Introduction.             xxxvii




       the same [treatment] the said Garret should deserve”. Garret said he deserved
       at least 520 pounds of tobacco, but neither Shehee nor his executors would
       pay it. So he sued the executors for çoo pounds of tobacco. Both sides put
       themselves upon the judgment of the Court, and the Court upheld Vansweringen
       completely. He was awarded his 520 pounds and also 996 pounds, which was
       more than he had asked, for costs and charges (ibid., pp. 528-529). In another
       exactly similar case, Vansweringen sued the litigious John Quigley on ac
       count of the services of the same Robert Harper, chirurgeon. Quigley, “being
       Sick and languishing under a grevious distemper called the gripping of the
       Gutts”, agreed to pay Harper's master “asmuch as the paines and Skill of the
       said Robert and the medicines and remedyes expended” were worth. Harper
       attended Quigley from July 4 to November 27, 1674, and he cured him. Van
       sweringen thought Harper's skill and his time and the medicines and remedies
       he had used were worth 5335 pounds of tobacco, but Quigley refused to pay.
       Therefore Vansweringen sued him for io,ooo pounds, and produced a sworn
       and itemized account of Harper's work. The jury gave him 3335 pounds, with
       an undetermined amount for his costs (ibid., pp. 545-547).


                      DOCTORS AND MEDICINE


        The record of these years has relatively little about doctors and diseases.
       There are six or seven men mentioned as chirurgeons, and one man, Edward
       Maddock, of Charles County, is called doctor. In most cases, however, the
       title is by way of identification only: the chirurgeons are witnessing papers,
       or acting as someone's security, or defending themselves in actions of debt, or
       receiving from the Proprietary a grant of land, exactly as if they were not
       physicians at all. Nor is there much herein about diseases or sick people, even
       about sick servants, who have in times past figured so large. Three or four
       men arranged with someone, sometimes an innholder, to receive them and care
       for them in their illnesses, but all of them died without paying what they had
       promised, and those who had taken care of them had to sue their estates.
       Ambrose Biggs sued the estate of Thomas Sunderbee for 7,000 pounds of
       tobacco for that kind of care and produced in court an itemized account. But
       the Court awarded him only 1650 pounds, plus an unstated amount for costs
       (ibid., pp. 91-92). Richard Keene, Calvert County, innholder, received and
       cared for William Ditton, merchant, for more than a year. Keene thought he
       deserved 2000 pounds of tobacco, but he could not collect it. Accordingly, he
       sued, and, when Thomas Dent, the administrator, said nothing in bar or
       avoidance of the claim, the Court awarded Keene the 2000 pounds damages he
       asked, and 512 pounds more for costs (ibid., pp. 548-549). Joseph Pearse did
       “earnestly desire and importune . . . [Thomas Hussey] to permitt him to
       come and lodge at the Said Thomas house there to have his accomodation
       and to be attenede in his sicknesse” (ibid., pp. 635). Hussey agreed, and
       Pearse stayed with him from July 16, 1664, to the 28th of the following Septem
       ber, and there he died. Hussey asked 3350 pounds of tobacco besides 1200
       pounds for funeral expences. He submitted an itemized account for a total of