Many cases might be instanced of weavers becoming physicians, but let one
suffice. John Sutcliffe, a Yorkshire weaver, with no early educational
advantages, and with the broadest provincial dialect, became a respectable
apothecary, and subsequently a first-class medical practitioner. He rose
entirely by his own integrity, frugality, industry, and intelligence.
Amongst his apprentices was Dr. John Coakley Lettsom, whose name must ever
rank high as a literary man, and a benevolent and successful physician.
Lettsom was born in the West Indies, and was a Quaker. The place under the
Yorkshire apothecary was secured for the boy by Mr. Fothergill, a Quaker
minister of Warrington, England.
A senior drug clerk informed the rustic inhabitants of the arrival of a
Quaker from a far off county, where the people were _antipodes_,--whose
feet were in a position exactly opposite to those of the English. Having
well circulated this startling information, the merry clerk and
fellow-apprentices laid back to enjoy the joke all by themselves.
The very day the new apprentice entered upon his duties, the apothecary
shop became haunted by an immense and curious crowd of gaping rustics, old
and young, male and female, to see the wonderful Quaker who was accustomed
to walking on his head!
Day after day the curious peasants came and went, and if the astonished
Sutcliffe closed his doors against the unprofitable rabble, they peered in
at his windows, or hung about the entrances, hoping to see the remarkable
phenomenon issue forth. But as the day of "walking off on his ear" had not
then arrived, they were doomed to disappointment and lost faith in his
ability to do what they had expected of him.