Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1875 — A Blunt Physician. [ARTICLE]

A Blunt Physician.

A writer in Chambers' Journal says : “ Foremost among the old English physicians must stand out that blunt, clever, irascible Yorksbireman, Dr. Radcliffe, whose memory the great library of Oxford (for which he bequeathed £40,000) will never allow to perish. Though there was perhaps a certain pride about his honest bluntness, we must respect the man who could tell the truth even to royal patients. Two years after his arrival in London Radcliffe was appointed physician to the Princess Anne of Denmark; and soon after the accession of King William was rewarded for the cure of two of William’s favorites by a present of 500 guineas from the privy purse. Though refusing the position of Court Physician, Radcliffe is said to have received from the King in six years nearly 8,000 guineas. His gains, indeed, seem to have been enormous ; for in 1691 he received 1,000 guineas from Queen Mary for successfully prescribing for the young Duke of Gloucester, the son of the Princess Anne; and we cannot disbelieve the story that Dr. Gibson made 1,000 guineas la year by receiving patients who were unable to obtain admission to Dr. Radcliffe. In 4694 he attended the good Queen Mary for the small-pox, and on merely reading thepre-

scriptions of the other physicians at once pronounced her 4 a dead woman;’ a prediction very soon verified. Queens and princesses might shrug their pretty shoulders at his name, but they could not dispense with Hadcliffe’s services, and we find him telling a messenger of the Princess Anne 4 that she had nothing but the vapors, and was as well as any other woman in the world could she but think so.’ He was dismissed the court for this hit. . Even royal pride, however, had to bow before the great doctor, and he was, in 1699, again sent for to see the Duke of Gloucester, whom he at once, abusing roundly the two court physicians, pronounced as beyond the reach of medicine. In 1695 King William gave Radcliffe £1,260 and made him the offer of a baronetcy, which he declined, having gone abroad to attend the Earl of Albemarle, who, on his recovery, had sent him 400 guineas and a diamond ring. Even the King Radcliffe did little to conciliate, and told him frankly that all promises to cure him were futile. He might, he said, if he gave up drinking long toasts with the Earl of Bradford (who drank hard), live three or fotir years; but no art would carry him further. When the King was finally seized with dropsy and asked the doctor what he thought of his legs, Radclitfe replied: 4 Why, truly, sir, I would not have your Majesty’s two legsfbr your three Kingdoms.’ Can we wonder that William ever afterward refused to see the blunt doctor, in spite of the intercessions of the Earl of Albemarle and other nobles?”