A Book about Doctors Part 34

THE COUNTRY MEDICAL MAN.

The country doctor, such as we know him--a well-read and observant man, skilful in his art, with a liberal love of science, and in every respect a gentleman--is so recent a creation, that he may almost be spoken of as a production of the present century. There still linger in the provinces veteran representatives of the ignorance which, in the middle of the last century, was the prevailing characteristic of the rural apothecary. Even as late as 1816, the law required no medical education in a pract.i.tioner of the healing art in country districts, beyond an apprenticeship to an empiric, who frequently had not information of any kind, beyond the rudest elements of a druggist's learning, to impart to his pupils. Men who commenced business under this system are still to be found in every English county, though in most cases they endeavour to conceal their lack of scientific culture under German or Scotch diplomas--bought for a few pounds.

Scattered over these pages are many anecdotes of provincial doctors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from which a truthful but not complimentary picture of their order may be obtained. Indeed, they were for the most part vulgar drunken knaves, with just learning enough to impose on the foolish crowds who resorted to them. The most brilliant of the fraternity in Henry the Eighth's reign was Andrew Borde, a Winchester pract.i.tioner. This gentleman was author and buffoon, as well as physician. He travelled about the country from market to fair, and from fair to market, making comic orations to the crowds who purchased his nostrums, singing songs, and enlivening the proceedings when they were becoming dull with grimaces of inexpressible drollery. It was said of Sir John Hill,

"For physic and farces His equal there scarce is; His farces are physic, His physic a farce is."

Borde's physic doubtless was a farce; but if his wit resembled physic, it did so, not (like Hill's) by making men sick, but by rousing their spirits and bracing their nerves with good hearty laughter. Everywhere he was known as "Merry Andrew," and his followers, when they mounted the bank, were proud to receive the same t.i.tle.

Mr. H. Fleetwood Sheppard communicated in the year 1855, some amusing anecdotes to "Notes and Queries" about the popular Dorsetshire doctor--little Dr. Grey. Small but warlike, this gentleman, in the reign of James the First, had a following of well-born roisterers that enabled him to beard the High Sheriff at the a.s.sizes. He was always in debt, but as he always carried a brandy-flask and a brace of loaded pistols in his pocket or about his neck, he neither experienced the mental hara.s.s of impecuniosity nor feared bailiffs. In the hour of peril he blew a horn, which he wore suspended to his person, and the gentlemen of his body-guard rallied round him, vowing they were his "sons," and would die for him. Says the MS.--"This Doctor Grey was once arreste by a pedler, who coming to his house knocked at ye dore as yey (he being desirous of Hobedyes) useth to doe, and ye pedler having gartars upon his armes, and points, &c., asked him whether he did wante any points or gartars, &c., pedler like. Grey hereat began to storme, and ye other tooke him by ye arme, and told him that he had no neede be so angry, and holdinge him fast, told him y he had ye kinge's proces for him, and showed him his warrant. 'Hast thou?' quoth Grey, and stoode stil awhile; but at length, catchinge ye fellowe by both ends of his collar before, held him fast, and _drawinge out a great rundagger, brake his head in two or three places_."

Again, Dr. Grey "came one day at ye a.s.sizes, wheare ye sheriffe had some sixty men, and he wth his twenty sonnes, ye trustyest young gentlemen and of ye best sort and rancke, came and drancke in Dorchester before ye sheriffe, and bad who dare to touch him; _and so after awhile blew his horn and came away_." On the same terms who would not like to be a Dorsetshire physician?

In 1569 (_vide_ "Roberts' History of the Southern Counties") Lyme had no medical pract.i.tioner. And at the beginning of the seventeenth century Sir Symonds D'Ewes was brought into the world at c.o.xden Hall, near Axminster, by a female pract.i.tioner, who deformed him for life by her clumsiness. Yet more, Mrs. D'Ewes set out with her infant for London, when the babe, unable to bear the jolting of the carriage, screamed itself into a violent illness, and had to be left behind at Dorchester under the care of another doctress--Mrs. Margaret Waltham.

And two generations later, in 1665, the Rev. Giles Moore, of Ess.e.x, had to send twenty-five miles for an ordinary medical man, who was paid 12_s._ per visit, and the same distance for a physician, whose fee was ?1--a second physician, who came and stayed two days, being paid ?1 10_s._

Of the country doctors of the middle and close of the last century, Dr. Slop is a fair specimen. They were a rude, vulgar, keen-witted set of men, possessing much the same sort of intelligence, and disfigured by the same kind of ignorance, as a country gentleman expects now to find in his farrier. They had to do battle with the village nurses at the best on equal terms, often at a disadvantage; masculine dignity and superior medical erudition being in many districts of less account than the force of old usage, and the sense of decorum that supported the lady pract.i.tioners. Mrs. Shandy had an express provision in her marriage settlement, securing her from the ignorance of country doctors. Of course, in respect to learning and personal acquirements, the rural pract.i.tioners, as a cla.s.s, varied very much, in accordance with the intelligence and culture of the district in which their days were spent, with the cla.s.s and character of their patients, and with their own connections and original social condition. On his Yorkshire living Sterne came in contact with a rought lot. The Whitworth Taylors were captains and leaders of the army in which Dr. Slop was a private. The original of the last-mentioned worthy was so ill-read that he mistook Lithop?dii Senonensis Icon for the name of a distinguished surgical authority, and, under this erroneous impression, quoted Lithop?dus Senonensis with the extreme of gravity.

This Lithop?dus Senonensis story is not without its companions. A prescription, in which a physician ordered _extract, rad valer._, and immediately under it, as an ingredient in the same mixture, a certain quant.i.ty of _tinctura ejusdem_, sorely perplexed the poor apothecary to who it was sent to be dispensed. _Tinctura ejusdem!_ What could it be! _Ejusdem!_ In the whole pharmacopoeia such a drug was not named.

Nothing like it was to be found on any label in his shop. At his wits'

end, the poor fellow went out to a professional neighbour, and asked, in an off-hand way, "How are you off for _Tinctura Ejusdem_? I am out of it. So can you let me have a little of yours." The neighbour, who was a sufficiently good cla.s.sical scholar to have _idem_, _eadem_, _idem_ at his tongue's end, lamented that he too was "out of the article." and sympathizingly advised his _confr?re_, without loss of time, to apply for some at Apothecaries' Hall. What a delightful blunder to make to a _friend_, of all the people in the world! The apothecary must have been a dull as well as an unlettered fellow, or he would have known the first great rule of his art--"When in doubt--_Use water!_" A more awkward mistake still was that made by the young dispenser, who, for the first time in his life, saw at the end of a prescription the words _pro re nat?_. What could they mean? _pro re nat?!_ What could _pro re nat?_ have to do with a mixture sent to a lady who had just presented her husband with an heir. With the aid of a Latin Dictionary, the novice rendered _pro re nat?_ "for the thing born." Of course. Clearly the mixture was for the baby. And in a trice the compound to be taken by an adult, as circ.u.mstances should indicate a necessity for a dose, was sent off for the "little stranger."

May not mention here be made of thee, ancient friend of childhood, Roland Trevor? The whole country round, for a circle of which the diameter measured thirty fair miles, thou wert one of the most popular doctors of East Anglia. Who rode better horses? Who was the bolder in the hunt, or more joyous over the bottle? Cheery of voice, with hearty laughter rolling from purple lips, what company thou wert to festive squires! The grave some score years since closed over thee, when ninety-six years had pa.s.sed over thy head--covering it with silver tresses, and robbing the eye of its pristine fire, and the lip of its mirthful curl. The shop of a country apothecary had been thy only _Alma Mater_; so, surely, it was no fault of thine if thy learning was scanty. Still, in the pleasant vales of Loes and Wilford is told the story of how, on being asked if thou wert a believer in _phrenology_, thou didst answer with becoming gravity, "I never keep it, and I never use it. But I think it highly probable that, given frequently and in liberal doses, it would be very useful in certain cases of irregular gout."

Another memory arises of a country doctor of the old school. A huge, burly, surly, churlish old fellow was Dr. Standish. He died in extremely advanced age, having lived twenty-five years in the present century. A ferocious radical, he was an object of considerable public interest during the period of political excitement consequent on the French Revolution. Tom Paine, the Thetford breeches-maker of whom the world has heard a little, was his familiar friend and correspondent.

It was rumoured throughout the land that "government" had marked the doctor out for destruction.

"Thar sai," the humbler Suffolk farmers used to gossip amongst themselves, "thar sai a picter-taikin chap hav guv his poortright to the King. And Billy Pitt ha'sin it. And oold King Georgie ha' swaren as how that sooner nor later he'll hav his hid" (_i. e._ head).

The "upper ten" of Holmnook, and the upper ten-times-ten of the distance round about Holmnook, held themselves aloof from such a dangerous character. But the common folk believed in and admired him.

There was something of romance about a man whom George III. and Billy Pitt were banded together to destroy.

Standish was a man of few words. "Down with the bishops!" "Up with the people!" were his stock sentiments. He never approached nearer poetry than when (yellow being then the colour of the extreme liberal party in his district) he swore "there worn't a flower in the who' o'

crashun warth lookin' at but a sunflower, for that was yallow, and a big un."

The man had no friends in Holmnook or the neighbourhood; but every evening for fifty years he sate, in the parlour of the chief inn, drinking brandy-and-water, and smoking a "churchwarden." His wife--(his wooing must have been of a queer sort)--a quiet, inoffensive little body, sometimes forgot she was but a woman, and presumed to have an opinion of her own. On such occasions Standish thrashed her soundly with a dog-whip. In consequence of one of these castigations she ran away from her tyrant. Instead of pursuing her, Dr. Standish merely inserted the following advertis.e.m.e.nt in the county paper:--

"_Dr Standish to all whom it may concern._--Dr Standish's wife having run away, he wants a housekeeper. Dr Standish doesn't want good looks in a woman: but she must know how to hold her tongue and cook a plain joint. He gives ten pounds. Mrs Standish needn't apply--she's too much of a lady."

But poor Mrs. Standish did apply, and, what is more, obtained the situation. She and her lord never again had any quarrel that obtained publicity; and so the affair ended more happily than in all probability it would have done had Sir Creswell Creswell's court been then in existence. Standish's practice lay princ.i.p.ally amongst the mechanics and little farmers of the neighborhood. Much of his time was therefore spent in riding his two huge lumbering horses about the country. In his old age he indulged himself in a gig (which, out of respect to radical politics, he painted with a flaring yellow paint); but, at the commencement of the present century, the by-roads of Suffolk--now so good that a London brougham drawn by one horse can with ease whisk over the worst of them at the rate of ten miles an hour--were so bad that a doctor could not make an ordinary round on them in a wheeled carriage. Even in the saddle he ran frequent risk of being mired, unless his horse had an abundance of bone and pluck.

Standish's mode of riding was characteristic of the man. Straight on he went, at a lumbering six miles an hour trot--dash, dosh, dush!--through the muddy roads, sitting loosely in his seat, heavy and shapeless as a sack of potatoes, looking down at his brown corduroy breeches and his mahogany top-boots (the toes of which pointed in directly opposite directions), wearing a perpetual scowl on his brows, and never either rising in his stirrups or fixing himself to the saddle with his knees. Not a word would he speak to a living creature in the way of civil greeting.

"Doctor, good morning to you," an acquaintance would cry out; "'tis a nice day!"

"Ugh!" Standish would half grunt, half roar, trotting straight on--dish, dosh, dush!

"Stop, doctor, I am out of sorts, and want some physic," would be the second form of address.

"Then why the ---- ---- didn't you say so, instead of jawing about the weather?" the urbane physician would say, checking his horse.

Standish never turned out an inch for any wayfarer. Sullen and overbearing, he rode straight on upon one side of the road; and, however narrow the way might be, he never swerved a barley-corn from his line for horse or rider, cart or carriage. Our dear friend Charley Halifax gave him a smart lesson in good manners on this point. Charley had brought a well-bred hackney, and a large fund of animal spirits, down from Cambridge to a t.i.tle for orders in mid-Suffolk. He had met Standish in the cottages of some of his flock, and afterwards meeting elsewhere, had greeted him, and had no greeting in return. It was not long ere Charley learnt all about the clownish apothecary, and speedily did he devise a scheme for humbling him. The next time he saw Standish in the distance, trotting on towards him, Charley put his heels to his horse, and charged the man of drugs at full gallop.

Standish came lumbering on, disdaining to look before him and ascertain who was clattering along at such a pace. On arriving within six feet of Standish's horse, Halifax fell back on his curb-rein, and pulled up sharp. Astonished, but more sensible than his master, Standish's horse (as Charley knew would be the case) suddenly came to a dead stop, on which Standish rolled over its head into the muddy highway. As he rolled over, he threw out a volley of oaths. "Ah, doctor," cried Charley, good-humoredly, "I said I would make you speak to me." Standish was six feet high, and a powerful man. For a few moments, on recovering his legs, he looked as if he contemplated an a.s.sault on the young parson. But he thought better of it; and, climbing into his seat once more, trotted on, without another word--dish, dosh, dush! The incident didn't tend to soften his feelings toward the Established Church.

The country doctor of the last century always went his rounds on horseback booted and spurred. The state of the roads rendered any other mode of travelling impracticable to men who had not only to use the highways and coach-roads, but to make their way up bridle-paths, and drifts, and lanes, to secluded farmsteads and outlying villages.

Even as late as the last generation, in Suffolk, where now people drive to and fro at the rate of twelve miles an hour, a doctor (whom the writer of these pages has reason to think of with affection) was more than once mired, on a slightly-built blood horse, so effectually, that he had to dismount ere the animal could be extricated; and this happened in roads that at the present time are, in all seasons, firm as a garden walk.

Describing the appearance of a country doctor of this period, a writer observes--"When first I saw him, it was on Frampton Green. I was somewhat his junior in years, and had heard so much of him that I had no small curiosity to see him. He was dressed in a blue coat and yellow b.u.t.tons, buckskins, well-polished jockey-boots, with handsome silver spurs, and he carried a smart whip with a silver handle. His hair, after the fashion, was done up in a club, and he wore a broad-brimmed hat." Such was the appearance of Jenner, as he galloped across the vale of Gloucester, visiting his patients. There is little to remind us of such a personage as this in the statue in Trafalgar Square, which is the slowly-offered tribute of our grat.i.tude to Edward Jenner for his imperishable services to mankind. The opposition that Jenner met with in his labours to free our species from a hideous malady that, destroying life and obliterating beauty, spared neither the cottage nor the palace, is a subject on which it is painful to reflect. The learned of his own profession and the vulgar of all ranks combined to persecute and insult him; and when the merit of his inestimable discovery was acknowledged by all intelligent persons, he received from his country a remuneration that was little better than total neglect.

While acting as an apprentice to a country surgeon he first conceived the possibility of checking the ravages of small-pox. A young servant woman, who accidentally said that she was guarded from that disease by having "had cow-pox," first apprized him that amongst the servants of a rural population a belief existed that the virus from the diseased cow, on being absorbed by the human system, was a preventive against small-pox. From that time, till the ultimate success of his inquiries, he never lost sight of the subject.

The ridicule and misrepresentation to which he was subjected are at this date more pleasant for us to laugh at than, at the time, they were for him to bear. The ignorant populace of London was instructed that people, on being vaccinated, ran great risks of being converted into members of the bovine family. The appearance of hair covering the whole body, of horns and a tail, followed in many cases the operation.

The condition of an unhappy child was pathetically described, who, brutified by vaccine ichor, persisted in running on all-fours and roaring like a bull. Dr. Woodville and Dr. Moseley opposed Jenner, the latter with a violence that little became a scientific inquirer.

Numerous were the squibs and caricatures the controversy called forth.

Jenner was represented as riding on a cow--an animal certainly not adapted to show the doctor ("booted and spurred" as we have just seen him) off to the best advantage. Of Moseley the comic muse sung:

"Oh, Moseley! thy book, nightly phantasies rousing, Full oft makes me quake for my heart's dearest treasure; For fancy, in dreams, oft presents them all browsing On commons, just like little Nebuchadnezzar.

_There_, nibbling at thistle, stand Jem, Joe, and Mary, On their foreheads, O horrible! crumpled horns bud: There Tom with his tail, and poor William all hairy, Reclined in a corner, are chewing the cud."

If London was unjust to him, the wiseacres of Gloucestershire thought that burning was his fit punishment. One dear old lady, whenever she saw him leaving his house, used to run out and attack him with indescribable vivacity. "So your book," cried this charming matron, in genuine Gloucestershire dialect, "is out at last. Well! I can tell you that there bean't a copy sold in our town, nor shan't neither, if I can help it." On hearing, subsequent to the publication of the book (a great offence to the old lady!), some rumours of vaccination failures, the same goodie bustled up to the doctor and cried, with galling irony, "Shan't us have a general inoculation now?"

But Jenner was compensated for this worthy woman's opposition in the enthusiastic support of Rowland Hill, who not only advocated vaccination in his ordinary conversation, but from the pulpit used to say, after his sermon to his congregation, wherever he preached, "I am ready to vaccinate to-morrow morning as many children as you choose; and if you wish them to escape that horrid disease, the small-pox, you will bring them." A Vaccine Board was also established at the Surrey Chapel--_i. e._ the Octagon Chapel, in Blackfriars Road.

"My Lord," said Rowland Hill once to a n.o.bleman, "allow me to present to your Lordship my friend, Dr. Jenner, who has been the means of saving more lives than any other man."

"Ah!" observed Jenner, "would that I, like you, could say--souls."

There was no cant in this. Jenner was a simple, unaffected, and devout man. His last words were, "I do not marvel that men are grateful to me, but I am surprised that they do not feel grat.i.tude to G.o.d for making me a medium of good."

Of Jenner's more sprightly humour, the following epigrams from his pen (communicated to the writer of these pages by Dr. E. D. Moore of Salop), are good specimens.

"TO MY SPANISH CIGAR.

"Soother of an anxious hour!

Parent of a thousand pleasures!

With grat.i.tude I owe thy power And place thee 'mongst my choicest treasures.

Thou canst the keenest pangs disarm Which care obtrudes upon the heart; At thy command, my little charm, Quick from the bosom they depart."

"ON THE DEATH OF JOHN AND BETTY COLE.

"Why, neighbours, thus mournfully sorrow and fret?

Here lie snug and cosy old John and his Bet; Your sighing and sobbing unG.o.dly and rash is, For two k.n.o.bs of coal that have now gone to ashes."

"ON MISS JENNER AND MISS EMILY WORTHINGTON TEARING THE "GLOBE"

NEWSPAPER.