Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The country doctor. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![IcccliGS, uiidci’ dii'cobioii that aho was to take two occa- sionally, as might he necessary, and an old lady a box of j^ills, which she was coolly recommended to apply to the part affected. A simple act of barter remedied the error, and the doctor, beginning with a serious scolding, ended with a fit of laughter. Looking back at the four years of my pupilage, I am happy to testify they were not only amongst the most pleasing, but the most profitable of my life. Let no one decry country medical pupilage in my hearing, if they are impatient mider contradiction. From the age of six- teen to twenty, I hold the advantages for a boy entering upon the profession of physic to be greatly in favour of the countiy. There were three pupils, as I have said; and in the establishment it was a cock-pit rule, with which the commanding officer in no way interfered, that the 3'oungest pupil should do all the dispensing. That drudgery, as it hajipeued, did not long devolve upon me. I was soon free to occupy my time in another way, and had reason to be thankful that my lot had been cast in a country piipilage. Daily horse exercise kept me in health, and ample time for study dissipated the ohjec- tion sometimes adduced against a medical apprentice- ship. One speciality of a country doctor’s avocation is the relationship he holds with the poor. In London, and other lai'go cities and towns, medical men in private jn'actice, as the rule, have little to do with the poorer population. What with liospitals, and what with dis- pensaries, easy of access, the extremely poor rarely come in the way of medical men in private practice. Gratuitous advice is sometimes, indeed, accorded; but more usually the non-paying public, not in the Union, avail themselves of hos]Ditals and dispensaries, Rightly or wrongly, public institutions are preferred, and they sometimes withdraw from medical men patients in no way qualified by poverty for hospital and dispensary attention. In the country, the genuine country, it is otherwise. Medical attendance must there be sought and obtained, cither individually, or through parochial, or union, or club organization. In i-ny part of the woi’ld, (the west of England,) benevo- lent clubs are numerous, and well appointed. All the agricultural and mining population, elevated in the slight- est degree above absolute v/ant, belonged in my time, and I am informed still belong, to some benevolent club, one of the privileges connected with u'hich is medical attendance in illness. It was a time of much excitement when a club committee, in solemn conclave, sat to elect their doctor. Woe, then, to the unfortunate man of physic against whom any charge of unkindness, inatten- tion, or other error or short-coming could fairly be brought. Mining and bucolic minds, tranquil, if not torpid, at other seasons, then waxed energetic ; tongues were unloosed, and speakers grew eloquent. Then was an Englishman’s privilege to tell a bit of his mind most amply vindicated. The doctor had to incur pretty much the same sort of overhauling that falls to the lot of a candidate for electoral honours. He was expected to stand any amount of rustic eloquence without betraying the slightest ill temper. My governor took these occa- sions as matters of course; calmly telling us, that scold- ing the doctor marked such an epoch of self-satisfaction to the scolders, that in his opinion they ought not to be checked. He took all this as a matter of course, I say, one occasion excepted. There was a woman’s club, and very eloquent were the speaking ladies of the committee. The doctor rather quailed, so often as the necessity for incurring this ordeal came about; but, bracing himself up strong for the occasion, by force of flattery, con- ciliation, and great aptitude for tea diunking, (a hollow pretence, I am sorry to write,) he got manfully through it. I am happy to proclaim, on behalf of mj’ goveriior, that ho was ever considerately kind to the poor. He acted from a sense of duty and love of his profession; but circumstances, nevertheless, occurred to ruffle his temper at times. It was a fixed notion with the small fanners of the neighbourhood, that save in case of direst accident, the doctor should never be summoned until the horses had done ploughing for the day. This belief was not only dangerous on behalf the patient, but unfair, as I think you Avill own, on behalf of the doctor. Fancy the poor doctor on some cold wintry night responsive to the bell or knocker, fancy him thrusting his head out of the window and opening a parley, (gutta percha tubes were not invented then,) and joining in the following dialogue:— Anxious messenger. “Please, sir. Tommy Jones is bad —cruel bad. Please, sir, you must come immedieiitly.” (Mem. cruel, I would have you to know, is Devonshire and Cornish for veri/.) Doctor. “Where is he bad?” Anxious messenger. “ Please, sir, all over.” Whei’eupon the doctor, scratching his ear, is lost in meditation as to the physio most appropriate to .such an ill-defined malady. After a pause, ho re-opens the con- versation, asking— Doctor. “How long has he been bad?” Anxious messenger. “ Dree days, sir, so to speak, he’s a been wisht (so so), but he’s a been cruel bad since the moi’ning.” Hereupon the doctor, slightly ruffled, ns well ho might, and as, I think you will own, the occasion justified— “ Why did you not send before ?” he, after a short pause, would saj’- impatiently— “ Please, sir, the boss was a-ploughing and couldn’t stop.” Thereupon, if the messenger was of ago and position to understand argument, his candid opinion was solicited on the following points: Was a horse’s day’s work of more regard than a man’s life ? Had messenger no re- gard for Tommy Jones ? Did messenger, or did he not, consider the doctor to have need of rest; to be insensible to the benefits of sleep; to bo devoid of human feelings P But it over ended in one way. The doctor would slam the sash, or shut the door, resigning himself forthwith to fate and duty. Ho would summon Ned to saddle the horse, don his clothes, finishing the attire, if the night was rough, with that jDoculiai’ly spectral-looking garment already described; and, having mounted his nag, doctor and messenger would speed away in no unfriendly con- verse. My pupilage was before the Union system came into operation. Our pauper patients were parochial, not union ones; and I believe the point is conceded, that the paro- chial system, whatever its administrative shortcomings, can advance the greater pretensions to patriarchal kind- ness. It was always assumed that every pauper candi- date for medical relief should come recommended with an overseer’s certificate; but this, in our practice, was frequently dispensed with, and the privilege was some- times abused. The overseer’s certificate notes merit a word or two of ! comment. They were very curious documents, mingling no end of official dignity with much bad spoiling, and 1 not a little vagueness of expression. A certain polite | overseer affected the third person in his communications, , but a stray first personal pronoun wandering into the document, begat some difficulty in our minds as to the | real patient, overseer or pauper. I once had a collection I of these official notes, but they are lost in the flood of I](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22474559_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
