A Book About Doctors

by John Cordy Jeaffreson

We may add that this surgeon was then, at a moderate computation, making three thousand a year. We have heard of an Old Bailey barrister boasting how he wrung the shillings (to convert the sovereigns already paid with his brief into guineas) from the grimed hands of a prisoner actually standing in the dock for trial, ere he would engage to defend him. But compared with this surgeon the man of the long robe was a disinterested friend of the oppressed.

A better story yet of a surgeon who seized on his fee like a hawk. A clergyman of ——shire, fell from a branch of a high pear-tree to the grass-plot of the little garden that surrounded his vicarage-house, and sustained, besides being stunned, a compound fracture of the right arm. His wife, a young and lovely creature, of a noble but poor family, to whom he had been married only three or four years, was terribly alarmed, and without regulating her conduct by considerations of her pecuniary means, dispatched a telegraphic message to an eminent London surgeon. In the course of three or four hours the surgeon made his appearance, and set the broken limb.

"And what, sir," the young wife timidly asked of the surgeon, when he had come down-stairs into her little drawing-room, "is your fee?"

"Oh, let's see—distance from town, hundred miles. Yes. Then my fee is a hundred guineas!"

Turning deadly pale with fright (for the sum was ten times the highest amount the poor girl had thought of as a likely fee) she rose, and left the room, saying, "Will you be kind enough to wait for a few minutes?"

Luckily her brother (like her husband, a clergyman, with very moderate preferment) was in the house, and he soon made his appearance in the drawing-room. "Sir," said he, addressing the operator, "my sister has just now been telling me the embarrassment she is in, and I think it best to repeat her story frankly. She is quite inexperienced in money matters, and sent for you without ever asking what the ordinary fee to so distinguished a surgeon as yourself, for coming so far from London, might be. Well, sir, it is right you should know her circumstances. My brother-in-law has no property but his small living, which does not yield him more than £400 per annum, and he has already two children. My sister has no private fortune whatever, at present, and all she has in prospect is the reversion of a trifling sum—at a distant period. Poverty is the only stigma that time has fixed upon my family. Now, sir, under the circumstances, if professional etiquette would allow of your reducing your fee to the straitened finances of my sister, it really would—would be—"

"Oh, my dear sir," returned the surgeon, in a rich, unctuous voice of benevolence, "pray don't think I'm a shark. I am really deeply concerned for your poor sister. As for my demand of a hundred guineas, since it would be beyond her means to satisfy it, why, my dear sir, I shall be only too delighted to be allowed—to take a hundred pounds!"

The fee-loving propensities of doctors are well illustrated by the admirable touches of Froissart's notice of Guyllyam of Harseley, who was appointed physician to Charles the Sixth, King of France, during his derangement. The writer's attention was first called to Friossart's sketch of the renowned mad-doctor by his friend Mr. Edgar—a gentleman whose valuable contributions to historical literature have endeared his name to both young and old. Of the measures adopted by Guyllyam for the king's cure the readers of Froissart are not particularly informed; but it would appear, from the physician's parting address to the "dukes of Orlyance, Berrey, Burgoyne, and Burbone," that his system was, in its enlightened humanity, not far behind that adopted at the present day by Dr. Conolly and Dr. Forbes Winslow. But, however this may be, Guyllyam's labours must be regarded as not less consonant with sound nosological views than those of the afflicted monarch's courtiers, until it can be shown that his treatment was worse than leaving Nature to herself. "They," says Froissart, "that were about the kynge sente the kynge's offrynge to a town called Aresneche, in the countie of Heynaulte, between Cambrey and Valancennes, in the whiche towne there was a churche parteyning to an Abbey of Saynt Waste in Arrasce wherein there lyeth a saynte, called Saynt Acquayre, of whom there is a shrine of sylver, which pylgrimage is sought farre and nere for the malady of the fransey; thyder was sent a man of waxe, representynge the Frenche Kynge, and was humbly offred to the Saynt, that he might be meane to God, to asswage the kynge's malady, and to sende him helthe. In lykewise the kynge's offrynge was sent to Saynt Hermyer in Romayes, which saynt had meryte to heal the fransey. And in lykewise offrynges were sent into other places for ye same entent."

The conclusion of Guyllyam's attendance is thus described:—"Trewe it is this sycknesse that the kyng took in the voyage towards Bretagne greatly abated the ioye of the realme of France, and good cause why, for when the heed is sicke the body canne have no ioye. No man durste openly speke thereof, but kepte it privy as moche as might be, and it was couertly kept fro the queene, for tyll she was delyuered and churched she knewe nothynge thereof, which tyme she had a doughter. The physician, myster Guyllyam, who had the chefe charge of healynge of the kynge, was styll aboute hym, and was ryght dyligent and well acquyted hymselfe, whereby he gate bothe honour and profyte; for lytell and lytell he brought the kynge in good estate, and toke away the feuer and the heate, and made hym to haue taste and appetyte to eate and drinke, slepe and rest, and knowledge of every thynge; howebeit, he was very feble, and lytell and lytell he made the kynge to ryde a huntynge and on hawkynge; and whanne tydynges was knowen through France howe the kynge was well mended, and had his memory again, every man was ioyfull and thanked God. The kynge thus beyng at Crayell, desyred to se the quene his wyfe and the dolphyn his sonne; so the quene came thyder to hym, and the chylde was brought thyder, the kynge made them good chere, and so lytell and lytell, through the helpe of God, the kynge recouered his helthe. And when mayster Guyllyam sawe the kynge in so good case he was ryght ioyfull, as reasone was, for he hade done a fayre cure, and so delyuered him to the dukes of Orlyance, Berrey, Burgoyne, and Burbone, and sayd: 'My lordes, thanked be God, the kynge is nowe in good state and helth, so I delyuer him, but beware lette no mane dysplease hym, for as yet his spyrytes be no fully ferme nor stable, but lytell and lytell he shall waxe stronge; reasonable dysporte, rest, and myrthe shall be moste profytable for hym; and trouble hym as lytell as may be with any counsayles, for he hath been sharpely handeled with a hote malady.' Than it was consydred to retaygne this mayster Guyllyam, and to gyve hym that he shulde be content with all, whiche is the ende that all physicians requyre, to haue gyftes and rewardes; he was desyred to abyde styll about the kynge, but he excused hymselfe, and sayd howe he was an olde impotent man, and coulde note endure the maner of courte, wherfore he desyred to returne into his owne countrey. Whan the counsayle sawe he wolde none otherwyse do, they gaue him leaue, and at his departing gave him a thousand crownes, and retayned hym in wages with four horses whansover he wolde resorte to the courte; howbeit, I beleve he never came there after, for whan he retournd to the cytie of Laon, there he contynued and dyed a ryche man: he left behynde him a xxx thousand frankes. All his dayes he was one of the greatest nygardes that ever was: all his pleasure was to get good and to spende nothynge, for in his howse he neuer spente past two souses of Parys in a day, but wolde eate and drinke in other mennes howses, where as he myght get it. With this rodde lyghtly all physicyons are beaten."[19]

The humane advice given by Guyllym countenances the tradition that cards were invented for the amusement of his royal patient.