ANCIENT FEES.--LARGE FEES.--SPANISH PRIEST-DOCTORS.--A PIG ON PENANCE.--SMALL FEES.--A "CHOP" POSTPONED.--LONG FEES.--SHORT FEES.--OLD FEES.--A NIGHT-CAP.--AN OLD SHOE FOR LUCK.--A BLACK FEE.--"HEART'S OFFERING."--A STUFFED CAT.--THE "GREAT GUNS" OF NEW YORK.--BOSTON.--ROTTEN EGGS.--"CATCH WHAT YOU CAN."--FEMALE DOCTORS' FEES.--ABOVE PRICE.--"ASK FOR A FEE."--"PITCH HIM OVERBOARD."--DELICATE FEES.--MAKING THE MOST OF THEM. The great German physician who wrote the above died (as he ought, for putting so much truth into four lines) in 1538. He, of all physicians of his day, earned his fees; but it is often the case that the most deserving get the least reward, and Cordus was not an exception to the rule. A good physician, or surgeon, is seldom a sharp financier, and _vice versa_. "It is hard to serve two masters." Ancient physicians' fees were much larger, considering the difference in the value of money, than modern. ERASISTRATUS, in the year 330 B. C., received from General Seleucus, of Alexander's army, to whom the kingdom of Syria fell at the termination of the Macedonian conquest, the enormous sum of 60,000 crowns as a fee for his discovery of the disorder of the general's son, Antiochus. The Emperor Augustus employed four physicians, viz., Albutus, Arantius, Calpetanus, and Rubrius, to each of whom he paid an annual salary of 250,000 sesterces, equal to $10,000. Martialis, the Spanish epigramist, who was born in 40 A. D. says Alconius received 10,000,000 sesterces ($400,000) for a few years' practice. LARGE FEES. French physicians were never very well paid. The surgeons of Charlemagne were tolerably well recompensed. Ambrose Pare, the great surgeon, and inventor of ligatures (for peculiar arteries),--previous to whose time the arteries were seared with a hot iron; otherwise the patient bled to death,--received 5,000 francs for ligaturing one artery. Louis XIV. gave his surgeons 75,000 crowns each for successfully performing upon him a surgical operation.