Part 12 (1/2)
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 pract.i.tioners 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 s.h.i.+lling 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 Lords.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+lling 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 s.h.i.+lling” as sheer humbug, and he would not pay it. A contest ensued, which terminated in the eccentric patient paying, not the s.h.i.+lling, 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, p.r.o.nounc'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.'”
CHAPTER X.
PEDAGOGUES TURNED DOCTORS.
In the church of St. Mary Magdalen, Taunton, is a monumental stone engraved with the following inscription:--
”Qui medicus doctus, prudentis nomine clarus, Eloquii splendor, Pieridumque decus, Virtutis cultor, pietatis vixit amicus; Hoc jacet in tumulo, spiritus alta tenet.”
It is in memory of John Bond, M.A., the learned commentator on Horace and Persius. Educated at Winchester school, and then at New College, Oxford, he was elected master of the Taunton Grammar-school in the year 1579. For many years he presided over that seminary with great efficiency, and sent out into the world several eminent scholars. On arriving, however, at the middle age of life, he relinquished the masters.h.i.+p of the school, and turned his attention to the practice of medicine. His reputation and success as a physician were great--the worthy people of Taunton honouring him as ”a wise man.” He died August 3, 1612.
More than a century later than John Bond, schoolmaster and physician, appeared a greater celebrity in the person of James Jurin, who, from the position of a provincial pedagogue, raised himself to be regarded as first of the London physicians, and conspicuous amongst the philosophers of Europe. Jurin was born in 1684, and received his early education at Christ's Hospital--better known to the public as the Bluecoat school. After graduating in arts at Cambridge, he obtained the masters.h.i.+p of the grammar-school of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, January, 1710. In the following year he acquired the high academic distinction of a fellows.h.i.+p on the foundation of Trinity College; and the year after (1712) he published through the University press, his edition of Varenius's Geography, dedicated to Bentley. In 1718 and 1719 he contributed to the Philosophical Transactions the essays which involved him in controversies with Keill and Senac, and were, in the year 1732, reprinted in a collected form, under the t.i.tle of ”Physico-Mathematical Dissertations.” Another of his important contributions to science was ”An Essay on Distinct and Indistinct Vision,” added to Smith's ”System of Optics.” Voltaire was not without good reason for styling him, in the _Journal de Savans_, ”the famous Jurin.”
Besides working zealously in his school, Jurin delivered lectures at Newcastle, on Experimental Philosophy. He worked very hard, his immediate object being to get and save money. As soon as he had laid by a clear thousand pounds, he left Newcastle, and returning to his University devoted himself to the study of medicine. From that time his course was a prosperous one. Having taken his M.D. degree, he settled in London, became a Fellow of the College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Royal Society (to which distinguished body he became secretary on the resignation of Dr. Halley in 1721), and a Physician of Guy's Hospital, as well as Governor of St. Thomas's. The friend of Sir Isaac Newton and Bentley did not lack patients. The consulting-rooms and ante-chambers of his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields received many visitors; so that he acquired considerable wealth, and had an estate and an imposing establishment at Clapton.