Physicians are paid by results; and a bargain is struck to pay so much if the patient is cured, before the case is undertaken. If the doctor appears to have done his best, and has been very attentive, the people, even in case of the death of the patient, evince their gratitude by a valuable donation, as well as by small gifts whilst the patient is being treated. It is very seldom that “a job of healing” is undertaken for less than 8 ticals (a tical is worth two shillings), or for more than 20 ticals. The price may run up to ten or even twenty times the amount of these sums, in an inverse proportion to the reduction of the hope of effecting a cure, as the disease progresses. The pledges given are always verbal; but as there is never any want of living witnesses to attest them, the successful doctor can claim their payment by law, and in case of default of money, goods, or chattels, he may seize any of the family of the patient or relations dependent upon him or her under the age of twenty, and employ the youth or maiden as his bond-slave in lieu of interest of the debt until it is paid. Over and above the amount of the pledge, the law allows the practitioner to demand in all cases of successful treatment the customary fee, which uniformly amounts to 3½ ticals, equivalent to seven shillings in English money. This fee is called _Kwan-Kow Kaya_, and is divided, like its name, into two parts. The _Kwan-Kow_ consists of a proffer of 1½ tical (three shillings) in silver, made by the patient or his friends. This forms part of the offering for propitiating the primitive teacher of medicine, the demigod Komara-pat, who is believed to exert influence in the spirit-world over diseases. A wax candle is stuck upright in a brass basin or earthen bowl, and the money is planted in the candle. Then a small quantity of rice, salt, chillies, onions, plantains, &c., is placed in the same vessel, and an incantatory form is recited over it by the physician. No Siamese doctor will enter on the treatment of a patient, however trifling the disease, without paying his respects in this manner to the father of medicine. The second part of the fee, termed _Kaya_ (literally, the price of medicine), is 2 ticals, equivalent to four shillings, which is the supposed legal cost of the medicines that may be given in the treatment of the case, be it little or much. The law having joined these two parts of the custom together, they must be exacted together. These two amounts remain in charge of the friends of the patient until the physician has worked the cure; and if he fails, he cannot claim the money.