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With all these amateur and semi-professional rivals, it is no wonder that Giles Firmin, who knew how to pull teeth and bleed and sweat in a truly professional manner, complained that he found physic but a "meene helpe" in the new land.
Giles Firman, now in England, did make and read upon very well." Giles Firmin, as the name is commonly spelled, practised physic in this country for a time. He seems to have found it a poor business; for, in a letter to Governor Winthrop, he says, "I am strongly sett upon to studye divinitie: my studyes else must be lost, for physick is but a meene helpe."
Giles Firman, now in England, did make and read upon very well." Giles Firmin, as the name is commonly spelled, practised physic in this country for a time. He seems to have found it a poor business; for, in a letter to Governor Winthrop, he says, "I am strongly sett upon to studye divinitie: my studyes else must be lost, for physick is but a meene helpe."
Physicians' fees were "meene" enough in olden times; but sixpence a visit in Hadley and Northampton in 1730, and only eightpence in Revolutionary times. A blood-letting, or a jaw-splitting tooth-drawing cost the sufferer eightpence extra. No wonder the doctor cupped and bled on every occasion. In extravagant Hartford the opulent doctor got a shilling a visit.
His bookes and his bagges, many oon, He leith biform hymn on his countyng-bord. Ful riche was his tresor and his hord, For which ful faste his countour dore he shette; And eek he nolde that no man sholde hymn lette Of his accountes, for the meene tyme; And thus he sit til it was passed pry me.
No difficulty if I could keepe the highway, which is greatly beatten with the great concours of that people that comes & goes to trade with the flemings; but to avoid all encounters I must prolong a farre off. Soe being assisted by the best hope of the world, I made all diligence in the meene while that my mother nor kindred should mistrust me in the least.
Stubbe, 'I observed in his eyes and meene a vivacitie and spritelinesse that is nothing common'. This Miraculous Conformist was the younger son of an Irish squire, and a person of some property. After the Restoration and not before Greatrakes felt 'a strong and powerful impulse in him to essay' the art of healing by touching, or stroking.
This anatomy had been made by Giles Firmin, who was the friend of Winthrop and of the Bradstreet's, and who found the practice of medicine so little profitable that he wrote to the former: "I am strongly set upon to studye divinity; my studyes else must be lost, for physick is but a meene helpe."
A "meene helpe" it proved for many years, during which the Puritan dames steeped herbs and made ointments and lotions after formulas learned in the still- room at home.
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