_Marina._ ... Should I tell my history,
'Twould seem like lies disdained in the reporting.
_Pericles._ Pray thee, speak.--_Shakspeare._
ORIGIN AND APPLICATION OF "HUMBUG."--A FIFTH AVENUE HUMBUG.--JOB'S
OPINION OF DOCTORS.--EARLY PHYSICIANS.--PRIESTS AS DOCTORS.--WIZARDS
COME TO GRIEF.--A "CAPITAL" OPERATION.--A WOMAN CUT INTO TWELVE
PIECES.--ANECDOTE.--ROBIN HOOD'S LITTLE JOKE.--TIT FOR TAT.--ENGLISH
HUMBUGS.--FRENCH DITTO.--A FORTUNE ON DIRTY WATER.--AMERICAN
HUMBUGS.--A FIRST CLASS "DODGE."--A FREE RIDE.--A SHARP
INTERROGATOR.--DOCTOR PUSBELLY.--A WICKED STAGE-DRIVER'S STORY.--"OLD
PILGARLIC" TAKES A BATH.--LUDICROUS SCENE.--PROFESSOR BREWSTER.
Medical humbugs began to exist with the first pretenders to the science of
healing. Quacks originated at a much later period. So materially different
are the two classes, that I am compelled to treat of them separately.
The word _humbug_ is a corruption of _Hamburg_, Germany, and seems to have
originated in London. The following episode is in illustration of both its
origin and meaning:--
"O, Bridget, Bridget!" exclaimed the fashionable mistress of a brown stone
front in Fifth Avenue, New York, to her surprised servant girl, "what have
you been doing at the front door?"
"Och, murther! Nothin', ma'am."
"Nothing!" repeated the mistress.
"Yes'm--that is--" stammered Bridget, greatly embarrassed.
"What were you doing at the front door but a moment since?"
"Nothin', ma'am, but spakin' to me cousin; he's a p'leeceman, ma'am, if ye
plaze, ma'am," replied Bridget, dropping a low courtesy to the mistress.
"No, no; I did not mean that. But haven't you been cleaning the door-knob
and the bell-pull?"
"Yes'm," replied Bridget, changing from embarrassment to surprise.
"Why, Bridget, didn't I tell you never to polish the front door-knobs
during the warm season? Now my friends will think that I have returned
from Saratoga--"
"And is it to Saratogy ye've been, ma'am?" exclaimed Bridget.
"No, you dunce; but was not the front of the house closed, and the
servants forbidden to polish the plates and glass, that my friends might
be led to believe we had all gone to the watering-place?"
That was true humbug. Double humbuggery! for the servant girl was
humbugging her mistress by pretending to polish the door-knobs, while she
was really coqueting with a policeman; and the mistress was humbugging her
friends into the belief that the house was closed, and the family gone to
Saratoga.
So, Hamburg, on the Elbe, being a fashionable resort of the upper-ten-dom
of London, those who would ape aristocracy, yet being unable to bear the
expense of a trip to the Continent, closed the front of their dwellings,
moved into the rear, giving out word that they had gone to _Hamburg_.
When a house was observed so closed, with a notice on the door, the
passers by would wag their heads, and exclaim, questionably, "Ah, gone to
Hamburg!" or, "All gone to Hamburg!" "It's all Hamburg!" and so on. And,
like a thousand other words in the English language, this became
corrupted, and "humbug" followed. Hence, taking the sense from the
derivation of the word, humbug means "an imposition, under fair
pretences;" cheat; hoax; a deception without malicious intent. Webster
says it is "a low word."
The humbugs in medicine, we assert, began to exist with the first persons
of whom we have any account in the history of the healing art. Among the
early Egyptian physicians, Æsculapius was esteemed as the most celebrated.
He was the first humbug in his line. However, nearly all the accounts we
have of him are mythological. If we are to credit the early writers, this
great healer restored so many to life, that he greatly interfered with
undertaker Pluto's occupation, who picked a quarrel with Æsculapius, and
the two referred the matter to Jupiter for adjudication.
But we may go back of this "god of medicine." If he was physician to the
Argonauts, we must fix the date of his great exploits at about the year B.
C. 1263. It is claimed by good authority that the Book of Job dates back
to B. C. 1520, and is the oldest book extant. Herein we find Job saying,
"Ye are forgers of lies; ye are all physicians of no value." Since his
friends were trying their best to humbug him, Job certainly intimates that
physicians--some of them, at least--were looked upon as humbugs. But,
then, Job was only an Arab prince; not an Israelite, at all; nor does he
condescend to mention that "peculiar people" in his book. And besides,
what reliance can be based upon the opinion of a man respecting
physicians, whose only surgical instrument consisted of a "piece or
fragment of a broken pot"?
Therefore, leaving the "Arab prince," we will turn for a moment to the
early Jewish physicians. Josephus does not enlighten us much respecting
them. The Old Testament makes mention of physicians in three
instances,--the last figuratively.
The first instance--a rather amusing one--where physicians are mentioned
in the sacred writings, is in 2 Chron. xvi. 12: "And Asa, in the
thirty-ninth year of his reign, was diseased in his feet, until the
disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord,
but to the physicians." The compiler adds, very coolly, as though a
natural consequence, "_And Asa slept with his fathers_!" This reminds us
of an anecdote by the late Dr. Waterhouse. An Irishman obtained twenty
grains of morphine, which, instead of quinine, he took at one dose, to
cure the chills. The doctor, in relating it long afterwards, added,
laconically, "He being a good Catholic, his funeral was numerously
attended."
For generations nearly all the pretensions to healing were made by the
priests and magicians, who humbugged and "bamboozled" the ignorant and
superstitious rabble to their hearts' content. Kings and subjects were
alike believers in the Magi. Saul believed in the magic powers of the
"witch of Endor." The wicked king Nebuchadnezzar classed Daniel and his
three companions with the magicians, although Daniel (chap. xi. 10) denied
the imputation. Joseph laid claim to the power of divination; for, having
caused the silver cup to be placed in the sack of corn, and after having
sent and brought his brother back, he said (Gen. xliv. 15), "What deed is
this that ye have done? Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly
divine?" It seemed necessary to deal with the people according to their
belief. It was useless to dispute with them. As late as the preaching of
Paul and Barnabas, the whole nations of Jews and Greeks were so tinctured
with belief in magic and enchantment in healing, taught and promulgated by
the priesthood, that when the apostles healed the cripple of Lystra, the
rabble, headed by the priests, cried out, "The gods are come down to us in
the likeness of men." And they called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul
Mercurius.
The town clerk in the theatre said to the excited crowd, "These men are
neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess."
Diana was appealed to for women in childbirth; Mercurius for the healing
of cutaneous diseases (_herpes_), probably because he carried a _herpe_,
or short sword, also, at times, the caduceus; and Jupiter for various
diseases. But to return to the times of Saul and David.
It seems that the business became overcrowded, and the vilest and most
degraded of both sexes swelled the ranks of sorcerers, astrologers, and
spiritualists, until every class and condition of people became
impregnated with these beliefs, from kings to the lowest subject. Finally,
the strong arm of the law laid hold of them, and the edict went forth that
"a witch shall not live," that "a wizard shall be put to death," and that
"the soothsayer be stoned."
Nevertheless, the wretches continued to practise their deceptions, but
less openly for a time, and they are made mention of throughout the sacred
writings, until "the closing of the canon."
But the Scriptures are almost totally silent on surgery, and the remedies
resorted to by those pretending to the science--as also by physicians and
priests--were such as to lead us to believe that their _materia medica_
was very limited. Under the head of Ridiculous Prescriptions, we shall
mention these remedies:--
The earliest record we find of surgical operations in the Old Testament is
in Judges xix. 29,--a "capital operation," we may judge, for the account
informs us that the patient, a woman, "was divided into twelve pieces."
Turning to the profane writers for information, we plunge into an abyss of
uncertainty, with this exception; that the practice of medicine--it could
not be called a science--was still in the hands of the priesthood, and
partook largely of the fabulous notions of the age, being connected almost
entirely with idolatries and humbuggeries. The cunning priests caused the
rabble, from first to last, to believe that all disease was inflicted, not
from the violation of the laws of nature, but by some angry and outraged
divinity, whose wrath must be appeased by bribes (_paid to the priests_),
by incantations, and absurd ceremonies, or else the afflicted victim must
die a painful death, and forever after suffer a more horrible eternity.
The priests' receiving the pay reminds us of the following little
anecdote.
A very pious man, recently congratulating a convalescing patient upon his
recovery, asked his friend who had been his physician.
"Dr. Blank brought me safely through," was his reply.
"No, no," said the friend, "God brought you out of this affliction, and
healed you,--not the doctor."
"Well," replied the man, "may be he did; but I am sure that the doctor
will charge me for it."
The offices of priest and physician were united among the Jews, Heathens,
Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans. The Druids (from _draoi_, magician) ruled
and ruined the ancient Celts, Gauls, Britons, and Germans. The people of
these nations looked up to the priests as though life and death and
immortality hung only upon their lips. Among our aborigines we have also
examples of the double office of priest and "medicine man." And it is an
astonishing fact, that notwithstanding the ignorance of the pretenders to
healing, or the ridiculousness of the prescriptions, or the exorbitant
fees, the rabble of the age relied upon them with the most implicit
confidence. If the patient recovered, the priests--embodying the gods--had
restored them by their great skill and the favor of some particular
divinity, and so were worshipped, and again rewarded with other fees to
offer sacrifices to the individual god who was supposed to favor the
priest or wizard. If he died it was the will of the gods that it should so
be, and the friends lost none of their faith in the abilities of their
medical and spiritual advisers.
The priests could not be disposed of so easily as the witches and wizards
were supposed to have been, for they kept the people under greater fear,
and held the balance of power in their own hands. The only difference
between the priests and wizards was, that the former _claimed_ to exercise
their arts by the power of the gods, while the latter were said to be
assisted by the evil spirits. The priests claimed this in the times of
Christ, and tried to persuade the rabble that he was assisted by
Beelzebub. While the grasping priesthood professed poverty and
self-denial, they were continually enriching themselves by robberies and
extortions upon the ignorant and superstitious common people.
A mirth-provoking anecdote is told of Robin Hood and two friars, which we
cannot forbear relating here as illustrative of the above assertion. If
our readers regard stories from such a source as very uncertain, we have
only to reply that we are now dealing with "uncertainties."
"One day, Robin disguised himself as a friar, and went out on the highway.
Very soon he met two priests, to whom he appealed for charity in the
blessed Virgin's name.
"'That we would do, were it in our power,' they replied.
"'I fear you are so addicted to falsehood, I cannot believe that you have
no money, as you say. However, let us all down on our marrow bones, and
pray the Virgin to send us some money.'
"'No, no,' replied the priests; 'it is of no use.'
"'What! have you no faith in your patron saint? Down, I say, and pray.'
"In fear, down fell the two priests, and Robin by their side, and all
prayed most lustily.
"'Now feel in your pockets,' said Robin, rising.
"'There is nothing,' they replied, plunging their hands deep into their
cloaks.
"'Down again, and pray harder,' shouted Robin, drawing his sword.
"Down they fell, and mumbled over their Latin, but declared the gods had
sent them nothing.
"'I do not believe you,' said Robin; 'you ever were a pack of liars. Let
each stand a search, that we deceive not each other.' So Robin turned his
own empty pockets wrong side out, then compelled the friars to follow
suit, when lo! out fell five hundred pieces of gold.
"When Robin saw this glorious sight, he berated the priests soundly, and
taking the gold, went away to Sherwood, and made merry at the expense of
the church."
About 1185 B. C. we find among the Grecians some traces of what was termed
the healing art. But fact and fable, history and mythology, are so mixed
and blended, that it is impossible to gain any reliable information so far
back.
Chiron is made mention of as having acquired much celebrity as a
physician. It is claimed that he was learned in the arts and sciences,
that he taught astronomy to Hercules, music to Apollo, and medicine to
Æsculapius, who came from Egypt. From what can be gleaned, of reliability,
it seems that he employed simple medicines, and possessed some knowledge
of dressing wounds and reducing fractures and dislocations; but no doubt
he pretended to greater things than the times would warrant, for, when
shot by an arrow from the bow of Hercules, his former pupil, he was unable
to heal the wound, and begged Jupiter to "set him up" among the stars,
which request was complied with, and Chiron was translated to the heavens,
where he still shines in the constellation Sagittarius, represented as a
centaur, with drawn bow, driving before him the other eleven signs of the
zodiac.
We have alluded to Æsculapius, and, passing over all others of his class,
we come to the times of Hippocrates.
Hippocrates is rightly called the "Father of Medicine," for he was the
first to raise medicine to a science. We mention him without classing him
with humbugs; but Menecrates, who flourished about the same time, arrived
at great notoriety by ruse and deception. He was "famous for vanity and
arrogance." He went about accompanied by some patients, whom he claimed to
have cured, as proofs of his great ability. One he disguised as Apollo,
another he arrayed in the habit of Æsculapius, and sent them abroad to
sound his praise, while he took upon himself the garb, and assumed the
character, of Jupiter.
Pliny says that medicine was the last of the sciences introduced into
Rome, and that the Septimont City was six hundred years without a regular
physician. Archagathus, a Grecian, settled in Rome about 300 B. C., and if
he was a fair sample of those who followed him, it had been better for
Rome that it had remained another six hundred years "without a regular
physician." He introduced cruel and painful escharotics, and made free use
of the knife and the lancet. He was a humbug of the first water, and a
quack besides, and as such he was banished in a few years.
The Christian era introduced some light into the medical, as well as the
religious world; yet we learn, by both sacred and profane writers, that
truth and knowledge were the exceptions, and ignorance and humbug were the
rule by which medicine was practised by those who pretended to the art.
Names changed, characters remained the same.
The priests still held their own, and were not, as already shown, to be
gotten rid of, as the witches and wizards, their rivals and imitators, by
litigation, nor was their power broken until the Decree of the Council of
Tours in 1163 A. D., which prohibited priests and deacons from performing
certain surgical operations.
After the Reformation the vocations of spiritual and medical adviser
diverged wider and wider, until now a priest or minister is seldom
consulted for bodily infirmities, and only by persons of the most ignorant
and superstitious denominations.
Setting the priesthood aside did not suppress humbugs in medicine. In fact
the profession went into disrepute, which the priests hastened, and a
lower order of people took upon themselves the practice of deceiving the
sick and afflicted. Now and then a greater humbug than common would spring
up, and for a time draw the rabble after him, till the next arose to
eclipse him.
From the discovery of America to about 1600, ambitious upstarts, humbugs,
and seekers of fame and fortune were drawn away from the old world, and
either for this reason, or because the biographers were attracted to a
more interesting field, accounts of medical celebrities are very meagre;
but from the latter period to the present day there has been no lack of
records from which to draw our material.
During the 17th and 18th centuries medical impostors had things all their
own way. Ignorance was no hinderance to advancement, socially or
pecuniarily. Some men published, in their own names, voluminous works, in
both English and Latin, which they themselves could not read. By soft
words and cunning arts others gained high positions, and, without
knowledge of the first branch of medical science, became "court
physicians."
From the lowest walks, they rose up on every side: from the cobbler's
bench, and the tailor's board; from cutting up meat in the butcher's shop,
to "cutting up" naughty boys in a pedagogue's capacity; from shaving the
unwashed rabble behind the striped barber's pole, to shaving their wives
behind counters, where they measured the cloth of the weaver, they became
cobblers of poor healths, butchers of men, and shavers of the invalided
public. But these will be discoursed of under another head.
We here offer one proof of this state of affairs by a quotation from the
original charter of the first College of Physicians, granted by Henry
VIII., which reads, "Before this period a great multitude of ignorant
persons, of which the greater part had no insight into physic, _nor into
any other kind of learning_,--some could not even read the Book,--so far
forth that common artificers, as smiths, weavers, and women boldly and
accustomedly took upon themselves great cures, to the high displeasure of
God, great infamy of the faculty, and the grievous hurt, damage, and
destruction of many of the king's liege people."
The meetings of this august body (College of Physicians) were held at the
house of Dr. Linacre. "He was a gentleman of distinction, both as a
physician and scholar." He became disgusted with physic, and took "holy
orders" five years before his death. He was one of the original
petitioners of the charter, which complained that the above rabble of
doctors could not read the Book (Bible). Now see the ignorance--the
hypocrisy of the man!
Dr. Caius, who wrote his epitaph, says of Linacre, "He certainly was not a
very profound theologian, for a short time before his death he read the
New Testament for the first time, when, so greatly was he astonished at
finding the rules of Christianity so widely at variance with their
practice, that he threw down the sacred volume in a passion, saying,
'Either this is not gospel, or we are not Christians.'" This was just
prior to 1600.
This Dr. Caius is supposed to be the same character whom Shakspeare
introduced in his "_Merry Wives of Windsor_;" and as it is a fact patent
to all that the great poet had no very exalted opinion of doctors, and
would "throw physic to the dogs," it has been suggested that Caius was
produced by him on that ground.
There are others of this and a later period, whom, though ranking amongst
the greatest of humbugs, we defer mentioning here, but will notice in our
chapter on quacks.
Mr. Jeaffreson, in his excellent work, "Book About Doctors," to which work
I am indebted for several anecdotes, says,--
"The lives of three physicians--Sydenham, Sir Hans Sloane, and
Heberden--completely bridge over the uncertain period between old
empiricism and modern science."
The former, Dr. Thomas Sydenham, was born at Windford Eagle, Dorsetshire,
England, in 1624, and was esteemed as an excellent physician and profound
scholar of his day. Nothing is known of his boyhood. For a time he was a
soldier. He was about forty years old when admitted a member of the
College of Physicians. Dr. Richard Blackmore, his contemporary, who was
but a pedagogue at the outstart himself, but afterwards knighted as Sir
Richard, says of Dr. Sydenham, "He was only a disbanded officer, who
entered upon the practice of medicine for a maintenance, without any
preparatory learning." The fact of his possessing a diploma went for
nothing, since Dr. Meyersbach obtained his about this time for a few
shillings, and without the rudiments of an education, made a splendid
living out of the credulity even of the most learned and fashionable
classes of English society, and arrived at the height of honor and
distinction.
The reader must admit that diplomas were cheap honors, when one was
granted to a dog! A young English gentleman, for the sport of the thing,
paid the price of a medical diploma soon after Dr. Meyersbach's was
granted, and had it duly recorded in the archives of the college (Erfurth)
as having been awarded to Anglicus Ponto.
"And who was Anglicus Ponto?"
"None other than the gentleman's dog--a fine mastiff."
But this question was not asked till too late to prevent the joke. It had
the good effect, however, to raise at once the price of degrees.
Dr. Sydenham published several medical works, copies of which are now
extant, but his pretensions to skill availed him but little in time of
need. His prescriptions--some of them, at least--were very absurd, and
during his latter years, while enjoying a lucrative practice, and
possessing the utmost confidence of the _bon ton_, he suffered
excruciating pains from the gout, which, with other complications, ended
his days. "Physician, heal thyself."
[Illustration: DR. ANGLICUS PONTO.]
Dr. Blackmore, an aspirant to medical fame, applied to Dr. Sydenham, while
residing in Pall Mall, with the following inquiry:--
"What is the best course of study for a medical student?"
"Read Don Quixote," was Sydenham's reply. "It is a very good book. I read
it yet." I find this in a biographical dictionary of 1779. While some
biographers endeavor to pass this off as a joke, it is a well-known fact
that the doctor was a sceptic in medicine, and those who knew him best
believe that he meant just what he said.
On the arrival of Dr. Sloane in London, he waited on Dr. Sydenham, as
being the great gun of the town at that time, and presented a letter of
introduction, in which an enthusiastic friend had set forth Sloane's
qualifications in glowing language, as being perfected in anatomy, botany,
and the various branches of medicine. Sydenham finished the letter, threw
it on the table, eyed the young man very sharply, and said,--
"Sir, this is all very fine, on paper--very fine; but it won't do.
Anatomy! botany! Nonsense. Why, sir, I know an old woman in Covent Garden
who better understands botany; and as for anatomy, no doubt my butcher can
dissect a joint quite as well. No, no, young man; this is all stuff. You
must go to the bedside; it is only there that you can learn disease."
In spite of this mortifying reception, however, Sydenham afterwards took
the greatest interest in Dr. Sloane, frequently taking the young man with
him in his chariot on going his rounds.
In "Lives of English Physicians," the author, in writing of Dr. Sydenham,
says, "At the commencement of his practice, it is handed down to us, that
it was his ordinary custom, when consulted by patients for the first time,
to hear attentively their story, and then reply, "Well, I will consider
your case, and in a few days will prescribe something for you;" thereby
gaining time to look up such a case. He soon learned that this
deliberation would not do, as some forgot to return after "a few days,"
and to save his fees he was obliged, _nolens volens_, to prescribe on the
spot.
A further proof of his contemptible opinion of deriving knowledge from
books, as expressed above to Dr. Blackmore, is exemplified and
corroborated in an address to Dr. Mapletoft (1675).
"The medical art could not be learned so well and surely as by use and
experience, and that he who would pay the nicest and most accurate
attention to the symptoms of distempers, would succeed best in finding out
the true means of cure."
"Riding on horseback," he says, in one of his books, "will cure all
diseases except confirmed consumption." How about curing gout?
A very amusing, though painful picture, is drawn by Dr. Winslow, a
reliable author of the seventeenth century, in his book, "Physic and
Physicians:"--
"Dr. Sydenham suffered extremely from the gout. One day, during the latter
part of his life, he was sitting near an open window, on the ground floor
of his residence in St. James Square, inspiring the cool breeze on a
summer's afternoon, and reflecting, with a serene countenance and great
complacency on the alleviation of human misery that his skill enabled him
to give. Whilst this divine man was enjoying this delicious reverie, and
occasionally sipping his favorite beverage from a silver tankard, in which
was immersed a sprig of rosemary, a sneak thief approached, and seeing the
helpless condition of the old doctor, stole the cup, right before his
eyes, and ran away with it. The doctor was too lame to run after him, and
before he could stir to ring and give alarm the thief was well off."
[Illustration: MISFORTUNES NEVER COME SINGLY.]
This reminds one of a story of an old man who stood in a highway, leaning
on his staff, and crying, in a feeble, croaking voice, "Stop thief! stop
thief!"
"What is the matter, sir?" inquired a fellow, approaching.
"O, a villain has stolen my hat from my head, and run away."
"Your hat!" looking at the bare head; "why didn't you run after him?"
"O, my dear sir, I can't run a step. I am very lame."
"Can't run! then here goes your wig." And so saying, the fellow caught the
poor old man's wig, and scampered away at the top of his speed.
Dr. Sydenham died December 29, 1689. He could not be termed a quack, but
certainly he was a consummate humbug.
An author, before quoted, after copying a description of the "poor
physician" of the age, adds,--
"How it calls to mind the image of Dr. Oliver Goldsmith, when, with a
smattering of medical knowledge and a German diploma, he tried to pick out
of the miseries and ignorance of his fellow-creatures the means of keeping
soul and body together! He, too, poet and doctor, would have sold a pot of
rouge to a faded beauty, or a bottle of hair dye, or a nostrum warranted
to cure the bite of a mad dog."
"Set a rogue to catch a rogue." And to this principle we are indebted for
the exposition of many fallacies and humbugs pursued by early physicians
in order to gain practice.
"Dr. Radcliffe," says Dr. Hannes, "on his arrival in London, employed half
of the porters in town to call for him at the coffee-houses (a famous
resort of physicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) and
places of public resort, so that his name might become known."
On the other hand, Radcliffe accused Dr. Hannes of the same trick a few
years later. Doctors were doctors' own worst enemies. Instead of standing
by each other of the same school, in lip service, or passing by each
other's errors and imperfections in silence, as they do nowadays, they
quarrelled continually, accusing each other of the very tricks they
practised themselves.
Of Dr. Meade it was confidently asserted, that without practice at first,
he opened extensive correspondence with all the nurses and midwives in his
vicinity, associated and conversed with apothecaries and gossips, who,
hoping for his trade, would recommend him as a skilful practitioner. The
ruse worked, and soon the doctor found his calls were _bona fide_. This is
a trick that some American physicians we know of may have learned from Dr.
Meade. Certainly they know and practise the deception.
When Dr. Hannes went to London, he opened the campaign with a coach and
four. The carriage was of the most imposing appearance, the horses were
the best bloods, sleek and high-spirited, the harnesses and caparisons of
the richest mountings of silver and gold, with the most elegant trimmings.
"By Jove, Radcliffe!" exclaimed Meade, "Dr. Hannes' horses are the finest
I have ever seen."
"Umph," growled Radcliffe, "then he will be able to sell them for all the
more." But Dr. Radcliffe's _prognosis_ was at fault for once; and
notwithstanding all the prejudice that Radcliffe and his friends could
bring to bear against Hannes, and the lampooning verses spread broadcast
against him, he kept his "fine horses," and rode into a flourishing
business.
To make his name known, Dr. Hannes used to send liveried footmen running
about the streets, with directions to poke their heads into every coach
they met, and inquire anxiously, "Is Dr. Hannes here?" "Is this Dr.
Hannes' carriage?" etc.
Acting upon these orders, one of these fellows, after looking into every
carriage from Whitehall to Royal Exchange, ran into a coffee-house, which
was one of the great places of meeting for members of the medical
profession. Several physicians were present, among whom was Radcliffe.
"Gentlemen," said the liveried servant, hat in hand, "can your honors tell
me if Dr. Hannes is present?"
"Who wants Dr. Hannes, fellow?" demanded Radcliffe.
"Lord A. and Lord B., your honor," replied the man.
"No, no, friend," responded the doctor, with pleasant irony; "those lords
don't want _your master_; 'tis he who wants them."
The humbug exploded, but Hannes had got the start before this occurred.
A worthy biographer begins thus, in writing of Dr. Radcliffe: "The
Jacobite partisan, the physician without learning, the luxurious _bon
vivant_, Radcliffe, who grudged the odd sixpence of his tavern score,"
etc., "was born in Yorkshire, in the year 1650."
But notwithstanding Radcliffe's plebeian birth, he died rich, therefore
respected--a fact which hides many sins and imperfections. He not only
humbugged the people of his day into the belief that he was a learned and
eminent physician, but by his shrewdness in disposing of his gains, in
bestowing wealth where it would tell in after years, when his body had
returned to the dust from whence it came,--such as giving fifty thousand
dollars to the Oxford University as a fund for the establishment of the
great "Radcliffe Library," etc.,--he succeeded in humbugging subsequent
generations into the same belief.
Certainly there is room for a few more such humbugs.
Dr. Barnard de Mandeville, in "Essays on Charity and Charity Schools,"
says of Radcliffe, "That a man with small skill in physic, and hardly any
learning, should by vile arts get into practice, and lay up wealth, is no
mighty wonder; but that he should so deeply work himself into the good
opinion of the world as to gain the general esteem of a nation, and
establish a reputation beyond all contemporaries, with no other qualities
but a perfect knowledge of mankind, and a capacity of making the most of
it, is something extraordinary."
Mandeville further accuses him of "an insatiable greediness after wealth,
no regard for religion, or affection for kindred, no compassion for the
poor, and hardly any humanity to his fellow-creatures; gave no proofs that
he loved his country, had a public spirit, or love of the arts, books, or
literature;" and asks, in summing up all this, "What must we judge of his
motives, the principle he acted from, when after his death we find that he
left but a mere trifle among his (poor) relatives who stood in need, and
left an immense treasure to a university that did not want it?"
"Radcliffe was not endowed with a kindly nature," says another writer.
"Meade, I love you," he is represented as saying to his fascinating
adulator, "and I will tell you a secret to make your fortune. Use all
mankind ill."
Radcliffe had practised what he preached. Though mean and penurious, he
could not brook meanness in others.
The rich miser, John Tyson, approximating his end, magnanimously resolved
to pay two of his three million guineas to Dr. Radcliffe for medical
advice. The miserable old man, accompanied by his wife, came up to London,
and tottered into the doctor's office at Bloomsbury Square.
"I wish to consult you, sir; here are two guineas."
"You may go, sir," exclaimed Radcliffe.
The old miser had trusted that he was unknown, and he might pass for a
poor wretch, unable to pay the five guineas expected from the wealthy, as
a single consultation fee.
"You may go home and die, and be d----d; for the grave and the devil are
ready for Jack Tyson of Hackney, who has amassed riches out of the public
and the tears of orphans and widows."
As the miserable old man turned away, Radcliffe exclaimed, "You'll be a
dead man in less than ten days."
It required little medical skill, in the feeble condition of the old man,
in order to give this correct prognosis.
Radcliffe was the Barnum of doctors. "_Omnia mutantur, et nos mutamus in
illis_," exclaimed Lotharius the First. But that "all things are changed,
and we change with them," did not apply to medical humbugs during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--no, nor in the nineteenth century,
as we will show, particularly in our articles on Quacks and Patent
Medicines.
[Illustration: THE MISER OUTWITS HIMSELF.]
The requisites essential to success are amusingly described by a writer of
the former time, as follows:--
_First._ A decent black suit, and (if your credit will stretch so far), a
plush jacket, not a pin the worse if threadbare as a tailor's cloak--it
shows the more reverend antiquity.
_Second._ You must carry a caduceus, or cane, like Mercury, capped with a
civet-box (or snuff-box like Sir Richard's), and must walk with becoming
gravity, as if in deep contemplation upon an arbitrament between life and
death.
_Third._ You must hire convenient lodgings in a respectable neighborhood,
with a hatch[1] at the door; have your reception-room hung with pictures
of some celebrated physicians, ancient historical scenes, and anatomical
plates, and the floor belittered with gallipots and half-empty bottles.
Any sexton will furnish your window with a skull, in hope of your custom.
_Fourth._ Let your desk never be without some old musty Greek and Arabic
authors, and on your table some work on anatomy, open at a picture page,
to amuse, if not astonish spectators, and carelessly thrown on the same a
few gilt shillings, to represent so many guineas received that morning as
fees.
_Fifth._ Fail not to patronize neighboring alehouses, which may, in turn,
recommend you to inquirers; and hold correspondence with all the nurses
and midwives whose address you may obtain, to applaud your skill at
gossiping.
_Sixth._ Be not over modest in airy pretensions, not forgetting that
loquaciousness and impudence are essentials to gaining a fool's
confidence. In case you are naturally backward in language, or have an
impediment of speech, you are recommended to persevere in a habit of
mysterious and profound silence before patients, rendered impressive by
grave nods and ahems.