The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 2, 1862.

LITERATURE.

A Book about Doctors. By J. Cordy Jeaffreson.

Hurst and Blackett.

This, the most recent issue of Messrs. Hurst and
Blackett's Standard Library series, will be found,
we venture to say, one of the most amusing works
of the kind ever published. The subject, an ex-
tremely interesting one, has never before been so
completely handled ; the author has had peculiar
facilities for acquiring information respecting it,
and the result is a volume which none, we think,
will be willing to part with till they have devoured
it to the end. Proceeding systematically the writer
commences with a disquisition on sticks and wigs;
by the former term being meant the physician's
cane, now disused, though "up to very recent times
no doctor of medicine presumed to pay a profes-
sional visit, or even to be seen in public, without
this mystic wand. Long as a footman's stick, smooth
and varnished,with a heavy gold knob or cross bar at
the top, it was an instrument with which, down to
the present century, every prudent aspirant to me-
dical practice was provided. The celebrated gold-
headed cane which Radcliffe, Mead, Askew, Pit-
cairn,
and Baillie successively bore, is preserved in
the College of Physicians, bearing the arms which
those gentlemen assumed, or were entitled to. In
one respect, it deviated from the physician's cane
proper. It has a cross bar almost like a crook,
whereas a physician's wand ought to have a knob
at the top. This knob in chlen times was hollow,
and contained a vinegarette, which the man of
science always held to his nose when he approached
a sick person, so that its fumes might protect him
from the noxious exhalations of his patient." This
stick is supposed to have been a relic of the con-
juring paraphernalia with which the healer, in igno-
rant and superstitious times, worked upon the ima-
gination of the credulous; and it differed in shape
and significance from the pole of the barber-surgeon
—the latter being adorned with stripes of blue,
white, and red, as well as a gallipot and a red rag,
" the blue representing the serous blood, the more
brilliant colour the arterial, and the white thread
being symbolic of the bandage used in tying up the
arm after withdrawing the ligature. The stick itself
is a sign that the operator possesses a stout staff for
his patients to hold, continually tightening and re-
laxing their grasp during the operation=accelerat-
ing the flow of blood by the muscular action of the
arm." The wig, also, in former times, was almost as
important as the cane, and previous to Charles the
Second's reign physicians were in the habit of visit-
ing their patients on horseback, sitting sideways on
their foot-cloths like women, but the use of car-
riages was introduced at the Restoration. A
muff was also considered essential in cold
weather, that he might preserve, unimpaired,
his delicacy of touch. Among the old
English physicians the first of any note is Harvey,
who died in 1657, and the state of medical science
at his time may be judged from the receipt of his
famous contemporary Mayerne, who was physician
to many crowned heads, called Balsam of Bats,
into which entered adders, bats, sucking-whelps,
earth-worms, hog's grease, the marrow of a stag,
and the thigh-bone of an ox, which was strongly
recommended as an unguent for hypochondriacal
persons ; whilst the principal ingredient in his
gout-powder, was " raspings of a human skull un-
buried." Sir Thomas Browne also and his son were
eminent in the seventeenth century, and the
empirical Sir Kenelm Digby signalised himself by
the discovery of the sympathetic powder which
cured wounds in the following manner :—lf any
piece of a wounded person's apparel, having on it
the stain of blood that had proceeded from the
wound, was dipped in water holding in solution
some of this sympathetic powder, the wound of the
injured person would forthwith commence a healing
process, no matter how far distant the sufferer was
from the scene of operation. For some years this
powder was a fashionable remedy, but before Sir
Kenelm's death it fell into disrepute, and the utmost
his attached servant, Hartman, could say for it of
his own experience was, that when dissolved in
water it was a useful astringent lotion for bleeding
at the nose. Of the physicians of Pope's time
Garth is, perhaps, the best known. The poet
dedicated his second pastoral to him whilst alive,
and wrote of him when dead, "If ever
there was a good Christian, without know-
ing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth." His poem
called " The Dispensary," written to ridicule the
pretensions of the Apothecaries, was famous in its
day, though now known only by name. To him,
however, Dryden owed honourable interment,
When the great poet died, Garth caused his body
to be conveyed to the College of Physi-
cians, and started a public subscription to
defray the expenses of the funeral. He pro-
nounced an oration over the deceased at the Col-
lege in Warwick-lane, and then accompanied it
to Westminster Abbey. In the reign of Queen
Anne, the great celebrity was Dr. Radcliffe. The
death of that Sovereign was said to have been
owing to his refusal to attend her, through his
own illness, and so strong was the feeling against
the doctor that a plot was laid to assassinate him,
though one of the members, visited with com-
punction, informed him of it in the following
letter Doctor,—Tho' I am no friend of yours,
but, on the contrary, one that would wish your
destruction in a legal way, for not preventing the
death of our most excellent Queen, whom you
had it in your power to save, yet I have such
an aversion to the taking away men's lives un-
fairly, as to acquaint you that if you go to meet
the gentleman you have appointed to dine with
late Majesty,
twelve more, who
most ceenrgtaaignelyd bine mtnuertheenrnesdp. r
ale
ya,mvointhe
t the
at the Greyhound, in Croydon, on Thursday next,
You
stir out thoaft doors that of
are resolved to sacrifice you to
the ghost of
aloudhet-
that for
blood; therefore, neither day,
DOT any other, nor think of exchanging your pre-
sent abode for your home at Hammersmith, since
there and everywhere else we shall be in quest of
you. I am touched with remorse, and give you
this notice ; but take care of yourself, lest I repent
of it, and give proofs of so doing, by having it in
my heart to destroy youi who am your sworn
enemy.—N. G." The doctor, greatly alarmed at
this epistle, kept his house, and shortly after died.
He was succeeded in popularity by Dr. Mead, who
obtained his position as much by flattery as by
skill. " The first time Radcliffe called on Mead
when in town he found his young friend reading
Hippocrates. Do you read Hippocrates in Greek
demanded the visitor. ' Yes,' replied Mead timidly'
fearing his scholarship would offend the
great man. I never read him in my life,' re-
sponded Radcliffe, sullenly. You, sir,' was the
rejoinder, have no occasion—you are Hippocrates
himself." The reward of this compliment was that
Radcliffe recommended him to his patients, and he
made an income of £5,000 a-year. Radcliffe's
manner was by no means refined. He told William
the Third, on seeing his dropsical ankles, " I would
not have your Majesty's legs for your three king-
doms"; and he mortally offended Anne by refusing
to leave his bottle to attend her, sending word that
her distemper was nothing but the vapours. As
regards pecuniary success, that of Sir Astley Cooper
appears the greatest. The highest amount he re-
ceived in any one year was £21,000, but his income
for many years reached £15,000, and it was largest
when he lived in the city. Among notorious quacks
year he received, in
end of 20,000 francs,
pMaers ms
offered
ffro
eot
r,aoekdoeosh
francsitmh en Ie aai
ndn .nf
euleanse
tos
nnt
id the French Govern-
ment
ep
together with an additional 10,000 f. to support an
establishment for patients and pupils if he would
stay in France, but he stood out for better terms,
H a;peielidtnovnbe
ynO.ted an elixir of life, for
Of English ' quacks,
and the chance slipped
Graham, who established, about 1780, the "Temple
of Health," in the sanctum smanccitaotreudna,
notorious Lady f onewhich o f theti] e
most prominent.