Dr. Pulte, of Ohio, one of the western pioneers in homeopathy, who has often been greeted, in his earlier professional rounds, by a shower of dirt, rotten eggs, stones, brickbats, and had rails and sticks thrust through his carriage wheels at night, and been otherwise insulted, until, finally, he had to carry his wife about with him, as a protective measure,--for his revilers would not insult a lady,--has since made as high as twenty thousand dollars a year, and has amassed a fortune of two hundred thousand dollars. There is a Boston homeopathist whose income from practice is not less than twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars annually. Some of the surgeons (allopathic) do better, but hardly reach the figures of Dr. Nelaton, the great French surgeon, who, in 1869, earned four hundred thousand francs, equal to about eighty thousand dollars. [Illustration: A PIONEER OF HOMEOPATHY.] Dr. Bigelow, the very celebrated surgeon of Harvard College, has probably received the largest fee for a surgical operation of any New England practitioner. He is said to be worth nearly a million. Dr. Buckingham, the eminent medical practitioner, of Boston, who probably earns as much as any physician in the city, a few years ago stated to the graduating class of Harvard College--so I am informed by a physician then present--that he received for his first year's practice in Boston _but fifty-seven dollars_. He then had a little office up stairs, where he slept, dined,--often on bread and cheese, or a few crackers; sometimes he did not dine,--and received his few patients. But he was a great student, and a hard worker, and often, and usually, stuck to his post during those hours when more prosperous physicians were seeking amusement or relaxation. He was one of the "_hold-fast_" kind, who always win, in the end. "_Catch what you can._"--There is a class of wretches in every city who have no established fee for prescribing for the sick. They go on the principle of "catch what I can." If they cannot get a fee of twenty dollars, they will take two, provided the patient has no more. A young man who visited one of these medical shave-shops was charged a fee of thirty-five dollars in a very simple case; but the benevolent doctor concluded to accept two dollars and a half instead, since the man had no more money. The shamefulness of such Jewing reminds one of the story of a negro trading off a worn-out old mule:-- "I say, dar, what will you take for dat yer mule, Cuffy?" "O, I axes thirty-five dollars for him, Mr. Sambo." "O, go way, dar. I gibs you five dollars for him," said the first. "Well, you can take him, Sambo. I won't stand for thirty dollars on a mule trade, nohow." There is a female practitioner in St. Louis who earns above ten thousand dollars a year, and her individual fees are moderate at that.