Perhaps regarding nothing connected with the science and practice of medicine, or the lives of its professors, are there more stories told, more curious facts on record, more interesting exhibitions of character and touching displays of generosity to relate, than about the giving and taking--or not taking--of fees. In stringing together some memoranda and anecdotes on this head, it needs only to be said that they are but a few out of a crowd. At the outset, it may be explained that from very early times the fee of the physician (like that of the advocate or the university professor) was regarded in the light of a voluntary recognition or reward for services rendered out of pure love of science or humanity. Dr. Doran alleges, indeed, that "there is a religious reason why fees are supposed not to be taken by physicians. Amongst the Christian martyrs are reckoned the two eastern brothers, Damian and Cosmas. They practised as physicians in Cilicia, and they were the first mortal practitioners who refused to take recompense for their work. Hence they were called Anargyri, or 'without money.' All physicians are pleasantly supposed to follow this example. They never take fees, like Damian and Cosmas; but they meekly receive what they know will be given out of Christian humility, and with a certain or uncertain reluctance, which is the nearest approach that can be made in these times to the two brothers who were in partnership at Egea in Cilicia." It has very naturally, however, been objected that physicians act from no such lofty motives, but merely because they prefer that the gratitude or the fears of the patient should be the measure of their reward. And yet, as Mr. Wadd forcibly remarks, "it is a fact, not less singular than true, that the advancement of surgical science is a benefit conferred on society at the expense of the scientific practitioner, since in proportion as the mode of cure is _tuto et celeriter_, safe and speedy, remuneration is diminished. Perhaps in no instance is this better exemplified than in the operation of the hydrocele, introduced by my late friend and master, Sir James Earle. Compare the simplicity, safety, and celerity of this, with the bustle and bloody brutality of the old system; the business of six weeks reduced to so many days! But mark the consequence, _quâ honorarium_: does the patient increase the fee for the pain and misery he is spared? Not a bit of it. Here is little or no work done; no trouble to the doctor; no pain to the patient; therefore, nothing to pay for.... Selden, who understood these failings in mankind vastly well, gives them a sly hit in his _Table Talk_:--'If a man had a sore leg, and he should go to an honest, judicious chirurgeon, and he should only bid him keep it warm, and anoint it with such an oil (an oil well known) that would do the cure, haply he would not much regard him, because he knows the medicine beforehand, an ordinary medicine. But if he should