The Funny Side of Physic Part 54

"At eight."

"You can't be at Bedford Row" (where Abernethy resided) "at nine, then?"

"Yes, sir, I can."

"To-morrow morning, then."

"Yes, sir; thank you."

The pupil was punctual. Dr. Abernethy made a very careful examination of his nose, found nothing of the nature of polypus, made the pupil promise never to look into his nose again, and he, in after years, said, that there never was anything the matter.

Dr. Abernethy never took a fee from a student, brother doctor, nor full fee from a clergyman. His great labors seemed to be in the hospitals, and on his resignation as surgeon to St. Bartholomew, he presented for its use five hundred dollars. He never neglected his poor hospital patients for the richer ones outside.

One morning, on leaving his house for a visit to the hospital patients, some one wished to detain him, when he exclaimed, in terms more earnest than elegant,--

"Private patients may go to the devil" (or elsewhere, another reports), "but the poor fellows in the hospital I am bound to care for."

To poor students whose funds were "doubtful," he presented free tickets to his college lectures, afterwards showing them marked attention.

Everybody has heard of his rude kindness to a young fas.h.i.+onable miss, whom her mother took to Abernethy for treatment. It is said that the doctor ran a knife under her belt, in presence of the mother, instantly severing it, and exclaiming,--

"Why, madam, don't you know there are upwards of thirty yards of ----"

(what are more elegantly termed bowels) "squeezed under that girdle? Go home, give nature fair play, and you'll have no need of a prescription."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ABERNETHY'S SURGICAL OPERATION.]

KINDNESS TO CLERGYMEN.

"Cynics have been found in plenty to rail at physicians for loving their fees; and one might justly retort that the railers love nothing but their fees. Who does not love--and who is not ent.i.tled to--the sweet money earned by labor, be it labor of hand, brain, or cloth? One thing is sure--doctors are unpaid."--_A Lawyer._

The above kind-hearted physician, having attended the child of a clergyman's widow, without knowing her situation, returned all the fees he had received from her when he learned who she was, and added, in a letter, fifty pounds besides, with instructions to expend it in daily rides in the open air, for her health. To a clergyman he sent a receipt for his long services, and also enclosing ten pounds.

The generosity of Dr. Wilson, of Bath (now deceased), has before been recorded. He had been attending a clergyman, who, Wilson had learned, was in indigent circ.u.mstances, and he afterwards sent fifty pounds in gold to the minister, by a friend.

"Yes, I will take it to him to-morrow," said the gentleman.

"O, my dear sir," exclaimed Dr. Wilson, "take it to him to-night. Only think of the importance to an invalid of one good night's rest."

RARE CHARITY.

Another case of "three pair, back," occurs in the memoirs of Dr. Lettsom, who is already made mention of in this work. On one of his benevolent excursions, the doctor found his way into the squalid garret of a poor old woman who had evidently seen better days. With the refined language and the easy deportment of a well-bred lady, she begged the physician to examine her case, and give her a prescription. (Alas! how often is poverty mistaken for disease, and does want foster malady!) But the kind doctor, after a careful inquiry, formed a correct diagnosis, and wrote on a slip of paper he chanced to have about him, the following brief note to the overseers of the parish:--

"A s.h.i.+lling per diem for Mrs. Moreton. Money, not physic, can cure her.

LETTSOM."

A s.h.i.+lling, in those days, was considered no mean sum per day.

"Alas for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun!

O, it was pitiful!

Near a whole city full, Home she had none.

"Sisterly, brotherly, Fatherly, motherly Feelings had changed; Love, by harsh evidence, Thrown from its eminence, Even G.o.d's providence Seeming estranged."

"Alas, doctor," said an unfortunate old gentleman, some seventy-four years old,--a merchant ruined by the American war, bowed down by the weight of his misfortunes, and by disease,--to Dr. Lettsom, "those beautiful trees you may see out of my bedroom window I planted with these now feeble hands. I have lived to see them bear fruit; they have become as part of my family. But with my children still dearer to me, I must quit this dear old home, which was the delight of my youth and the hope of my declining years, and become a homeless, joyless wanderer in my old age."

The benevolent Quaker doctor was deeply affected by these words, and the utter despair and hopelessness with which the weeping old man uttered them; and, speaking a few words of consolation to his unfortunate patient, he wrote a prescription, and hastily retired.

On the old gentleman's examination of the remarkable looking recipe, he found it to be a check for a large sum of money. The benevolence of the physician did not end here. He purchased the residence and grounds of the old man's creditors, and prescribed them to him for life. (He is our young Quaker antipode, mentioned in another chapter.)

The old apothecary, Sutcliff, was right when he said of young Lettsom, while his apprentice, "Thou may'st make a good physician, but I think not a good apothecary." An apothecary is not expected to give away his time or medicine. (They seldom disappoint one's expectations.) A grocer is not expected to give away flour, rice, sugar, tea, to even a starving, languis.h.i.+ng neighbor; nor the baker, nor the butcher, to give bread or meat to the peris.h.i.+ng. Why, such demands upon them daily would be laughed to scorn. But the physician! These very same n.i.g.g.ardly men (individually) would berate the doctor, be he ever so needy, or be his family ever so large, who would accept a fee for even cold-night services to any but the richest patients. All physicians do not have access to the "richest patients." Many a good physician has been compelled to quit practice because of his too large "b.u.mp" of benevolence, and because of the limited amount of that article in his first few patients, while thousands of pract.i.tioners in this country struggle and labor on through a life of self-denial, wearing themselves out, dying prematurely, leaving their families penniless to the cold charities of an uncharitable world. (See Chapter x.x.x.)

THE OLD JEW.

"Ah me," exclaimed a Jew, one day, as he reluctantly drew out his wallet to pay three dollars for his examination, prescription, and advice, "if I could only make money like the doctors of mede_cene_! Ah me." Then, taking two dollars from his purse, he asked, "Won't that do?"

This Jew was a merchant, reputed rich, and penurious as he was wealthy, and I demanded the accustomed fee.

"Let me see," said he; "how many patients have you seen to-day?"

"Nine," I replied.

"Let me see," counting his fingers as a tally. "At least twenty-seven dollars a day, and nothing out but a bit of paper. Ah, I wish I had been a doctor in mede_cene_," he added, with a sigh, and a woful look at the money, as he reluctantly handed it over.

This was casting pearls before worse than swine, prescribing for such a wretch. Brains, education, anxiety, all went for nought, with him. _Money_ was his all. A s.h.i.+lling before his eyes would shut out even G.o.d's sunlight. If the s.h.i.+lling only _shone_, _glistened_,--sunlight enough for such a wretch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RECKONING A DOCTOR'S FEES.]

"Let _me_ see," I said, after his miserable body had taken his penurious soul out of my office; "nine patients, one three miles away. Horse-tire and carriage-wear, time, advice, and medicine given, because the patient was a widow. No. 2 patient, the sick child of an invalid mother; no fee.

No. 3, an Irishman. The Irish never wish to pay anything; did pay one dollar. No. 4, a merchant. "Charge it." That was _his_ fee. No. 5, a young sewing girl, who, in sewing on army cloth, had sewed her life's blood into the seams. In consumption. Could I take her fee? G.o.d forbid. No. 6, a "lady," who, having so much upon her back, had nothing in her purse. I may get my fee at the end of the quarter. "You know my husband. Good morning."

It was near two o'clock then. She had occupied my time a whole hour. My dinner was cold; my wife was out of sorts, waiting so long. Nos. 7 and 8, two sick children. Visit them daily; pay uncertain. The ninth was the wealthy Jew. Nine patients; four dollars! Don't I sometimes wish I kept an "O' clo'" store, like the old Jew? This actually occurred when I practised medicine in Hartford.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PATIENT NUMBER FIVE.]

DR. HUNTER'S GENEROSITY.

No man cared _less_ for the profits of the medical profession, or _more_ for the honor thereof, than the great Dr. John Hunter. He was honest, honorable, and simple in his every day life. His works, which contributed more to the science of medicine than any other writings during a thousand years, were simply announced as by JOHN HUNTER. A plain door plate, with the same name, announced his residence. Money was a secondary consideration to him. The following shows that he desired a professional brother to so consider it:--

"DEAR BROTHER: The bearer needs your advice. He has no money, and you have plenty; so you are well met.

"Yours, JOHN HUNTER."

To a poor tradesman from whom he had received twenty guineas for performing a surgical operation upon his wife, he returned nineteen guineas, having learned with what difficulty and extreme self-denial the husband had raised the money.

"I sent back nineteen guineas, and kept the twentieth," said he, in apology for retaining even the one, "that they might not be hurt with an idea of too great an obligation."