A Book About Doctors

by John Cordy Jeaffreson

"No, sir, he was never better," answered the woman, gratefully; "but we can't get no rest for thinking of all the trouble that you have had, and so my boy resolved this morning on sending you his favourite magpie."

In the woman's hand was a large wicker basket, which she opened at the conclusion of the speech, affording means of egress to an enormous magpie, that hopped out into the room, demure as a saint and bold as a lord. It was a fee to be proud of!

The free-will offerings of the poor to their doctors are sometimes very droll, and yet more touching. They are presented with such fervour and simplicity, and such a sincere anxiety that they should be taken as an expression of gratitude for favours past, not for favours to come. The writer of these pages has known the humble toilers of agricultural districts retain for a score of years the memory of kind services done to them in sickness. He could tell of several who, at the anniversary of a particular day (when a wife died, or child was saved from fever, or an accident crushed a finger or lacerated a limb), trudge for miles over the country to the doctor's house, and leave there a little present—a pot of honey, a basket of apples, a dish of the currants from the bush which "the doctor" once praised, and said was fit for a gentleman's garden.

Of eminent physicians Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh was as remarkable for his amiability as for his learning. It was his custom to receive from new pupils at his own house the fees for the privilege of attending his lectures. Whilst thus engaged one day, he left a student in his consulting-room, and went into an adjoining apartment for a fresh supply of admission tickets. In a mirror the doctor saw the student rise from his seat, and sweep into his pocket some guineas from a heap of gold (the fees of other students) that lay on the consulting-room table. Without saying a word at the moment, Dr. Gregory returned, dated the admission ticket, and gave it to the thief. He then politely attended him to the door, and on the threshold said to the young man, with deep emotion, "I saw what you did just now. Keep the money. I know what distress you must be in. But for God's sake never do it again—it can never succeed." The pupil implored Gregory to take back the money, but the doctor said, "Your punishment is this, you must keep it—now you have taken it." The reproof had a salutary effect. The youth turned out a good and honest man.

An even better anecdote can be told of this good physician's benevolence. A poor medical student, ill of typhus fever, sent for him. The summons was attended to, and the visit paid, when the invalid proffered the customary guinea fee. Dr. Gregory turned away, insulted and angry. "I beg your pardon, Dr. Gregory," exclaimed the student, apologetically, "I didn't know your rule. Dr. —— has always taken one." "Oh," answered Gregory, "he has—has he? Look you, then, my young friend; ask him to meet me in consultation, and then offer him a fee; or stay—offer me the fee first." The directions were duly acted upon. The consultation took place, and the fee was offered. "Sir," exclaimed the benevolent doctor, "do you mean to insult me? Is there a professor who would in this University degrade himself so far as to take payment from one of his brotherhood—and a junior?" The confusion of the man on whom this reproof was really conferred can be imagined. He had the decency, ere the day closed, to send back to the student all the fees he had taken of him.

Amongst charitable physicians a high place must be assigned to Brocklesby, of whom mention is made in another part of these pages. An ardent Whig, he was the friend of enthusiastic Tories as well as of the members of his own body. Burke on the one hand, and Johnson on the other, were amongst his intimate associates, and experienced his beneficence. To the latter he offered a hundred-a-year for life. And when the Tory writer was struggling with the heavy burden of increasing disease, he attended him with affectionate solicitude, taking no fee for his services—Dr. Heberden, Dr. Warren, Dr. Butler, and Mr. Cruikshank the surgeon, displaying a similar liberality. It was Brocklesby who endeavored to soothe the mental agitation of the aged scholar's death-bed, by repeating the passage from the Roman satirist, in which occurs the line:—

"Fortem posce animum et mortis terrore carentem."

Burke's pun on Brocklesby's name is a good instance of the elaborate ingenuity with which the great Whig orator adorned his conversation and his speeches. Pre-eminent amongst the advertising quacks of the day was Dr. Rock. It was therefore natural that Brocklesby should express some surprise at being accosted by Burke as Dr. Rock, a title at once infamous and ridiculous. "Don't be offended. Your name is Rock," said Burke, with a laugh; "I'll prove it algebraically: Brock—b = Rock; or, Brock less b makes Rock." Dr. Brocklesby, on the occasion of giving evidence in a trial, had the ill fortune to offend the presiding judge, who, amongst other prejudices not uncommon in the legal profession, cherished a lively contempt for medical evidence. "Well, gentlemen of the jury," said the noble lawyer in his summing up, "what's the medical testimony? First we have a Dr. Rocklesby or—Brocklesby. What does he say? First of all he swears—he's a physician."

Abernethy is a by-word for rudeness and even brutality of manner; but he was as tender and generous as a man ought to be, as a man of great intelligence usually is. The stories current about him are nearly all fictions of the imagination; or, where they have any foundation in fact, relate to events that occurred long before the hero to whom they are tacked by anecdote-mongers had appeared on the stage. He was eccentric—but his eccentricities always took the direction of common sense; whereas the extravagances attributed to him by popular gossip are frequently those of a heartless buffoon. His time was precious, and he rightly considered that his business was to set his patients in the way of recovering their lost health—not to listen to their fatuous prosings about their maladies. He was therefore prompt and decided in checking the egotistic garrulity of valetudinarians. This candid expression of his dislike to unnecessary talk had one good result. People who came to consult him took care not to offend him by bootless prating. A lady on one occasion entered his consulting-room, and put before him an injured finger, without saying a word. In silence Abernethy dressed the wound, when instantly and silently the lady put the usual fee on the table, and retired. In a few days she called again, and offered the finger for inspection. "Better?" asked the surgeon. "Better," answered the lady, speaking to him for the first time. Not another word followed during the rest of the interview. Three or four similar visits were made, at the last of which the patient held out her finger free from bandages and perfectly healed. "Well?" was Abernethy's monosyllabic inquiry. "Well," was the lady's equally brief answer. "Upon my soul, madam," exclaimed the delighted surgeon, "you are the most rational woman I ever met with."

To curb his tongue, however, out of respect to Abernethy's humour, was an impossibility to John Philpot Curran. Eight times Curran (personally unknown to Abernethy) had called on the great surgeon; and eight times Abernethy had looked at the orator's tongue (telling him, by-the-by, that it was the most unclean and utterly abominable tongue in the world), had curtly advised him to drink less, and not abuse his stomach with gormandizing, had taken a guinea, and had bowed him out of the room. On the ninth visit, just as he was about to be dismissed in the same summary fashion, Curran, with a flash of his dark eye, fixed the surgeon, and said—"Mr. Abernethy, I have been here on eight different days, and I have paid you eight different guineas; but you have never yet listened to the symptoms of my complaint. I am resolved, sir, not to leave the room till you satisfy me by doing so." With a good-natured laugh, Abernethy, half suspecting that he had to deal with a madman, fell back in his chair and said—"Oh! very well, sir; I am ready to hear you out. Go on, give me the whole—your birth, parentage, and education. I wait your pleasure. Pray be as minute and tedious as you can." With perfect gravity Curran began—"Sir, my name is John Philpot Curran. My parents were poor, but I believe honest people, of the province of Munster, where also I was born, at Newmarket, in the county of Cork, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty. My father being employed to collect the rents of a Protestant gentleman of small fortune, in that neighbourhood, procured my admission into one of the Protestant free-schools, where I obtained the first rudiments of my education. I was next enabled to enter Trinity College, Dublin, in the humble sphere of a sizar—" And so he went steadily on, till he had thrown his auditor into convulsions of laughter.