John Jahn says, in his Biblical Archæology, Upham’s translation, page 105, that, in Babylon, when first attacked with disease, the patients were placed in the streets, for the purpose of ascertaining, from casual passengers, what practices or medicinestheyhad found useful, in similar cases. Imagine a poor fellow, suddenly attacked with a windy colic, and deposited for this purpose, in State Street, in the very place, formerly occupied, by the razor-strop man, or the magnolia merchant! If it be true—I very much doubt it—that, in a multitude of counsellors,there is safety, this must be an excellent arrangement for the patient.
I have often thought, that benevolence was getting to be an epidemic; particularly when I have noticed the attentions of one or two hundred charitably disposed persons, gathered about a conservative horse, that would not budge an inch. They have not the slightest interest in the horse, nor in the driver—it’s nothing under heaven, but pure brotherly love. The driver is distracted, by the advice of some twenty persons, pointing with sticks and umbrellas, in every direction, and all vociferating together. In the meanwhile, three or four volunteers are belaboring the shins of the refractory beast, while as many are rapping his nose with their sticks. Four stout fellows, at least, are trying to shove the buggy forward, and as many exerting their energies, to shove the horse backward. Half a dozen sailors, attracted by the noise, tumble up to the rescue; three seize the horse’s head, and pulla starboard, and three take him, by the tail, and pullto larboard, and all yell together, to the driver, to put his helm hard down. At last, urged, by rage, terror, and despair, the poor brute shakes off his persecutors, with a rear, and a plunge, and a leap, and dashes through the bow window of a confectioner’s shop, or of some dealer in naked women, done in Parian.
I am very sorry we have been delayed, by this accident. Let us proceed. Never has there been known, among men, a more universal diffusion of such a little modicum of knowledge. The knowledge of the materia medica and of pathology, what there was of it, seems to have been held, by the Babylonians, as tenants in common, and upon the Agrarian principle—every man and woman had an equal share of it. Such, according to John Jahn, Professor of Orientals in Vienna, was the state of therapeutics, in Babylon.
The Egyptians carried their sick into the temples of Serapis—the Greeks to those of Æsculapius. Written receipts were preserved there, for the cure of different diseases. Professor Jahn certainly seems disposed to make the most of the knowledge of physic and surgery, among the Israelites. He says they had “some acquaintance with chirurgical operations.” In support of this opinion, he refers to the rite of circumcision, and to—nothing else. He also says, that it is evident “physicianssometimes undertook to exercise their skill, in removing diseases of an internal nature.”
If the reader is good at conundrums, will he be so obliging as toguess, upon what evidence the worthy professor grounds this assertion? I perceive he gives it up—Well—on Samuel I. xvi. 16. And what sayeth Samuel?—“And Saul’s servants said unto him, behold now an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our Lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on a harp: and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.” This, reduced into plain language, is simply this—Saul’s servants took the liberty of telling his majesty, that the devil was in him, and he had better have a little music. Accordingly, David was called in—as a physician, according to Jahn—and drove the devil out of Saul, by playing on his Jews’-harp. Jahn also informs us, and the Bible did before, that the art of healing was committed to the priests, who were specially bound, by law, “to take cognizance of leprosies.” There were, as he admits, otherphysicians, probably of little note.The priestswere the regular, legalized faculty. On this ground, we can explain the severe reproach, cast upon Asa, who, when he had the gout, “sought not the Lord but to the physician:” that is, he did not seek the Lord, in prayer, through the intermediation of the regular faculty, the priests.
There are ecclesiastics among us, who consider, that the Levitical law is obligatory upon the priesthood, throughout the United States of America, at the present day; and who believe it to betheirbounden duty, to take cognizance of leprosies, and all other disorders; and to physick the bodies, not less than the souls, of their respective parishioners. To this I sturdily object—not at all, from any doubt of their ability, to practise the profession, as skilfully, as did the son of Jesse, and to drive out devils with a Jews’-harp; and to cure all manner of diseases, in the same manner, in which the learned Kircherus avers, according to Sir Thomas Browne, vol. ii. page 536, Lond. 1835, the bite of the tarantula is cured, by songs and tunes; and to soothe boils as big as King Hezekiah’s, with fig poultices, according to Scripture; for I have the greatest reverence for that intuition, whereby such men are spared thosestudia annorum, so necessary for the acquirement of anytolerable knowledge of the art of medicine, by all, who are not in holy orders. My objection is of quite another kind—I object to the union of the cure of souls and the cure of bodies, in the same person; as I object to the union of Church and State, and to the union of the power of the purse and the power of the sword. It is true, withal, that when a sufferer is killed, by ministerial physic, which never can happen, of course, but for the patient’s want of faith, nobody dreams of such an irreverent proceeding, as pursuing the officious priest, formala praxis.
Priests and witches, jugglers, and old women have been the earliest practitioners of medicine, in every age, and every nation: and the principal, preventive, and remedial medicines, in all the primitive, unwritten pharmacopæias, have been consecrated herbs and roots, charms and incantations, amulets and prayers, and the free use of the Jews’-harp. The reader has heard the statement of Professor Jahn. In 1803, Dr. Winterbottom, physician to the colony of Sierra Leone, published, in London, a very interesting account of the state of medicine, in that colony. He says, that the practice of physic, in Africa, is entirely in the hands of old women. These practitioners, like the servants of Saul, believe, that almost all diseases are caused by evil spirits; in other words, that their patients are bedevilled: and they rely, mainly, on charms and incantations. Dr. W. states, that the natives get terribly drunk, at funerals—funerals produce drunkenness—drunkenness produces fevers—fevers produce death—and death produces funerals. All this is imputed to witchcraft, acting in a circle.
In the account of the Voyage of the Ship Duff to Tongataboo, in 1796, the missionaries give a similar statement of the popular notion, as to the origin of diseases—the devil is at the bottom of them all; and exorcism the only remedy.
In Mill’s British India, vol. ii. p. 185, Lond. 1826, the reader may find a statement of the paltry amount of knowledge, on the subject, not only of medicine, but of surgery, among the Hindoos: “Even medicine and surgery, to the cultivation of which so obvious and powerful an interest invites, had scarcely attracted the rude understanding of the Hindus.”
Sir William Jones, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 354, says, “there is no evidence, that, in any language of Asia, there exists one original treatise on medicine, considered as ascience.” Crawford, in his Sketches, and he has an exalted opinion of the Hindoos, states, that surgery is unknown among them; and, that, in cases of wounds from the sabre or musket, they do no more than wash the wound; bind it up with fresh leaves, and keep the patient on rice gruel. Buchanan, in his journey, through Mysore, vol. i. p. 336, informs us, that medicine was in the hands of ignorant and impudent charlatans. Origen, who was born, about 185 A. D., states that the Egyptians believed thirty-six devils divided the human body, among them; and that diseases were cured, by supplication and sacrifice, to the particular devil, within whose precinct the malady lay. This is a convenient kind of practice. May it not have some relation to the fact, referred to by Herodotus, in his History, book ii. sec. 84, that the doctors, in Egypt, were not practitioners, in a general sense, but for one part of the body only. Possibly, though I affirm nothing of the sort, Origen may have writtendevilsfordoctors, by mistake: for the doctors, in those days, were, manifestly, very little better.
If it be true—et quis negat?—that Hippocrates was the father of physic—the child was neither born nor begotten, before its father, of course, and Hippocrates was born, about 400 B. C., which, according to Calmet, was about 600 years after David practised upon Saul, with his Jews’-harp. His genealogy was quite respectable. He descended from Æsculapius, through a long line of doctors; and, by the mother’s side, he was the eighteenth from Hercules, who was, of course, the great grandfather of physic, at eighteen removes; and who, it will be remembered, was an eminent practitioner, and doctored the Hydra. Divesting the subject of all, that is magical and fantastical, Hippocrates thought and taught such rational things, as no physician had thought and taught before. It appears amazing to us, the uninitiated, that the healing art should have been successfully practised at all, from the beginning of the world, till 1628, in utter ignorance of the circulation of the blood; yet it was in that year the discovery was made, when Dr. William Harvey dedicated to Charles I. and published hisExercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis.
Quackery may be found, in every vocation, from the humblest, to the holiest.
If the dead rise not at all, says St. Paul,what shall they do, who are baptized for the dead! Nine different opinions are set forth, by Bosius, in regard to the true meaning of this passage. Scaliger and Grotius, who were men of common sense, conclude, that St. Paul referred to a practice, existing at the time; and St. Chrysostom tells a frolicsome story of this vicarious baptism; that a living sponsor was concealed under the bed of the defunct, and answered all the questions, put by the sagacious priest, to the corpse, about to be baptized.
The dead have been, occasionally, through inadvertence, summoned to give evidence, in courts of justice. But, fortunately for quacks, in every department, dead men are mute upon the stand.
Saul, if we may believe the singing women, who came out to meet him, after the fall of Goliath, hath slain his thousands; and, could dead men testify, it would, doubtless, appear, that quacks have slain their tens of thousands. When we consider the overbearing influence of that ignorant, impudent, and plausible jabber, which the quack has always at command, it must be admitted, that these, his fatal victories, are achieved, with the very same weapon, employed by Samson, in his destruction of the Philistines.
There is nothing marvellous, in the existence of quackery, if we recognize the maxim of M. Sorbiere, in hisRelation d’une Voiage en Angleterre, p. 155,homo est animal credulum et mendax—man is a credulous and lying animal. David said, that all men were liars; but, as this is found in one of his lyrics, and he admits, that he uttered it in haste, it may be fairly carried to the account ofpoetica licentia. With no more, however, than a moderate allowance, for man’s notorious diathesis towards lying, for pleasure or profit, it is truly wonderful, that credulity should preserve its relative level, as it does, and ever has done, since the world began. Many, who will not go an inch with the Almighty, without a sign, will deliver their noses, for safe keeping, into the hands of a charlatan, and be led by him, blindfold, to the charnel-house. Take away credulity, and the worldwould speedily prove an exhausted receiver, for all manner of quackery.
At the close of the seventeenth century, there was a famous impostor in France, whom the royal family, on account of his marvellous powers, invited to Paris. His name was James Aymar. I shall speak of him more fully hereafter; and refer to him, at present, in connection with a remark of Leibnitz. Aymar’s imposture had no relation to the healing art, but the remark of Leibnitz is not, on that account, the less applicable. That great man wrote a letter, in 1694, which may be found in the Journal of Tenzelius, in which he refers to Aymar’s fraud, and to his subsequent confession, before the Prince of Condè. Aymar said, according to Leibnitz, that he was led on,non tam propria audacia, quam aliena credulitate hominum, falli volentium, et velut obtrudentium sibi—not so much by his own audacity, as by the credulity of others, who were not only willing to be cheated, but actually thrust themselves upon him. All Paris was occupied, in attempting to explain the mystery of Aymar’s performances, with his wonderful wand: and Leibnitz says—
Nuper scripsi Parisios, utilius et examine dignius, mihi videri problema morale vel logicum, quomodo tot viri insignes Lugduni in fraudem ducti fuerint, quam illud pseudo-physicum, quomodo virga coryllacea tot miracula operetur—I wrote lately to the Parisians, that a solution of the moral or logical problem, how it happened, that so many distinguished persons, in Lyons, came to be taken in, seemed to me of much greater utility, and far more worthy of investigation, than how this fellow performed miracles, with his hazel wand.
It is worth noting, perhaps, that Leibnitz himself, according to the statement of the Abbé Conti, in theGazzette Litteraire, for 1765, fell a victim to a quack medicine, given him by a Jesuit, for the gout.
Ignorance is the hotbed of credulity. This axiom is not the less respectable, because the greatest philosophers, occasionally, place confidence in the veriest fools, and do their bidding. Wise and learned men, beyond the pale of their professional pursuits, or peculiar studies, are, very frequently, the simplest of simple folk—non omnia possumus omnes. Ignorance must be very common; for a vast majority of the human race have not proceeded so far, in the great volume of wisdom and knowledge, as that profitable but humiliating chapter, whose perusal is likely tostimulate their energies, by convincing them, that they are of yesterday and know nothing. Credulity must therefore be very common.
Credulity has very little scope, for its fantastical operations among the exact sciences. Who does not foresee the fate of a geometrical quack, who should maintain, that the square of the hypothenuse, in a right-angled triangle, is either greater or less than the sum of the squares of the sides; or of the quack arithmetician, who would persuade our housewives, that of two and two pounds of Muscovado sugar, he had actually discovered the art of making five?
The healing art—the science of medicine, cannot be placed, in the exact category.
It is a popular saying, thatthere is a glorious uncertainty in the law. This opinion has been ably considered, by that most amiable and learned man, the late John Pickering, in his lecture, on the alleged uncertainty of the law—before the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in 1834. The credulity of the client, to which Mr. Pickering does not refer, must, in some cases, be of extraordinary strength and quality. After presenting a case to his counsel, as favorably to himself as he can, and carefully suppressing much, that is material and adverse, he fondly believes, that his advocate will be able to mesmerise the court and jury, and procure a verdict, in opposition to the facts, apparent at the trial. He is disappointed of course; and then he complains of the uncertainty of the law, instead of the uncertainty of the facts.
In a dissertation, before the Medical Society, in June, 1828, Dr. George Cheyne Shattuck, after setting forth a melancholy catalogue of the troubles and perplexities of the medical profession, concludes by saying, that “all these trials, to which the physician is subjected, do not equal that, which proceeds from theuncertaintyof the healing art.” When we contrast this candid avowal, from an accomplished and experienced physician, with the splendid promises, and infallible assurances of empirics—with their balms of Gilead, panaceas, and elixirs of everlasting life—we cannot marvel, that the larger part of all the invalids, in this uncertain and credulous world, fly from those conservative professors, who promise nothing, to such as will assure them of a perfect relief, from their maladies, no matter howcomplicated, or chronic, they may be—with four words of inspiriting import—NO CURE NO PAY.
I am no physician; my opinion therefore is not presentedex cathedra: but the averment of Dr. Shattuck is, I presume, to be viewed in no other light, than as the opinion of an honorable man, who would rather claim too little, than too much, for his own profession: who would rather perform more, than he has promised, than promise more, than he can perform. If the regularly bred and educated physician complains of uncertainty, none but a madman would seek for its opposite, in the palace, or the kennel, of a quack; for the charlatan may occasionally be found in either.
The first thing to be done, I suppose, by the regular doctor, is to ascertain what the disease is. This, I believe, is the very last thing, thought of by the charlatan. He is spared the labor of all pathological inquiry, for all his medicines are, fortunately, panaceas. Thus, he administers a medicine, for the gout; the patient does not happen to have the gout, but the gravel; it is the same thing; for the physic, like our almanacs, was calculated, for different meridians.
These gentlemen sometimes limit their practice to particular diseases, cancers, fistulas, fevers, &c. A memorial was presented, some few years since, to the legislature of Alabama, for the establishment of a medical college, to be devoted, exclusively, to vegetable practice. A shrewd, old member of the assembly rose, and spoke, much after this fashion—I shall support this measure, Mr. Speaker, on one condition, that a neighbor of mine shall be appointed president of this college. It is proper, therefore, that you should know how far he is qualified. He was a travelling merchant; dealt chiefly in apple-trade and other notions, and failed. He had once taken an old book, on fevers, in exchange for essences. This he got by heart. Fevers are common with us. He was a man of some tact; and, a week after he failed, he put up his sign, “Bela Bodkin, Fever Doctor—Roots and Herbs—F. R. S.—L. L. D.—M. D. No charge to the poor or the reverend clergy.”—When asked, what he meant by adding those capital letters to his name, he said the alphabet was common property; that F. R. S. stood for Feverfew, Ragwort, and Slippery Elm—L. L. D. for Liverwort, Lichens, and Dill—and M. D. for Milk Diet.
The thing took—his garret was crowded, from morning tillnight, and the regular doctor was driven out of that town. Those, who got well, proclaimed Dr. Bodkin’s praises—those, who died, were a very silent majority. Everybody declared, of the dead, ’twas a pity they had applied too late. Bodkin was once called to a farmer’s wife. He entered the house, with his book under his arm, sayingFever!with a loud voice, as he crossed the threshhold. This evidence of his skill was astonishing. Without more than a glance at the patient, he asked the farmer, if he had a sorrel sheep; and, being told, that he had never heard of such a thing, he inquired, if he had a sorrel horse. The farmer replied, that he had, and a very valuable one. Dr. Bodkin assured him the horse must be killed immediately, and a broth made of thein’ardsfor the sick wife. The farmer hesitated; the wife groaned; the doctor opened the book, and showed his authority—there it was—readable enough—“sheep sorrel, horse sorrel, good in fevers.” The farmer smiled—the doctor departed in anger, saying, as he went, “you may decide which you will sacrifice, your wife or your nag.” The woman died, and, shortly after, the horse. The neighbors considered the farmer a hard-hearted man—the wife a victim to the husband’s selfishness—the sudden death of the horse a particular providence—and Dr. Bodkin the most skilful of physicians.
No class of men, not even the professors of the wrangling art, are, and ever have been, more universally used and abused, than the members of the medical profession. It has always appeared to me, that this abuse has been occasioned, in some degree, by the pompous air and Papal pretensions of certain members of the faculty; for the irritation of disappointment is, in the ratio of encouragement and hope; and the tongue of experience can have little to say of the infallibility of the medical art. The candid admission of its uncertainty, by Dr. Shattuck, in his dissertation, to which I have referred, is the true mode of erecting a barrier, between honorable and intelligent practitioners, and charlatans.
The opinion of Cato and of Pliny, in regard to the art is, ofcourse, to be construed, with an allowance, for its humble condition, in their day. With the exception of the superstitious, and even magical, employment of roots and herbs, it consisted, essentially, in externals. There was nothing like a systematic nosology. The ἰατροι of Athens, and themediciof Rome werevulnerarii, or surgeons. Cato, who died at the age of 85, U. C. 605, is reported, by Pliny, lib. xxix. cap. 7, to have said of the doctors, in a letter to his son Marcus—Jurarunt inter se, barbaros, necare omnes, medicina. They have sworn among themselves, barbarians as they are, to kill us all with their physic. In cap. 5 of the same book, he thus expresses his opinion—mutatur ars quotidie, toties interpolis, et ingeniorum Greciæ flatu impellimur: palamque est, ut quisque inter istos loquendo polleat, imperatorem illico vitæ nostræ necisque fieri: ceu vero non millia gentium sine medicis degant. The art is varying, from day to day: as often as a change takes place, we are driven along, by some new wind of doctrine from Greece. When it becomes manifest, that one of these doctors gains the ascendency, by his harangues, he becomes, upon the spot, the arbiter of our life and death; as though there were not thousands of the nations, who got along without doctors. In the same passage he says, the art was not practised, among the Romans, until the sixth hundredth year, from the building of the city.
The healing art seems to have been carried on, in those days, with fire and sword, that is, with the knife and the cautery. In cap. 6, of the same book, Pliny tells us, that, U. C. 535,Romam venisse—vulnerarium—mireque gratum adventum ejus initio: mox a sævitia secandi urendique transisse nomen in carnificem, et in tædium artem—there came to Rome a surgeon, who was, at first, cordially received, but, shortly, on account of his cuttings and burnings, they called him a butcher, and his art a nuisance.
A professional wrestler, who was unsuccessful, in his profession, met Diogenes, the cynic, as we are told, by Diog. Laertius, in Vita, lib. vi. p. 60, and told him, that he had given up wrestling, and taken to physic—“Well done,” said the philosopher, “now thou wilt be able to throw those, who have thrown thee.”
The revolutions, which took place, in the practice of the healing art, previously to the period, when Pliny composed his Natural History, are certainly remarkable. Chrysippus, as far as he was able, overthrew the system of Hippocrates; Erasistratusoverthrew the system of Chrysippus; the Empirics, or experimentalists, overthrew, to the best of their ability, the system of Erasistratus; Herophilus did the very same thing, for the Empirics; Asclepiades turned the tables, upon Herophilus; Vexius Valens next came into vogue, as the leader of a sect; then Thessalus, in Nero’s age, opposed all previous systems; the system of Thessalus was overthrown by Crinas of Marseilles; and so on, to the end of the chapter—which chapter, by the way, somewhat resembles the first chapter of Matthew, substituting the wordoverthrewfor the wordbegat.
Water doctors certainly existed, in those ancient days. After Crinas, says Pliny, cap. 5, of the same book, there came along one—damnatis non solum prioribus medicis, verum, et balineis; frigidaque etiam hibernis algoribus lavari persuasit. Mergit ægros in lacus. Videbamus senes consulares usque in ostentationem rigentes. Qua de re exstat etiam Annæi Senecæ stipulatio. Nec dubium est omnes istos famam novitate aliqua aucupantes anima statim nostra negotiari.Condemning not only all former physicians, but the baths, then in use, he persuaded his patients to use cold water, during the rigors of winter. He plunged sick folks in ponds. We have seen certain aged, consular gentlemen, freezing themselves, from sheer ostentation. We have the personal statement of Annæus Seneca, in proof of this practice. Nor can it be doubted, that those quacks, greedily seeking fame, by the production of some novelty, would readily bargain away any man’s life, for lucre. The statement of Seneca, to which Pliny refers, may be found in Seneca’s letters, 53, and 83, both to Lucilius; in which he tells his friend, that, according to his old usage, he bathed in the Eurypus, upon the Kalends of January.
It would be easy to fill a volume, with the railings of such peevish philosophers, as Michael De Montaigne, against all sorts of physic and physicians. We are very apt to treat doctors and deities, in the same way—to scoff at them, in health, and fly to them, in sickness.
That was a pertinent question of Cicero’s, lib. i. de Divinatione, 14.An Medicina, ars non putanda est, quam tamen multa fallunt? * * * num imperatorum scientia nihil est, quia summus imperator nuper fugit, amisso exercitu? Aut num propterea nulla est reipublicæ gerendæ ratio atque, prudentia, quia multa Cn. Pompeium, quædam Catonem, nonnulla etiam te ipsum fefellerunt?As to medicine shall it be accounted not an art, because of the great uncertainty therein? What, then, is there no such thing as military skill, because a great commander lately fled, and lost his army? Can there be no such thing as a wise and prudent government, because Pompey has been often mistaken, even Cato sometimes, and yourself, now and then?
If much more than all, that has been proclaimed, were true, in regard to the uncertainty of the healing art, still the practice of seeking some kind of counsel and assistance, whenever a screw gets loose, in our tabernacle of the flesh, is not likely to go out of fashion. What shall we do? Follow the tetotum doctor, and swallow a purge, if P. come uppermost? This is good evidence of our faith, in the doctrine of uncertainty. Or shall we go for the doctor, who works the cheapest? There is no reason, why we should not cheapen our physic, if we cheapen our salvation; for pack horses of all sorts, lay and clerical, are accounted the better workers, when they are rather low in flesh. Or shall we follow the example of the mutual admiration society, and get up a mutual physicking association? Most men are pathologists, by intuition. I have been perfectly astonished to find how many persons, especially females and root doctors, know just what ails their neighbors, upon the very first hint of their being out of order, without even seeing them.
It is a curious fact, that, while men of honor, thoroughly educated, and who have devoted their whole lives, to the study and practice of the healing art, candidly admit its uncertainty, the ignorant and unprincipled of the earth alone, who have impudently resorted to the vocation, suddenly, and as an antidote to absolute starvation, boast of their infallibility, and deal in nothing, but panaceas. The fools, in this pleasant world, are such a respectable and wealthy minority, that the charlatan will not cease from among us, until the last of mortals shall have put on immortality: and then, like the fellow, who entered Charon’s boat, with his commodities, he will try to smuggle some of his patent medicines, orleetil doshes, into the other world.
A curious illustration of the popular notion, that no man is guilty of any presumptuous sin, merely because, after lying down, at night, a notoriouspedlerortinker, he rises, in the morning, aphysician, may be found, in the fact, that a watchmaker, who would laugh at a tailor, should he offer to repair atimekeeper, will readily confide in him, as a physician, for himself, his wife, or his child.
The most delicate female will sometimes submit her person, to the rubbings and manipulations of a blacksmith, in preference to following the prescriptions of a regular physician. A respectable citizen, with a pimple on the end of his nose, resembling, upon the testimony of a dozen old ladies, in the neighborhood, the identical cancer, of which every one of them was cured, by the famous Indian doctress, in Puzzlepot Alley, will, now and then, give his confidence to a lying, ignorant, half-drunken squaw, rather than to the most experienced member of the medical profession.
Suffer me to close this imperfect sketch, with the words of Lord Bacon, vol. i. page 120, Lond. 1824. “We see the weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often prefer a mountebank or witch, before a learned physician. And therefore the poets were clear-sighted, in discerning this extreme folly, when they made Æsculapius and Circe brother and sister. For, in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches, and old women, and impostors have had a competition with physicians. And what followeth? Even this, that physicians say, to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it, upon a higher occasion,If it befall to me, as befalleth to the fools, why should I labor to be more wise?”
Van Butchell, the fistula-doctor, in London, some forty years ago, had a white horse, and he painted the animal, with many colored spots. He also wore an enormous beard. These tricks were useful, in attracting notice. In the Harleian Miscellany, vol. viii. page 135, Lond. 1810, there is a clever article on quackery, published in 1678, from which I will extract a passage or two, for the benefit of the fraternity: “Any sexton will furnish you with a skull, in hope of your custom; over which hang up the skeleton of a monkey, to proclaim your skill in anatomy. Let your table be never without some old musty Greek or Arabic author, and the fourth book of CorneliusAgrippa’s Occult Philosophy, wide open, with half a dozen gilt shillings, as so many guineas, received, that morning for fees. Fail not to oblige neighboring ale-houses to recommend you to inquirers; and hold correspondence with all the nurses and midwives near you, to applaud your skill at gossippings. The admiring patient shall cry you up for a scholar, provided always your nonsense be fluent, and mixed with a disparagement of the college, graduated doctors, and book-learned physicians. Pretend to the cure of all diseases, especially those, that are incurable.”
There are gentlemen of the medical and surgical professions, whose high reputation, for science and skill, is perfectly established, and who have humanely associated their honorable names with certain benevolent societies. Such is the fact, in regard to Dr. John Collins Warren, who, by his adoption of the broad ground of total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors, as a beverage, by men in health, and by his consistent practice and example, has become entitled to the grateful respect of every well-wisher of the temperance cause. To the best of my ability, I have long endeavored to do, for the sextons, the very thing, which that distinguished man would accomplish for the doctors, and other classes. Never did mortal more certainly oppose his own interest, than a physician, or a sexton, who advocates the temperance reform.
There are, however, personages, in the medical profession, regulars, as well as volunteers, who cling to certain societies, with the paralyzing grasp of death—holding on to their very skirts, as boys cling behind our vehicles,to get a cast. The patronage and advocacy of some of these individuals are absolutely fatal. It may be surely affirmed of more than one of their number,nihil tetigit quod non damnavit.
I have long been satisfied, that, without a great increase of societies, it will be utterly impossible to satisfy the innumerable aspirants, for the offices of President, Vice President, &c., in our ambitious community. A sagacious, medical friend of mine, whose whole heart is devoted to the public service, and I am sorry to say it, to the injury of his wife and children, has handed me a list of several societies, for the want of which, he assures me, the citizens of Boston are actually suffering, at the present moment. For myself, I cannot pretend to judge of suchmatters. A publication of the list may interest the benevolent, and, possibly, promote the cause of humanity. I give it entire:—
A society, for soothing the feelings and relieving the apprehensions of criminals, especially midnight assassins.
A mutual relief society, in case of flatulent colic.
A society, for the diffusion of buttermilk, with funds to enable the visiting committee to place a full jug, in the hands of every man, woman and child, in the United States, upon the first Monday of every month.
A friendly cockroach-trap society.
A society, composed exclusively of medical men, without practice, for the destruction of sowbugs and pismires, throughout the Commonwealth.
A society, for the promotion of domestic happiness, with power to send for persons and papers.
A society, for elevating the standard of education, by introducing trigonometry into infant schools.
An association, for the gratuitous administration, to the poorer classes, by steam power, of anodyne clysters.
Let us return to the faculty. I am in favor of some peculiarity, in the dress and equipage of medical men. With the exception of certain stated hours, they cannot be found at home; and the case may be one of emergency. Van Butchell’s spotted horse was readily distinguished, from Charing Cross to Temple Bar. This was very convenient for those, who were in quest of that remarkable leech. A small mast, abaft the vehicle, whether sulky, buggy, chariot, or phaeton, bearing the owner’s private signal, would afford great public accommodation. There is nothing more nautical in such an arrangement, than in the use of thekilleck, or small anchor, which many of the faculty regularly cast, when they are about to board a patient, and as regularly weigh, when they are about to take a new departure.
The bright yellow chariot of Dr. Benjamin Rush was universally known in Philadelphia, and its environs; and his peculiar features are not likely to escape from the memory of any man, who ever beheld them. These striking points were seized, by that arch villain, Cobbett, when he published his pictured libel, representing that eminent physician, looking out of his chariot window, with a label, proceeding from his mouth—Bleed and purge all Kensington!Upon Cobbett’s trial for this libel, Dr. Rush swore, that, by making him ridiculous, it had seriously affected his practice.
Dr. James Lloyd was easily discovered, by his large bay horse—take him for all in all—the finest harness gelding of his day, in Boston. With the eyes of a Swedenborgian, I see the good, old doctor now; and I hear the tramp of those highly polished, white topped boots; and I almost feel the lash of his horsewhip, around my boyish legs, rather too harshly administered, for mild practice however—but he was an able physician, and a gentleman—factus ad unguem. His remarkable courtliness of manner, arose, doubtless, in some degree, from his relation to the nobility. During the siege, General Howe and Lord Percy were his intimate friends; the latter was his tenant in 1775, occupying the Vassal estate, for which Dr. Lloyd was the agent, and which afterwards became the residence of the late Gardner Greene.
Dr. Danforth, who resided, in 1789, near the residence of Dr. Lloyd, on Pemberton’s Hill, nearly opposite Concert Hall, and, subsequently, in Green Street, might be recognized, by the broad top of his chaise, and the unvarying moderation of the pace, at which he drove. He was tall and thin. His features were perfectly Brunonian. There seemed to be nothing antiphlogistic about him. When pleased, he was very gentlemanly, in his manner and carriage. He ever placed himself, with remarkable exactitude, in the very centre of his vehicle, bolt upright; and, with his stern expression, wrinkled features, remarkably aquiline nose, prominent chin, and broad-brimmed hat, appeared, even some fifty years ago, like a remnant of a by-gone age. He had been a royalist. His manners were occasionally rough and overbearing.
I remember to have told my mother, when a boy, that I should not like to take Dr. Danforth’s physic. The character of his practice is, doubtless, well remembered, by those, who have taken hisdivers, as they were called, and lived to tell of it. The late Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse being interrogated, by some aged spinsters, as to the difference, between the practice of Dr. Danforth and his opponents, replied, that there were two ways of putting a disordered clock in tolerable condition—the first, by taking it apart, cleaning its various members of their dust and dirt, applying a little oil to the pivots, and attaching no other than its former weight; “and then,” said he, “it will go very well, for a considerable time; and this we call the anti-Brunonian system.”
The second method he described, as follows: “You are to take no pains about examining the parts; let the dust and dirt remain, by all means; apply no oil to the pivots; but hitch on three or four times the original weight, and you will be able to drag it along, after a fashion; and this is the Brunonian system.” In this, the reader will recognize one of the pleasantries of Dr. Waterhouse, rather than an impartial illustration.
Dr. Isaac Rand, the son of Dr. Isaac Rand, of Charlestown, lived, in 1789, some sixty years ago, in Middle Street, just below Cross: in after years, he resided, till his death, in 1822, in Atkinson Street. He was a pupil of Dr. Lloyd. His liberalities to the poor became a proverb. The chaise, in which he practised, in his latter days, was a notable object. The width of it, though not equal to that of Solomon’s temple, was several cubits. It became the property of the late Sheriff Badlam, who filled it to admiration. The mantle of Elijah was not a closer fit, upon the shoulders of Elisha.
Dr. Rand was an able physician, and a truly good man. He made rather a more liberal use of the learned terms of his profession, than was the practice of other physicians. With him, this arose from habit, and a desire to speak with accuracy, and not from affectation. Charles Austin was shot dead, in State Street, by Thomas O. Selfridge, August 4, 1806, in self-defence. Dr. Rand was a witness, at the trial; and his long and learned, professional terms, so completely confounded the stenographers, that they were obliged to beat thechamade, and humbly beg for plainer English.
I have more to say of these interesting matters, but am too near the boundary wall of my paper, to enter upon their consideration, at present.
In my last number, I referred to three eminent physicians, of the olden time, Drs. Lloyd, Danforth, and Rand. Some sixty years ago, there were three and twenty physicians, in this city, exclusive of quacks. The residences of the three I have already stated. Dr. James Pecker resided, at the corner ofHanover and Friend Street—Thomas Bulfinch, in Bowdoin Square—Charles Jarvis, in Common Street—Lemuel Hayward, opposite the sign of the White Horse, in Newbury Street—Thomas Kast, in Fish Street, near the North Square—David Townsend, in Southack’s Court—John Warren, next door to Cromwell’s Head, in South Latin School Street, then kept by Joshua Brackett—Thomas Welsh, in Sudbury Street, near Concert Hall—William Eustis, in Sudbury Street, near the Mill Pond—John Homans, No. 6 Marlborough Street—John Sprague, in Federal Street—Nathaniel W. Appleton, in South Latin School Street, near the Stone Chapel—Joseph Whipple, in Orange Street—Aaron Dexter, in Milk Street, opposite the lower end of the rope walks, that were burnt, in the great fire, July 30, 1794—Abijah Cheever, in Hanover Street—William Spooner, in Cambridge Street—John Fleet, in Milk Street—Amos Winship, in Hanover Street—Robert Rogerson, in Ship Street—Alexander A. Peters, in Marlborough Street—John Jeffries, who, in 1776, went to Halifax, with the British garrison, did not return and resume practice in Boston, till 1790.
Ten years after, in 1799, the number had increased to twenty-nine, of whom nineteen were of the old guard of 1789.
In 1816, the number had risen to forty-three, of whom eight only were of 1789. In 1830, the number was seventy-five, two only surviving of 1789—Drs. William Spooner and Thomas Welsh.
In 1840, we had, in Boston, one hundred and twenty-two physicians, surgeons, and dentists, and a population of 93,383. There are now, in this physicky metropolis, according to the Directory, for 1848-9, physicians, of all sorts, not including those for the soul, but doctors, surgeons, dentists, regulars and quacks, of all colors and both sexes, 362.Three hundred and sixty-two: an increase of two hundred and forty, in eight years. This is certainly encouraging. If 122 doctors are quite as many, as 93,383 Athenians ought to bear, 362 require about 280,000 patients, and such should be our population. Let us arrange this formidable host. At the verytete d’armee, marching left in front, we have sevenFemale Physicians, preceded by anIndian doctress—next in order, come the surgeonDentists, seventy in number—then the main body, to whom the publisher of the Directory courteously and indiscriminately applies the title ofPhysicians, two hundred and fifty-seven, rankand file;—seven and twentyBotanic Doctorsbring up the rear! How appropriate, in the hand of the very last of this enormouscortege, would be a banner, inscribed with those well known words—God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!
I shall devote this paper to comparative statistics. In 1789, with twenty-three physicians in Boston, four less, than the present number ofbotanic doctorsalone, and three hundred and thirty-nine less, than the present number of regulars and pretenders, there were nine only ofourprofession, regularly enrolled, as F. U., funeral undertakers, and placed upon a footing with the Romandesignatores, ordomini funerum. There were several others, who bore to our profession the same relation, which bachelors of medicine bear to theirs, and who were entitled to subscribe themselves D. G., diggers of graves. Yet in 1840, the year, which I take, as apoint d’appuifor my calculations, there were only twenty, enrolled as F. U., with 362 medical operatives, busily at work, day and night, upon the insides and outsides of our fellow-citizens! Here is matter for marvel! How was it done? Did the dead bury the dead? I presume the solution lies, in the fact, that there existed an unrecorded number of those, who were D. G. only.
There were few dentists,eo nomine, some sixty years ago. Our ancestors appear to have gotten along pretty comfortably, in spite of their teeth. Many of those, who practised the “dental art,” had so little employment, that it became convenient to unite their dental practice, with some other occupation. Thus John Templeman, was abroker and dentist, at the northeast corner of the Old State House. Whitlock was, doubtless, frequently called out, from a rehearsal, at the play house, to pull a refractory grinder. Isaac Greenwood advertises, in the Columbian Sentinel of June 1, 1785, not only his desire to wait upon all, who may require his services, at their houses, in the dental line; but a variety of umbrellas, canes, silk caps for bathing, dice, chess men, and cane for hoops and bonnets, by the dozen, or single stick. In the Boston Mercury of Jan. 6, 1797, W. P. Greenwood combines, with his dental profession, the sale of piano-fortes and guitars. In 1799, the registered dentists were three only, Messrs. Isaac and Wm. P. Greenwood, and Josiah Flagg. In 1816, there were three only, Wm. P. Greenwood, Thomas Parsons, and Thomas Barnes.
It would appear somewhat extravagant, perhaps, to state, that, including doctors of all sorts, there is a fraction more than two doctors to every one merchant,eo nomine, excluding commission merchants, of course, in the city of Boston. Such, nevertheless, appears to be the fact, unless Mr. Adams has made some important error, which I do not suspect, in his valuable Directory, for 1848-9.
It will not be utterly worthless, to contemplate the quartermaster’s department of this portentous army; and compare it with the corresponding establishment of other times. In 1789, there were fifteen druggists and apothecaries, in the town of Boston. Examples were exceedingly rare, in those days, of wholesale establishments, exclusively dealing in drugs and medicines. At present, we have, in this city, eighty-nine apothecaries, doing business, in as many different places—drugs and medicines are also sold, at wholesale, in forty-four establishments—there are fourteen special depots, for the sale of patent medicines, Gordak’s drugs, Indian purgatives, Holman’s restorative, Brandreth’s pills, Sherry wine bitters, and pectoral balsam, Graefenberg’s medicines, and many other kinds of nastiness—eighteen dealers exclusively in botanic medicines—ninety-seven nurses—twenty-eight undertakers—and eight warehouses for the sale of coffins!
It is amusing, if nothing worse, to compare the relative increase, in the number of persons, who are, in various ways, employed about the sick, the dying, and the dead, in killing, or curing, or comforting, or burying, with the increase in some other crafts and callings. In 1789, there were thirty-one bakers, in Boston: there are now fifty-seven. The number has not doubled in sixty years. The number of doctors then, as I have stated, was twenty-three: now, charlatans included, it falls short, only six, of sixteen times that number.
There were then sixty-seven tailors’ shops; there are now one hundred and forty-eight such establishments. There were then thirty-six barbers, hair-dressers, and wig-makers: there are now ninety-one. There were then one hundred and five cabinet-makers and carpenters: there are now three hundred and fifty. This ratio of comparison will, by no means, hold, in some other callings. There were then nine auctioneers: there are now fifty-two. There were then seven brokers, of all sorts: there are now two hundred and ten. The source fromwhich I draw my information, is the Directory of 1789, “printed and sold by John Norman, at Oliver’s Dock,” and of which the writer speaks, in his preface, as “this first attempt.” For want of sufficient designation, it is impossible, in this primitive work, to pick out the members of the legal profession. Compared with the present fraternity, whose name is legion, they were very few. There are more than three hundred and fifty practitioners of the law, in this city. In this, as in the medical profession, there are, and ever will be,ex necessitate rei, infernal scoundrels, and highly intelligent and honorable men—blind guides and safe counsellors. Not very long ago, a day of purification was appointed—some plan seemed to be excogitating, for the ventilation of the brotherhood. For once, they were gathered together, brothers, looking upon the features of brothers, and knowing them not. This was an occasion of mutual interest, and the arena was common ground—they came, some of them, doubtless, from strange quarters, lofty attics and lowly places—
“From all their dens the one-eyed race repair,From rifted rocks, and mountains high in air.”
When doctors, lawyers, and brokers are greatly upon the increase, it is very clear, that we are getting into the way of submitting our bodies and estates, to be frequently, and extensively, tinkered.
I cannot doubt, that in 1789, there were quacks, about town, who could not contrive to get their names inserted, in the same page, with the regular physicians. I cannot believe, however, that they bore any proportion to the unprincipled and ignorant impostors, at the present time. In the “Massachusetts Centinel,” of Sept. 21, 1785, is the following advertisement—“John Pope, who, for eighteen years past, has been noted for curing Cancers, schrophulous Tumours, fetid and phagedenic Ulcers, &c., has removed into a house, the north corner of Orange and Hollis Street, South End, Boston, where he proposes to open a school, for Reading, Writing, Arithmetick, &c.”
In 1789 there were twenty-two distillers of rum in Boston: there are nine only, named in the Directory of 1848-9. The increase of doctors and all the appliances of sickness and death have not probably arisen from the falling off, among distillers. In 1789, there were about twenty innholders: there arenow eighty-eight public houses, hotels, or taverns—ninety-two restaurants—thirty-five confectionery establishments—thirty-nine stores, under the caption of “liquors and wines”—sixty-nine places, for the sale of oysters, which are not always thespiritlessthings they appear to be—one hundred and forty-three wholesale dealers, in West India goods and groceries—three hundred and seventy-three retailers of such articles: I speak not of those, who fall below the dignity of history; whose operations are entirely subterraneous; and whose entire stock in trade might be carried, in a wheelbarrow. We have also one hundred and fifty-two provision dealers. We live well in this city. It would be very pleasant, to walk over it, with old Captain Keayne, who died here, March 23, 1656, and who left a sum of money to the town, to erect a granary or storehouse, for the poor, in case of famine!
The Quack is commonly accounted a spurious leech—a false doctor—clinging, like a vicious barnacle, to the very bottom of the medical profession. But impostors exist, in every craft, calling, and profession, under the names of quacks, empirics, charmers, magicians, professors, sciolists, plagiaries, enchanters, charlatans, pretenders, judicial astrologers, quacksalvers, muffs, mountebanks, medicasters, barrators, cheats, puffs, champertors, cuckoos, diviners, jugglers, and verifiers of suggestions.
Butler, in his Hudibras, says, of medical quacks, they
Seek out for plants, with signatures,To quack of universal cures.
In the Spectator, Addison has this observation—“At the first appearance, that a French quack made in Paris, a boy walked before him, publishing, with a shrill voice, ‘my father cures all sorts of distempers;’ to which the doctor added, in a grave manner, ‘what the boy says is true.’”
The imposture of James Aymar, to which I have alluded, was of a different kind. Aymar was an ignorant peasant of Dauphiné. He finally confessed himself to be an impostor, beforethe Prince of Condè; and the whole affair is narrated, by the apothecary of the prince, in aLettre à M. L’Abbé, D. L., sur les veritables effets de la baguette de Jaques Aymar par P. Buissiere; chez Louis Lucas, à Paris, 1694.
The power of this fellow’s wand was not limited, to the discovery of hidden treasures, or springs of water; nor were his only dupes the lowly and the ignorant. As I have said, he was detected, and made a full confession, before the Prince of Condè. The magistrates published an official account of the imposture; yet such is the energy of the credulous principle, that M. Vallemont, a man of note, published a treatise “on the occult philosophy of the divining wand;” in which he tries to show, that Aymar, notwithstanding his mistakes, before the Prince, was really possessed of all the wonderful power he claimed, of divining with his wand. The measure of this popular credulity will be better understood, after perusing the following translation of an extract from theMercure Historique, for April, 1697, page 440.—“The Prior of the Carthusians passed through Villeneuve with Aymar, to discover, by the aid of his wand, some landmarks, that were lost. Just before, a foundling had been left on the steps of the monastery. Aymar was employed, by the Superior, to find out the father. Followed by a great crowd, and guided by the indications of his wand, he went to the village of Comaret, in the County of Venaissin, and thence to a cottage, where he affirmed the child was born.”
Bayle says, on the authority of another letter from M. Buissiere, in 1698, that Aymar’s apparent simplicity, and rustic dialect, and the rapid motion of his wand went far, to complete the delusion. He was also exceedingly devout, and never absent from mass, or confession. While he was at Paris, and before his exposure, the Pythoness, herself, would not have been more frequently, and zealously consulted, than was this crafty and ignorant boor, by the Parisians. Fees showered in from all quarters; and he was summoned, in all directions, to detect thieves; recover lost property; settle the question of genuine identity, among the relics ofprima faciesaints, in different churches; and, in truth, no limit was set, by his innumerable dupes, to the power of his miraculous wand. “I myself,” says M. Buissiere, “saw a simple, young fellow, a silk weaver, who was engaged to a girl, give Aymar a couple of crowns, to know if she were a virgin.”
Joseph Francis Borri flourished, about the middle of the seventeenth century, and a most complicated scoundrel he was—heresiarch, traitor, alchymist, and empiric. He had spiritual revelations, of course. He was an intelligent and audacious liar, and converts came in apace. At his suggestion, his followers took upon themselves an oath of poverty, and placed all they possessed in the hands of Borri, who told them he would take care it should never again interfere with their devotions, but would be spent in prayers and masses, for their ulcerated souls. The bloodhounds of the Inquisition were soon upon his track, at the moment he was about to raise the standard of insurrection in Milan.
He fled to Amsterdam—made capital of his persecution by the Inquisition; and won the reputation of a great chemist, and wonderful physician. He then went to Hamburg, and persuaded Queen Christina, to advance him a large sum of money, to be reimbursed, from the avails of the philosopher’s stone, which Borri was to discover. This trick was clearly worth repeating. So thought Borri; and he tried it, with still better success, on his Majesty of Denmark. Still the stone remained undiscovered; and the thought occurred to Signor Borri, that it might not be amiss, to look for it, in Turkey. He accordingly removed; but was arrested at Vienna, by the Pope’s agents; and consigned to the prisons of the Inquisition, for life. His fame, however, had become so omnipotent, that, upon the earnest application of the Duke d’Etrée, he was let loose, to prescribe for that nobleman, whom the regular physicians had given over. The Duke got well, and the world gave Borri the credit of the cure. When a poor suffering mortal is given over, in other words,let alone, by half a dozen doctors—I am speaking now of the regulars, not less than of the volunteers—he, occasionally, gets well.
A wit replied to a French physician, who was marvelling how a certain Abbé came to die, since he himself and three other physicians were unremitting, in their attentions—“My dear doctor, how could the poor abbé sustain himself, against you all four?” The doctors do much as they did of old. Pliny, lib. xxix. 5, says, of consultations—“Hinc illæ circa ægros miseræ sententiarum concertationes, nullo idem censente ne videatur accessio alterius. Hinc illa infelicis monumenti inscriptio,TURBA SE MEDICORUM PERIISSE.” Hence those contemptible consultations,round the beds of the sick—no one assenting to the opinion of another, lest he should be deemed his subaltern. Hence the monumental inscription, over the poor fellow, who was destroyed in this way—KILLED BY A MOB OF DOCTORS!
Who has not seen a fire rekindle,sua sponte, after the officious bellows have, apparently, extinguished the last spark? So, now and then, the vital spark, stimulated by thevis medicatrix naturæwill rekindle into life and action, after having been well nigh smothered, by all sorts of complicated efforts to restore it.
This is thepunctum instans, the very nick of time, for the charlatan: in he comes, looking insufferably wise, and brim full of sympathetic indignation. All has been done wrong, of course. While he affects to be doing everything, he does exactly nothing—stirs up an invisible, impalpable, infinitessimal, incomprehensible particle, in a little water, which the patient can neither see, feel, taste, nor smell. Down it goes. The patient’s faith, as to the size of it, rather resembles a cocoanut than a grain of mustard seed. His confidence in thenewdoctor is as gigantic, and as blind, as Polyphemus, after he had beengouged, by him of Ithaca. He plants his galvanic grasp, upon the wrist of the little doctor, much in the manner of a drowning man, clutching at a full grown straw. He is absolutely better already. The wife and the little ones look upon the mountebank, as their preserver from widowhood and orphanage. “Dere ish noting,” he says, “like de leetil doshes;” and he takes his leave, regretting, as he closes the door, that his sleeve is not large enough, to hold the sum total of his laughter. Yet some of these quacks becomehonest men; and, however surprised at the result, they are finally unable, to resist the force of the popular outcry, in their own favor. They almost forget their days of duplicity, and small things—they arrive, somehow or other, at the conclusion, that, however unexpectedly, they are great men, and their wild tactics a system. They use longer words, move into larger houses, and talk of first principles: and all the practice of a neighborhood finally falls into the hands of Dr. Ninkempaup or Dr. Pauketpeeker.
Francis Joseph Borri died, in prison, in 1695. Sorbiere in hisVoiage en Angleterre, page 158, describes him thus—“He is a cunning blade; a lusty, dark-complexioned, good-looking fellow, well dressed, and lives at considerable expense, though notat such a rate, as some suppose; for eight or ten thousand livres will go a great way at Amsterdam. But a house, worth 15,000 crowns, in a fine location, five or six footmen, a French suit of clothes, a treat or two to the ladies, the occasional refusal of fees, five or six rix dollars distributed, at the proper time and place among the poor, a spice of insolence in discourse, and sundry other artifices have made some credulous persons say, that he gave away handfulls of diamonds, that he had discovered the philosophers stone, and the universal medicine.” When he was in Amsterdam, he appeared in a splendid equipage, was accosted, by the title of “your excellence,” and they talked of marrying him to one of the greatest fortunes.
I have no taste for unsocial pleasures. Will the reader go with me to Franklin Place—let us take our station near No. 2, and turn our eyes to the opposite side—let us put back the hand of the world’s timekeeper, some thirty years. A showy chariot, very peculiar, very yellow, and abundantly supplied with glass, with two tall bay horses, gaudily harnessed, is driven to the door of the mansion, by a coachman, in livery; and there it stands; till, after the expiration of an hour, perhaps, the house door is flung open, and there appears, upon the steps, a tall, dark visaged, portly personage, in black, who, looking slowly up and down the avenue, proceeds, with great deliberation, to draw on his yellow, buckskin gloves. Rings glitter upon his fingers; seals, keys, and safety chain, upon his person. His beaver, of an unusual form, is exquisitely glossy, surpassed, by nothing but the polish of his tall suwarrows, surmounted with black, silk tassels.
He descends to the vehicle—the door is opened, with a bow of profound reverence, which is scarcely acknowledged, and in he gets, the very fac simile of a Spanish grandee. The chariot moves off, so very slowly, that we can easily follow it, on foot—on it goes, up Franklin, and down Washington, up Court, into Tremont, down School, into Washington, along Washington, up Winter, and through Park to Beacon Street, where it halts, before the mansion of some respectable citizen. The occupant alights, and, leaving his chariot there, proceeds, through obscure and winding ways, to visit his patients, on foot, in the purlieus ofLa Montagne.
This was no other than the celebrated patentee of the famous bug liquid; who was forever putting the community on its guard, by admonishing the pill-taking public, that theycould not be too particular, fornone were genuine, unless signed W. T. Conway.