"And, by ——!" exclaimed the fine-hearted surgeon—when he narrated this disgraceful affair, "I'll act exactly in the same way to the next poor man who gives me his word of honour that he is not rich enough to pay me."
The success of Sir Astley Cooper was beyond that of any medical practitioner of modern times; but it came very gradually. His earnings for the first nine years of his professional career progressed thus:—In the first year he netted five guineas; in the second, twenty-six pounds; in the third, sixty-four pounds; in the fourth, ninety-six pounds; in the fifth, a hundred pounds; in the sixth, two hundred pounds; in the seventh, four hundred pounds; in the eighth, six hundred and ten pounds; and in the ninth, the year in which he secured his hospital appointment, eleven hundred pounds. But the time came when the patients stood for hours in his ante-rooms waiting to have an interview with the great surgeon, and after all, their patients were dismissed without being admitted to the consulting-room. Sir Astley's man, Charles, with all the dignity that became so eminent a man's servant, used to say to these disappointed applicants, in a tone of magnificent patronage, when they reappeared the next morning after their effectless visit, "I am not at all sure that we shall be able to attend to-day to you, gentlemen, for we are excessively busy, and our list is perfectly full for the day; but if you'll wait I will see what can be done for you!"
The highest amount that Sir Astley received in any one year was £21,000. This splendid income was an exceptional one. For many years, however, he achieved more than £15,000 per annum. As long as he lived in the City after becoming celebrated he made an enormous, but fluctuating, revenue, the state of the money-market having an almost laughable effect on the size of the fees paid him. The capitalists who visited the surgeon in Broad Street, in three cases out of four, paid in cheques, and felt it beneath their dignity to put pen to paper for a smaller sum than five guineas. After Sir Astley moved to the West End he had a more numerous and at the same time more aristocratic practice; but his receipts were never so much as they were when he dwelt within the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction. His more distinguished patients invariably paid their guineas in cash, and many of them did not consider it inconsistent with patrician position to give single fees. The citizens were the fellows to pay. Mr. William Coles, of Mincing Lane, for a long period paid Sir Astley £600 a year, the visits of the latter being principally made to Mr. Cole's seat near Croydon. Another "City man," who consulted the surgeon in Broad Street, and departed without putting down any honorarium whatever, sent a cheque for £63 10s., with the following characteristic note:—
"Dear Sir—When I had first the pleasure of seeing you, you requested, as a favour, that I would consider your visit on the occasion as a friend. I now, sir, must request you will return the compliment by accepting the enclosed draft as an act of friendship. It is the profit on £2000 of the ensuing loan, out of a small sum Sir F. Baring had given, of appropriating for your chance."
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 practitioners 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 shilling 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 Lordship 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 shilling 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 shilling" as sheer humbug, and he would not pay it. A contest ensued, which terminated in the eccentric patient paying, not the shilling, 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."