Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The club surgeon / [Charles Dickens]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![1 Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WOED/^.^r-^MAKKi HOUSEHOLD WORDS. A WEEKLY JOUENAL. \ / CONDUCTED BY CHARLES blCKENS.- ^0.148.] SATUEDAY, JANUAEY 22, 1853. -rjTrr-^ [!Price 2d. THE CLUB SUEGEON. Pall Mall, your London street of palaces, loes not contain my Club. I have incurred 10 risk of being pitched out of window a.t the Carlton Club. I have never dined at the teforra Club. My Club is in the provinces. ^^0 doubt it is a very poor affair; and I was a ;reat blockhead to look forward, as I once did, 0 the day when I should be ballotted for by its lembers. I am surgeon to my Club. I re- eive from it half-yearly pence, and pay to it aily labour. Every one may have heard of he Army and Navy Club, the University dub, the Travellers’ Club; but there are lany, I dare say, who know nothing of the /ountry Surgeon’s Club. Most surgeons and pothecaries in the country know of it, how- ver, well enough. It is one of a strong suit f Clubs held by the provincial medical world; leld very good-humouredly, although not rumps, by men who are ever ready to put 3rth their skill, and play—indeed I must poil the parallel to say here — to work, nd to work hard; for love as often as for aoney. No idlers at a window in St. James’s can )unge better than 'the members of my Club .0, on a Monday. The members of my Club moke often, and dine occasionally at their dub-house. They ballot for new members, hey are particular about their rules, and nforce them by means of a committee. Most f the members dress strictly according to he fashion of the place in which they live, rearing, over their other clothes, a kind of annel petticoat. We have a majority and a linority among thp members of that parti- ular specimen of the Country Surgeon’s Club rith which I am connected. The majority onsists of colliers smutted with black who rork every day (except Monday), the mi- ority, of potters who work all day smutted rhite. But in the Club all members frater- ise: the black man and the white are rothers. Brothers all of us in a peculiar sense, and aving brethren in all parts of England able D identify us by the mystic nature of our rasp; or, if more be necessary, by a few caba- stic words and signs, which we have sworn ot to reveal to strangers ; for my Club is a tout branch from the stem of the Ancient Order of Woodmen, tracing our genealogy very far back through Eobin Hood. Clubs of this kind are established, it is well known, as Friendly societies ; and the member, in con- sideration of regular payments during health, is entitled to a weekly allowance during sick- ness, to gratuitous medical assistance, to a fixed allowance for funeral expenses, and to other advantages. Some of the largest Clubs are connected with societies bound, by a system of freemasonry, in fellowship with other bodies scattered through the country;—such as the Odd Fellows and Foresters, while others are purely local Benefit societies. Until the cal- culations upon which these bodies founded their schemes were put under the control of a Government actuary, they often caused, in spite of the best intentions, a great waste of the money of the poor. Attempting too much they became bankrupt just when their sol- vency was most essential;—when the young and healthy men who had joined them, having become old and infirm, required to draw relief out of the fund to which they had been contributing their savings, during perhaps twenty or thirty years. It is not my purpose here to discuss the principle of Clubs of this kind, and of Benefit societies. I am looking at my Club purely from the surgeon’s point of view. I was only beginning to get on in my district, doing the reasonable work of two men for seventy pounds a year, as parish surgeon, and filling up what leisure time I could make with odds and ends of private practice, and the work supplied by a few un- important Clubs. The parish work required the help of an assistant; but, as the said assistant must be qualified, and as a qualified surgeon could not be lodged, fed, and salaried at a much smaller cost than seventy pounds, it was quite evident that I must ride, walk, sit up of nights, make pills, and spread blisters for my slice or two of bread-and-butter, hoping that by good deeds among the multi- tude of men who could not pay me, I might earn the confidence of some who could pay me. The name of a small tradesman likely to run up and able to pay a ten-pound bill in the twelve months was, at that time, one of the best glories of my day-book and ledger. To get the Woodman’s Club was then my nearest hope. There was a chance for me : being the VOL. VI. 148](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22465972_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
