“Yes—I do see the arms,” replied the impudent fellow, “and a pair of durned coarse ones they are, to be sure.”
On another occasion she was riding up Old Kent Road, dressed as above described. “Her obesity, immodest attire, intoxication, and dazzling equipage were, in the eyes of the mob, so sure signs of royalty, that she was taken for a court lady, of German origin, and of unpopular repute. The crowd gathered about her carriage, and with oaths and yells were about to demolish the windows with clubs and stones, when the nowise alarmed occupant, like Nellie Gwynn, on a similar occasion, rose in her seat, and, with imprecations more emphatic than polite, exclaimed,—
“—— you! Don’t you know who I am? I am Mrs. Sally Mapp, the celebrated bone-setter of Epsom!”
“This brief address so tickled the humor of the rabble that the lady was permitted to proceed on her way, amid deafening acclamations and laughter.”
This famous woman’s career may be likened to a rocket. She flashed before the people as suddenly, ascended as brilliantly to the zenith of fame, and fell like the burned, blackened stick.
Mrs. Mapp spent her last days in poverty, wretchedness, and obscurity, at “Seven Dials,” where she died almost unattended, on the night of December 22, 1737. Her demise was thus briefly announced in the journals:—
“Died at her lodgings, near Seven Dials, last week, Mrs. Mapp, the once much-talked-of bone-setter of Epsom, so wretchedly poor that the parish was obliged to bury her.”
Mr. Jeaffreson makes mention of two more “female doctors;” one an honest widow, mother of “Chevalier Taylor,” who, at Norwich, carried on a respectable business as an apothecary and doctress, and Mrs. Colonel Blood, who, at Romford, supported herself and son by keeping an apothecary shop.
American Female Physicians.
Perhaps English authors and English readers may be satisfied to allow the above meagre and unenviable array of pretenders to stand on record as the representatives of “female doctors” in their liberal and enlightened country! Americans can boast of a better representative.