A Book about Doctors Part 10

"We dine together almost daily when his Lords.h.i.+p is in town."

"What do you talk about?"

"Eating and drinking."

"And what else?"

"Oh, my lord, we never talk of anything except eating and drinking--drinking and eating."

A good deal of treasonable sentiment might have been exchanged in these discussions of eating and drinking. "G.o.d send this _crum-well down_!" was the ordinary toast of the Cavalier during the glorious Protectorate of Oliver. And long afterwards, English gentlemen of Jacobite sympathies, drinking "to the King," before they raised the gla.s.s to their lips, put it over the water-bottle, to indicate where the King was whose prosperity they pledged.

At the tavern in Finch Lane, where Beauford received the apothecaries who followed him, he drank freely, but never was known to give a gla.s.s from his bottle to one of his clients. In this respect he resembled Dr. Gaskin of Plymouth, a physician in fine practice in Devons.h.i.+re at the close of the last century, who once said to a young beginner in his profession, "Young man, when you get a fee, don't give fifteen s.h.i.+llings of it back to your patient in beef and port-wine."

Contemporary with Beauford was Dr. Barrowby--wit, scholar, political partisan, and toper. Barrowby was the hero of an oft-told tale, recently attributed in the newspapers to Abernethy. When canva.s.sing for a place on the staff of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Barrowby entered the shop of one of the governors, a grocer on Snow-hill, to solicit his influence and vote. The tradesman, bursting with importance, and antic.i.p.ating the pleasure of getting a very low bow from a gentleman, strutted up the shop, and, with a mixture of insolent patronage and insulting familiarity, cried, "Well, friend, and what is your business?"

Barrowby paused for a minute, cut him right through with the glance of his eye, and then said, quietly and slowly, "I want a pound of plums."

Confused and blus.h.i.+ng, the grocer did up the plums. Barrowby put them in his pocket, and went away without asking the fellow for his vote.

A good political story is told of Barrowby, the incident of which occurred in 1749, eleven years after his translation of Astruc's "Treatise" appeared. Lord Trentham (afterwards Lord Gower) and Sir George Vandeput were contesting the election for Westminster.

Barrowby, a vehement supporter of the latter, was then in attendance on the notorious Joe Weatherby, master of the "Ben Jonson's Head," in Russell Street, who lay in a perilous state, emaciated by nervous fever. Mrs. Weatherby was deeply afflicted at her husband's condition, because it rendered him unable to vote for Lord Trentham. Towards the close of the polling days the Doctor, calling one day on his patient, to his great astonishment found him up, and almost dressed by the nurse and her a.s.sistants.

"Hey-day! what's the cause of this?" exclaims Barrowby. "Why are you up without my leave?"

"Dear Doctor," says Joe, in a broken voice, "I am going to poll."

"To poll!" roars Barrowby, supposing the man to hold his wife's political opinions, "you mean going to the devil! Get to bed, man, the cold air will kill you. If you don't get into bed instantly you'll be dead before the day is out."

"I'll do as you bid me, doctor," was the reluctant answer. "But as my wife was away for the morning, I thought I could get as far as Covent Garden Church, and vote for Sir George Vandeput."

"How, Joe, for Sir George?"

"Oh, yes, sir, I don't go with my wife. I am a Sir George's man."

Barrowby was struck by a sudden change for the better in the man's appearance, and said, "Wait a minute, nurse. Don't pull off his stockings. Let me feel his pulse. Humph--a good firm stroke! You took the pills I ordered you?"

"Yes, sir, but they made me feel very ill."

"Ay, so much the better; that's what I wished. Nurse, how did he sleep?"

"Charmingly, sir."

"Well, Joe," said Barrowby, after a few seconds' consideration, "if you are bent on going to this election, your mind ought to be set at rest. It's a fine sunny day, and a ride will very likely do you good.

So, bedad, I'll take you with me in my chariot."

Delighted with his doctor's urbanity, Weatherby was taken off in the carriage to Covent Garden, recorded his vote for Sir George Vandeput, was brought back in the same vehicle, and died _two_ hours afterwards, amidst the reproaches of his wife and her friends of the Court party.

Charles the Second was so impressed with the power of the Medical Faculty in influencing the various intrigues of political parties, that he averred that Dr. Lower, Nell Gwynn's physician, did more mischief than a troop of horse. But Barrowby was prevented, by the intrusion of death, from rendering effectual service to his party.

Called away from a dinner-table, where he was drinking deeply and laughing much, to see a patient, he got into his carriage, and was driven off. When the footman opened the door, on arriving at the house of sickness, he found his master dead. A fit of apoplexy had struck him down, whilst he was still a young man, and just as he was ascending to the highest rank of his profession.

John Sheldon was somewhat addicted to the pleasures of the table. On one occasion, however, he had to make a journey fasting. The son of a John Sheldon, an apothecary who carried on business in the Tottenham Court Road, a few doors from the Black Horse Yard, Sheldon conceived in early life a strong love for mechanics. At Harrow he was birched for making a boat and floating it. In after life he had a notable scheme for taking whales with poisoned harpoons; and, to test its merit, actually made a voyage to Greenland. He was moreover the first Englishman to make an ascent in a balloon. He went with Blanchard, and had taken his place in the car, when the aeronaut, seeing that his machine was too heavily weighted, begged him to get out.

"If you are my friend, you will alight. My fame, my all, depends on success," exclaimed Blanchard.

"I won't," bluntly answered Sheldon, as the balloon manifested symptoms of rising.

In a furious pa.s.sion, the little air-traveller exclaimed, "Then I starve you! Point du chicken, by Gar, you shall have no chicken." So saying, he flung the hamper of provisions out of the car, and, thus lightened, the balloon went up.

Abernethy is said to have reproved an over-fed alderman for his excesses at table in the following manner. The civic footman was ordered to put a large bowl under the sideboard, and of whatever he served his master with to throw the same quant.i.ty into the bowl as he put on the gourmand's plate. After the repast was at an end, the sated feaster was requested to look into the bowl at a nauseous mess of mock turtle, turbot, roast-beef, turkey, sausages, cakes, wines, ale, fruits, cheese.

Sir Richard Jebb showed little favour to the digestion thinking it was made to be used--not nursed. Habitually more rough and harsh than Abernethy in his most surly moods, Jebb offended many of his patients.

"That's _my_ way," said he to a n.o.ble invalid, astonished at his rudeness. "Then," answered the sick man, pointing to the door, "I beg you'll make that your way."

To all questions about diet Jebb would respond tetchily or carelessly.

"Pray, Sir Richard, may I eat a m.u.f.fin?" asked a lady.

"Yes, madam, 'tis the _best_ thing you can take."

"Oh, dear! Sir Richard, I am glad of that. The other day you said it was the worst thing in the world for me."

"Good, madam, I said so last Tuesday. This isn't a Tuesday--is it?"

To another lady who asked what she might eat he said contemptuously, "Boiled turnips."

"Boiled turnips!" was the answer; "you forget, Sir Richard--I told you I could not bear boiled turnips."

"Then, madam," answered Sir Richard, sternly, as if his sense of the moral fitness of things was offended, "you must have a d----d vitiated appet.i.te."

Sir Richard's best set of dietetic directions consisted of the following negative advice, given to an old gentleman who put the everlasting question, "What may I eat?" "My directions, sir, are simple. You must not eat the poker, shovel, or tongs, for they are hard of digestion; nor the bellows; but anything else you please."

Even to the King, Sir Richard was plain-spoken. George the Third lamented to him the restless spirit of his cousin, Dr. John Jebb, the dissenting minister. "And please your Majesty," was the answer, "if my cousin were in heaven he would be a reformer."

Dr. Babington used to tell a story of an Irish gentleman, for whom he prescribed an emetic, saying, "My dear doctor, it is of no use your giving me an emetic. I tried it twice in Dublin, and it would not stay on my stomach either time." Jebb's stomach would have gone on tranquilly, even when entertaining an emetic.

Jebb, with all his bluntness, was a mean lover of the atmosphere of the Court. His income was subject to great fluctuations, as the whims of his fas.h.i.+onable employers ran for or against him. Sir Edward Wilmont's receipts sank from ?3000 to ?300, in consequence of his having lost two ladies of quality at the Court. Jebb's revenue never varied so much as this, but the ?15,000 (the greatest sum he ever made in one year) often fell off by thousands. This fact didn't tend to lessen his mortification at the loss of a great patient. When George the Third dismissed him, and took Sir George Baker in his place, he nearly died of chagrin. And when he was recalled to attend the royal family in the measles, he nearly died of delight. This ruling pa.s.sion exhibited itself strongly in death. When he was on his death-bed, the Queen, by the hand of a German lady, wrote to inquire after his condition. So elated was the poor man with this act of royal benignity, that he grasped the letter, and never let go his hold of it till the breath of life quitted his attenuated body.

This chapter has been for the most part on the feasting of physicians.

We'll conclude it with a few words on their fasts. In the house of a Strand grocer there used to be a scientific club, of which the princ.i.p.al members were--W. Heberden, M.D., J. Turton, M.D., G. Baker, M.D., Sir John Pringle, Sir William Watson, and Lord C. Cavendish who officiated as president. Each member paid sixpence per evening for the use of the grocer's dining-room. The club took in one newspaper, and the only refreshment allowed to be taken at the place of meeting was--water.

The most abstemious of eminent physicians was Sir Hans Sloane, the president of the Royal Society and of the College of Physicians, and (in a certain sense) the founder of the British Museum. A love of money made him a hater of all good things, except money and his museum. He gave up his winter soir?es in Bloomsbury Square, in order to save his tea and bread and b.u.t.ter. At one of these scientific entertainments Handel offended the scientific knight deeply by laying a m.u.f.fin on one of his books. "To be sure it was a gareless trick,"

said the composer, when telling the story, "bud it tid no monsdrous mischief; pode it but the old poog-vorm treadfully oud of sorts. I offered my best apologies, but the old miser would not have done with it. If it had been a biscuit, it would not have mattered; but m.u.f.fin and pudder. And I said, _Ah, mine Gotd, that is the rub!--it is the pudder!_ Now, mine worthy friend, Sir Hans Sloane, you have a nodable excuse, you may save your doast and pudder, and lay it to that unfeeling gormandizing German; and den I knows it will add something to your life by sparing your _burse_."

The eccentric Dr. Glyn of Cambridge, rarely dined, but used to satisfy his hunger at chance times by cutting slices off a cold joint (a constant ornament of the side-table in his study), and eating them while standing. To eat such a dinner in such an att.i.tude would be to fare little better than the ascetic physician who used twice a week to dine off two Abernethy biscuits, consumed as he walked at the pace of four miles an hour. However wholesome they may be, the hard biscuits, known as Abernethies (but in the construction of which, by-the-by, Abernethy was no more concerned than were Wellington and Blucher in making the boots that bear their names), are not convivial cates, though one would rather have to consume them than the calomel sandwiches which Dr. Curry (popularly called Dr. Calomel Curry) used to give his patients.