to the coast to visit one of my children, there
was a heavy sea on, and the steamer, on approaching the pier, rolled
alarmingly, and was close on a lee shore. A strange lady on board, in
terror, laid hold of the doctor, a tall, stalwart man, saying, "Oh! sir,
are we going to the bottom?" On which he said, dryly, "Behave yourself, if
you are going there, you are going in good company!" which odd answer
reassured and caused her to laugh.
In speaking of a Greek gem representing Cupid and Pysche, one day, when
driving in Wigtonshire with the late Dr. David Easton, a medical friend,
he said I had not given the correct pronunciation of the names. Always
willing to learn, I asked to be put right; whereupon, the doctor gravely
informed me that I ought to have said--Cupped and Physic!
I have spoken of the kindness of medical men, such as Dr. Garth Wilkinson,
to clergymen, artists, and literary men. I add one more expression of
gratitude, which is a good modern instance:--
When at St. Helens, in Jersey, during his last illness, my friend Samuel
Lover, the genial poet and artist, wrote the following lines to Dr. Dixon,
his friend and physician. I first copied them some years ago from Lover's
MS. note-book, kindly lent me by his widow when I was engaged in the
preparation of his life. Such cordial tributes are a good physician's most
highly-valued fees:--
"Whene'er your vitality
Is feeble in quality,
And you fear a fatality
May end the strife,
Then Dr. Joe Dickson
Is the man I would fix on
For putting new wicks on
The lamp of life."
From the many varied facts and incidents adduced in these pages, it will
be seen that, in anxiety or sorrow, the good family doctor is a true and
sympathetic friend, whose services can never be paid by gold.
Next to religion, nothing is more precious or comforting than the sympathy
of those who know and fully understand our sufferings, for, as my old
favourite, Sir Thomas Browne, to whom I ever revert with renewed pleasure,
truly and beautifully says:--"It is not the tears of our own eyes only,
but of our friends also, that do exhaust the current of our sorrows,
which, falling into many streams, runs more peaceably, and is contented
with a narrower channel."
Ye Ende
Index.
Abernethy, John, 206-208, 266
Advertisements, Curious, 155-159
Ague, Charms for, 240-241
Akenside, Mark, 109-111
Andrews, William, Barber-Surgeons, 1-7;
Touching for King's Evil, 8-23;
Assaying Meat and Drink, 24-31
Anne, Queen, 18-19
Assay Cups, 30-31
Assaying Meat and Drink, 24-31
Atkins, Dr. H., 264
Axon, W. E. A., The Doctor in the time of Pestilence, 125-139
Banks, Mrs. G. Linnaeus, Some Old Doctors, 192-208
Barber-Surgeons, 1-7
Barber's Pole, 6, 35
Bicycle, 23
Birmingham town's book, 15
Bisley, 15
Bishop, hanged, 167
Bishop and Williams, body-snatchers, 171-177
Blackmore, R. D., 118
Blackmore, Dr., 111-113
Black Art, 45
Bleeding, 7, 216
Blood, Circulation of the, 195
Blood in windows, 2
Boke of Jhon Caius, 127
Booker, Rev. Dr., on small-pox, 163-164
Bossy, a quack, 149
Brown, Dr. John, 115
Brown, Sir Thomas, 123, 124, 253-258, 278, 283
Bruce, King Robert the, 209
Buddhism, 67-68
Bulleyn, Dr., quoted, 219
Burke and Hare, 168
Burkers and Body-Snatchers, 167-180
Burning for disease, 46
Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," 259-260
Byron quoted, 187
Campbell, Dr., 276, 278
Cancer, Curious treatment for, 222
Carriages, 22-23
Celestials and medicine, 58-61
Chalmers, John, M.D., 115
Charms, 43-44, 52
Chaucer's Doctor of Physic, 70-75
Chester in plague time, 133-135;
Touching at, 17
Cholera, Reminiscences of, 181-191
Circulation of the blood, 195
Colic, Charm for, 248
Cooper, Sir Astley, 170, 179, 268
Coryat, 141
Cramp, Charm, 52;
Strange cure for, 249
Croydon, Cholera at, 185-186, 190
Crusade, 209
Cumming, Dr. W. F., 114-115
Cupping, 217
Curious prescriptions, 226
Dickens, Charles, Satires by, 65-66
Dickens' Doctors, 90-101
Dimsdale, Dr., 264
Disinfectants in sticks, 33
Disputes between surgeons and barbers, 5
Doctor in the time of Pestilence, 125-139
Doctors Shakespeare Knew, 76-89
Dog bites, 242
Douglas, Sir James, 209
Doyle, Dr. Conan, 118
"Drunk by George," 270
Ecclesfield, 16
Edward the Confessor, 8-9
Egyptians and Magic, 57-58
Elizabeth, Queen, at dinner, 28-29
Erysipelas, 243
Eskimo Medicine Men, 61-63
Faith Cures, 42
Famous Literary Doctors, 102-124
Fees, London, 273-274
Food taken in fear, 24
Freind, John, 196
Frost, Thomas, Dickens' Doctors, 90-101.
Mountebanks and Medicine, 140-152.
The Strange Fight with the Small-pox, 153-166.
Burkers and Body-Snatchers, 167-180.
Reminiscences of the Cholera, 181-191
Galen, 120
Gallows, superstitions respecting, 249
Gild, Barbers', 2
Gold-headed Cane, 32-41
Grave-mould, 45
Greatrake, Valentine, 82
Great Plague of London, 136-139
Hall, Dr., 88-89
Harvey, Wm., 194-196
Heart of Bruce, 210
Hentzner in England, 28
Hill, Sir John, 114
Hodges, Dr., 137
Holbein, Picture by, 3
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 106-108
How our Fathers were Physicked, 216-233
Hunter, John, 198
Hunter, William, 199
Hunterian Museum, 205
Jaundice, 251
Jenner, 159-162
Johnston, Arthur, 122-123
Johnson, Dr., touched for the evil, 18-19
Kerr, Dr., 275
Langford, J. A., LL.D., How our Fathers were Physicked, 216
Latimer on Mercenary Physicians, 260
Lee Penny, 209-215
Lettsom, J. C., 35, 263
Liver, eating human, 51
Lockhart, Sir Simon, 211-213
Lotteries, 151
Lover, Samuel, 282
Macbeth, quoted, 9
Mashonaland, Credulity in, 63-65
Magic and Medicine, 42-69
Manchester in plague time, 135-136
Mead, Dr., 265
Medical Folk Lore, 234-251
Medical Students, 97-98
Merry Andrew, 141-151
Mercenary Physicians, 260
Metals and precious stones used, 218
Mountebanks and Medicine, 140-152
Mouse, roasted, prescribed, 221
Moir, D. M., 116-118
Montagu, Lady May, 153-154, 162
Monks as surgeons, 1;
forbidden to bleed, 2
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Siege of, 213
Nicholson, John, Medical Folk-Lore, 234-251
North American Indian medicine men, 52-56
O'Brien, Giant, 202
Of Physicians and their Fees, 252-283
Parliament, Folly of, 223
Phillips, John, 111
Pilgrim's Staff, 32
Planetary Influence, 250
Plantagenent kings touching for the evil, 10
Pontefract Castle, 27
Pole, Barber's, 6
Preston records, 17
Radcliffe's cane, 33
Rain-water doctor, 261
Reminiscences of the Cholera, 181-191
Revolting prescriptions, 225
Richardson, Sir B. W., 202, 204
Rings from hinges of coffins, 249
Robinson, Tom, M.D., The Gold-headed Cane, 32-41
Rochester, Earl of, 144
Rheumatism, 238
Sacrificing for disease, 47-49
Skull, Human, Medical uses, 227
Small-pox, Old receipt for, 72
Smith, Sydney, Witty remark, 261
Some Old Doctors, 192-208
St. Agnes' Eve, 241
Stark, Dr., 280-281
Statute of Labourers, 124-125
Strange Stories, 262
Strange Story of the Fight with the Small Pox, 153-166
Stuart kings touching for the evil, 12-14
Suicide's skull, Drinking from, 50
Symington, A. J., Of Physicians and their Fees, 252-283
Tooth-drawing, 5
Thompson, W. H., Chaucer's Doctor of Physic, 70-75
Thurlow, Lord, on Barbers and Surgeons, 6
Thompson, Sir Henry, 115
Tobacco, Poet's Praise of, 111
Tournament, 186
Toothache, Folk-lore of, 235-237, 249
Toad, 227
Touching for the King's Evil, 8-23
Touch-pieces, 11, 20-21
Terling, Essex, 15
Tudor Kings touching for the Evil, 11
Verney Family, 229-233
Visiting Patients, 22-23
Wall, A. H., Doctors Shakespeare Knew, 76-89
Walters, Cuming, Magic and Medicine, 42-69;
Famous Literary Doctors, 102-124
Warren, Samuel, 116
Warts, Charms for, 247
Whooping cough, 244-246
Wig, 35
William III. refuses to touch, 18
Winchester, Mountebank at, 147-148
Witchcraft, 49-50, 242
York records, 16-17
Zulu doctors, 65
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Chester in the Plantagenet and Tudor Periods," by Rupert H. Morris,
1894, pp. 78-79.
[2] The _Asclepiad_, Vol. viii.
[3] Act ii., sc. 2.
[4] Dyer's English Folk Lore, p. 156.
[5] Dyer's English Folk Lore, p. 158.
[6] _Records of York Castle_, p. 230.
[7] Folk Lore Journal, v. 5.
[8] Vol. i., p. 761.
[9] P. 353.
[10] P. 273.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}.
The original text contains letters with diacritical marks that are not
represented in this text version.