Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/217

 cation,” says A. P. Peabody, who in his youth knew the old gentleman to his cost, “gained for him unbounded popularity with the many who used a quantitative standard in estimating a physician’s skill, and left traditions transcending easy belief in the succeeding generation.” This style of treatment was of course encouraged by the custom then in vogue whereby a doctor charged, not for his visits to a patient but for the medicine he supplied to him. Gamage’s bill to “The Colony of Massachusetts Bay”—“From The 19th of April to 17th of August 1775” —is still preserved, and is of unique interest as the earliest known document of its kind in the medical history of the Revolution. According to the custom, he makes no charge for “‘Attending Upon The sick And Wounded in The Provincial Army, And Upon The Wounded Regulars”; but for “Medicine Advanced for The Wounded Regulars, in April 1775” sets down items totalling 15s. 7d., and for “Medicine Advanced for The Provincial Army in April & May, 1775” makes a footing of 14s. 8d. The 17th of August probably marks the date when he ceased to prescribe as a semi-independent civilian, and became a regular hospital mate, as noted hereafter. He did not follow the army when it left Cambridge, but con-