Part 21

It has been my privilege to know several doctors intimately. Our family doctor when I was a boy in Paisley, was Dr. Kerr, a man far in advance of his day. He was the means of introducing a pure water supply to the town of Paisley, always strenuously urging the importance of sanitary matters and good drainage, when such things were then but little understood, and greatly neglected. Shortly after the water had been introduced to the houses, from Stanley, an old man--who had been accustomed to purchase water from a cart which went through the streets selling it from a barrel--on being asked how he liked the new water, replied indignantly, "Wha's going to pay good siller for water that has neither smell nor taste?"

On one occasion, an elderly gentleman, who was slightly hypochondriac, consulted Dr. Kerr about his clothing, saying that he regulated the thickness of his flannels by the thermometer. Dr. Kerr, losing patience, said, "Can you not use the thermometer your Maker has put in your inside, and put on clothes when you are cold?"

Dr. Kerr's son and assistant, whom we then called "the young doctor," died a few years ago in Canada, over eighty years of age. No man could possibly have been more considerately kind, gentle, and tender-hearted. On one occasion, in 1841, when, in typhus fever, I was struggling for my life, he sat up with me for three whole consecutive nights, and brought me through. He ever kept himself abreast of the science of the day, and devoted his abilities and energies, con amore, to the benefitting of men's souls as well as their bodies.

Another model village and country doctor, also an intimate friend of my parents, Dr. Campbell of Largs, I knew very well. Good, genial, and accomplished, he was a perfect gentleman, and equally at home dining with Sir Thomas Brisbane, or drinking a cup of tea at some old woman's kitchen fireside. He read the Lancet, and tried all new medicines, and repeatedly, when going to London, at his request I procured the most recent instruments for him. He was intimate with Dr. Chalmers, Lord Jeffrey, Lord Moncrieff, Lord Cardwell, etc. In telling me of experiments with Perkin's metallic tractors, and that the same results were obtained with wooden ones, showing the power of imagination, he gave me a recent curious illustration. He had lately had the old fashioned little panes of glass taken out of the windows of his house, and plate glass inserted. His mother, who did not know of the change, calling one afternoon, sat on an easy chair, close by the gable window, knitting. On suddenly looking round she said, "Oh John, I've been sitting all this time by an open window," and forthwith she began to sneeze! She actually took cold, and even afterwards could scarcely be persuaded that it had not been an open window, for she said she felt the cold! The doctor told me of an old maiden lady who consulted him, and who, when he prescribed in a general way, insisted on knowing exactly what ailed her. He said she was only slightly nervous, and would soon be all right. This did not at all please her, and she at once loudly protested--"Me nervous! There is not a nerve in my whole body!"

A West India merchant, one of his patients whom I knew, he also told me, one day said to him, "Doctor, for forty years I never knew I had a stomach, and now I can think of nothing else!"

At the cholera time Dr. Campbell was laid down by the disease. The fact spread like wildfire over the village, and, at once, prayer-meetings for his recovery were called by the public bellman, meetings of all the different denominations, including the Roman Catholics (Dr. Campbell was a Free Church Elder), and there were truly heartfelt rejoicings in the whole district over his recovery.

I once asked him how he managed to get in his fees, since he never refused to visit when sent for. He said that one year, from curiosity, he kept an account of his gratuitous visits, and it ran into three figures; but he never took the trouble to note them again, as it served no purpose.

Many years ago he went to his rest, and, at his request, during his last illness, I paid him a farewell visit.

There are few finer descriptions of the country doctor than that contained in Ian Maclaren's "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," a book which speaks directly home to every true Scottish heart.

Dr. Campbell, in his large-hearted and genial Christian charity, scientific research, and philosophical acquirements, always reminded me of Sir Thomas Browne, "the beloved physician" of Norwich.

The following pleasing incident, relating to a medical man, came under my own notice. I often visited a country minister, an intimate friend, a learned man, and a genius, the quaint originality of whose observations often reminded me of Fuller, the Church historian, or Charles Lamb. Although of limited means, the Rev. Robert Winning, of Eaglesham, was ever hospitable; if he knew of any poor student, he would invite him to the manse for a month, on the plea that he would help to prepare him for his examination in Hebrew and Greek. The old manse servant, also an original, was paid a sum of money as compensation for refusing tips from visitors. One day, seeing an advertisement of a new book in a magazine I was reading, Mr. Winning remarked to me, "Andrew, I wish you would buy that book, cut the leaves, and lend it to me to read!"

One evening a message reached him from the village inn, saying that a doctor had come to an urgent case, which required him to stay over night, that there was no room in the inn, and asking if the minister could give him a bed. His wife, knowing the house was full, asked her husband what they should do. His reply was, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Give him a room, though we have to sleep on the floor." He was accordingly hospitably entertained.

Some time after, the minister took ill. The medical guest heard of it, went to see the local doctor, and, with his consent, visited the minister twice a week, from a distance of nine miles, and for a period of some four months, till his death. When the widow afterwards sent for his account, he said there was none, for it had been more than discharged on the first evening he had spent at the manse.

Dr. Stark, of Glasgow, who attended my family for years, was a skilful practitioner, but eccentric. He generally made light of trifling ailments, but was most energetic when aroused by any appearance of danger. I knew of his being suddenly called in to see an old lady who was far gone in an advanced stage of cholera. He at once asked to be shown over the house, looked at the different fireplaces, but as none of them suited his purpose, he went to the kitchen, threw off his coat, took out the range, made a fire in the recess that would have roasted an ox, had the old lady carried down in blankets and placed before it, worked energetically with her the whole night, and brought her through. In a similar way he once stayed over night and saved the life of one of my boys. One day I called at his house, and, finding him with a bad cold, eyes red and watery, throat husky, said, "Doctor, if you found me so, you would prescribe placing the feet in hot water and mustard, warm gruel, medicine, and going to bed! Physician, heal thyself!" The doctor's Shakespearian reply was, "Do you think I am such a fool as to take physic?"

Once when accompanying me to the coast to visit one of my children, there was a heavy sea on, and the steamer, on approaching the pier, rolled alarmingly, and was close on a lee shore. A strange lady on board, in terror, laid hold of the doctor, a tall, stalwart man, saying, "Oh! sir, are we going to the bottom?" On which he said, dryly, "Behave yourself, if you are going there, you are going in good company!" which odd answer reassured and caused her to laugh.

In speaking of a Greek gem representing Cupid and Pysche, one day, when driving in Wigtonshire with the late Dr. David Easton, a medical friend, he said I had not given the correct pronunciation of the names. Always willing to learn, I asked to be put right; whereupon, the doctor gravely informed me that I ought to have said--Cupped and Physic!

I have spoken of the kindness of medical men, such as Dr. Garth Wilkinson, to clergymen, artists, and literary men. I add one more expression of gratitude, which is a good modern instance:--

When at St. Helens, in Jersey, during his last illness, my friend Samuel Lover, the genial poet and artist, wrote the following lines to Dr. Dixon, his friend and physician. I first copied them some years ago from Lover's MS. note-book, kindly lent me by his widow when I was engaged in the preparation of his life. Such cordial tributes are a good physician's most highly-valued fees:--

"Whene'er your vitality Is feeble in quality, And you fear a fatality May end the strife, Then Dr. Joe Dickson Is the man I would fix on For putting new wicks on The lamp of life."

From the many varied facts and incidents adduced in these pages, it will be seen that, in anxiety or sorrow, the good family doctor is a true and sympathetic friend, whose services can never be paid by gold.

Next to religion, nothing is more precious or comforting than the sympathy of those who know and fully understand our sufferings, for, as my old favourite, Sir Thomas Browne, to whom I ever revert with renewed pleasure, truly and beautifully says:--"It is not the tears of our own eyes only, but of our friends also, that do exhaust the current of our sorrows, which, falling into many streams, runs more peaceably, and is contented with a narrower channel."

Ye Ende

Index.

Abernethy, John, 206-208, 266

Advertisements, Curious, 155-159

Ague, Charms for, 240-241

Akenside, Mark, 109-111

Andrews, William, Barber-Surgeons, 1-7; Touching for King's Evil, 8-23; Assaying Meat and Drink, 24-31