Then there is a large class,--men, mostly; males, at least,--who, having
spent all their substance and much of their health in excess of
tobacco-using and whiskey-drinking, apply to the physician for aid, "in
charity, for God's sake," as they have nothing with which to pay him, and
usually a numerous family dependent upon their miserable labor for
sustenance. Woe to the physician who gets a reputation for benevolence at
this day and generation of "cheek."
"Doctor, I hope you _will_ do something for my distress," said a
gentlemanly-dressed individual, not many months ago. "I have but sixteen
cents in my pocket, and I owe for four weeks' board, and am out of
employment." He was a play actor. Could I say no to so honest a statement
of his low state of finance? I treated him faithfully, without a penny.
Not many weeks afterwards I knew of his going away and stopping two days
at a hotel with a strange woman.
Still there are others who are quite able, but who think it no sin to
cheat a doctor by misrepresenting their inability to pay. They work upon
the sympathies of the benevolent doctor; they "would willingly pay a
hundred dollars, if they had it," etc.; and thus slip off without
compensating him for his services. Every physician knows that I have not
overstated the above.
There is also a large class of patients, with whom, like the "old clo'
Jew," wisdom, brain work, advice, go for nothing. You must represent their
case as perfectly fearful, and do something perfectly awful for them, or
you are of no account.
Selden, who understood these failings in mankind vastly well, gives them a
sly hit in his "Table Talk." If a man had a sore leg, and he should go to
an honest, judicious surgeon, and he should only bid him keep it warm, and
anoint it with such an oil (an oil well known), that would do the cure,
haply he would not much regard him, because he knows the medicine to be an
ordinary one. But if he should go to a surgeon that should tell him, "Your
leg will gangrene within three days, and it must be cut off; and you will
die unless you do something that I could tell you," what listening there
would be to this man!
"O, for the Lord's sake, tell me what this is; I will give you any content
for your pains."