Chapter III: Part 3

There is another medical character in one of the Christmas stories which, good as it is, might have been made better but for the extent to which the exigencies of space limited the author in the development of character in that class of stories. I mean Dr. Jeddler, the genial but mistaken father of Grace and Marion, in "The Battle of Life." The doctor is "a great philosopher, and the heart and mystery of his philosophy was to look upon the world as a gigantic practical joke; as something too absurd to be considered seriously by any practical man. His system of belief had been in the beginning part and parcel of the battle ground on which he lived." He is not of the cynical school, but a modern Democritus, whose inclination to laugh at everything on the surface of the ocean of life was irresistible, while there was nothing in the conditions of his existence to suggest anything that was beneath. When he hears his daughters conversing about their lovers, "his reflections as he looked after them, and heard the purport of their discourse, were limited at first to certain merry meditations on the folly of all loves and likings, and the idle imposition practised on themselves by young people who believe for a moment that there could be anything serious in such bubbles, and were always deceived--always."

Dr. Jeddler is a widower; we are not told what his experiences of married life had been. Had they been unhappy, one would suppose that he would have been more disposed to be cynical and pessimistic than to regard life's incidents as provocative of merriment, yet, if they had been happy, why should he have regarded the engagement of Grace as an idle folly, a bubble on life's surface, soon to burst? Dickens' explanation is, from this point of view, scarcely satisfactory. "He was sorry," says the novelist, "for her sake--sorry for them both--that life should be such a very ridiculous business as it was. The doctor never dreamed of inquiring whether his children, or either of them, helped in any way to make the scheme a serious one. But then he was a philosopher. A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled by chance over that common philosopher's stone (much more easily discovered than the object of the alchemist's researches) which sometimes trips up kind and generous men, and has the fatal property of turning gold to dross, and every precious thing to poor account."

But when sorrow had humbled the doctor's heart, he felt that the world in which some love, deep-anchored, is the portion of every human creature, was more serious than he had thought it, and understood "how such a trifle as the absence of a little unit in the great absurd account had stricken him to the ground." Then, when he and his daughters are again together in the old home, and his arms are about them both, we find him acknowledging that "It's a world full of hearts, and a serious world with all its folly,--even with mine, which was enough to swamp the whole world."

It is to be observed, however, that while we find all the traits and incidents of professional life in the lawyers of Dickens' creation, there is little or nothing of the kind in his doctors. Such traits are abundant in his presentments of Tulkinghorn, and Kenge, and Vholes in Wickfield, and many others that might be named; but they are so completely absent from his portrayals of Allan Woodcourt and Dr. Jeddler, that the two men might as well have been of any other profession, without any loss to the stories in which they appear. If we compare them with his lawyers, or with the clergymen of Mrs. Oliphant, we are struck at once with the difference.

This is not the case, however, when from the full-blown medical practitioner, adding to his name the initials M.D. or M.R.C.S., we descend to the "sawbones in training," as the facetious Sam Weller designates the young men qualifying themselves for the exercise of the profession by "walking the hospitals." The medical students of the novelist's early days were--it would perhaps be fairer to say that a large proportion of them were--a turbulent and disorderly element in the social life of the metropolis. The newspapers of the day record their frequent appearances at the Bow Street and Marlborough Street police-courts on charges of rowdyism in the streets at or after midnight, when they came out from their favourite places of amusement, the Coal Hole, in the Strand, the Cider Cellars, in Maiden Lane, and the Judge and Jury Club, in Leicester Square, the latter presided over by Renton Nicholson, who edited a vile publication called _The Town_. Their after-amusements were found in strolling through the streets in threes and fours, singing at the top of their voices comic songs, that often outraged propriety, ringing door bells, and chaffing the police. Dickens must often in his reporting days have witnessed the next morning appearances of these young men at Bow Street police-court.

The first appearance of two specimens of this variety of the immature medico in the humorous pages of the "Pickwick Papers" is described as follows in the low cockney vernacular of Sam Weller. "One on 'em," he tells Mr. Pickwick, "has got his legs on the table, and is a-drinkin' brandy neat, vile the tother one--him in the barnacles--has got a barrel of oysters atween his knees, vich he's a-openin' like steam, and as fast as he eats 'em he takes a aim with the shells at young Dropsy, who's a-sittin' down fast asleep in the chimbley corner." The latter gentleman is Mr. Benjamin Allen, who is described by the novelist as "a coarse, stout, thick-set young man, with black hair cut rather short, and a white face cut rather long. He was embellished with spectacles, and wore a white neckerchief. Below his single-breasted black surtout, which was buttoned up to his chin, appeared the usual number of pepper-and-salt coloured legs, terminating in a pair of imperfectly polished boots. Although his coat was short in the sleeves, it disclosed no vestige of a linen wristband, and although there was quite enough of his face to admit of the encroachment of a shirt-collar, it was not graced by the smallest approach to that appendage. He presented altogether rather a mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas."

This gentleman's companion is Mr. Bob Sawyer, "who was habited in a coarse blue coat which, without being either a great-coat or a surtout, partook of the nature and qualities of both," and "had about him that sort of slovenly smartness and swaggering gait which is peculiar to young gentlemen who smoke in the streets by day, shout and scream in the same by night, call waiters by their Christian names, and do various other acts and deeds of an equally facetious description. He wore a pair of plaid trousers and a large rough double-breasted waistcoat: out of doors he carried a thick stick with a big top. He eschewed gloves, and looked, upon the whole, something like a dissipated Robinson Crusoe." The conversation of these budding surgeons is perfectly in harmony with their outward aspect. Their discourse, when it assumes a serious character, is of the "cases" at the hospital and the "subjects" at the time being on the dissecting tables of the anatomical lecture-rooms. When relieved from attendance at the hospitals, they lounge at tavern bars, and flirt with barmaids and waitresses, to whom their attentions are not unfrequently of an objectionable character, and less agreeable than they imagine them to be.

The contrast between the graphic power displayed by Dickens in his delineation of the characters of Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen, and the indistinctiveness, as to profession, of his presentments of Allan Woodcourt and Dr. Jeddler, may help us to understand the causes which render his doctors so much less effective than his lawyers. The legal profession presents more variety than the medical, and comes before us more prominently in conjunction with incidents of a striking character, as may be seen every day in the newspaper records of the courts of law and of police. The physician and the surgeon stand as much apart, in these respects, from the busy barrister or solicitor as the clergy do. Dickens has not given us a clerical portrait, and probably for a similar reason. Mrs. Oliphant, on the other hand, excels in her delineations of every grade of the Anglican hierarchy; but her genius as a writer of fiction runs in a groove essentially different from that of Dickens.

Famous Literary Doctors.

BY CUMING WALTERS.

Medical men have not so commonly made literature an extra pursuit, or adopted it as a serious calling, as have the members of the other liberal professions. It is quite expected that a clergyman should write poems, philosophical essays, and perhaps even a novel with a purpose; and it is usual to recruit the ranks of critics extensively from the law, and to trust to briefless barristers for a continuous supply of romances. No detail is more frequently discovered in the biographies of eminent authors than that they were called to the Bar, and either never practised or forsook practising in order to engage in literary labours. Indeed, it might almost seem that failure in law was the most important step towards success in authorship. No such rule applies, however, to medical men, and no such comment would be justified in their case. Not only do we find the writing of books--otherwise than text-books and technical treatises--rarer with them, but it curiously happens that in most instances it has been the successful practitioner, not the man walking the hospitals or waiting for calls, who has turned author. And we shall find that these medico-literati (if I may coin the phrase) have often been among the most hard-working in their profession, and the wonder is that they were able to enter upon a second pursuit and to follow it with so much zeal. For, in most of the examples I shall advance, literature was more than a pastime with these men who indulged in it. It was chosen by some for its lucrativeness, and by the majority for its capacity to enhance their reputation or to bring them enduring fame. This much may be safely said, that the names of many excellent doctors would have faded from public remembrance ere this, and would have passed away with the generation to which they belonged, had not literature given them lasting luminance. In not a few instances the fact is already forgotten or wholly ignored that certain successful writers once wrote "M.D." after their names. Who cares that the author of that classic "Religio Medici" took his degrees at Leyden and at Oxford, and dispensed medicine to the end of his life? Who cares that the author of "The Borough," "Tales in Verse," and "The Parish Register," was apprenticed to a surgeon? Who cares that the writer of such dramas as "Virginius," "William Tell," and "The Hunchback," was trained for a physician? Who cares that the author of "Roderick Random," "Peregrine Pickle," and "The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker" was a surgeon's assistant and acted as surgeon's mate in the unfortunate Carthagena expedition, before trying (unsuccessfully) to obtain a practice in London? And, above all, who cares that the author of "The Deserted Village" and "The Vicar of Wakefield" studied physic in Edinburgh and on the Continent, and, as Boswell was informed, "was enabled to pursue his travels on foot, partly by demanding at Universities to enter the lists as a disputant, by which, according to the custom of many of them, he was entitled to the premium of a crown, when luckily for him his challenge was not accepted?" Such are a few of the examples which immediately occur to the mind when the whole subject is contemplated.

It would be impossible in the compass of a short article to deal systematically and comprehensively with doctors who became authors, or to make out a complete list of their names with an account of the works which entitled them to the designation. Any facts now adduced must be considered arbitrary and capricious, so far as the choice of them is concerned; and sequence is so little attempted that the reader will pardon, I trust, a possible leap from Galen to Goldsmith, from Sir Thomas Browne to Tobias Smollett, and from Sir John Blackmore to Conan Doyle. I put aside those members of the profession who have simply written on professional subjects. Their name is legion, but in the great majority of cases such work as this would not strictly justify their inclusion among the literati. And, on the other hand, we cannot find a place in the category for such men as Goethe or Sainte-Beuve, for though both studied medicine, it seems to have been purely with a view to the extension of their knowledge and not with any more practical or material object. Sainte-Beuve, it is true, for a short time in his youth entertained some thought of adopting the profession; but Goethe only dipped into the subject with the same spirit that he dipped into experimental chemistry and astrology.

Let us, then, refer to a few types certain of instant recognition. The most notable of modern instances is Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, a specialist in his profession, a hard-working physician, and the author of valuable treatises on medical art, who nevertheless occupied the position of being among the four chief poets whom America has produced, and one of the most versatile of the litterateurs of the century. He went to the Paris Medical Schools shortly after he had graduated at Harvard; he practised as a physician at Boston; and for nearly forty years he was Professor of Physiology. Yet he had time to write the most delightful and original of philosophical essays, to publish novels of which at least one--"Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny"--will rank as a classic; to deliver orations and after-dinner speeches in sparkling verse, and to write exquisite poems in rich and felicitous language on a wonderful variety of themes, the complete collection of which makes a very substantial volume. In all his work Dr. Holmes showed himself to be the profound student of nature and of humanity with many varying interests; yet we can often trace the hand of the physician in the work of the essayist and poet. His novels were special studies which only the ardent physiologist and metaphysician would have cared to discuss, or, at all events, would have discussed so well. Both "Elsie Venner" and "The Guardian Angel" deal with the occult problems of heredity, and those problems are treated with the power of the specialist in certain branches of science. Still more strongly is the character of the medical man displayed in a number of the poems, some by reason of their subject, and some by the figures and imagery they contain. The well-known "Stethoscope Song" will immediately suggest itself in illustration. But, for purposes of quotation, I prefer a less popular poem of rare beauty, which more strikingly manifests the writer's power of transmuting the hard dry facts of science into light and gleaming poetry. I refer to what he called at first "The Anatomist's Hymn," but afterwards "The Living Temple." It is one of the interpolated poems in the "Autocrat" series of papers, and to my thinking invests the human body and its physical functions with unimagined charms.

Take, for instance, this poetic exposition of our respiration, the scientific correctness and exactness of which need no explanation to readers of this volume:--

"The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves
Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,
Whose streams of brightening purple rush
Fired with a new and livelier blush,
While all their burden of decay
The ebbing current steals away,
And red with Nature's flame they start
From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
For ever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered crossing tides
The flood of burning life divides,
Then kindling each decaying part
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame
Behold the outward moving frame,
Its living marbles jointed strong
With glistening band and silvery thong,
And linked to reason's guiding reins
By myriad rings in trembling chains,
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the master's own."

There is an almost irresistible temptation to linger over Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes' books, so intensely interesting is his personality and so fascinating is his work. But several other eminent poets of the profession demand attention. To Crabbe's connection with surgery I have already incidentally referred, and inasmuch as he early abandoned the calling for the ministry, little need be said except that his youthful experience may have aided him in writing a scathing denunciation of the Quack, who believed wholly in the potence of "oxymel of squills," and of the Parish Doctor, who "first insults the victim whom he kills." The poet was a severe castigator, and was never less forbearing with the lash than when these impostors of his day were under his hand for flagellation. In Mark Akenside we come to a better specimen of the class which we are considering. At the age of twenty he went to Leyden, and three years later became, (as Dr. Johnson writes) "a doctor of physick, having, according to the custom of the Dutch Universities, published a thesis." In the same year he published "The Pleasures of the Imagination," his greatest work. This was followed by a collection of odes, but he still sought a livelihood as a physician. Little success attended him, however, and Dr. Johnson records that Akenside was known as a poet better than as a doctor, and would have been reduced to great exigencies but for the generosity of an ardent friend. "Thus supported, he gradually advanced in medical reputation, but never attained any great extent of practice, or eminence of popularity. A physician in a great city," his biographer continues musingly, "seems to be the mere play-thing of Fortune; his degree of reputation is, for the most part, totally casual; they that employ him, know not his excellence; they that reject him, know not his deficiency." Yet it was otherwise with Sir Samuel Garth, doctor and poet, of whom Johnson himself records that "by his conversation and accomplishments he obtained a very extensive practice." His principal poem was "The Dispensary," relating to a controversy of the time between the College of Physicians, who desired to give gratuitous advice to the poor, and the Apothecaries, who wished to keep up the high price of medicine. Garth was "on the side of charity against the intrigues of interest, and of regular learning against licentious usurpation of medical authority," as Johnson put it; and he sprang into favour, was eventually knighted, and became physician-general to the army. His last literary work, and his worst, was a crude but ostentatious preface to a translation of Ovid. As a matter of fact his writing was invariably mediocre, and Pope, in calling attention to the fact that the "Dispensary" poem had been corrected in every edition, unkindly remarked that "every change was an improvement." John Phillips, who may be ranked among the physicians, though it is doubtful whether he practised, enjoyed a better fate as a man of letters than did either Akenside or Garth. He sprang into sudden popularity by the publication of a whimsical and clever medley called "The Silver Shilling," and this he followed up by a sort of official commemoration of the victory of Blenheim. His greatest achievement was a poem in two books on "Cider," and he was meditating an epic on "The Last Day" when he died, at the early age of thirty-three. One curious fact about his writings, small as it is, is worthy of mention. He sang the praises of tobacco in every poem he wrote, except that on Blenheim.

Dr. Johnson did not rate Phillips very highly; he said that what study could confer he obtained, but that "natural deficience cannot be supplied." The sturdy doctor, however, did his utmost to rehabilitate the damaged reputation of Blackmore, whom we may regard as the most remarkable of all the compounds of physician-poets with whom we can become acquainted. Blackmore obtained an undeserved success, which was followed by unmerited ridicule, and Johnson, who hated every form of injustice, constituted himself his champion. For the truth about Blackmore we must seek the medium between the extremes of Johnson's praise and of the censure of his enemies--the "malignity of contemporary wits," as Boswell termed it. When all is said and done the fact remains that Blackmore was a man of uncommon character, and a prodigious worker. His first work, a heroic poem in ten books, on Prince Arthur, was written, he related, by "such catches and starts, and in such occasional uncertain hours as his profession afforded, and for the greatest part in coffee-houses, or in passing up and down the streets." This work passed through several editions with rapidity, and two extra books were added to it. The King knighted him and gave him other advances, but the critics furiously assailed him, and his name became a by-word for all that was heavy and ridiculous in poetry. Notwithstanding this he persevered, and published successively a "Paraphrase on the Book of Job," a "Satire on Wit," "Elijah,"--an epic poem in ten books--"Creation, a Philosophical Poem," "Advice to Poets how to celebrate the Duke of Marlborough," "The Nature of Man," "Redemption," "A New Version of the Psalms," "Alfred"--an epic in twelve books--"A History of the Conspiracy against King William," and a host of others which his perverted reason or fantastic fancy suggested. Never, perhaps, was known such a voluminous author, or one so erratic in his system. What with his long heroic poems, his treatises on smallpox and other diseases, his theological controversies, his "Advices" to painters, poets, and weavers, and his prose contributions to periodical publications, "England's Arch-Poet" (as Swift described him) could never have idled away an hour. Of all that he wrote, a few passages from his "Arthur" and "Creation" are alone remembered, and but for Johnson's good-natured attempt to save him from oblivion, his name would only have lived in the satires of his remorseless critics. One saying of Blackmore's only is worth noting here. He had laid himself open to the imputation of despising learning, and Dr. Johnson himself thought him a shallow ill-read man. But Blackmore said:--"I only undervalued false or superficial learning, that signifies nothing for the service of mankind; as to physic I expressly affirmed that learning must be joined with native genius to make a physician of the first rank; but if those talents are separated, I asserted, and do still insist, that a man of native sagacity and diligence will prove a more able and useful practiser than a heavy notional scholar encumbered with a heap of confused ideas."

One or two other doctors who in their time enjoyed a reputation as writers, but whose fame was transient, or, at least, is insecure, call for very brief notice before we pass on to a few of greater importance. Sir John Hill, M.D., an eighteenth century physician, was a fairly extensive litterateur, and in addition to producing treatises on botany, medicine, natural history, and philosophy, wrote half a dozen novels, and several dramas. His _chef d'oeuvre_ was "The Vegetable System," a work of such magnitude that it ran to twenty-six volumes, a copy of which was presented to the King of Sweden, and procured for the author the distinction of being included in the Order of the Polar Star. Dr. William Fullarton Cumming, a son of Burns' "Bonnie Leslie," was compelled to travel in mild climates for his health, and as a result wrote "The Notes of a Wanderer," a work abounding in poetic descriptions of the charming scenery of the East. He tells us that the real pleasure of travelling is not to boast of how many lions one may have slain in a single day, but to saunter about without an object, to inhale the moral atmosphere of places visited, to enter bazaars, not to buy, but to catch the hundred peculiarities of a new people, to stray hither and thither watching the work and the recreations of other races. John Chalmers, M.D. (not to be confused with the great divine, Dr. Thomas Chalmers), also deserves to be noted as a very graceful writer of romantic stories; and Sir Henry Thompson, under the name of "Pen Oliver," produced some years ago a strange little volume which enjoyed a season's success--"Charley Kingston's Aunt."

That most diffident and most delightful of authors, Dr. John Brown, who gave us the memorable "Rab and his Friends," was in practice at Edinburgh. As long as lovers of the animal creation are to be found, the story of Rab and of Marjorie will be read; and these sketches of brutes whom he almost humanised will probably outlive the genial doctor's more ambitious "Horae Subsecivae" and "John Leech and other Papers." Of a very different nature was the author of "Ten Thousand a Year," Dr. Samuel Warren, physician, lawyer, politician, novelist, and office-seeker. Tittlebat Titmouse is not much studied now, for the type is out-of-date, and the society of which the novel treats, the abuses prevalent, the general corruption which prevailed in public life, were exposures intended for a past generation. Yet there are passages in the work which should save it from absolute neglect, and it has for over half a century kept its author's name alive. This is more than his "Passages from the Diary of a late Physician" could have done, or those dozen other works with the bare titles of which the present reading public is scarcely acquainted. John Abercrombie, the chief consulting physician in Scotland during the last century, sought and achieved literary fame with two volumes on "The Intellectual Powers," and "The Moral Feelings." They enjoyed a popularity scarcely commensurate with their actual merits.

David Macbeth Moir, who faithfully performed the arduous duties of a medical practitioner in Edinburgh, and whose life was almost wholly devoted to the service of his fellows, was the famous "Delta" of _Blackwood's Magazine_. His poems, some four hundred of which he contributed to "Maga." alone, are out of fashion now, though their delightful vein of reflectiveness and their charm of expression should preserve them from absolute neglect. The heavy labours of his profession did not seem to check his literary productiveness. His poems fill two large volumes; his prose works are by no means meagre or unimportant, and his "Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the past Half-century," is a standard work on the poetry of his period. Medical treatises, too, came from his pen; and his "Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor," is one of the most agreeable of genuine Scotch sketches. His biographer correctly summed up the merits of the worthy doctor as a literary worker in the words "Good sound sense, a simple healthy feeling, excited and exalted though these may be, never fail him. He draws from nature, and from himself direct." Quiet humour and simple pathos, a love of humanity, deep reverential feeling, and originality of thought--all these are found in "Delta's" writings, and serve, with his own admirable nature, to keep his memory green.

Of Dr. Conan Doyle, the most conspicuous instance of the hour of the doctor turned author, no detailed notice is requisite, as the main facts of his career are sufficiently well known, and his literary work promises to bring him both fame and fortune. Undoubtedly he exemplifies the fact that the medical hand can scarcely be concealed when it takes to the pen, for his novels and stories abound in allusions which only his study, training, and experience as a doctor could suggest. His reading and observation largely provide the technique of his romances. Something of the same could be said of Smollett's work, though the medical knowledge of the author was often turned to less agreeable account. In fact, most of Smollet's references on this score were the reverse of delectable, and I refrain from a more precise examination of them. The unexpected use to which Mr. R. D. Blackmore has turned his knowledge of medicine--for he studied medicine as well as law seriously in his youth--in several of his novels, notably in the last, "Perlycross," has excited much interest and attention among the profession. So marked is this that I cannot refrain quoting from a singularly interesting criticism penned by a leading physician in the Midlands. "The medical incidents in 'Perlycross,'" he says, "are pourtrayed with an accuracy which shows an intimate knowledge of the profession and its members.... No doubt the opinions expressed by one learned doctor were those of the time represented in the story, though they could hardly be received with justice in the present day. Speaking of the illness of Sir Thomas Waldron, he says (p. 18):--'At present such a case could be dealt with best in Paris, although we have young men rising now who will make it otherwise before very long.' The key to this difficulty is found later on (p. 159) where the technical word 'introsusception' is mentioned as the disease or condition from which the patient suffered. At the time spoken of Parisian surgeons, headed by the eminent Dupuytren, excelled in the art of surgery; at the present time such a case could be treated as well by any hospital surgeon in England as in the metropolis of France.... The book contains an admirably-described case of catalepsy, which is equally well explained. The cure of the attack is described with consummate skill and power. The keystone of the whole position of medical knowledge is contained in a few words towards its close. In these days of rapid transition from one excitement to another it would be well to take the lesson to heart, and to remember what the author speaks of as two fine things--'If you wish to be sure of anything see it with your own good eyes,' and the second, 'Never scamp your work.' How these sayings may be applied in the practice of the profession may with profit be learned from a perusal of the pages of 'Perlycross.'" Perhaps I am going too far in claiming Mr. Blackmore as a medical man who has taken to literature, but the excuse of his early training, combined with this curious result of it manifested in his writing, proves irresistible.

Not to stray, however, but to get our feet once more upon solid ground, we may refer to a classic example, with which this article, had it been aught else but discursive, should have begun. Galen, the Greek physician, must be counted among the first and most famous of his class who have written literary works. He was so voluminous a writer on philosophical subjects that scores of books on logic and ethics have been fathered upon him without much question arising as to the unlikelihood of his being the author of so many. As it is he is credited with eighty-three treatises, the genuineness of which is not disputed; there are nineteen suspected to bear his name unjustly, forty-five are proved to be spurious, and then there remain a further fifteen fragments and fifteen commentaries on Hippocrates, which may be accepted as his in part or whole. He made himself master of the medical, physiological, and scientific knowledge of his time. He was born in 130 A.D., and died in 201, and left a record of that period. In addition to preparing this massive work, he seems to have found time to devote himself to various branches of philosophy with such success that later writers were well pleased to trade with the talisman of his name. Were it worth while to go back to antiquity, and to the history of foreign nations for further examples of physicians whose writings were not confined to expositions of the medical system, Averrhoes, most famous of Arabian philosophers, and physician to the calif, a master of the twelfth century, would occupy a prominent position. But it is more to our purpose to draw attention to the remarkable career, and one that deserves to be held in remembrance, of Arthur Johnston, physician to King Charles the First. In the same year that he graduated at the university of Padua (1610) he was "laureated poet at Paris, and that most deservedly," as Sir Thomas Urquhart recorded. He was then only three-and-twenty years of age, and the prospect of many years being before him, he indulged in extensive travel, and visited in turn most of the principal foreign seats of learning. His journeying over, he settled in France and became equally well known as a physician and as a writer of excellent Latin verse. A courteous act, characteristic of the time, secured him the favour and patronage of the English royal family, for in 1645 he published an elegy on James I., and followed this up by dedicating a Latin rendering of the Song of Solomon to King Charles. Other specimens of his rare culture and his poetical powers were forthcoming, and he achieved a European reputation. His Latin translation of the Psalms is held to be unexcelled by any other, unless it be Buchanan's, and the fact that his translation is still in use sufficiently attests its excellence and value. He died suddenly in 1641, while on a visit to Oxford, and in the centuries which have succeeded he has not been displaced in the front rank of refined and deeply versed Latin scholars and poets.

It would be a matter of considerable difficulty to make a complete list of literary doctors, but enough has perhaps been written to show that they are no small band so far as numbers go, and that their influence in the world of books has been very considerable and distinguished. We owe to them many great works of enduring repute, of value to the student, of perpetual entertainment to the general reader. When, too, we consider the willingness and the zeal with which the writing members of the medical profession have imparted their knowledge, we are led to believe that they accepted as their motto the noble utterance of Sir Thomas Browne, the chief of literary doctors:--"To be reserved and caitiff in goodness is the sordidest piece of covetousness, and more contemptible than pecuniary Avarice. To this (as calling myself a Scholar) I am obliged by the duty of my condition: I make not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure of knowledge; I intend no Monopoly, but a community, in learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves. I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less. I instruct no man as an exercise of my knowledge, or with an intent rather to nourish and keep it alive in mine own head than beget and propagate it in his; and in the midst of all my endeavours there is but one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with myself, nor can be Legacied among my honoured Friends."

The "Doctor" in time of Pestilence.

BY WILLIAM E. A. AXON, F.R.S.L.

"I do not feel in me those sordid and unchristian desires of my
profession; I do not secretly implore and wish for Plagues, rejoice at
Famines, revolve Ephemerides and Almanacks in expectation of malignant
Aspects, fatal Conjunctions, and Eclipses."--SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S
"Religio Medici," pt. ii., sec. ix.

Of the great epidemics which have from time to time devastated Europe, Great Britain has had its full share. Between 664 and 1665 there were many visitations, resulting in heavy mortality, to which the general name of plague or pestilence has been given, although they were not always identical in form. Often the dread sisters Famine and Pestilence went hand in hand in the domains of merrie England in the good old times.

The Statute of Labourers declares, no doubt with perfect truth, that "a great part of the people, principally of artisans and labourers," died in the pestilence known as the Black Death of 1349, which had important consequences, socially and politically. There were many subsequent outbreaks, though they fortunately did not attain to the enormous proportions of the great mortality. We have from the graphic hand of Chaucer a life-like portrait of a medical man of the fourteenth century who had gained his money in the time of pestilence.

At the end of the fifteenth and middle of the sixteenth century, we have as alternating with bubo plague, the _Sudor Anglicanus_. Its appearance coincided with the invasion by which Richard III. lost his crown, and his rival became Henry VII. Dr. Thomas Forrester, who was in London during the outbreak of 1485, gives instances of suddenness with which the "sweat" became fatal. "We saw two prestys standing togeder and speaking togeder, and we saw both of them die suddenly." The symptoms were sweating, bad odour, redness, thirst, headache, "and some had black spots as it appeared in our frere Alban, a noble leech, on whose soul God have mercy." Forrester complains of the quacks who put letters on poles and on church doors, promising to help the people in their need. He lays stress upon astrological causes, but does not overlook the defective sanitation which gave the plague some of its firm hold. The _Sudor Anglicanus_ returned in 1508, 1517, 1528, and 1551. The last visitation was the occasion of a treatise by the worthy Cambridge founder, to whom Gonville and Caius College owes so much.

"The Boke of Jhon Caius aganst the sweatyng Sickness" is an interesting document. It opens with a long autobiographical passage as to his previous literary labours, which have ranged from medicine to theology. At first he wrote in English, but afterwards in Latin and Greek. The reason for this change is stated. "Sence y{t} that tyme diverse other thynges I have written, but with the entente never more to write in the Englishe tongue partly because the comodite of that which is so written, passeth not the compasse of Englande, but remaineth enclosed within the seas, and partly because I thought that labours so taken should be halfe lost among them which set not by learnyng. Thirdly, for that I thought it best to auoide the judgment of the multitude from whom in maters of lernyng a man shal be forced to dissente, in disprouyng that which they most approue, and approuyng that which they most disalowe. Fourthly for that the common settyng furthe and printig of every foolishe thyng in englishe, both of phisicke vnperfectly and other matters vndiscretly diminishe the grace of thynges learned set furth in thesame. But chiefely because I would geve none example or comfort to my countrie men (who I would to be now, as here tofore they have been, comparable in learnyng to men of other countries) to stande onely in the Englishe tongue, but to leaue the simplicitie of the same, and to procede further in many and diuerse knowledges both in tongues and sciences at home and in uniuersities, to the adornyng of the comon welthe, better service of their kyng, and great pleasure and commodite of their own selues, to what kind of life so euer they should applie them." But his resolution not to write again in the vulgar tongue was broken by considerations of utility, for he saw that it could not be very serviceable to ordinary English people to give them advice as to the treatment of the sweating sickness in a language which they did not understand. In his account of this dire malady, he lays stress upon errors and excess of diet as a strongly co-operating cause. "They which had thys sweat sore with perille or death, were either men of welthe, ease and welfare, or of the poorer sorte such as wer idls persones, good ale drinkers, and Tauerne haunters. For these, by ye great welfare of the one sorte, and large drinkyng of thother, heped up in their bodies moche evill matter: by their ease and idlenes, coulde not waste and consume it." Against the infection of bad air he recommends avoiding carrion "kepyng Canelles cleane" and other general sanitary precautions. He suggests that the midsummer bonfires were intended for purging the air, "and not onely for vigils." Rosewater and other perfumes are to be used, and he thinks it would be well to clear the house of its rushes and dust. It is to be feared that the rushes which served instead of carpets, even in great houses, were not renewed very frequently. The handkerchief was to be perfumed, and the patient was to have in his mouth "a pece either of setwel, or of the rote of _enula campana_ wel steped before in vinegre rosate, a mace, or berie of Juniper."

Dr. Caius, like Dr. Forrester, did not omit to warn his readers that even with the aid of his book a medical man was still necessary, and in doing so he gives us a glimpse of the quack doctors of the sixteenth century. "Therefore seke you out a good Phisicien, and knowen to haue skille, and at the leaste be so good to your bodies, as you are to your hosen or shoes for the wel-making or mending wherof, I doubt not but you wil diligently searche out who is knowe to be the best hosier or shoemaker in the place where you dwelle: and flie the unlearned as a pestilence to the comune wealth. As simple women, carpenters, pewterers, brasiers, sope ball sellers, pulters, hostellers, painters, apotecaries (otherwise then for their drogges), auaunters theselves to come from Pole, Constantiple, Italie, Almaine, Spaine, Fraunce, Grece, and Turkie, Inde, Egipt or Jury: from y{e} seruice of Emperoures, kinges, and quienes, promisig helpe of al diseases, yea vncurable, with one or two drinckes, by waters sixe monethes in continualle distillinge, by _Aurum potabile_, or _quintessence_, by drynckes of great and hygh prices as though thei were made of the sune, moone, or sterres, by blessynges, and Blowinges, Hipocriticalle prayenges, and foolysh smokynges of shirts, smockes, and kerchieffes, wyth such other theire phantasies and mockeries, meaninge nothng els, but to abuse your light belieue, and scorne you behind your backes with their medicines, so filthie, that I am ashamed to name theim, for your single wit and simple belief, in trusting the most which you know not at al, and vnderstad least: like to them which thinke farre foules have faire fethers, although thei be never so euil fauoured & foule: as though there could not be so conning an Englishman, as a foolish running stranger (of others I speak not) or so perfect helth by honest learning, as by deceiptfull ignorance."

Dr. Caius laid stress upon exercise as an aid to health, but some popular games he thought "rather a laming of legges than an exercise." We need not follow him in the details of the treatment he recommends if in spite of the adoption of his preventive _regime_, the sweating sickness should come.

In 1561 there was issued "A newe booke conteyninge an exortacion to the sicke." The tract ends with the following parody on the nostrums current for the cure of the pestilence: "Take a pond of good hard penaunce, and washe it wel with the water of your eyes, and let it ly a good whyle at youre hert. Take also of the best fyne fayth, hope, charyte yt you can get, a like quantite of al mixed together, your soule even full, and use this confection every day in your lyfe, whiles the plages of God reigneth. Then, take both your handes ful of good workes commaunded of God, and kepe them close in a clene conscience from the duste of vayne glory, and ever as you are able and se necessite so to use them. This medicine was found wryten in an olde byble boke, and it hath been practised and proved true of mani, both men and women" (Collier's _Bib. Account_, i. 74).

The wealthy, on an outbreak of the plague, fled from the infected city, as we may learn from Boccaccio, and from Miles Coverdale's translation of Osiander's sermon, "How and whether a Christian man ought to flye the horrible plage of the pestilence," which appeared in 1537.

During the plague of London, in 1603, the physicians are asserted by Dekker to have "hid their synodical heads," but this is at all events not wholly true. Thomas Lodge, the poet, was also a graduate in medicine, and in his "Treatise on the Plague"--not the only one published in relation to this epidemic--we are told of his experiences of the plague-stricken city. He gives some good advice in relation to the sanitary measures to be taken for the prevention of the plague.

The nature of the regulations devised in the Tudor times to ward off infection may be gathered from the rules laid down at Chester in November, 1574, when

"the right Worshipful Sir John Sauage, Knight, maior of the City of
Chester had consideracion of the present state of the said cite
somewhat visited with what is called the plage, and divisinge the best
meanes and orderlie waies he can, with [the advice] of his Bretheren
the alderman, Justices of peace within the citie aforesaid (through
the goodness of God) to avoid the same hath with such advice, sett
forth ordained and appointed (amongst other) the points, articles,
clauses, and orders folowing, which he willeth and commandeth all
persons to observe and kepe, upon the severall pains theirin
contayned:

"Imprimis. That no person nor persons who are or shalbe visited with
the said sickness, or any other who shall be of there company, shall
go abrode out of there houses without license of the alderman of the
ward such persons inhabite, And that every person soe licensed to
beare openlie in their hands ... three quarters long ... ense ...
shall goe abrode out of the ... upon paine that eny person doynge the
contrary to be furthwith expulsed out of the said citie.

"2. Item if any person doe company with any persons visited, they
alsoe to beare ... upon like payne.

"3. Item that none of them soe visited doe goe abroad in any part or
place within the citie in the night season, upon like payne.

"4. Item that the accustomed due watche to be kepte every night,
within the said citie, by the inhabitants thereof.

"5. Item the same watchman to apprehend and take up all night walkers
and such suspect as shalbe founde within and to bring them to the
Justice of peace, of that ... the gaile of the Northgate, that further
order may be taken with them as shall appear....

"6. Item that no swine be kept, within the said citie nor any other
place, then ... side prively nor openlie after the xiii{th} daie of
this present moneth, upon paine of fyne and imprisonment of every
person doing the contrary.

"7. Item that no donge, muck or filth, at any tyme, hearafter be caste
within the walls of the said citie, upon paine of ffyne and
imprisonment at his worships direction.

"8. Item that no kind or sort of ... or any wares from other place be
brought in packs into the said citie of Chester, untill the same be
ffirste opened and eired without the libities of the said citie, upon
pain last recited.

"9. Item that papers or writing containing this sence Lord haue mercie
upon us, to be fixed upon euery house, dore post, or other open place,
to the street of the house so infected.

"10. Item that no person of the said citie doe suffer any their doggs
to goe abrode out of their houses or dwellings, upon paine that euery
such dogge so founde abrode shalbe presently killed. And the owners
thereof ponished at his worships pleasure."

It has always been found easier to make laws than to have them enforced, and we find certain inhabitants complaining of the disobedience of infected persons in the following petition:--

"To the right worshipful Sir John Savage, knight, maior of the Citie
of Chester, the aldermen, sheriffs, and common counsaile of the same.

"In most humble wise complayninge sheweth unto your worships, your
Orators, the persons whose name are subscribed inhabiting in a certain
lane within the same citie called Pepper Street, That where yt haue
pleased God to infect divers persons of the same Street with the
plage, and where also for the avoidinge of further infection your
worships have taken order that all such so infected should observe
certaine good necessarye orders by your worships made and provided.
But so it is, right worships, that none of the said persons infected
do observe any of the orders by your worships in that case taken, to
the greate danger and perill, not only of your Orators and their
famelyes being in number twenty, but also of the reste of the said
citie, who by the sufferance of God and of his gracious goodness are
clere and safe from any infection of the said deceas: In consideration
whereof your Orators moste humbly beseche your worships for God's
sake, and as your worships intend it your Orators should, by the
sufferance of God, avoide the dangers of the said deceas with their
family, and also for the better safty of the citie to take such
directions with the said infected persons that they may clearly be
avoided from thens to some other convenient for the time untill God
shall restore them to their former health. And in this doing your
Orators shall daily pray, &c."[1]

During the visitation of the plague at Manchester in 1645, when the place suffered severely, the authorities not only provided "cabins" at Collyhurst for the reception of those whom the disease attacked, but engaged the services of "Doctor Smith," who received L4 "for his charges to London and a free guift," and L39 "for part of his wages for his service in the time of the visitation." Thos. Minshull, the apothecary, was paid L6 2s. 6d. for "stuffe for ye town's service." Some "bottles and stuffe" were unused at the end of the plague, and these were sold to "Mr. Smith, Phissition," for L1.

The story of English pestilence closes with the Great Plague of London in 1665. It began about the west end of the city, Hampstead, Highgate, and Acton sharing the infection, and gradually worked eastward by way of Holborn. Out of an estimated population of 460,000 there died 97,306 persons, of whom 68,596 perished of pestilence. One week witnessed 8,297 deaths, and it has been seriously argued that the official figures very much underrate the truth, and that in this week of highest mortality the deaths really amounted to 12,000. "Almost all other diseases turned to the plague." Many of the clergy fled, and the places of some were occupied by the ejected Nonconformists. The complaint of absenteeism was also brought against the physicians, but there were certainly some who stayed in the infected and desolate city. "But Lord!" says Pepys, "what a sad time it is to all: no boats upon the river, and grass grown all up and down Whitehall Court, and nobody but poor wretches in the street." William Boghurst, who was an apothecary, and Nathaniel Hodges, who was a physician, each wrote full accounts of the plague.