Although the surgeons of the time were ignorant of the true nature of some of the diseases which they treated, they could cure them. Cataract was treated by “couching,” or depressing the diseased lens by means of a needle, in order to extract it.[450] A patient would sometimes require a consultation, when several doctors would meet and discuss his case, with much difference of opinion more or less violently expressed. Regardless of the sufferings of the patient, they wrangled over his symptoms, and behaved as if they were engaged in a pugilistic encounter, each man far more anxious to exhibit his parts and display his dialectical skill than to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate client. Pliny, Galen, and Theodorus Priscianus have left realistic descriptions of these medical encounters. With respect to the professional income of the early Roman physicians, Pliny says[451] that Albutius, Arruntius, Calpetanus, Cassius, and Rubrius gained 250,000 sesterces per annum, equal to £1,953 2_s._ 6_d._; that Quintus Stertinius made it a favour that he was content to receive from the emperor 500,000 sesterces per annum, or £3,906 5_s._, as he might have made 600,000 sesterces, or £4,687 10_s._, by his private practice. He and his brother, also an Imperial physician, left between them at their death the sum of thirty millions of sesterces, or £234,375, notwithstanding the large sums they had spent on beautifying Naples.[452] Galen’s fee for curing the wife of the consul Boethus, after a long illness, was about equal to £400 of our money. Manlius Cornutus, according to Pliny, paid his doctor a sum amounting to £2,000 for curing him of a skin disease; and the doctors Crinas and Alcon, according to the same authority, were immensely rich men. But these were all exceptional cases, and there is no reason to suppose that Roman doctors made on the average more than sufficient to keep them decently.[453] SCHOOL OF THE METHODISTS.