Queen Elizabeth gave her physician-in-ordinary £100 per annum, besides diet, wine, wax, and other perquisites. Her apothecary, Hugo Morgan, must too have made a good thing out of her. For a quarter's bill that gentleman was paid £83 7s. 8d., a large sum in those days; but then it was for such good things. What Queen of England could grudge eleven shillings for "a confection made like a manus Christi, with bezoar stone and unicorn's horn"?—sixteen pence for "a royal sweetmeat with incised rhubarb"?—twelve pence for "Rosewater for the King of Navarre's ambassador"?—six shillings for "a conserve of barberries, with preserved damascene plums, and other things for Mr. Raleigh"?—two shillings and sixpence for "sweet scent to be used at the christening of Sir Richard Knightley's son"?
Coytier, the physician of Charles the XI. of France, was better paid by far. The extent to which he fleeced that monarch is incredible. Favour after favour he wrung from him. When the royal patient resisted the modest demands of his physician, the latter threatened him with speedy dissolution. On this menace the king, succumbing to that fear of death which characterized more than one other of his family, was sure to make the required concession. Theodore Hook's valet, who was a good servant in the first year of his service, a sympathizing friend in the second, and a hard tyrant in the third, was a timid slave compared with Coytier. Charles, in order to be freed from his despotism, ordered him to be dispatched. The officer, intrusted with the task of carrying out the royal wishes, waited on Coytier, and said, in a most gentlemanlike and considerate manner, "I am very sorry, my dear fellow, but I must kill you. The king can't stand you any longer." "All right," said Coytier, with perfect unconcern, "whenever you like. What time would it be most convenient for you to kill me? But still, I am deuced sorry for his Majesty, for I know by occult science that he can't outlive me more than four days." The officer was so struck with the announcement, that he went away and forthwith imparted it to the king. "Liberate him instantly—don't hurt a hair of his head!" cried the terrified monarch. And Coytier was once again restored to his place in the king's confidence and pocket.
Henry Atkins managed James the First with some dexterity. Atkins was sent for to Scotland, to attend Charles the First (then an infant), who was dangerously ill of a fever. The king gave him the handsome fee of £6000. Atkins invested the money in the purchase of the manor of Clapham.
Radcliffe, with a rare effort of generosity, attended a friend for a twelvemonth gratuitously. On making his last visit his friend said, "Doctor, here is a purse in which I have put every day's fee; and your goodness must not get the better of my gratitude. Take your money." Radcliffe looked, made a resolve to persevere in benevolence, just touched the purse to reject it, heard the chink of the gold pieces in it, and put the bag into his pocket. "Singly, sir, I could have refused them for a twelvemonth; but, all together, they are irresistible," said the doctor, walking off with a heavy prize and a light heart.
Louis XIV. gave his physician and his surgeon 75,000 crowns each, after successfully undergoing a painful and at that time novel operation. By the side of such munificence, the fees paid by Napoleon I. to the Faculty who attended Marie Louise in March, 1811, when the Emperor's son was born, seem insufficient. Dubois, Corvisart, Bourdier, and Ivan were the professional authorities employed, and they had among them a remuneration of £4000, £2000 being the portion assigned to Dubois.
Even more than fee gratefully paid does a humorous physician enjoy an extra fee adroitly drawn from the hand of a reluctant payer. Sir Richard Jebb was once paid three guineas by a nobleman from whom he had a right to expect five. Sir Richard dropped the coins on the carpet, when a servant picked them up and restored them—three, and only three. Instead of walking off Sir Richard continued his search on the carpet. "Are all the guineas found?" asked his Lordship looking round. "There must be two still on the floor," was the answer, "for I have only three." The hint of course was taken and the right sum put down. An eminent Bristol doctor accomplished a greater feat than this, and took a fee from—a dead commoner, not a live lord. Coming into his patient's bed-room immediately after death had taken place, he found the right hand of the deceased tightly clenched. Opening the fingers he discovered within them a guinea. "Ah, that was for me—clearly," said the doctor putting the piece into his pocket.
Reminding the reader, in its commencement, of Sir Richard Jebb's disappointment at the three-guinea fee, the following story may here be appropriately inserted. A physician on receiving two guineas, when he expected three, from an old lady patient, who was accustomed to give him the latter fee, had recourse to one part of Sir Richard's artifice, and assuming that the third guinea had been dropt through his carelessness on the floor, looked about for it. "Nay, nay," said the lady with a smile, "you are not in fault. It is I who dropt it."
There is an abundance of good stories of physicians fleecing their lambs. To those that are true the comment may be made—"Doubtless the lambs were all the better for being shorn." For the following anecdote we are indebted to Dr. Moore, the author of "Zeluco." A wealthy tradesman, after drinking the Bath waters, took a fancy to try the effect of the Bristol hot wells. Armed with an introduction from a Bath physician to a professional brother at Bristol, the invalid set out on his journey. On the road he gave way to his curiosity to read the doctor's letter of introduction, and cautiously prying into it read these instructive words: "Dear sir, the bearer is a fat Wiltshire clothier—make the most of him."
Benevolence was not a virtue in old Monsey's line; but he could be generous at another's expense, when the enjoyment his malignity experienced in paining one person counterbalanced his discomfort at giving pleasure to another. Strolling through Oxford market he heard a poor woman ask the price of a piece of meat that lay on a butcher's stall.
"A penny a pound!" growled the man to whom the question was put, disdaining to give a serious answer to such a poverty-stricken customer.