146 • The Abysswithin the city and liberties.” Additional salary payments would be made if
their services continued through the fall.
The emergency medical committee approved a single surgeon to assist
each of these physicians. Dr. Hodges chose Thomas Harman, whose Finch
Lane house lay in one of the most infected areas inside the walls. Dr. With-
erley selected Thomas Grey, whose residence at the juncture of Fleet Street
and the Strand placed him close to many infected parishes west of the wall.
Recognizing the extreme danger faced by these surgeons, the Guildhall gave
Harman and Grey each an advance payment of £ 30 , promising an additional
£ 30 at Michaelmas in September and £ 40 at Christmas—if they lived.^14
When Lady Day (March 25 ) arrived in 1666 , the city chamberlain paid
Elizabeth Grey seventy pounds for the work of her husband, “late citizen
and chirurgeon of London, deceased.” Three months later Ellen Harman re-
ceived thirty pounds for Edward Harman’s “care and paines in looking after
the visited poore the last year.” Harman had succumbed during his first
quarter of public service, and the amount paid to his widow did not come
close to the life pension that the college had requested.^15 The law of averages
had not been kind to the Harman and Grey couples. In lancing a bubo, a sur-
geon risked a deadly infection, leaving his companion a widow and possibly
beholden to their parish for financial relief.
Grey and Harman were the first in a brave line of surgical defense. As the
plague moved through the metropolis, the Guildhall appointed two more
surgical assistants and published appeals for additional medical workers. Iso-
lation wards were nonexistent, and many local residents near Saint Bartholo-
mew’s Hospital were induced to take in infected patients at high risk and
reasonably attractive remuneration.
As the contagion spread, the supervising doctors looked for help from
their fiercest institutional rivals. Four apothecaries were appointed. Because
of their dual skill in diagnosing illnesses and preparing medicines, they could
do more than a physician, and Dr. Hodges knew it, though he treated them
as assistants rather than full-fledged colleagues. Their bills for physick were
double the stipends for the physicians and far in excess of the surgeons’ sal-
aries. The explanation was the high cost of their medicines: whereas a sur-
geon received £ 30 and a doctor £ 100 quarterly from the Guildhall’s coffers,
an apothecary could be paid up to £ 300 for “physick” for the same period.^16
In August two newly appointed doctors asked for the public’s patience,
claiming that the city “is not as devoid of physicians as generally reported.”
In reality the system was overwhelmed, and these public physicians required