FEES.
From the earliest times the Leech (Leighis), or healer, has found, in
the exercise of his art, not only a pleasant sense of being a public
benefactor, but also the means of private advancement. The use the
churchmen made of their medical position throughout Christendom (both
before and after that decree of the council of Tours, A.D. 1163, which
forbade priests and deacons to perform surgical operations in which
cauteries and incisions were employed), is attested by the broad acres
they extracted, for their religious corporations, as much from the
gratitude as from the superstition of their patients. And since the
Reformation, from which period the vocations of the spiritual and the
bodily physician have been almost entirely kept apart, the
practitioners of medicine have had cause to bless the powers of
sickness. A good story is told of Arbuthnot. When he was a young man
(ere he had won the patronage of Queen Anne, and the friendship of
Swift and Pope), he settled at Dorchester, and endeavoured to get
practice in that salubrious town. Nature obviated his good intentions:
he wished to minister to the afflicted, if they were rich enough to
pay for his ministrations, but the place was so healthy that it
contained scarce half-a-dozen sick inhabitants. Arbuthnot determined
to quit a field so ill-adapted for a display of his philanthropy.
"Where are you off to?" cried a friend, who met him riding post
towards London. "To leave your confounded place," was the answer, "for
a man can neither live nor die there." But to arrive at wealth was not
amongst Arbuthnot's faculties; he was unable to use his profession as
a trade; and only a few weeks before his death he wrote, "I am as well
as a man can be who is gasping for breath, and has a house full of men
and women unprovided for."
Arbuthnot's ill-luck, however, was quite out of the ordinary rule.
Fuller says (1662), "Physic hath promoted many more, and that since
the reign of King Henry VIII. Indeed, before his time, I find a doctor
of physic, father to Reginald, first and last Lord Bray. But this
faculty hath flourished much the three last fifty years; it being true
of physic, what is said of Sylla, 'suos divitiis explevit.' Sir
William Butts, physician to King Henry VIII., Doctor Thomas Wendy, and
Doctor Hatcher, Queen Elizabeth's physician, raised worshipful
families in Norfolk, Cambridge, and Lincolnshire, having borne the
office of Sheriff in this county." Sir William Butts was rewarded for
his professional services by Henry VIII. with the honour of
Knighthood, and he attended that sovereign when the royal confirmation
was given, in 1512, to the charter of the barber-surgeons of London.
Another eminent physician of the same period, who also arrived at the
dignity of knighthood, was John Ayliffe, a sheriff of London, and
merchant of Blackwell-Hall. His epitaph records:--
"In surgery brought up in youth,
A knight here lieth dead;
A knight and eke a surgeon, such
As England seld' hath bred.
"For which so sovereign gift of God,
Wherein he did excell,
King Henry VIII. called him to court,
Who loved him dearly well.
"King Edward, for his service sake,
Bade him rise up a knight;
A name of praise, and ever since
He Sir John Ayliffe hight."
This mode of rewarding medical services was not unfrequent in those
days, and long before. Ignorance as to the true position of the barber
in the middle ages has induced the popular and erroneous belief that
the barber-surgeon had in olden times a contemptible social status.
Unquestionably his art has been elevated during late generations to a
dignity it did not possess in feudal life; but it might be argued with
much force, that the reverse has been the case with regard to his
rank. Surgery and medicine were arts that nobles were proud to
practise for honour, and not unfrequently for emolument. The reigns of
Elizabeth and her three predecessors in sovereign power abounded in
medical and surgical amateurs. Amongst the fashionable empirics
Bulleyn mentions Sir Thomas Elliot, Sir Philip Paris, Sir William
Gasgoyne, Lady Taylor and Lady Darrel, and especially that "goodly
hurtlesse Gentleman, Sir Andrew Haveningham, who learned water to kill
a canker of his own mother." Even an Earl of Derby, about this time,
was celebrated for his skill in _chirurgerie_ and _bone-setting_, as
also was the Earl of Herfurth. The Scots nobility were enthusiastic
dabblers in such matters; and we have the evidence of Buchanan and
Lindsay as to James IV. of Scotland, "quod vulnera scientissime
tractaret," to use the former authority's words, and in the language
of the latter, that he was "such a _cunning chirurgeon_, that none in
his realm who used that craft but would take his counsel in all their
proceedings." The only art which fashionable people now-a-days care
much to meddle with is literature. In estimating the difference
between the position of an eminent surgeon now, and that which he
would have occupied in earlier times, we must remember that life and
hereditary knighthood are the highest dignities to which he is now
permitted to aspire; although since this honour was first accorded to
him it has so fallen in public estimation, that it has almost ceased
to be an honour at all. It can scarcely be questioned that if Sir
Benjamin Brodie were to be elevated to the rank of a Baron of the
realm, he would still not occupy a better position, in regard to the
rest of society, than that which Sir William Butts and Sir John
Ayliffe did after they were knighted. A fact that definitely fixes the
high esteem in which Edward III. held his medical officers, is one of
his grants--"Quod Willielmus Holme Sirurgicus Regis pro vitâ suâ
possit, fugare, capere, et asportare omnimodas feras in quibuscunque
forestis, chaccis parcis et warrennis regis." Indeed, at a time when
the highest dignitaries of the Church, the proudest bishops and the
wealthiest abbots, practised as physicians, it followed, as a matter
of course, that everything pertaining to their profession was
respected.
From remote antiquity the fee of the healer has been regarded as a
voluntary offering for services gratuitously rendered. The pretender
to the art always stuck out for a price, and in some form or other
made the demand which was imprinted on the pillboxes of Lilly's
successor, John Case,
"Here's fourteen pills for thirteen pence,
Enough in any man's own con-sci-ence."
But the true physician always left his reward to be measured by the
gratitude and justice of the benefited. He extorted nothing, but
freely received that which was freely given. Dr. Doran, with his
characteristic erudition, says, "Now there is a religious reason why
fees are supposed not to be taken by physicians. Amongst the Christian
martyrs are reckoned the two eastern brothers, Damian and Cosmas. They
practised as physicians in Cilicia, and they were the first mortal
practitioners who refused to take recompense for their work. Hence
they were called Anargyri, or 'without money.' All physicians are
pleasantly supposed to follow this example. They never take fees, like
Damian and Cosmas; but they meekly receive what they know will be
given out of Christian humility, and with a certain or uncertain
reluctance, which is the nearest approach that can be made in these
times to the two brothers who were in partnership at Egea in Cilicia."
But, with all due respect to our learned writer, there is a much
better reason for the phenomenon. Self-interest, and not a Christian
ambition to resemble the charitable Cilician brothers, was the cause
of physicians preferring a system of gratuities to a system of legal
rights. They could scarcely have put in _a claim_ without defining the
_amount claimed_; and they soon discovered that a rich patient, left
to his generosity, folly, and impotent anxiety to propitiate the
mysterious functionary who presided over his life, would, in a great
majority of cases, give ten, or even a hundred times as much as they
in the wildest audacity of avarice would ever dare to ask for.
Seleucus, for having his son Antiochus restored to health, was fool
enough to give sixty thousand crowns to Erasistratus: and for their
attendance on the Emperor Augustus, and his two next successors, no
less than four physicians received annual pensions of two hundred and
fifty thousand sesterces apiece. Indeed, there is no saying what a
sick man will not give his doctor. The "cacoethes donandi" is a
manifestation of enfeebled powers which a high-minded physician is
often called upon to resist, and an unprincipled one often basely
turns to his advantage. Alluding to this feature of the sick, a
deservedly successful and honourable practitioner, using the language
of one of our Oriental pro-consuls, said with a laugh to the writer of
these pages, "I wonder at my moderation."
But directly health approaches, this desirable frame of mind
disappears. When the devil was sick he was a very different character
from what he was on getting well. 'Tis so with ordinary patients, not
less than satanic ones. The man who, when he is in his agonies, gives
his medical attendant double fees three times a day (and vows, please
God he recover, to make his fortune by trumpeting his praises to the
world), on becoming convalescent, grows irritable, suspicious, and
distant,--and by the time he can resume his customary occupations,
looks on his dear benefactor and saviour as a designing rascal, bent
on plundering him of his worldly possessions. Euricus Cordus, who died
in 1535, seems to have taken the worst possible time for getting his
payment; but it cannot be regretted that he did so, as his experiences
inspired him to write the following excellent epigram:--
"Tres medicus facies habet; unam quando rogatur,
Angelicam; mox est, cum juvat, ipse Deus.
Post ubi curato, poscit sua prœmia, morbo,
Horridus apparet, terribilisque Sathan."
"Three faces wears the doctor: when first sought,
An angel's--and a God's the cure half wrought:
But when, that cure complete, he seeks his fee,
The Devil looks then less terrible than he."
Illustrative of the same truth is a story told of Bouvart. On entering
one morning the chamber of a French Marquis, whom he had attended
through a very dangerous illness, he was accosted by his noble patient
in the following terms:--
"Good day to you, Mr. Bouvart; I feel quite in spirits, and think my
fever has left me."
"I am sure it has," replied Bouvart, dryly. "The very first expression
you used convinced me of it."
"Pray, explain yourself."
"Nothing is easier. In the first days of your illness, when your life
was in danger, I was your _dearest friend_; as you began to get
better, I was your _good Bouvart_; and now I am Mr. Bouvart: depend
upon it you are quite recovered."
In fact, the affection of a patient for his physician is very like the
love a candidate for a borough has for an individual elector--he is
very grateful to him, till he has got all he wants out of him. The
medical practitioner is unwise not to recognize this fact. Common
prudence enjoins him to act as much as possible on the maxim of
"accipe dum dolet"--"take your fee while your patient is in pain."
But though physicians have always held themselves open to take as much
as they can get, their ordinary remuneration has been fixed in divers
times by custom, according to the locality of their practice, the rank
of their patients, the nature of the particular services rendered, and
such other circumstances. In China the rule is "no cure, no pay," save
at the Imperial court, where the physicians have salaries that are cut
off during the continuance of royal indisposition. For their sakes it
is to be hoped that the Emperor is a temperate man, and does not
follow the example of George the Fourth, who used to drink Maraschino
between midnight and four o'clock in the morning; and then, when he
awoke with a furred tongue, from disturbed sleep, used to put himself
under the hands of his doctors. Formerly the medical officers of the
English monarch were paid by salary, though doubtless they were
offered, and were not too proud to accept, fees as well. Coursus de
Gungeland, Edward the Third's apothecary, had a pension of sixpence
a-day--a considerable sum at that time; and Ricardus Wye, the surgeon
of the same king, had twelve-pence a day, and eight marks per annum.
"Duodecim denarios per diem, et octo marcas per annum, pro vadiis suis
pro vitâ." In the royal courts of Wales, also, the fees of surgeons
and physicians were fixed by law--a surgeon receiving, as payment for
curing a slight wound, only the blood-stained garments of the injured
person; but for healing a dangerous wound he had the bloody apparel,
his board and lodging during the time his services were required, and
one hundred and eighty pence.
At a very early period in England a doctor looked for his palm to be
crossed with gold, if his patient happened to be a man of condition.
In Henry VIII.'s reign a Cambridge physician was presented by the Earl
of Cumberland with a fee of £1--but this was at least double what a
commoner would then have paid. Stow complains that while in Holland
half-a-crown was looked upon as a proper remuneration for a single
visit paid by a skilled physician, the medical practitioners of London
scorned "to touch any metal but gold."
It is no matter of uncertainty what the physician's ordinary fee was
at the close of the sixteenth and the commencement of the seventeenth
century. It was ten shillings, as is certified by the following
extract from "Physick lies a-bleeding: the Apothecary turned
Doctor"--published in 1697:--
"_Gallipot_--Good sir, be not so unreasonably passionate and I'll tell
you. Sir, the Pearl Julep will be 6_s._ 8_d._, Pearls being dear since
our clipt money was bought. The Specific Bolus, 4_s._ 6_d._, I never
reckon less; my master in Leadenhall Street never set down less, be it
what it would. The Antihysterick Application 3_s._ 6_d._ (a common one
is but 2_s._ 6_d._), and the Anodyne Draught 3_s._ 4_d._--that's all,
sir; a small matter and please you, sir, for your lady. My fee is what
you please, sir. All the bill is _but_ 18_s._
"_Trueman_--Faith, then, d'ye make a _but_ at it? I do suppose, to be
very genteel, I must give you a crown.
"_Gallipot_--If your worship please; I take it to be a fair and an
honest bill.
"_Trueman_--Do you indeed? But I wish you had called a doctor, perhaps
he would have advised her to have forebore taking anything, as yet at
least, so I had saved 13_s._ in my pocket."
"Physick lies a-bleeding" was written during the great Dispensarian
War, which is touched upon in another part of these pages; and its
object was to hold up physicians as models of learning and probity,
and to expose the extortionate practices of the apothecaries. It must
therefore be read with caution, and with due allowance for the license
of satire, and the violence of a party statement. But the statement
that 10_s._ was the _customary_ fee is clearly one that may be
accepted as truthful. Indeed, the unknown and needy doctors were glad
to accept less. The author of "The Dispensarians are the Patriots of
Britain," published in 1708, represents the humbler physicians being
nothing better than the slaves of the opulent apothecaries, accepting
half their right fee, and taking instead 25 or 50 per cent. of the
amount paid for drugs to the apothecary. "They (the powerful
traders)," says the writer, "offered the Physicians 5_s._ and 10_s._
in the pound, to excite their industry to prescribe the larger
abundance to all the disorders."
But physicians daily received more than their ten shillings at a time.
In confirmation of this, a good anecdote may be related of Sir
Theodore Mayerne. Sir Theodore Mayerne, a native of Geneva, was
physician to Henry IV. and Louis XIII. of France, and subsequently to
James I., Charles I., and Charles II. of England. As a physician, who
had the honour of attending many crowned heads, he ranks above Caius,
who was physician to Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth--Ambrose Paré,
the inventor of ligatures for severed arteries, who was physician and
surgeon to Henry II., Francis II., Charles IX., and Henry III. of
France--and Sir Henry Halford, who attended successively George III.,
George IV., William IV., and Victoria. It is told of Sir Theodore,
that when a friend, after consulting him, foolishly put two broad gold
pieces (six-and-thirty shillings each) on the table, he quietly
pocketed them. The patient, who, as a friend, expected to have his fee
refused, and therefore (deeming it well to indulge in the magnificence
of generosity when it would cost him nothing) had absurdly exhibited
so large a sum, did not at all relish the sight of its being netted.
His countenance, if not his tongue, made his mortification manifest.
"Sir," said Sir Theodore, "I made my will this morning; and if it
should appear that I refused a fee, I might be deemed _non compos_."
The "Levamen Infirmi," published in 1700, shows that a century had
not, at that date, made much difference in the scale of remuneration
accorded to surgeons and physicians. "To a graduate in physick," this
authority states, "his due is about ten shillings, though he commonly
expects or demands twenty. Those that are only licensed physicians,
their due is no more than six shillings and eight-pence, though they
commonly demand ten shillings. A surgeon's fee is twelve-pence a mile,
be his journey far or near; ten groats to set a bone broke, or out of
joint; and for letting blood one shilling; the cutting off or
amputation of any limb is five pounds, but there is no settled price
for the cure." These charges are much the same as those made at the
present day by country surgeons to their less wealthy patients, with
the exception of a fee for setting a bone, or reducing a dislocation,
which is absurdly out of proportion to the rest of the sums mentioned.
Mr William Wadd, in his very interesting "Memorabilia," states, that
the physicians who attended Queen Caroline had five hundred guineas,
and the surgeons three hundred guineas each; and that Dr. Willis was
rewarded for his successful attendance on his Majesty King George
III., by £1500 per annum for twenty years, and £650 per annum to his
son for life. The other physicians, however, had only thirty guineas
each visit to Windsor, and ten guineas each visit to Kew.
These large fees put us in mind of one that ought to have been paid to
Dr. King for his attendance on Charles the Second. Evelyn
relates--"1685, Feb. 4, I went to London, hearing his Majesty had ben,
the Monday before (2 Feb.), surprised in his bed-chamber with an
apoplectic fit; so that if, by God's providence, Dr King (that
excellent chirurgeon as well as physitian) had not been actually
present, to let his bloud (having his lancet in his pocket), his
Majesty had certainly died that moment, which might have ben of
direful consequence, there being nobody else present with the king
save this doctor and one more, as I am assured. It was a mark of the
extraordinary dexterity, resolution, and presence of mind in the Dr
to let him bloud in the very paroxysm, without staying the coming of
other physicians, which regularly should have ben done, and for want
of which he must have a regular pardon, as they tell me." For this
promptitude and courage the Privy-Council ordered £1000 to be given to
Dr. King--but he never obtained the money.
In a more humourous, but not less agreeable manner, Dr. Hunter (John
Hunter's brother), was disappointed of payment for his professional
services. On a certain occasion he was suffering under such severe
indisposition that he was compelled to keep his bed, when a lady
called and implored to be admitted to his chamber for the benefit of
his advice. After considerable resistance on the part of the servants,
she obtained her request; and the sick physician, sitting up in his
bed, attended to her case, and prescribed for it. "What is your fee,
sir?" the lady asked when the work was done. The doctor, with the
prudent delicacy of his order, informed his patient that it was a rule
with him never to fix his fee; and, on repeated entreaty that he would
depart from his custom, refused to do so. On this the lady rose from
her seat, and courteously thanking the doctor, left him--not a little
annoyed at the result of his squeamishness or artifice.
This puts us in mind of the manner in which an eminent surgeon not
long since was defrauded of a fee, under circumstances that must rouse
the indignation of every honourable man against the delinquent. Mr.
---- received, in his consulting room, a gentleman of military and
prepossessing exterior, who, after detailing the history of his
sufferings, implored the professional man he addressed to perform for
him a certain difficult and important operation. The surgeon
consented, and on being asked what remuneration he would require, said
that his fee was a hundred guineas.
"Sir," replied the visitor with some embarrassment, "I am very sorry
to hear you say so. I feel sure my case without you will terminate
fatally; but I am a poor half-pay officer, in pecuniary difficulties,
and I could not, even if it were to save my soul, raise half the sum
you mention."
"My dear sir," responded the surgeon frankly, and with the generosity
which is more frequently found amongst medical practitioners than any
other class of men, "don't then disturb yourself. I cannot take a less
fee than I have stated, for my character demands that I should not
have two charges, but I am at liberty to remit my fee altogether.
Allow me, then, the very great pleasure of attending a retired officer
of the British army gratuitously."
This kindly offer was accepted. Mr. ---- not only performed the
operation, but visited his patient daily for more than three weeks
without ever accepting a guinea--and three months after he had
restored the sick man to health, discovered that, instead of being in
necessitous circumstances, he was a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant
for his county, and owner of a fine landed estate.
"And, by ----!" exclaimed the fine-hearted surgeon--when he narrated
this disgraceful affair, "I'll act exactly in the same way to the next
poor man who gives me his _word of honour_ that he is not rich enough
to pay me."
The success of Sir Astley Cooper was beyond that of any medical
practitioner of modern times; but it came very gradually. His earnings
for the first nine years of his professional career progressed
thus:--In the first year he netted five guineas; in the second,
twenty-six pounds; in the third, sixty-four pounds; in the fourth,
ninety-six pounds; in the fifth, a hundred pounds; in the sixth, two
hundred pounds; in the seventh, four hundred pounds; in the eighth,
six hundred and ten pounds; and in the ninth, the year in which he
secured his hospital appointment, eleven hundred pounds. But the time
came when the patients stood for hours in his ante-rooms waiting to
have an interview with the great surgeon, and after all, their
patients were dismissed without being admitted to the consulting-room.
Sir Astley's man, Charles, with all the dignity that became so eminent
a man's servant, used to say to these disappointed applicants, in a
tone of magnificent patronage, when they reappeared the next morning
after their effectless visit, "I am not at all sure that _we_ shall be
able to attend to-day to you, gentlemen, for _we_ are excessively
busy, and our list is perfectly full for the day; but if you'll wait I
will see what can be done for you!"
The highest amount that Sir Astley received in any one year was
£21,000. This splendid income was an exceptional one. For many years,
however, he achieved more than £15,000 per annum. As long as he lived
in the City after becoming celebrated he made an enormous, but
fluctuating, revenue, the state of the money-market having an almost
laughable effect on the size of the fees paid him. The capitalists
who visited the surgeon in Broad Street, in three cases out of four,
paid in cheques, and felt it beneath their dignity to put pen to paper
for a smaller sum than five guineas. After Sir Astley moved to the
West End he had a more numerous and at the same time more aristocratic
practice; but his receipts were never so much as they were when he
dwelt within the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction. His more distinguished
patients invariably paid their guineas in cash, and many of them did
not consider it inconsistent with patrician position to give single
fees. The citizens were the fellows to pay. Mr. William Coles, of
Mincing Lane, for a long period paid Sir Astley £600 a year, the
visits of the latter being principally made to Mr. Cole's seat near
Croydon. Another "City man," who consulted the surgeon in Broad
Street, and departed without putting down any honorarium whatever,
sent a cheque for £63 10_s._, with the following characteristic
note:--
"DEAR SIR--When I had first the pleasure of seeing you, you requested,
as a favour, that I would consider your visit on the occasion as a
friend. I now, sir, must request you will return the compliment by
accepting the enclosed draft as an act of friendship. It is the profit
on £2000 of the ensuing loan, out of a small sum Sir F. Baring had
given, of appropriating for your chance."
The largest fee Sir Astley Cooper ever received was paid him by a West
Indian millionaire named Hyatt. This gentleman having occasion to
undergo a painful and perilous operation, was attended by Drs. Lettsom
and Nelson as physicians, and Sir Astley as chirurgeon. The wealthy
patient, his treatment having resulted most successfully, was so
delighted that he fee'd his physicians with 300 guineas each. "But
you, sir," cried the grateful old man, sitting up in his bed, and
speaking to his surgeon, "shall have something better. There,
sir--take _that_." The _that_ was the convalescent's night-cap, which
he flung at the dexterous operator. "Sir," replied Sir Astley, picking
up the cap, "I'll pocket the affront." It was well he did so, for on
reaching home he found in the cap a draft for 1000 guineas. This story
has been told in various ways, but all its tellers agree as to the
amount of the prize.
Catherine, the Empress of Russia, was even more munificent than the
West Indian planter. When Dr. Dimsdale, for many years a Hertford
physician, and subsequently the parliamentary representative of that
borough, went over to Russia and inoculated the Empress and her son,
in the year 1768, he was rewarded with a fee of £12,000, a pension for
life of £500 per annum, and the rank of Baron of the Empire. But if
Catherine paid thus handsomely for increased security of life, a
modern emperor of Austria put down a yet more royal fee for his
death-warrant. When on his death-bed the Emperor Joseph asked Quarin
his opinion of his case, the physician told the monarch that he could
not possibly live forty-eight hours. In acknowledgment of this frank
declaration of the truth, the Emperor created Quarin a Baron, and gave
him a pension of more than £2000 per annum to support the rank with.
A goodly collection might be made of eccentric fees given to the
practitioners of the healing art. William Butler, who, in his
moroseness of manner, was the prototype of Abernethy, found (_vide_
Fuller's "English Worthies") more pleasure in "presents than money;
loved what was pretty rather than what was costly; and preferred
rarities to riches." The number of physicians is large who have won
the hands of heiresses in the discharge of their professional
avocations. But of them we purpose to speak at length hereafter.
Joshua Ward, the Thames Street drysalter, who made a fortune by his
"Drop and Pill,"
"Of late, without the least pretence to skill,
Ward's grown a famed physician by a pill,"
was so successfully puffed by Lord Chief Baron Reynolds and General
Churchill, that he was called in to prescribe for the king. The royal
malady disappeared in consequence, or in spite, of the treatment; and
Ward was rewarded with a solemn vote of the House of Commons,
protecting him from the interdictions of the College of Physicians;
and, as an additional fee, he asked for, and obtained, the privilege
of driving his carriage through St. James's Park.
The pertinacity with which the members of the medical profession cling
to the shilling of "the guinea" is amusing. When Erskine used to order
"The Devil's Own" to _charge_, he would cry out "Six-and-eightpence!"
instead of the ordinary word of command. Had his Lordship been colonel
of a volunteer corps of physicians, he would have roused them to an
onward march by "A guinea!" Sometimes patients object to pay the extra
shilling over the sovereign, not less than their medical advisers
insist on having it. "We surgeons do things by guineas," we recollect
a veteran hospital surgeon saying to a visitor who had put down the
largest current gold piece of our present coinage. The patient (an
irritable old gentleman) made it a question of principle; he hated
humbug--he regarded "that shilling" as sheer humbug, and he would not
pay it. A contest ensued, which terminated in the eccentric patient
paying, not the shilling, but an additional sovereign. And to this day
he is a frequent visitor of our surgical ally, and is well content to
pay his two sovereigns, though he would die rather than countenance "a
sham" by putting down "a guinea."
But of all the stories told of surgeons who have grown fat at the
expense of the public, the best is the following one, for which Mr.
Alexander Kellet, who died at his lodgings in Bath, in the year 1788
is our authority. A certain French surgeon residing in Georgia was
taken prisoner by some Indians, who having acquired from the French
the art of larding their provisions, determined to lard this
particular Frenchman, and then roast him alive. During the culinary
process, when the man was half larded, the operators were surprised by
the enemy, and their victim, making his escape, lived many days in the
woods on the bacon he had in his skin.
If full reliance may be placed on the following humorous verses, it is
not unknown for a physician to be paid in commodities, without the
intervention of the circulating medium, or the receipt of such
creature comforts as Johnson's friendly apothecary was wont to accept
in lieu of cash:--
"An adept in the sister arts,
Painter, poet, and musician,
Employ'd a doctor of all parts,
Druggist, surgeon, and physician.
"The artist with M.D. agrees,
If he'd attend him when he grew sick,
Fully to liquidate his fees
With painting, poetry, and music.
"The druggist, surgeon, and physician,
So often physick'd, bled, prescribed,
That painter, poet, and musician
(Alas! poor artist!) sunk--and died.
"But ere death's stroke, 'Doctor,' cried he,
'In honour of your skill and charge,
Accept from my professions three--
A _hatchment_, _epitaph_, and _dirge_.'"
A double fee for good news has long been a rule in the profession. A
father just presented with an heir, or a lucky fellow just made one,
is expected to bleed freely for the benefit of the Faculty.
"Madam scolded one day so long,
She sudden lost all use of tongue!
The doctor came--with hum and haw,
Pronounc'd th' affection a lock'd jaw!
'What hopes, good sir?'--'Small, small, I see!'
The husband slips a _double fee_;
'What, no hopes, doctor?'--'None, I fear;'
Another fee for issue clear.
"Madam deceased--'Pray, sir, don't grieve!'
'My friends, one comfort I receive--
A _lock'd jaw_ was the only case
From which my wife could die--in peace.'"