The next considerable profession therefore I shall mention in London
is that of the physicians, who are not so numerous as the former;
but those who are eminent amongst them acquire estates equal to the
lawyers, though they seldom arrive at the like honours. It is a
useful observation, indeed, as to English physicians, that they
seldom get their bread till they have no teeth to eat it: though,
when they have acquired a reputation, they are as much followed as
the great lawyers; they take care, however, not to be so much
fatigued. You find them at Batson's or Child's Coffee House usually
in the morning, and they visit their patients in the afternoon.
Those that are men of figure amongst them will not rise out of their
beds or break their rest on every call. The greatest fatigue they
undergo is the going up forty or fifty pair of stairs every day; for
the patient is generally laid pretty near the garret, that he may
not be disturbed.

These physicians are allowed to be men of skill in their profession,
and well versed in other parts of learning. The great grievance
here (as in the law) is that the inferior people are undone by the
exorbitance of their fees; and what is still a greater hardship is,
that if a physician has been employed, he must be continued, however
unable the patient is to bear the expense, as no apothecary may
administer anything to the sick man, if he has been prescribed to
first by a physician: so that the patient is reduced to this
dilemma, either to die of the disease, or starve his family, if his
sickness happens to be of any duration. A physician here scorns to
touch any other metal but gold, and the surgeons are still more
unreasonable; and this may be one reason why the people of this city
have so often recourse to quacks, for they are cheap and easily come
at, and the mob are not judges of their ability; they pretend to