DEVOTION OF A CATHOLIC PRIEST.
In a parish close to Dublin, it is on record that a Catholic priest was called on to administer the solemn rites of his religion to a family in the last stage of typhus fever. The family, six or seven in number, were found lying in a wretched hovel, on a little straw scattered on the damp earthen floor. The agonies of death were fast coming upon them. The confession of each one of them had to be heard. Lest any should overhear the confession of another, the priest stretched himself on the straw, while the miserable sufferer breathed his or her confession into his ear. Thus, inhaling the poison of their respiration, and separating them from each other successively, at the risk of his own life, he completed his sacred functions.
PULPIT JOKES OF DANIEL BURGESS.
Daniel Burgess, the noted Nonconformist minister, was by no means of Puritan strictness, for he was the most facetious person of his day, and carried his wit so far as to retail it from the pulpit with more levity than decency. Speaking of Job's "robe of righteousness," he once said, "If any of you would have a suit for a twelvemonth, let him repair to Monmouth Street; if for his lifetime, let him apply to the Court of Chancery; but if for all eternity, let him put on the robe of righteousness." The sermons of Burgess were adapted to the prejudices as well as the opinions of his hearers—wit and Whiggism went hand in hand with Scripture. He was strongly attached to the House of Brunswick, and would not uphold the Pretender's cause from the pulpit. He once preached a sermon, about that time, on the reason why the Jews were called Jacobites, in which he said, "God ever hated Jacobites, and therefore Jacob's sons were not so called, but Israelites!"
PHYSICIANS AND THEIR FEES.
Perhaps regarding nothing connected with the science and practice of medicine, or the lives of its professors, are there more stories told, more curious facts on record, more interesting exhibitions of character and touching displays of generosity to relate, than about the giving and taking—or not taking—of fees. In stringing together some memoranda and anecdotes on this head, it needs only to be said that they are but a few out of a crowd. At the outset, it may be explained that from very early times the fee of the physician (like that of the advocate or the university professor) was regarded in the light of a voluntary recognition or reward for services rendered out of pure love of science or humanity. Dr. Doran alleges, indeed, that "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." It has very naturally, however, been objected that physicians act from no such lofty motives, but merely because they prefer that the gratitude or the fears of the patient should be the measure of their reward. And yet, as Mr. Wadd forcibly remarks, "it is a fact, not less singular than true, that the advancement of surgical science is a benefit conferred on society at the expense of the scientific practitioner, since in proportion as the mode of cure is tuto et celeriter, safe and speedy, remuneration is diminished. Perhaps in no instance is this better exemplified than in the operation of the hydrocele, introduced by my late friend and master, Sir James Earle. Compare the simplicity, safety, and celerity of this, with the bustle and bloody brutality of the old system; the business of six weeks reduced to so many days! But mark the consequence, quâ honorarium: does the patient increase the fee for the pain and misery he is spared? Not a bit of it. Here is little or no work done; no trouble to the doctor; no pain to the patient; therefore, nothing to pay for.... 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 chirurgeon, 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 beforehand, an ordinary medicine. 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! Oh, for the Lord's sake, tell me what this is, I will give you any content for your pains!'" Not only has this loss of reward through the devising of new appliances for preventing human suffering, not made medical men, as a rule, one whit less anxious to devise them, or adopt them when devised; but it is in the experience of all, that in many cases physicians can render services gratuitously, which they would never have had the opportunity of rendering if it was not understood, both by themselves and the suffering, that they gave their skill cheerfully for God's sake as for gold's sake, to those who were unable to appeal to the latter power.
Ancient Fees of Magnitude.—Seleucus—the one of Alexander's generals to whom the kingdom of Syria fell at the break-up of the empire of Macedonian conquest—gave to Erasistratus 60,000 crowns "for discovering the disorder of his son Antiochus." Alcon, whose dexterity is celebrated in Martial's Epigrams, was repaid by the public, in the course of a few years' practice, the sum of 10,000,000 sesterces (£80,000) which he had lost by a law-suit. Four Roman physicians, Aruntius, Calpetanus, Rubrius, and Albutius, for their attendance on Augustus and his two immediate successors, enjoyed each an annual salary of 250,000 sesterces, equal to £2000 sterling.
Early English Fees.—In 1345, Edward III. granted to his apothecary, Coursus de Gungeland, a pension of sixpence a-day; and "Ricardus Wye, chirurgicus," had twelve pence per day, and eight marks per year, for his services. Under the same king, "Willielmus Holme, chirurgicus Regis," is rewarded with the permission, during his lifetime, "to hunt, take, and carry off wild animals of all kinds, in any of the royal forests, chases, parks, and warrens." In the Courts of the kings of Wales, the physician or surgeon was the twelfth person in rank, and his fees seem to have been fixed by law. For a flesh wound, not of a dangerous character, he got nothing but such of the wounded man's garments as the blood had stained; but for any of the three classes of dangerous wounds, he had in addition 180 pence, and his maintenance so long as his services might be in requisition.
Fees in the reign of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth.—In the record of expenses of the Earl of Cumberland, it is stated that he paid to a physician of Cambridge £1; but this fee was evidently, as shown by other entries, an exceptionally liberal one, even perhaps for a noble to pay. In the 18th year of Henry VIII., as is mentioned in Burn's History of Westmoreland, Sir Walter Strickland made a bargain with a physician to cure him of an asthma for £20. Stow, in the same reign, complimenting British physicians on their skill and learning, mentions "as the great grievance that the inferior people are undone by the exorbitance of their fees." Half-a-crown, he avers, is in Holland looked on as a large fee; whereas in England "a physician scorns to touch any metal but gold; and our surgeons are still more unreasonable." Queen Elizabeth's physician in ordinary received £100 per annum, besides his sustenance, wine, wax, and other necessaries or perquisites. Her apothecary, Hugo Morgan, for one quarter's bill had £83, 7s. 8d.; but this was not all for medicines, as such entries as this will show:—eleven shillings for a confection shaped like a manus Christi, with bezoar stone and unicorn's horn; sixteenpence for a royal sweetmeat with incised rhubarb; six shillings for "a conserve of barberries, with preserved damascene plums, and other things for Mr. Ralegh;" two shillings and sixpence for sweet scent to be used at the christening of Sir Richard Knightley's son; and so on.
Fees after the Revolution.—At the close of the sixteenth and opening of the seventeenth century, the fee of the physician had tended towards fixity, as regards the minimum at least, which was ten shillings. This appears from several incidental contemporary statements, as in the satirical dialogue of "Physick lies a-bleeding; or the Apothecary turned Doctor" (published in 1697, during the war of the "Dispensary"), in which one of the characters, called on to pay eighteen shillings for medicine for his wife and a crown by way of gratuity to the apothecary, says: "I wish you had called a doctor; perhaps he would have advised her to have forbore taking anything, at least as yet, so I had saved 13s. in my pocket." In 1700, as appears from the Levamen Infirmi, the existence of minimum and maximum fees appears to have been quite recognised:—"To a graduate in physick, 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 eightpence, 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."