The Funny Side of Physic Part 2

In spite of this mortifying reception, however, Sydenham afterwards took the greatest interest in Dr. Sloane, frequently taking the young man with him in his chariot on going his rounds.

In "Lives of English Physicians," the author, in writing of Dr. Sydenham, says, "At the commencement of his practice, it is handed down to us, that it was his ordinary custom, when consulted by patients for the first time, to hear attentively their story, and then reply, "Well, I will consider your case, and in a few days will prescribe something for you;" thereby gaining time to look up such a case. He soon learned that this deliberation would not do, as some forgot to return after "a few days,"

and to save his fees he was obliged, _nolens volens_, to prescribe on the spot.

A further proof of his contemptible opinion of deriving knowledge from books, as expressed above to Dr. Blackmore, is exemplified and corroborated in an address to Dr. Mapletoft (1675).

"The medical art could not be learned so well and surely as by use and experience, and that he who would pay the nicest and most accurate attention to the symptoms of distempers, would succeed best in finding out the true means of cure."

"Riding on horseback," he says, in one of his books, "will cure all diseases except confirmed consumption." How about curing gout?

A very amusing, though painful picture, is drawn by Dr. Winslow, a reliable author of the seventeenth century, in his book, "Physic and Physicians:"--

"Dr. Sydenham suffered extremely from the gout. One day, during the latter part of his life, he was sitting near an open window, on the ground floor of his residence in St. James Square, inspiring the cool breeze on a summer's afternoon, and reflecting, with a serene countenance and great complacency on the alleviation of human misery that his skill enabled him to give. Whilst this divine man was enjoying this delicious reverie, and occasionally sipping his favorite beverage from a silver tankard, in which was immersed a sprig of rosemary, a sneak thief approached, and seeing the helpless condition of the old doctor, stole the cup, right before his eyes, and ran away with it. The doctor was too lame to run after him, and before he could stir to ring and give alarm the thief was well off."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MISFORTUNES NEVER COME SINGLY.]

This reminds one of a story of an old man who stood in a highway, leaning on his staff, and crying, in a feeble, croaking voice, "Stop thief! stop thief!"

"What is the matter, sir?" inquired a fellow, approaching.

"O, a villain has stolen my hat from my head, and run away."

"Your hat!" looking at the bare head; "why didn't you run after him?"

"O, my dear sir, I can't run a step. I am very lame."

"Can't run! then here goes your wig." And so saying, the fellow caught the poor old man's wig, and scampered away at the top of his speed.

Dr. Sydenham died December 29, 1689. He could not be termed a quack, but certainly he was a consummate humbug.

An author, before quoted, after copying a description of the "poor physician" of the age, adds,--

"How it calls to mind the image of Dr. Oliver Goldsmith, when, with a smattering of medical knowledge and a German diploma, he tried to pick out of the miseries and ignorance of his fellow-creatures the means of keeping soul and body together! He, too, poet and doctor, would have sold a pot of rouge to a faded beauty, or a bottle of hair dye, or a nostrum warranted to cure the bite of a mad dog."

"Set a rogue to catch a rogue." And to this principle we are indebted for the exposition of many fallacies and humbugs pursued by early physicians in order to gain practice.

"Dr. Radcliffe," says Dr. Hannes, "on his arrival in London, employed half of the porters in town to call for him at the coffee-houses (a famous resort of physicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) and places of public resort, so that his name might become known."

On the other hand, Radcliffe accused Dr. Hannes of the same trick a few years later. Doctors were doctors' own worst enemies. Instead of standing by each other of the same school, in lip service, or pa.s.sing by each other's errors and imperfections in silence, as they do nowadays, they quarrelled continually, accusing each other of the very tricks they practised themselves.

Of Dr. Meade it was confidently a.s.serted, that without practice at first, he opened extensive correspondence with all the nurses and midwives in his vicinity, a.s.sociated and conversed with apothecaries and gossips, who, hoping for his trade, would recommend him as a skilful pract.i.tioner. The ruse worked, and soon the doctor found his calls were _bona fide_. This is a trick that some American physicians we know of may have learned from Dr.

Meade. Certainly they know and practise the deception.

When Dr. Hannes went to London, he opened the campaign with a coach and four. The carriage was of the most imposing appearance, the horses were the best bloods, sleek and high-spirited, the harnesses and caparisons of the richest mountings of silver and gold, with the most elegant tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.

"By Jove, Radcliffe!" exclaimed Meade, "Dr. Hannes' horses are the finest I have ever seen."

"Umph," growled Radcliffe, "then he will be able to sell them for all the more." But Dr. Radcliffe's _prognosis_ was at fault for once; and notwithstanding all the prejudice that Radcliffe and his friends could bring to bear against Hannes, and the lampooning verses spread broadcast against him, he kept his "fine horses," and rode into a flouris.h.i.+ng business.

To make his name known, Dr. Hannes used to send liveried footmen running about the streets, with directions to poke their heads into every coach they met, and inquire anxiously, "Is Dr. Hannes here?" "Is this Dr.

Hannes' carriage?" etc.

Acting upon these orders, one of these fellows, after looking into every carriage from Whitehall to Royal Exchange, ran into a coffee-house, which was one of the great places of meeting for members of the medical profession. Several physicians were present, among whom was Radcliffe.

"Gentlemen," said the liveried servant, hat in hand, "can your honors tell me if Dr. Hannes is present?"

"Who wants Dr. Hannes, fellow?" demanded Radcliffe.

"Lord A. and Lord B., your honor," replied the man.

"No, no, friend," responded the doctor, with pleasant irony; "those lords don't want _your master_; 'tis he who wants them."

The humbug exploded, but Hannes had got the start before this occurred.

A worthy biographer begins thus, in writing of Dr. Radcliffe: "The Jacobite partisan, the physician without learning, the luxurious _bon vivant_, Radcliffe, who grudged the odd sixpence of his tavern score,"

etc., "was born in Yorks.h.i.+re, in the year 1650."

But notwithstanding Radcliffe's plebeian birth, he died rich, therefore respected--a fact which hides many sins and imperfections. He not only humbugged the people of his day into the belief that he was a learned and eminent physician, but by his shrewdness in disposing of his gains, in bestowing wealth where it would tell in after years, when his body had returned to the dust from whence it came,--such as giving fifty thousand dollars to the Oxford University as a fund for the establishment of the great "Radcliffe Library," etc.,--he succeeded in humbugging subsequent generations into the same belief.

Certainly there is room for a few more such humbugs.

Dr. Barnard de Mandeville, in "Essays on Charity and Charity Schools,"

says of Radcliffe, "That a man with small skill in physic, and hardly any learning, should by vile arts get into practice, and lay up wealth, is no mighty wonder; but that he should so deeply work himself into the good opinion of the world as to gain the general esteem of a nation, and establish a reputation beyond all contemporaries, with no other qualities but a perfect knowledge of mankind, and a capacity of making the most of it, is something extraordinary."

Mandeville further accuses him of "an insatiable greediness after wealth, no regard for religion, or affection for kindred, no compa.s.sion for the poor, and hardly any humanity to his fellow-creatures; gave no proofs that he loved his country, had a public spirit, or love of the arts, books, or literature;" and asks, in summing up all this, "What must we judge of his motives, the principle he acted from, when after his death we find that he left but a mere trifle among his (poor) relatives who stood in need, and left an immense treasure to a university that did not want it?"

"Radcliffe was not endowed with a kindly nature," says another writer.

"Meade, I love you," he is represented as saying to his fascinating adulator, "and I will tell you a secret to make your fortune. Use all mankind ill."

Radcliffe had practised what he preached. Though mean and penurious, he could not brook meanness in others.

The rich miser, John Tyson, approximating his end, magnanimously resolved to pay two of his three million guineas to Dr. Radcliffe for medical advice. The miserable old man, accompanied by his wife, came up to London, and tottered into the doctor's office at Bloomsbury Square.

"I wish to consult you, sir; here are two guineas."

"You may go, sir," exclaimed Radcliffe.

The old miser had trusted that he was unknown, and he might pa.s.s for a poor wretch, unable to pay the five guineas expected from the wealthy, as a single consultation fee.

"You may go home and die, and be d----d; for the grave and the devil are ready for Jack Tyson of Hackney, who has ama.s.sed riches out of the public and the tears of orphans and widows."

As the miserable old man turned away, Radcliffe exclaimed, "You'll be a dead man in less than ten days."

It required little medical skill, in the feeble condition of the old man, in order to give this correct prognosis.

Radcliffe was the Barnum of doctors. "_Omnia mutantur, et nos mutamus in illis_," exclaimed Lotharius the First. But that "all things are changed, and we change with them," did not apply to medical humbugs during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--no, nor in the nineteenth century, as we will show, particularly in our articles on Quacks and Patent Medicines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MISER OUTWITS HIMSELF.]