They have fallen sick, yet have recovered agayne, by very small meanes, without helpe of fresh diet, or comfort of wholsome phisique, there being at the first but few phisique helpes, or skilful surgeons, who knew how to apply the right medecine in a new country, or to search the quality and constitution of the patient, and his distemper, or that knew how to councell, when to lett blood, or not, or in necessity to use a launce in that office at all. Bohun died in March, 1621, and the Company named his successor as physician to the colony in July. The conditions under which Dr. John Pott accepted the post reveal the qualifications and needs of the seventeenth-century medical man on his way to the New World, and the inducements offered by the Company. He was a Cambridge Master of Arts and claimed much experience in the practice of surgery and "phisique." In addition, he made much of his expertness in the distilling of water. The company allowed Pott a chest of medical supplies, a small library of medical books, and provisions for the free passage of one or more surgeons if they could be secured. Additional economic inducements helped persuade Pott--and other physicians--to make the arduous journey to America. In the eyes of the Company, physicians could render especially valuable services to the colony, and ranked with other persons of extraordinary talent such as ministers, governors, state officers, officers of justice, and knights. These individuals received special compensations in the form of land and profits, in accord with the estimated value of services to be rendered. In 1620, Dr. Bohun had had a promise--for taking the position of physician-general for the colony--of an allotment of 500 acres of land and ten servants; Pott accepted the job under about the same conditions as had Bohun. These inducements offered physicians to persuade them to go to Virginia indicate the great need for, and the high value attached to, their assistance in the seventeenth century. With the population in the colony growing so great Dr. Pott's services were in considerable demand; several years after his arrival a certain William Bennett built the doctor a boat as he by then had a relatively large area to cover and most of the outlying plantations stood on the rivers and creeks. In the colony, Pott won recognition for his professional proficiency. Even a political enemy, Governor Harvey, described him as skilled in the diagnosis and therapy of epidemic diseases. Because he alone in the colony was considered capable of treating epidemic diseases, a court sentence against him for cattle theft stood suspended early in the 1630's and clemency was sought on his behalf.