It is told of a Barbadoes physician and slaveholder, that having been robbed to a serious extent in his sugar-works, he discovered the thief by the following ingenious artifice. Having called his slaves together, he addressed them thus:—"My friends, the great serpent appeared to me during the night, and told me that the person who stole my money should, at this instant—this very instant—have a parrot's feather at the point of his nose." On this announcement, the dishonest thief, anxious to find out if his guilt had declared itself, put his finger to his nose. "Man," cried the master instantly, "'tis thou who hast robbed me. The great serpent has just told me so."
Clearly this piece of quackery succeeded, because the quack had "fund a fule."
CHAPTER VII.
JOHN RADCLIFFE.
Radcliffe, the Jacobite partisan, the physician without learning, and the luxurious bon-vivant, who grudged the odd sixpences of his tavern scores, was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire, in the year 1650. His extraction was humble, his father being only a well-to-do yeoman. In after life, when he lived on intimate terms with the leading nobility of the country, he put in a claim for aristocratic descent; and the Earl of Derwentwater recognized him as a kinsman deriving his blood from the Radcliffes of Dilston, in the county of Northumberland, the chiefs of which honourable family had been knights, barons, and earls, from the time of Henry IV. It may be remembered that a similar countenance was given to Burke's patrician pretensions, which have been related by more than one biographer, with much humorous pomp. In Radcliffe's case the Heralds interfered with the Earl's decision; for after the physician's decease they admonished the University of Oxford not to erect any escutcheon over or upon his monument. But though Radcliffe was a plebeian, he contrived, by his shrewd humour, arrogant simplicity, and immeasurable insolence, to hold both Whigs and Tories in his grasp. The two factions of the aristocracy bowed before him—the Tories from affection to a zealous adherent of regal absolutism; and the Whigs, from a superstitious belief in his remedial skill, and a fear that in their hours of need he would leave them to the advances of Death.
At the age of fifteen he became a member of the University College, Oxford; and having kept his terms there, he took his B. A. degree in 1669, and was made senior-scholar of the college. But no fellowship falling vacant there, he accepted one on the foundation of Lincoln College. His M. B. degree he took in 1675, and forthwith obtained considerable practice in Oxford. Owing to a misunderstanding with Dr. Marshall, the rector of Lincoln College, Radcliffe relinquished a fellowship, which he could no longer hold, without taking orders, in 1677. He did not take his M. D. degree till 1682, two years after which time he went up to London, and took a house in Bow Street, next that in which Sir Godfrey Kneller long resided; and with a facility which can hardly be credited in these days, when success is achieved only by slow advances, he stept forthwith into a magnificent income.
The days of mealy-mouthed suavity had not yet come to the Faculty. Instead of standing by each other with lip-service, as they now do in spite of all their jealousies, physicians and surgeons vented their mutual enmities in frank, honest abuse. Radcliffe's tongue was well suited for this part of his business; and if that unruly member created for him enemies, it could also contend with a legion of adversaries at the same time. Foulks and Adams, then the first apothecaries in Oxford, tried to discredit the young doctor, but were ere long compelled to sue for a cessation of hostilities. Luff, who afterwards became Professor of Physic in the University, declared that all "Radcliffe's cures were performed only by guesswork"; and Gibbons, with a sneer, said, "that it was a pity that his friends had not made a scholar of the young man." In return Radcliffe always persisted in speaking of his opponent as Nurse Gibbons—because of his slops and diet drinks, whereas he (Radcliffe the innovator) preached up the good effects of fresh air, a liberal table, and cordials. This was the Dr. Gibbons around whom the apothecaries rallied, to defend their interests in the great Dispensarian contest, and whom Garth in his poem ridicules, under the name of "Mirmillo," for entertaining drug-venders:—
"Not far from that frequented theatre,
Where wandering punks each night at five repair,
Where purple emperors in buskins tread,
And rule imaginary worlds for bread;
Where Bentley, by old writers, wealthy grew,
And Briscoe lately was undone by new;
There triumphs a physician of renown,
To none, but such as rust in health, unknown.
. . . . .
The trading tribe oft thither throng to dine,
And want of elbow-room supply in wine."