lii        Early Maryland County Courts.

             There is no specific mention of a midwife in these county records, but in
           the suit of William Smith against Mr. Thomas Vaughan at the August 15,
           1671, session of the Talbot County Court, among the items entered in the
           account filed by Smith is: “To 12 days of my wifes Attendance on yor wife
           in Child Bed . . . 240” pounds of tobacco (Arch. Md. liv, 503). This was
           doubtless for Mrs. Smith's services as a midwife and nurse. In addition to
           those formally designated in the records as “ Doctor “ or “ Chirurgeon “, there
           are a number of what may be called lay practitioners, both men and women, of
           medicine and surgery. Two names stand out from the frequency with which
           they appear as plaintiffs for the recovery of fees for “ cures “, or for the care
           of the sick or diseased. One of these, John Cherman of Charles County, has
           already been referred to. An overcharge against Henry Grace, an “infirmed
           man “, whose leg Cherman had treated, brought him before the Charles County
           Court on September 4, 1660, when his fee was cut from 300 to 100 pounds of
           tobacco, and the public notified that the “infirmed man” was not thereafter to
           be considered capable of making a bargain (p. 85, 92). Mrs. Mary Vander
           donck, a widow and the daughter of the Rev. Francis Doughtie, the witch
           hunter, entered suit at the September 1661 Charles County Court against former
           Governor Fendall, who, she alleged, had sent three servants to her to be cured,
           one with a sore leg, one with a sore mouth, and one with a canker. Fendall by
           his attorney appealed the case to the Provincial Court, but as it did not come
           up there, it was doubtless either withdrawn or compromised (pp. 145, 147).
           At the same court Mrs. Vanderdonck sued Christopher Russell for physick she
           had given him, but lost her suit because Capt. Hugh Oneale, her principal
           witness, was disqualified from testifying because of the part he had taken in
           the late Fendall “ rebellion “ (pp. 148-149). The case was postponed, but
           nothing further is heard of it. When she next appeared in court, July 8, 1662,
           she had become Mrs. Hugh Oneale, and her husband as the plaintiff in a suit
           against William Heard, the administrator of the estate of Samuel Parker and
           his wife Joan, sued Heard for physick which his wife had adminstered to the
           Parkers. It appears that Joan Parker had died while under the lady's care.
           The case was non-suited because of a technical legal defect, but came up again
           in another guise at the October, 1662, session, when Mary Oneale sued Heard
           for defamation in spreading stories that Joan Parker had said on her death
           bed that Mary had poisoned her (pp. 229-231, 261-262). When Heard apolo
           gized in court Oneale declared himself satisfied, but at once entered another
           suit for the physick which had been administered to Mrs. Parker, but was again
           non-suited on a technicality (p. 263). ‘When at this same court Mr. William
           Marshall, one of the justices, sued Oneale for debt the latter countered with a
           demand for fees due Mrs. Oneale by the justice for physick, and the cure of
           the justice during the past winter, which the court in part allowed (pp. 240-
           241). Mrs. Oneale last appears on the record when her husband unsuccessfully
           sued one William Bowles for her fee for Bowles' cure (p. 329).
             A curious incident of a contract based on a promised cure is to be found
           in the suit of a certain Thomas Watson who agreed to serve Mr. John
           Edmondson for two years if the latter would cure his sore leg. Watson ap