Part 13

What is more distressing, both to patient and nurse, than whooping cough, or king-cough, as it is sometimes called? A change of air is deemed beneficial to the afflicted one, so the mothers of Hull take their suffering children across the Humber to New Holland and back again. Some call it "crossing strange water." Other people procure a "hairy worm," and suspend it in a flannel cover round the neck of the sufferer, in the belief that as the creature dies and wastes away, so will the cough depart. This custom seems to be the relic of an old belief that something of the nature of a hairy caterpillar was the cause of the cough, and Mr. Tylor, in his _Primitive Culture_,[8] speaks of the ancient homoeopathic doctrine that what hurts will also cure. In Gloucestershire roasted mouse is considered a specific for whooping cough; though in Yorkshire the same diet cure is adopted for croup, while rat pie is the one to be used for whooping cough. The Norfolk peasants tie up a common house spider in a piece of muslin, and when the luckless long-legged spinner dies, the cough will soon disappear. A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ states that when staying in a village in Oxfordshire, he was informed by an old woman that she and her brothers were cured of whooping cough in the following way. They were required to go, the first thing in the morning, to a hovel at a little distance from their house, where a fox was kept. They carried with them a large can of milk, which was set down before the fox, and when he had taken as much as he cared to drink, the children shared among them what was left. The _Aberdeen Evening Gazette_ of 24th August, 1882, tells of a curious superstition in Lochee:--

"Hooping-cough being rather prevalent in Lochee at the present time, various cures are resorted to with the view of allaying the distress. Amongst these the old 'fret' of passing a child beneath the belly of a donkey has come in for a share of patronage. A few days ago, two children living with their parents in Camperdown Street, were infected with the malady. A hawker's cart, with a donkey yoked to it, happening to pass, the mothers thought this an excellent opportunity to have their little ones relieved of their hacking cough. The donkey was accordingly stopped, the children were brought forth, and the ceremony began. The mothers, stationed at either side of the donkey, passed and repassed the little creatures underneath the animal's belly, and with evident satisfaction appeared to think that a cure would in all probability be effected. Nor was this all; a piece of bread was next given to the donkey to eat, one of the women holding her apron beneath its mouth to catch the crumbs which might fall. These were given to the children to eat, so as to make the cure effectual. Whether these strange proceedings have resulted in banishing the dreaded cough or not, has not been ascertained, and probably never will be. A few years ago, the custom was quite common in this quarter, but with the spread of education the people generally know better than to attempt to cure hooping-cough through the agency of a donkey."

The _North British Mail_ for 20th March 1883, among other superstitions in Tiree, says, "On the west side of the island there is a rock with a hole in it, through which children are passed when suffering from whooping-cough or other complaints."

It is a common belief that if you wash your hands in water in which eggs have been boiled, warts will make their appearance; also, that the blood of a wart will cause other warts. Anyhow, if the warts be there, they can either be cured or charmed away. The writer once had a row of warts, thirteen in number, on his left arm. He was told by an aged dame, who sat on a three-legged stool before her cottage door, smoking a short black pipe, to take thirteen bad peas, throw them over his left shoulder, never heeding where they went, all the while repeating some incantation, which has been forgotten.

Cures are effected by rubbing the warts with something, which is afterwards allowed to decay. Some rub the warts with a grey snail or slug, and then impale the poor creature on a thorn; others steal a bit of beef, not so much as Taffy made off with, rub the beef on the warts, and then bury the beef. Lord Bacon, in his _Natural History_, says:--"I had from my childhood a wart upon one of my fingers; afterwards, when I was about sixteen years old, being then at Paris, there grew upon both my hands a number of warts, at the least an hundred in a month's space. The English Ambassador's lady, who was a woman far from superstitious, told me one day she would help me away with my warts: whereupon she got a piece of lard with the skin on, and rubbed the warts all over with the fat side; and among the rest, the wart which I had from my childhood; then she nailed the piece of lard, with the fat towards the sun, upon a post of her chamber window, which was to the south. The success was, that within five weeks' space all the warts went quite away; and that wart which I had so long endured, for company.... They say the like is done by the rubbing of warts with a green elder stick, and then burying the stick to rot in muck."

In Withal's _Dictionary_ (1608) there is the following couplet:--

"The bone of a haire's foot closed in a ring, Will drive away the cramp whenas it doth wing,"

but Pepys, who tells us the whole of his experience, with comments thereon, used a hare's foot as a charm for colic. He says:--(20 Jan. 1664-5) "Homeward, in my way buying a hare and taking it home, which arose upon my discourse to-day with Mr. Batten in Westminster Hall, who showed me my mistake, that my hare's foot hath not the joynt in it, and assures me he never had the cholique since he carried it about him; and it is a strange thing how fancy works, for I no sooner handled his foot but I became very well, and so continue."

(22nd.) "Now mighty well, and truly I can but impute it to my fresh hare's foot."

(March 26) "Now I am at a loss to know whether it be my hare's foot which is my preservation; for I never had a fit of collique since I wore it, or whether it be my taking a pill of turpentine every morning."

The following newspaper cutting from the _Boston Herald_, 7th February, 1837, is worth preserving:--

"Nothing could be more absurd than the notions regarding some of these supposed cures; a ring made of a hinge of a coffin had the power of relieving cramps, which were also mitigated by having a rusty old sword hanging up by the bedside. Nails driven in an oak tree prevented the toothache. A halter that had served in hanging a criminal was an infallible remedy for a head-ache when tied round the head; this affection was equally cured by the moss growing upon the human skull taken as cephalic snuff dried and pulverised. A dead man's hand could dissipate tumours of the glands, by stroking the part nine times; but the hand of a man who had been cut down from the gallows was the most efficacious. The chips of a gallows on which several had been hanged, when worn in a bag round the neck would cure the ague. A stone with a hole in it, suspended at the head of a bed, would effectually stop the night-mare, hence it was called a hag-stone, as it prevents the troublesome witches from sitting upon the sleeper's stomach. The same amulet, tied to the key of the stable door, deterred witches from riding horses over the country."

Our forefathers firmly believed in planetary influence on the minds and bodies of men, and no operation could be performed on any part of the body unless the planet, ruling that particular part, were propitious. Rider's _British Merlin_ for 1715, places the name of some part of the body--face, neck, arms, breast, etc., opposite the days of the month, indicating that the influence of the planets on that day is favourable to that particular part or organ. An old proverb says:--

"Friday hair, Sunday horn, You'll go the devil afore Monday morn,"

shewing that these days were unlucky for clipping hair and cutting nails. The _York Fabric Rolls_[9] tell us that Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday, was termed Shere Thursday, because "in olde faders dayes the people wold that day _sheer_ theyr heddes and clype theyr berdes and poll theyr heedes and so make them honest ayenst Easter Day." The same interesting volume[10] gives the following account of charming away fevers:--

"1528. Bishopwilton. Isabel Mure presented. She took fier, and ij yong women w{t} hirr, and went to a rynnyng water, and light a wypse of straw and sett it on the water, and said thus, 'Benedicite, se ye what I see. I se the fier burne, and water rynne and the gryse grew, and see flew and nyght fevers and all unkowth evils flee, and all other, God will,' and after theis wordes said xv Pater Noster, xv Ave Maria and thre credes."

The following is a reproduction of a receipt for Yellow Jonus (Jaundice) copied from an old book in my possession. "A quart of whine (wine), a penoth of Barbary barck, a penoth of Tormorch (Turmerich), a haporth of flour of Brimstone for Jonous."

Of Physicians and their Fees,

WITH SOME PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

BY ANDREW JAMES SYMINGTON, F.R.S.N.A.

In the whole range of professional life, or in any section of the community, there is no set of men so self-denying, sympathetic, philanthropic, liable to be called at any hour, day or night, and so hard-worked, as medical practitioners. To begin with, there is first, a long and expensive course of study, and, often, several years pass, before a practice becomes even self-sustaining. Those at the head of the profession attain to large incomes, and make their L20,000 a year. Noted specialists, in particular, such as the late Dr. Mackenzie, get large fees; but the majority of the profession conscientiously perform their laborious and kindly ministrations ungrudgingly and with moderate remuneration, which, in most cases, is certainly far short of their deserts.

This state of matters has prevailed for many centuries, and, taking the different value of money into account, notwithstanding the advance of medical science, there is but little change in the scale of remuneration, whether as to large fees paid by Royal or titled personages, fees by the middle classes, or by the rural or working population.

It has been well said, that "the theory and practice of medicine is the noblest and most difficult science in the world; and that there is no other art for the practice of which the most thorough education is so essential."

Whittier observes:--"It is the special vocation of the doctor to grow familiar with suffering--to look upon humanity disrobed of its pride and glory--robbed of all its fictitious ornaments--weak, hopeless, naked--and undergoing the last fearful metempsychosis, from its erect and god-like image, the living temple of an enshrined divinity, to the loathsome clod and the inanimate dust! Of what ghastly secrets of moral and physical disease is he the depository!"

Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Religio Medici," says:--"Men, that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I, that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabrick hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and, considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once."

This model physician, who said, "I cannot go to cure the body of my patient, but I forget my profession and call unto God for his soul," in the same work, finely says of charity:--"Divinity hath wisely divided the act thereof into many branches, and hath taught us, in this narrow way, many paths unto goodness; as many ways as we may do good, so many ways we may be charitable. There are infirmities not only of the body, but of soul and fortunes, which do require the merciful hand of our abilities. I cannot contemn a man for ignorance, but behold him with as much pity as I do Lazarus. It is no greater charity to clothe his body than apparel the nakedness of his soul."

His distinguished position, as a physician and an author, demands very special and reverential mention in these pages.

Sir Thomas Browne was born in London on the 19th of October, 1605. He died at Norwich on the 19th of October, 1682, having reached exactly the age of seventy-seven. His father was a wealthy merchant, of a good Cheshire family, but died when his more illustrious son was a boy, and his mother shortly afterwards married Sir Thomas Dutton. After travelling on the Continent, he settled as a practising physician at Shipley Hall, near Halifax, for a time, and then moved to Norwich, where the remaining forty-two years of his life were spent. His library contained vast stores of learned works on antiquities, languages, and the curiosities of erudition. He corresponded with the best men of his day, and was often able to assist them in their various investigations. His friend Evelyn, alluding to Browne's home, at Norwich, tells us "His whole house and garden being a paradise and cabinet of rarities, and that of the best collections, especially medals, books, plants, and natural things." He was knighted by Charles II. in 1671.

Throughout the troublous times of the Civil War, the Commonwealth, and the Restoration, he led a quiet studious life, issuing volume after volume full of profound, penetrating, and far-reaching thought, set forth in stately, sonorous, and musical language, the perfect form or style of which, at times, is only equalled but not excelled by the best cadenced prose of Milton or Jeremy Taylor.

His "Religio Medici," "Hydrotaphia or Urn Burial," and "The Garden of Cyrus," have been my favourites for more than half a century. Of the latter work, John Addington Symonds has finely and truly said, that "the rarer qualities of Sir Thomas Browne's style (are) here displayed in rich maturity and heavy-scented blossom. The opening phrase of his dedication to Sir Thomas Le Gros--'When the funeral pyre was out, and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends, little expecting the curiosity of future ages should comment on their ashes;'--this phrase strikes a key-note to the sombre harmonies which follow, connecting the ossuaries of the dead, the tears quenched in the dust of countless generations, with the vivid sympathy and scrutinizing sagacity of the living writer.... I will only call attention to the unique feeling for verbal tone, for what may be called the musical colour of words, for crumbling cadences, and the reverberation of stationary sounds in cavernous recesses, which is discernable at large throughout the dissertation. How simple, for example, seems the collocation of vocables in this phrase--'Under the drums and tramplings of three conquests!' And yet with what impeccable instinct the vowels are arranged; how naturally, how artfully, the rhythm falls! Take another, and this time a complete sentence,--'But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men, without distinction to merit of perpetuity.' Take yet another--'The brother of death daily haunts us with dying mementoes.'"

I take leave of this, the most notable of English Physicians, by transcribing the following grand, suggestive, and characteristic passage from his "Fragment on Mummies":--"Yet in these huge structures and pyramidial immensities of the builders, whereof so little is known, they seemed not so much to raise sepulchres or temples to death, as to contemn and disdain it, astonishing heaven with their audacities, and looking forward with delight to their interment in those eternal piles. Of their living habitations they made little account, conceiving of them but as _hospitia_, or inns, while they adorned the sepulchres of the dead, and planting them on lasting basis, defied the crumbling touches of time and the misty vaporousness of oblivion. Yet all were but Babel vanities. Time sadly overcometh all things, and is now dominant, and sitteth upon a sphinx, and looketh unto Memphis and old Thebes, while his sister Oblivion reclineth semisomnous on a pyramid, gloriously triumphing, making puzzles of Titanian erections, and turning old glories into dreams. History sinketh beneath her cloud. The traveller, as he paceth amazedly through those deserts, asketh of her, who builded them? and she mumbleth something, but what it is he heareth not."

The medical profession is a noble and pleasant one, though laborious and often full of anxiety, straining mind and body. The good physician is the sympathizing, confidential, and comforting _friend_ of the family. He values the humble gifts and testimonials of gratitude from the poor, even more than the costly presents of the rich.

The virtuous poor are always grateful. It can truly be said of the physician's kind and often gratuitous services to them, in the language of scripture:--

"When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me it gave witness to me; because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me; and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy."

Among savages, sorcerers, and magicians, are the medicine men; these are still represented, in civilisation, by impostors and quacks. Members of the profession, as a rule, keep themselves posted up in the medical science of the day, honestly and unselfishly do everything that can be done for their patients, and rejoice in being the means of their recovery, far more than in their fee.

Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," treating of "Physician, Patient, and Physick," when astrology, ignorance, and queer nostrums, were then more in vogue than practical science, says:--"I would require Honesty in every Physician, that he be not over careless or covetous, Harpylike to make a prey of his patient, or, as an hungry Chirurgeon, often produce and wire-draw his cure, so long as there is any hope of pay. Many of them, to get a fee, will give physic to every one that comes, when there is no cause, thus, as it often falleth out, stirring up a silent disease, and making a strong body weak." Burton then quotes the following sensible Aphorism from Arnoldus:--"A wise physician will not give physick, but upon necessity, and first try medicinal diet, before he proceedeth to medicinal cure."

Latimer thus severely censured the mercenary physicians of his day:--"Ye see by the example of Hezekiah that it is lawful to use physick. But now in our days physick is a remedy prepared only for rich folks, and not for the poor, for the poor man is not able to wage the Physician. God indeed hath made physick for rich and poor, but Physicians in our time seek only their own profits, how to get money, not how they might do good unto their poor neighbour. Whereby it appeareth that they be for the most part without charity, and so consequently not the children of God; and no doubt but the heavy judgment of God hangeth over their heads, for they are commonly very wealthy, and ready to purchase lands, but to help their neighbour, that they cannot do. But God will find them out one day I doubt not."

"Empirics and charlatans are the excrescences of the medical profession; they have obtained in all ages, yet the healing art is not necessarily the occasion for deception; nor the operations of witchcraft, charms, amulets, astrology, alchemy, necromancy, or magic; although it has its mysteries like other branches of occult science."

Paracelsus, the prince of charlatans, styled himself "King of Physic," but, though he professed to have discovered the _elixir of life_, he humbly died at the early age of forty-eight years.

We are told of a patient who, instead of the medicine prescribed, swallowed the prescription! and _Punch_ records an extraordinary case of a voracious individual who bolted a door, and threw up a window!

Sydney Smith, on being told by his doctor to take a walk on an empty stomach, asked--"Upon whose!" But a truce to stories suggested by the queer nostrums of quacks.

Empirics, however, often believed in their nostrums, and were, sometimes, amiable and unselfish.

In the year 1776, we are told, there lived a German doctor, who styled himself, or was called, "the Rain-water doctor;" all the diseases to which flesh is heir he professed to cure by this simple agent. Some wonderful cures were, it is said, achieved by means of his application of this fluid, and his reputation spread far and wide; crowds of maimed and sickly folk flocked to him, seeking relief at his hands. What is yet more remarkable still, he declined to accept any fee from his patients!

Dr. Haygarth, of Bath, had a pair of wooden tractors made in precisely the same shape and appearance as Perkin's metallic ones; and the same results followed as when the others, which cost five guineas a pair, were used.

The story is well known of the condemned criminal in Paris, who was laid on a dissecting table, strapped down, with his eyes bandaged, and slightly pricked, when streamlets of water set a-trickling made him think, as he had been told, that he was being bled to death. His strength gradually ebbed away, and he actually died, although he did not lose a drop of blood.

I knew of a gentleman who, when pills to procure sleep were ordered to be discontinued, lay awake. The doctor made up a box of bread pills, which were administered as the others had been, and the patient slept, and recovered rapidly.

A young medical man fell in love with a young lady patient, and, when he had no longer any pretext for continuing his visits, he sent her a present of a pair of spring ducks. Not reciprocating his attentions, she did not acknowledge the present, upon which he ventured to call, asking if the birds had reached her. Her reply was--"Quack, quack!"

Dr. Lettsom, a quaker in the time of George III., near the close of the last century, had such an extensive practice that his receipts in some years were as much as L12,000; and this although half his services were entirely gratuitous, and rendered with unusual solicitude and care to necessitous clergymen and literary men. Generosity was the ruling feature of his life. On one occasion he attended an old American merchant whose affairs had gone wrong, and who grieved over leaving the trees he had planted. The kind hearted doctor purchased the place from the creditors, and presented it to his patient for life.

Pope, a few days before his decease, bore the following cordial testimony to the urbanity and courtesy of his medical friends:--"There is no end of my kind treatment from the Faculty; they are in general the most amiable companions, and the best friends, as well as the most learned men I know."

And Dryden, in the postscript to his translation of Virgil, speaks in the same way of the profession. "That I have recovered," says he, "in some measure the health which I had lost by too much application to this work, is owing, next to God's mercy, to the skill and care of Dr. Guibbons and Dr. Hobbs, the two ornaments of their profession, whom I can only pay by this acknowledgment."

When Dr. Dimsdale, a Hertford physician and member of Parliament, went over to Russia to inoculate the Empress Catherine and her son, in the year 1768, he received a fee of L12,000, a pension for life of L500 per annum, and the rank of Baron of the Empire.

Dr. Henry Atkins was sent for to Scotland by James the Sixth to attend Charles the First (then an infant), ill of a dangerous fever. The King gave him a fee of L6000, with which he purchased the manor of Clapham.