In person, Lettsom was tall and thin—indeed, almost attenuated: his face was deeply lined, indicating firmness quite as much as benevolence; and his complexion was of a dark yellow hue. His eccentricities were numerous. Like the founder of his sect, he would not allow even respect for royalty to make an alteration in his costume which his conscience did not approve; and George III., who entertained a warm regard for him, allowed him to appear at Court in the ordinary Quaker garb, and to kiss his hand, though he had neither powder on his head, nor a sword by his side. Lettsom responded to his sovereign's courtesy by presenting him with some rare and unpurchasable medals.
Though his writings show him to have been an enlightened physician for his time, his system of practice was not of course free from the violent measures which were universally believed in during the last century. He used to say of himself,
"When patients sick to me apply,
I physics, bleeds and sweats 'em;
Then—if they choose to die,
What's that to me—I lets 'em."—(I. Lettsom.)
But his prescriptions were not invariably of a kind calculated to depress the system of his patient. On one occasion an old American merchant, who had been ruined by the rupture between the colonies and the mother country, requested his attendance and professional advice. The unfortunate man was seventy-four years of age, and bowed down with the weight of his calamities.
"Those trees, doctor," said the sick man, looking out of his bed-room window over his lawn, "I planted, and have lived to see some of them too old to bear fruit; they are part of my family: and my children, still dearer to me, must quit this residence, which was the delight of my youth, and the hope of my old age."
The Quaker physician was deeply affected by these pathetic words, and the impressive tone with which they were uttered. He spoke a few words of comfort, and quitted the room, leaving on the table as his prescription—a cheque for a large sum of money. Nor did his goodness end there. He purchased the house of his patient's creditors, and presented it to him for life.
As Lettsom was travelling in the neighbourhood of London, a highwayman stopped his carriage, and, putting a pistol into the window, demanded him to surrender his money. The faltering voice and hesitation of the robber showed that he had only recently taken to his perilous vocation, and his appearance showed him to be a young man who had moved in the gentle ranks of life. Lettsom quickly responded that he was sorry to see such a well-looking young man pursuing a course which would inevitably bring him to ruin; that he would give him freely all the money he had about him, and would try to put him in a better way of life, if he liked to call on him in the course of a few days. As the doctor said this, he gave his card to the young man, who turned out to be another victim of the American war. He had only made one similar attempt on the road before, and had been driven to lawless action by unexpected pennilessness. Lettsom endeavoured in vain to procure aid for his protégé from the commissioners for relieving the American sufferers; but eventually the Queen, interested in the young man's case, presented him with a commission in the army; and in a brief military career, that was cut short by yellow fever in the West Indies, he distinguished himself so much that his name appeared twice in the Gazette.
On one of his benevolent excursions the doctor found his way into the squalid garret of a poor woman who had seen better days. With the language and deportment of a lady she begged the physician to give her a prescription. After inquiring carefully into her case, he wrote on a slip of paper to the overseers of the parish—
"A shilling per diem for Mrs Moreton. Money, not physic, will cure her.
"Lettsom."