Martin van Butchell, 1735-1814 : the eccentric dentist of Mount Street / by J. Menzies Campbell.

  • John Menzies Campbell
Date:
[1952]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Martin van Butchell, 1735-1814 : the eccentric dentist of Mount Street / by J. Menzies Campbell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Present-day readers will, justifiably, condemn Van Butchell for revealing patients’ names. However, this appears to have been quite customary in those days, because Stephen Paget states: “When he [John Hunter] came to lecture . . . sometimes he quoted cases from his private practice—This kind of fracture happened to the Archbishop of Canterbury. When the Duke of Queensberry broke his tendo Achillis . . . Lord Cavendish’s father always felt pain in his left arm from a stone in the bladder . . . General Murray, to whom I have often ex¬ pressed a wish to peep into his chest, was twice wounded in this way.” Martin Van Butchell’s fees for curing fistulas were unique. Prior to beginning treatment a sufferer had to pay him two per cent, of his previous year’s profits. He undertook to return the fee in the event of failure to cure. As a warning to liars, he added to his advertisements these significant words : “ANANIAS, FELL!—DEAD: For KEEPING BACK!” Further, he proclaimed that “Not even if it were the Empress of Russia, the Emperor of Germany, the King of Prussia, an Immaculate, or the Pope of Rome that were sorely smitten in their hinder parts with bad fistula and tor¬ menting piles,” would he permit the presence of a third person in the room. His attitude was that he did not wish help or to be hindered by “half-witted spies, slavish informers nor sad alarm¬ ists.” He made it abundantly clear that all consultations must take place in his house at Mount Street, between the hours of ten and one o’clock! and that on no account would he visit any patient. Said he: “I go to none.” Although an eminent jurist is said to have offered him a fee of five hundred guineas to attend him at his home, he j declined to rescind his resolution. Later j this particular jurist’s wife suffered from j the same complaint. She approached j Van Butchell, offering him not only a fee of one thousand guineas but also to send her carriage to Mount Street to | bring him to her house; he would not, ; however, yield ground! To many readers it may seem almost | unbelievable that John Hunter would ii associate with Van Butchell. Yet Paget |1 mentions that he (Hunter) was not |l averse to meeting, in consultation, Plun- ■ kett, the cancer curer, and Taylor of ii Whitworth, the famous quack—in fact, [, the latter used to refer to him as Jack j: Hunter. Autres temps, autres moeurs! ! Incidentally, Martin Van Butchell il stated that he ceased to shave as the ij outcome of a conversation with John ii Hunter, who believed that such abstin- r ence promoted mental and bodily | vigour. He was ever eager to refer the i curious to Isaac d’Israeli’s writings, !, wherein it is recorded that, in ancient 1 times, maidens were delighted to behold I their lovers with beards. Also that a j shaved chin excited horror and aversion. |, At one time Martin was involved in i a dispute with the authorities, who were 1: determined to levy a special shop tax on ii 56 Mount Street. The case for this - seemed clear, because, in his consulting room, he exposed to view a selection of teeth, spring bands, etc. | However, he cleverly outwitted his 1 “aggressors” by adapting his patent ,| spring bands into a gadget which func- ij tioned on a clockwork plan for opening ■ and closing the front door at his entire ’ discretion. i He vehemently stressed that the dis- ^ tinguishing feature of a shop was surely | free ingress and egress: and that such a | state of affairs certainly could not apply f to him. Eventually his plea was ungra- | ciously sustained. In fact, the resource- •
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