A Book about Doctors Part 16

"_Three special months_, _September_, _Aprill_, _May_, There are in which 'tis good to ope a vein-- In these three months the moon beares greatest sway, Then old or young, that store of blood containe, May bleed now, though some elder wizards say, Some daies are ill in these, I hold it vaine; September, Aprill, May have daies apeece, That bleeding do forbid and eating geese, And those are they, forsooth, of May the first, Of t'other two, the last of each are worst.

"But yet those daies I graunt, and all the rest, Haue in some cases just impediment, As first, if nature be with cold opprest, Or if the Region, Ile, or Continent, Do scorch or freez, if stomach meat detest, If Baths you lately did frequent, Nor old, nor young, nor drinkers great are fit, Nor in long sickness, nor in raging fit, Or in this case, if you will venture bleeding, The quant.i.ty must then be most exceeding.

"When you to bleed intend, you must prepare Some needful things both after and before: Warm water and sweet oyle both needfull are, And wine the fainting spirits to restore; Fine binding cloths of linnen, and beware That all the morning you do sleepe no more; Some gentle motion helpeth after bleeding, And on light meals a spare and temperate feeding To bleed doth cheare the pensive, and remove The raging furies bred by burning love.

"Make your incision large and not too deep, That blood have speedy yssue with the fume; So that from sinnews you all hurt do keep.

Nor may you (as I toucht before) presume In six ensuing houres at all to sleep, Lest some slight bruise in sleepe cause an apostume; Eat not of milke, or aught of milke compounded, Nor let your brain with much drinke be confounded; Eat no cold meats, for such the strength impayre, And shun all misty and unwholesome ayre.

"Besides the former rules for such as pleases Of letting bloud to take more observation; . . . . .

To old, to young, both letting blood displeases.

By yeares and sickness make your computation.

First in the spring for quant.i.ty you shall Of bloud take twice as much as in the fall; In spring and summer let the right arme bloud, The fall and winter for the left are good."

Wadd mentions an old surgical writer who divides his chapter on bleeding under such heads as the following:--1. What is to limit bleeding? 2. Qualities of an able phlebotomist; 3. Of the choice of instruments; 4. Of the band and bolster; 5. Of porringers; 6.

_Circ.u.mstances to be considered at the bleeding of a Prince._

Simon Harward's "Phlebotomy, or Treatise of Letting of Bloud; fitly serving, as well for an advertis.e.m.e.nt and remembrance to all well-minded chirurgians, as well also to give a caveat generally to all men to beware of the manifold dangers which may ensue upon rash and unadvised letting of bloud," published in the year 1601, contains much interesting matter on the subject of which it treats. But a yet more amusing work is one that Nicholas Gyer wrote and published in 1592, under the following t.i.tle:--

"The English Phlebotomy; or, Method and Way of Healing by Letting of Bloud."

On the t.i.tle-page is a motto taken from the book of Proverbs--"The horse-leach hath two daughters, which crye, 'give, give.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _THE FOUNDERS OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON_]

The work affords some valuable insight into the social status of the profession in the sixteenth century.

In his dedicatory letter to Master Reginald Scot, Esquire, the author says that phlebotomy "is greatly abused by vagabund horse-leaches and travailing tinkers, who find work almost in every village through whom it comes (having in truth neither knowledge, nor witte, nor honesty), the sober pract.i.tioner and cunning chirurgian liveth basely, is despised, and accounted a very abject amongst the vulgar sort." Of the medical skill of Sir Thomas Eliot, and Drs. Bulleyn, Turner, Peni?, and Coldwel, the author speaks in terms of warm eulogy; but as for the tinkers aforementioned, he would regard them as murderers, and "truss them up at Tyborne."

Gyer, who indulges in continual reference to the "Schola Salerni,"

makes the following contribution to the printed metrical literature on Venesection:--

"_Certaine very old English verses, concerning the veines and letting of bloud, taken out of a very auncient paper book of Phisicke notes_:--

"Ye maisters that usen bloud-letting, And therewith getten your living; Here may you learn wisdome good, In what place ye shall let bloud.

For man, in woman, or in child, For evils that he wood and wild.

There beene veynes thirty-and-two, For wile is many, that must he undo.

Sixteene in the head full right, And sixteene beneath I you plight.

In what place they shall be found, I shall you tell in what stound.

Beside the eares there beene two, That on a child mote beene undoe; To keep his head from evil turning And from the scale withouten letting.

And two at the temples must bleede, For stopping and aking I reede; And one is in the mid forehead, For Lepry or for sawcefleme that mote bleede.

Above the nose forsooth is one, That for the frensie mote be undone.

Also when the eien been sore, For the red gowt evermore.

And two other be at the eien end.

If thy bleeden them to amend.

And the arch that comes thorow smoking, I you tell withouten leasing.

And at the whole of the throat, there beene two, That Lepry and straight breath will undoo.

In the lips foure there beene, Able to bleede I tell it be deene, Two beneath, and above also I tell thee there beene two.

For soreness of the mouth to bleede, When it is flawne as I thee reede.

And two in the tongue withouten lie, Mote bleede for the quinancie.

And when the tongue is aught aking, For all manner of swelling.

Now have I tolde of certaine, That longer for the head I weene, And of as many I will say, That else where there beene in fay.

In every arme there beene fife, Full good to blede for man and wife, _Cephalica_ is one I wis, The head veyne he cleaped is, The body above and the head; He cleanseth for evil and qued.

In the bought of the arme also, An order there must he undoo; Basilica his name is, Lowest he sitteth there y wis; Forsooth he cleanseth the liver aright, And all other members beneath I twight.

The middle is between the two, Corall he is clipped also That veine cleanseth withouten doubt; Above and beneath, within and without.

For Basilica that I of told, One braunched veine ety up full bold, To the thomb goeth that one braunch; The cardiacle he wil staunch, That there braunch full right goeth, To the little finger withouten oth; _Saluatell_ is his name, He is a veine of n.o.ble fame; There is no veine that cleanseth so clene, The stopping of the liver and splene.

Above the knuckles of the feet, With two veines may thou meet, Within sitteth _Domestica_, And without _Saluatica_.

All the veines thee have I told, That cleanseth man both yong and old.

If thou use them at thy need, These foresaid evils they dare not dread; So that our Lord be them helping, That all hath in his governing.

So mote it be, so say all wee, Amen, amen, for charitee."

To bleed on May-day is still the custom with ignorant people in a few remote districts. The system of vernal minutions probably arose from that tendency in most men to repeat an act (simply because they have done it once) until it has become a habit, and then superst.i.tiously to persevere in the habit, simply because it is a habit. How many aged people read certain antiquated journals, as they wear exploded garments, for no other reason than that they read the same sort of literature, and wore the same sort of habiliments, when young. To miss for once the performance of a periodically recurring duty, and so to break a series of achievements, would worry many persons, as the intermitted post caused Dr. Johnson discomfort till he had returned and touched it. As early as the sixteenth century, we have Gyer combating the folly of people having recourse to periodic venesections. "There cometh to my minde," he says, "a common opinion among the ignorant people, which do certainly beleeve that, if any person be let bloud one yere, he must be let bloud every yere, or else he is (I cannot tell, nor they neither) in how great danger. Which fonde opinion of theirs, whereof soever the same sp.r.o.ng first, it is no more like to be true, than if I should say: when a man hath received a great wound by chaunce in any part of his body, whereby he loseth much bloud; yet after it is healed, he must needs have the like wounde againe there the next yeare, to avoid as much bloud, or els he is in daunger of great sickness, yea, and also in hazard to lose his life."

The pract.i.tioners of phlebotomy, and the fees paid for the operation, have differed widely. In the middle of the last century a woman used the lancet with great benefit to her own pocket, if not to her patients, in Marshland, in the county of Norfolk. What her charge was is unknown, probably, however, only a few pence. A distinguished personage of the same period (Lord Radnor) had a great fondness for letting the blood (at the point of an amicable lancet--not a hostile sword) of his friends. But his Lordship, far from accepting a fee, was willing to remunerate those who had the courage to submit to his surgical care. Lord Chesterfield, wanting an additional vote for a coming division in the House of Peers, called on Lord Radnor, and, after a little introductory conversation, complained of a distressing headache.

"You ought to lose blood then," said Lord Radnor.

"Gad--do you indeed think so? Then, my dear lord, do add to the service of your advice by performing the operation. I know you are a most skilful surgeon."

Delighted at the compliment, Lord Radnor in a trice pulled out his lancet-case, and opened a vein in his friend's arm.

"By-the-by," asked the patient, as his arm was being adroitly bound up, "do you go down to the House to-day?"

"I had not intended going," answered the n.o.ble operator, "not being sufficiently informed on the question which is to be debated; but you, that have considered it, which side will you vote on?"

In reply, Lord Chesterfield unfolded his view of the case; and Lord Radnor was so delighted with the reasoning of the man (who held his surgical powers in such high estimation), that he forthwith promised to support the wily earl's side in the division.

"I have shed my blood for the good of my country," said Lord Chesterfield that evening to a party of friends, who, on hearing the story, were convulsed with laughter.

Steele tells of a phlebotomist who advertised, for the good of mankind, to bleed at "threepence per head." Trade compet.i.tion has, however, induced pract.i.tioners to perform the operation even without "the threepence." In the _Stamford Mercury_ for March 28, 1716, the following announcement was made:--"Whereas the majority of apothecaries in Boston have agreed to pull down the price of bleeding to sixpence, let these certifie that Mr Clarke, apothecary, will bleed anybody at his shop _gratis_."

The readers of Smollett may remember in one of his novels the story of a gentleman, who, falling down in his club in an apoplectic fit, was immediately made the subject of a bet between two friendly bystanders.

The odds were given and accepted against the sick man's recovery, and the wager was duly registered, when a suggestion was made by a more humane spectator that a surgeon ought to be sent for. "Stay,"

exclaimed the good fellow interested in having a fatal result to the attack, "if he is let blood, or interfered with in any way, the bet doesn't hold good." This humorous anecdote may be found related as an actual occurrence in Horace Walpole's works. It was doubtless one of the "good stories" current in society, and was so completely public property, that the novelist deemed himself ent.i.tled to use it as he liked. In certain recent books of "ana" the incident is fixed on Sheridan and the Prince Regent, who are represented as the parties to the bet.

Elsewhere mention has been made of a thousand pounds _ordered_ to be paid Sir Edmund King for promptly bleeding Charles the Second. A n.o.bler fee was given by a French lady to a surgeon, who used his lancet so clumsily that he cut an artery instead of a vein, in consequence of which the lady died. On her death-bed she, with charming humanity and irony, made a will, bequeathing the operator a life annuity of eight hundred livres, on condition "that he never again bled anybody so long as he lived." In the _Journal Encylop?dique_ of Jan. 15, 1773, a somewhat similar story is told of a Polish princess, who lost her life in the same way. In her will, made _in extremis_, there was the following clause:--"Convinced of the injury that my unfortunate accident will occasion to the unhappy surgeon who is the cause of my death, I bequeath to him a life annuity of two hundred ducats, secured by my estate, and forgive his mistake from my heart: I wish this may indemnify him for the discredit which my sorrowful catastrophe will bring upon him."

A famous French Mar?chal reproved the clumsiness of a phlebotomist in a less gratifying manner. Drawing himself away from the bungling operator, just as the incision was about to be made, he displayed an unwillingness to put himself further in the power of a pract.i.tioner, who, in affixing the fillet, had given him a blow with the elbow in the face.

"My Lord," said the surgeon, "it seems that you are afraid of the bleeding."

"No," returned the Mar?chal, "not of the bleeding--but the bleeder."

Monsieur, brother of Louis XIV., had an insuperable aversion to the operation, however dexterous might be the operator. At Marly, while at table with the King, he was visited with such ominous symptoms, that Fochon, the first physician of the court, said--"You are threatened with apoplexy, and you cannot be too soon blooded."

But the advice was not acted on, though the King entreated that it might be complied with.

"You will find," said Louis, "what your obstinacy will cost you. We shall be awoke some of these nights to be told that you are dead."