THE GENEROSITY AND THE PARSIMONY OF PHYSICIANS.
Of the generosity of physicians one _need_ say nothing, for there are
few who have not experienced or witnessed it; and one _had better_ say
nothing, as no words could do justice to such a subject. This writer
can speak for at least one poor scholar, to whose sick-bed physicians
have come from distant quarters of the town, day after day, never
taking a coin for their precious services, and always in their
graceful benevolence seeming to find positive enjoyment in their
unpaid labour. In gratitude for kindness shown to himself, and yet
more for beneficence exhibited to those whom he loves, that man of the
goose-quill and thumbed books would like to put on record the names of
certain members of "the Faculty" to whom he is so deeply indebted. Ah,
dear Dr. ---- and Dr. ---- and Dr. ----, do not start!--your names
shall not be put down on this cheap common page. Where they are
engraved, you know!
Cynics have been found in plenty to rail at physicians for loving
their fees; and one might justly retort on the Cynics, that they love
_nothing but_ their fees. Who doesn't love the sweet money earned by
his labour--be it labour of hand or brain, or both? One thing is
sure--that doctors are underpaid. The most successful of them in our
own time get far less than their predecessors of any reign, from Harry
the Eighth downwards. And for honours, though the present age has seen
an author raised to the peerage, no precedent has as yet been
established for ennobling eminent physicians and surgeons.
Queen Elizabeth gave her physician-in-ordinary £100 per annum, besides
diet, wine, wax, and other perquisites. Her apothecary, Hugo Morgan,
must too have made a good thing out of her. For a quarter's bill that
gentleman was paid £83 7_s._ 8_d._, a large sum in those days; but
then it was for such good things. What Queen of England could grudge
eleven shillings for "a confection made like a manus Christi, with
bezoar stone and unicorn's horn"?--sixteen pence for "a royal
sweetmeat with incised rhubarb"?--twelve pence for "Rosewater for the
King of Navarre's ambassador"?--six shillings for "a conserve of
barberries, with preserved damascene plums, and other things for Mr.
Raleigh"?--two shillings and sixpence for "sweet scent to be used at
the christening of Sir Richard Knightley's son"?
Coytier, the physician of Charles the XI. of France, was better paid
by far. The extent to which he fleeced that monarch is incredible.
Favour after favour he wrung from him. When the royal patient resisted
the modest demands of his physician, the latter threatened him with
speedy dissolution. On this menace the king, succumbing to that fear
of death which characterized more than one other of his family, was
sure to make the required concession. Theodore Hook's valet, who was a
good servant in the first year of his service, a sympathizing friend
in the second, and a hard tyrant in the third, was a timid slave
compared with Coytier. Charles, in order to be freed from his
despotism, ordered him to be dispatched. The officer, intrusted with
the task of carrying out the royal wishes, waited on Coytier, and
said, in a most gentlemanlike and considerate manner, "I am very
sorry, my dear fellow, but I must kill you. The king can't stand you
any longer." "All right," said Coytier, with perfect unconcern,
"whenever you like. What time would it be most convenient for you to
kill me? But still, I am deuced sorry for his Majesty, for I know by
occult science that he can't outlive me more than four days." The
officer was so struck with the announcement, that he went away and
forthwith imparted it to the king. "Liberate him instantly--don't hurt
a hair of his head!" cried the terrified monarch. And Coytier was once
again restored to his place in the king's confidence and pocket.
Henry Atkins managed James the First with some dexterity. Atkins was
sent for to Scotland, to attend Charles the First (then an infant),
who was dangerously ill of a fever. The king gave him the handsome fee
of £6000. Atkins invested the money in the purchase of the manor of
Clapham.
Radcliffe, with a rare effort of generosity, attended a friend for a
twelvemonth gratuitously. On making his last visit his friend said,
"Doctor, here is a purse in which I have put every day's fee; and your
goodness must not get the better of my gratitude. Take your money."
Radcliffe looked, made a resolve to persevere in benevolence, just
touched the purse to reject it, heard the chink of the gold pieces in
it, and put the bag into his pocket. "Singly, sir, I could have
refused them for a twelvemonth; but, all together, _they are
irresistible_," said the doctor, walking off with a heavy prize and a
light heart.
Louis XIV. gave his physician and his surgeon 75,000 crowns each,
after successfully undergoing a painful and at that time novel
operation. By the side of such munificence, the fees paid by Napoleon
I. to the Faculty who attended Marie Louise in March, 1811, when the
Emperor's son was born, seem insufficient. Dubois, Corvisart,
Bourdier, and Ivan were the professional authorities employed, and
they had among them a remuneration of £4000, £2000 being the portion
assigned to Dubois.
Even more than fee gratefully paid does a humorous physician enjoy an
extra fee adroitly drawn from the hand of a reluctant payer. Sir
Richard Jebb was once paid three guineas by a nobleman from whom he
had a right to expect five. Sir Richard dropped the coins on the
carpet, when a servant picked them up and restored them--three, and
only three. Instead of walking off Sir Richard continued his search on
the carpet. "Are all the guineas found?" asked his Lordship looking
round. "There must be two still on the floor," was the answer, "for I
have only three." The hint of course was taken and the right sum put
down. An eminent Bristol doctor accomplished a greater feat than this,
and took a fee from--a dead commoner, not a live lord. Coming into his
patient's bed-room immediately after death had taken place, he found
the right hand of the deceased tightly clenched. Opening the fingers
he discovered within them a guinea. "Ah, that was for me--clearly,"
said the doctor putting the piece into his pocket.
Reminding the reader, in its commencement, of Sir Richard Jebb's
disappointment at the three-guinea fee, the following story may here
be appropriately inserted. A physician on receiving two guineas, when
he expected three, from an old lady patient, who was accustomed to
give him the latter fee, had recourse to one part of Sir Richard's
artifice, and assuming that the third guinea had been dropt through
his carelessness on the floor, looked about for it. "Nay, nay," said
the lady with a smile, "you are not in fault. It is I who dropt it."
There is an abundance of good stories of physicians fleecing their
lambs. To those that are true the comment may be made--"Doubtless the
lambs were all the better for being shorn." For the following anecdote
we are indebted to Dr. Moore, the author of "Zeluco." A wealthy
tradesman, after drinking the Bath waters, took a fancy to try the
effect of the Bristol hot wells. Armed with an introduction from a
Bath physician to a professional brother at Bristol, the invalid set
out on his journey. On the road he gave way to his curiosity to read
the doctor's letter of introduction, and cautiously prying into it
read these instructive words: "Dear sir, the bearer is a fat Wiltshire
clothier--make the most of him."
Benevolence was not a virtue in old Monsey's line; but he could be
generous at another's expense, when the enjoyment his malignity
experienced in paining one person counterbalanced his discomfort at
giving pleasure to another. Strolling through Oxford market he heard
a poor woman ask the price of a piece of meat that lay on a butcher's
stall.
"A penny a pound!" growled the man to whom the question was put,
disdaining to give a serious answer to such a poverty-stricken
customer.
"Just weigh that piece of beef, my friend," said Monsey, stepping up.
"Ten pounds and a half, sir," observed the butcher, after adjusting
the scales and weights.
"Here, my good woman," said Monsey, "out with your apron, and put the
beef into it, and make haste home to your family."
Blessing the benevolent heart of the eccentric old gentleman, the
woman did as she was bid, took possession of her meat, and was
speedily out of sight.
"And there, my man," said Monsey, turning to the butcher, "is tenpence
halfpenny, the price of your beef."
"What do you mean?" demanded the man.
"Simply that that's all I'll pay you. You said the meat was a penny a
pound. At that price I bought it of you--to give to the poor woman.
Good morning!"
A fee that Dr. Fothergill took of Mr. Grenville was earned without
much trouble. Fothergill, like Lettsom, was a Quaker, and was warmly
supported by his brother sectarians. In the same way Mead was brought
into practice by the Nonconformists, to whom his father ministered
spiritually. Indeed, Mead's satirists affirmed that when his servant
(acting on instructions) had called him out from divine service, the
parson took his part in the "dodge" by asking the congregation to
pray for the bodily and ghostly welfare of the patient to whom his son
had just been summoned. Dissenters are remarkable for giving staunch
support, and thorough confidence, to a doctor of their own persuasion.
At the outbreak of the American war, therefore Grenville knew that he
could not consult a better authority than the Quaker doctor,
Fothergill, on the state of feeling amongst the Quaker colonists.
Fothergill was consequently summoned to prescribe for the politician.
The visit took the form of an animated discussion on American affairs,
which was brought to a conclusion by Grenville's putting five guineas
into the physician's hand, saying--"Really, doctor, I am so much
better, that I don't want you to prescribe for me." With a canny
significant smile Fothergill, keeping, like a true Quaker, firm hold
of the money, answered, "At this rate, friend, I will spare thee an
hour now and then."
Dr. Glynn, of Cambridge, was as benevolent as he was eccentric. His
reputation in the fen districts as an ague doctor was great, and for
some years he made a large professional income. On one occasion a poor
peasant woman, the widowed mother of an only son, trudged from the
heart of the fens into Cambridge, to consult the doctor about her boy,
who was ill of an ague. Her manner so interested the physician, that
though it was during an inclement winter, and the roads were almost
impassable to carriages, he ordered horses, and went out to see the
sick lad. After a tedious attendance, and the exhibition of much port
wine and bark (bought at the doctor's expense), the patient recovered,
and Glynn took his leave. A few days after the farewell visit, the
poor woman again presented herself in the consulting room.
"I hope, my good woman," said Glynn, "your son is not ill again?"
"No, sir, he was never better," answered the woman, gratefully; "but
we can't get no rest for thinking of all the trouble that you have
had, and so my boy resolved this morning on sending you his favourite
magpie."
In the woman's hand was a large wicker basket, which she opened at the
conclusion of the speech, affording means of egress to an enormous
magpie, that hopped out into the room, demure as a saint and bold as a
lord. It was a fee to be proud of!
The free-will offerings of the poor to their doctors are sometimes
very droll, and yet more touching. They are presented with such
fervour and simplicity, and such a sincere anxiety that they should be
taken as an expression of gratitude for favours past, not for favours
to come. The writer of these pages has known the humble toilers of
agricultural districts retain for a score of years the memory of kind
services done to them in sickness. He could tell of several who, at
the anniversary of a particular day (when a wife died, or child was
saved from fever, or an accident crushed a finger or lacerated a
limb), trudge for miles over the country to the doctor's house, and
leave there a little present--a pot of honey, a basket of apples, a
dish of the currants from the bush which "the doctor" once praised,
and said was fit for a gentleman's garden.
Of eminent physicians Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh was as remarkable for
his amiability as for his learning. It was his custom to receive from
new pupils at his own house the fees for the privilege of attending
his lectures. Whilst thus engaged one day, he left a student in his
consulting-room, and went into an adjoining apartment for a fresh
supply of admission tickets. In a mirror the doctor saw the student
rise from his seat, and sweep into his pocket some guineas from a heap
of gold (the fees of other students) that lay on the consulting-room
table. Without saying a word at the moment, Dr. Gregory returned,
dated the admission ticket, and gave it to the thief. He then politely
attended him to the door, and on the threshold said to the young man,
with deep emotion, "I saw what you did just now. Keep the money. I
know what distress you must be in. But for God's sake never do it
again--it can never succeed." The pupil implored Gregory to take back
the money, but the doctor said, "Your punishment is this, you must
keep it--now you have taken it." The reproof had a salutary effect.
The youth turned out a good and honest man.
An even better anecdote can be told of this good physician's
benevolence. A poor medical student, ill of typhus fever, sent for
him. The summons was attended to, and the visit paid, when the invalid
proffered the customary guinea fee. Dr. Gregory turned away, insulted
and angry. "I beg your pardon, Dr. Gregory," exclaimed the student,
apologetically, "I didn't know your rule. Dr. ---- has always taken
one." "Oh," answered Gregory, "he has--has he? Look you, then, my
young friend; ask him to meet me in consultation, and then offer him a
fee; or stay--offer me the fee first." The directions were duly acted
upon. The consultation took place, and the fee was offered. "Sir,"
exclaimed the benevolent doctor, "do you mean to insult me? Is there a
professor who would in this University degrade himself so far as to
take payment from one of his brotherhood--and a junior?" The confusion
of the man on whom this reproof was really conferred can be imagined.
He had the decency, ere the day closed, to send back to the student
all the fees he had taken of him.
Amongst charitable physicians a high place must be assigned to
Brocklesby, of whom mention is made in another part of these pages. An
ardent Whig, he was the friend of enthusiastic Tories as well as of
the members of his own body. Burke on the one hand, and Johnson on the
other, were amongst his intimate associates, and experienced his
beneficence. To the latter he offered a hundred-a-year for life. And
when the Tory writer was struggling with the heavy burden of
increasing disease, he attended him with affectionate solicitude,
taking no fee for his services--Dr. Heberden, Dr. Warren, Dr. Butler,
and Mr. Cruikshank the surgeon, displaying a similar liberality. It
was Brocklesby who endeavored to soothe the mental agitation of the
aged scholar's death-bed, by repeating the passage from the Roman
satirist, in which occurs the line:--
"Fortem posce animum et mortis terrore carentem."
Burke's pun on Brocklesby's name is a good instance of the elaborate
ingenuity with which the great Whig orator adorned his conversation
and his speeches. Pre-eminent amongst the advertising quacks of the
day was Dr. Rock. It was therefore natural that Brocklesby should
express some surprise at being accosted by Burke as Dr. Rock, a title
at once infamous and ridiculous. "Don't be offended. Your name is
Rock," said Burke, with a laugh; "I'll prove it algebraically:
_Brock--b = Rock_; or, Brock less _b_ makes Rock." Dr. Brocklesby, on
the occasion of giving evidence in a trial, had the ill fortune to
offend the presiding judge, who, amongst other prejudices not uncommon
in the legal profession, cherished a lively contempt for medical
evidence. "Well, gentlemen of the jury," said the noble lawyer in his
summing up, "what's the medical testimony? First we have a Dr.
Rocklesby or--Brocklesby. What does he say? _First of all he_
swears--_he's a physician_."
Abernethy is a by-word for rudeness and even brutality of manner; but
he was as tender and generous as a man ought to be, as a man of great
intelligence usually is. The stories current about him are nearly all
fictions of the imagination; or, where they have any foundation in
fact, relate to events that occurred long before the hero to whom they
are tacked by anecdote-mongers had appeared on the stage. He was
eccentric--but his eccentricities always took the direction of common
sense; whereas the extravagances attributed to him by popular gossip
are frequently those of a heartless buffoon. His time was precious,
and he rightly considered that his business was to set his patients in
the way of recovering their lost health--not to listen to their
fatuous prosings about their maladies. He was therefore prompt and
decided in checking the egotistic garrulity of valetudinarians. This
candid expression of his dislike to unnecessary talk had one good
result. People who came to consult him took care not to offend him by
bootless prating. A lady on one occasion entered his consulting-room,
and put before him an injured finger, without saying a word. In
silence Abernethy dressed the wound, when instantly and silently the
lady put the usual fee on the table, and retired. In a few days she
called again, and offered the finger for inspection. "Better?" asked
the surgeon. "Better," answered the lady, speaking to him for the
first time. Not another word followed during the rest of the
interview. Three or four similar visits were made, at the last of
which the patient held out her finger free from bandages and perfectly
healed. "Well?" was Abernethy's monosyllabic inquiry. "Well," was the
lady's equally brief answer. "Upon my soul, madam," exclaimed the
delighted surgeon, "_you are the most rational woman I ever met
with_."
To curb his tongue, however, out of respect to Abernethy's humour, was
an impossibility to John Philpot Curran. Eight times Curran
(personally unknown to Abernethy) had called on the great surgeon; and
eight times Abernethy had looked at the orator's tongue (telling him,
by-the-by, that it was the most unclean and utterly abominable tongue
in the world), had curtly advised him to drink less, and not abuse his
stomach with gormandizing, had taken a guinea, and had bowed him out
of the room. On the ninth visit, just as he was about to be dismissed
in the same summary fashion, Curran, with a flash of his dark eye,
fixed the surgeon, and said--"Mr. Abernethy, I have been here on eight
different days, and I have paid you eight different guineas; but you
have never yet listened to the symptoms of my complaint. I am
resolved, sir, not to leave the room till you satisfy me by doing
so." With a good-natured laugh, Abernethy, half suspecting that he had
to deal with a madman, fell back in his chair and said--"Oh! very
well, sir; I am ready to hear you out. Go on, give me the whole--your
birth, parentage, and education. I wait your pleasure. Pray be as
minute and tedious as you can." With perfect gravity Curran
began--"Sir, my name is John Philpot Curran. My parents were poor, but
I believe honest people, of the province of Munster, where also I was
born, at Newmarket, in the county of Cork, in the year one thousand
seven hundred and fifty. My father being employed to collect the rents
of a Protestant gentleman of small fortune, in that neighbourhood,
procured my admission into one of the Protestant free-schools, where I
obtained the first rudiments of my education. I was next enabled to
enter Trinity College, Dublin, in the humble sphere of a sizar--" And
so he went steadily on, till he had thrown his auditor into
convulsions of laughter.
Abernethy was very careful not to take fees from patients if he
suspected them to be in indigent circumstances. Mr. George Macilwain,
in his instructive and agreeable "Memoirs of John Abernethy," mentions
a case where an old officer of parsimonious habits, but not of
impoverished condition, could not induce Abernethy to accept his fee,
and consequently forbore from again consulting him. On another
occasion, when a half-pay lieutenant wished to pay him for a long and
laborious attendance, Abernethy replied, "Wait till you're a general;
then come and see me, and we'll talk about fees." To a gentleman of
small means who consulted him, after having in vain had recourse to
other surgeons, he said--"Your recovery will be slow. If you don't
feel much pain, depend upon it you are gradually getting round; if you
do feel much pain, then come again, _but not else_. I don't want your
money." To a hospital student (of great promise and industry, but in
narrow circumstances), who became his dresser, he returned the
customary fee of sixty guineas, and requested him to expend them in
the purchase of books and securing other means of improvement. To a
poor widow lady (who consulted him about her child), he, on saying
good-bye in a friendly letter, returned all the fees he had taken from
her under the impression that she was in good circumstances, and added
£50 to the sum, begging her to expend it in giving her child a daily
ride in the fresh air. He was often brusque and harsh, and more than
once was properly reproved for his hastiness and want of
consideration.
"I have heard of your rudeness before I came, sir," one lady said,
taking his prescription, "but I was not prepared for such treatment.
What am I to do with this?"
"Anything you like," the surgeon roughly answered. "Put it on the fire
if you please."
Taking him at his word, the lady put her fee on the table, and the
prescription on the fire; and making a bow, left the room. Abernethy
followed her into the hall, apologizing, and begging her to take back
the fee or let him write another prescription; but the lady would not
yield her vantage-ground.
Of operations Abernethy had a most un-surgeon-like horror--"like
Cheselden and Hunter, regarding them as the reproach of the
profession." "I hope, sir, it will not be long," said a poor woman,
suffering under the knife. "No, indeed," earnestly answered Abernethy,
"that would be too horrible." This humanity, on a point on which
surgeons are popularly regarded as being devoid of feeling, is very
general in the profession. William Cooper (Sir Astley's uncle) was,
like Abernethy, a most tender-hearted man. He was about to amputate a
man's leg, in the hospital theatre, when the poor fellow, terrified at
the display of instruments and apparatus, suddenly jumped off the
table, and hobbled away. The students burst out laughing; and the
surgeon, much pleased at being excused from the performance of a
painful duty, exclaimed, "By God, I am glad he's gone!"
The treatment which one poor fellow received from Abernethy may at
first sight seem to militate against our high estimate of the
surgeon's humanity, and dislike of inflicting physical pain. Dr. ----,
an eminent physician still living and conferring lustre on his
profession, sent a favourite man-servant with a brief note,
running--"Dear Abernethy, Will you do me the kindness to put a seton
in this poor fellow's neck? Yours sincerely, ----." The man, who was
accustomed and encouraged to indulge in considerable freedom of speech
with his master's friends, not only delivered the note to Abernethy,
but added, in an explanatory and confiding tone, "You see, sir, I
don't get better, and as master thinks I ought to have a seton in my
neck, I should be thankful if you'd put it in for me." It is not at
all improbable that Abernethy resented the directions of master and
man. Anyhow he inquired into the invalid's case, and then taking out
his needles did as he was requested. The operation was attended with a
little pain, and the man howled, as only a coward can howl, under the
temporary inconvenience. "Oh! Lor' bless you! Oh, have mercy on me!
Yarra--yarra--yarr! Oh, doctor--doctor--you'll kill me!" In another
minute the surgeon's work was accomplished, and the acute pain having
passed away, the man recovered his self-possession and impudence.
"Oh, well, sir, I do hope, now that it's done, it'll do me good. I do
hope that."
"But it won't do you a bit of good."
"What, sir, no good?" cried the fellow.
"No more good," replied Abernethy, "than if I had spat upon it."
"Then, sir--why--oh, yarr! here's the pain again--why did you do it?"
"Confound you, man!" answered the surgeon testily. "Why did I do
it?--why, _didn't you ask me to put a seton in your neck_?"
Of course the surgical treatment employed by Abernethy in this case
was the right one; but he was so nettled with the fellow's impudence
and unmanly lamentations, that he could not forbear playing off upon
him a barbarous jest.
If for this outbreak of vindictive humour the reader is inclined to
call Abernethy a savage, let his gift of £50 to the widow lady, to pay
for her sick child's carriage exercise, be remembered. _Apropos_ of
£50, Dr. Wilson of Bath sent a present of that sum to an indigent
clergyman, against whom he had come in the course of practice. The
gentleman who had engaged to convey the gift to the unfortunate
priest said, "Well, then, I'll take the money to him to-morrow." "Oh,
my dear sir," said the doctor, "take it to him to-night. Only think of
the importance to a sick man of one good night's rest!"
Side by side with stories of the benevolence of "the Faculty," piquant
anecdotes of their stinginess might be told. This writer knew formerly
a grab-all-you-can-get surgeon, who was entertaining a few
professional brethren at a Sunday morning's breakfast, when a patient
was ushered into the ante-room of the surgeon's bachelor chambers, and
the surgeon himself was called away to the visitor. Unfortunately he
left the folding-doors between the breakfast-room and the ante-room
ajar, and his friends sitting in the former apartment overheard the
following conversation:
"Well, my friend, what's the matter?"--the surgeon's voice.
The visitor's voice--"Plaze, yer honner, I'm a pore Hirish labourer,
but I can spill a bit, and I read o' yer honner's moighty foine cure
in the midical jarnal--the _Lancet_. And I've walked up twilve miles
to have yer honner cure me. My complaint is ----"
Surgeon's voice, contemptuously--"Oh, my good man, you've made a
mistake. You'd better go to the druggist's shop nearest your home, and
he'll do for you all you want. You couldn't pay me as I require to be
paid."
Visitor's voice, proudly and triumphantly--"Och, an' little ye know an
Irish gintleman, dochter, if ye think he'd be beholden to the best of
you for a feavor. Here's a bit o' gould--nocht liss nor a tin shillin'
piece, but I've saved it up for ye, and ye'll heve the whole, tho' its
every blissed farthing I hev."
The surgeon's voice altered. The case was gone into. The prescription
was written. The poor Irish drudge rose to go, when the surgeon, with
that delicate quantity of conscience that rogues always have to make
themselves comfortable upon, said, "Now, you say you have no more
money, my friend. Well, the druggist will charge you eighteenpence for
the medicine I have ordered there. So there's eighteenpence for you
out of your half-sovereign."
We may add that this surgeon was then, at a moderate computation,
making three thousand a year. We have heard of an Old Bailey barrister
boasting how he wrung the shillings (to convert the sovereigns already
paid with his brief into guineas) from the grimed hands of a prisoner
actually standing in the dock for trial, ere he would engage to defend
him. But compared with this surgeon the man of the long robe was a
disinterested friend of the oppressed.
A better story yet of a surgeon who seized on his fee like a hawk. A
clergyman of ----shire, fell from a branch of a high pear-tree to the
grass-plot of the little garden that surrounded his vicarage-house,
and sustained, besides being stunned, a compound fracture of the right
arm. His wife, a young and lovely creature, of a noble but poor
family, to whom he had been married only three or four years, was
terribly alarmed, and without regulating her conduct by considerations
of her pecuniary means, dispatched a telegraphic message to an eminent
London surgeon. In the course of three or four hours the surgeon made
his appearance, and set the broken limb.
"And what, sir," the young wife timidly asked of the surgeon, when he
had come down-stairs into her little drawing-room, "is your fee?"
"Oh, let's see--distance from town, hundred miles. Yes. Then my fee is
a hundred guineas!"
Turning deadly pale with fright (for the sum was ten times the highest
amount the poor girl had thought of as a likely fee) she rose, and
left the room, saying, "Will you be kind enough to wait for a few
minutes?"
Luckily her brother (like her husband, a clergyman, with very moderate
preferment) was in the house, and he soon made his appearance in the
drawing-room. "Sir," said he, addressing the operator, "my sister has
just now been telling me the embarrassment she is in, and I think it
best to repeat her story frankly. She is quite inexperienced in money
matters, and sent for you without ever asking what the ordinary fee to
so distinguished a surgeon as yourself, for coming so far from London,
might be. Well, sir, it is right you should know her circumstances. My
brother-in-law has no property but his small living, which does not
yield him more than £400 per annum, and he has already two children.
My sister has no private fortune whatever, at present, and all she has
in prospect is the reversion of a trifling sum--at a distant period.
Poverty is the only stigma that time has fixed upon my family. Now,
sir, under the circumstances, if professional etiquette would allow of
your reducing your fee to the straitened finances of my sister, it
really would--would be--"
"Oh, my dear sir," returned the surgeon, in a rich, unctuous voice of
benevolence, "pray don't think I'm a shark. I am really deeply
concerned for your poor sister. As for my demand of _a hundred
guineas_, since it would be beyond her means to satisfy it, why, my
dear sir, I shall be only too delighted to be allowed--_to take a
hundred pounds_!"
The fee-loving propensities of doctors are well illustrated by the
admirable touches of Froissart's notice of Guyllyam of Harseley, who
was appointed physician to Charles the Sixth, King of France, during
his derangement. The writer's attention was first called to
Friossart's sketch of the renowned mad-doctor by his friend Mr.
Edgar--a gentleman whose valuable contributions to historical
literature have endeared his name to both young and old. Of the
measures adopted by Guyllyam for the king's cure the readers of
Froissart are not particularly informed; but it would appear, from the
physician's parting address to the "dukes of Orlyance, Berrey,
Burgoyne, and Burbone," that his system was, in its enlightened
humanity, not far behind that adopted at the present day by Dr.
Conolly and Dr. Forbes Winslow. But, however this may be, Guyllyam's
labours must be regarded as not less consonant with sound nosological
views than those of the afflicted monarch's courtiers, until it can be
shown that his treatment was worse than leaving Nature to herself.
"They," says Froissart, "that were about the kynge sente the kynge's
offrynge to a town called Aresneche, in the countie of Heynaulte,
between Cambrey and Valancennes, in the whiche towne there was a
churche parteyning to an Abbey of Saynt Waste in Arrasce wherein there
lyeth a saynte, called Saynt Acquayre, of whom there is a shrine of
sylver, which pylgrimage is sought farre and nere for the malady of
the fransey; thyder was sent a man of waxe, representynge the Frenche
Kynge, and was humbly offred to the Saynt, that he might be meane to
God, to asswage the kynge's malady, and to sende him helthe. In
lykewise the kynge's offrynge was sent to Saynt Hermyer in Romayes,
which saynt had meryte to heal the fransey. And in lykewise offrynges
were sent into other places for ye same entent."
The conclusion of Guyllyam's attendance is thus described:--"Trewe it
is this sycknesse that the kyng took in the voyage towards Bretagne
greatly abated the ioye of the realme of France, and good cause why,
for when the heed is sicke the body canne have no ioye. No man durste
openly speke thereof, but kepte it privy as moche as might be, and it
was couertly kept fro the queene, for tyll she was delyuered and
churched she knewe nothynge thereof, which tyme she had a doughter.
The physician, myster Guyllyam, who had the chefe charge of healynge
of the kynge, was styll aboute hym, and was ryght dyligent and well
acquyted hymselfe, whereby he gate bothe honour and profyte; for
lytell and lytell he brought the kynge in good estate, and toke away
the feuer and the heate, and made hym to haue taste and appetyte to
eate and drinke, slepe and rest, and knowledge of every thynge;
howebeit, he was very feble, and lytell and lytell he made the kynge
to ryde a huntynge and on hawkynge; and whanne tydynges was knowen
through France howe the kynge was well mended, and had his memory
again, every man was ioyfull and thanked God. The kynge thus beyng at
Crayell, desyred to se the quene his wyfe and the dolphyn his sonne;
so the quene came thyder to hym, and the chylde was brought thyder,
the kynge made them good chere, and so lytell and lytell, through the
helpe of God, the kynge recouered his helthe. And when mayster
Guyllyam sawe the kynge in so good case he was ryght ioyfull, as
reasone was, for he hade done a fayre cure, and so delyuered him to
the dukes of Orlyance, Berrey, Burgoyne, and Burbone, and sayd: 'My
lordes, thanked be God, the kynge is nowe in good state and helth, so
I delyuer him, but beware lette no mane dysplease hym, for as yet his
spyrytes be no fully ferme nor stable, but lytell and lytell he shall
waxe stronge; reasonable dysporte, rest, and myrthe shall be moste
profytable for hym; and trouble hym as lytell as may be with any
counsayles, for he hath been sharpely handeled with a hote malady.'
Than it was consydred to retaygne this mayster Guyllyam, and to gyve
hym that he shulde be content with all, _whiche is the ende that all
physicians requyre, to haue gyftes and rewardes_; he was desyred to
abyde styll about the kynge, but he excused hymselfe, and sayd howe he
was an olde impotent man, and coulde note endure the maner of courte,
wherfore he desyred to returne into his owne countrey. Whan the
counsayle sawe he wolde none otherwyse do, they gaue him leaue, and at
his departing _gave him a thousand crownes, and retayned hym in wages
with four horses whansover he wolde resorte to the courte_; howbeit, I
beleve he never came there after, for whan he retournd to the cytie of
Laon, there he contynued and dyed a ryche man: he left behynde him a
xxx thousand frankes. All his dayes he was one of the greatest
nygardes that ever was: all his pleasure was to get good and to spende
nothynge, for in his howse he neuer spente past two souses of Parys
in a day, but wolde eate and drinke in other mennes howses, where as
he myght get it. _With this rodde lyghtly all physicyons are
beaten._"[19]
[19] Froissart's Chronicles, translated by John Bouchier, Lord
Berners.
The humane advice given by Guyllym countenances the tradition that
cards were invented for the amusement of his royal patient.