Chapter 6

in fede miaHo fatto bene a non fare a mio modo.2

The Doctor however was one of the very few who have never been put out of their designed course, and never been disposed to stray from it.

Spesso si perde il buonoCercando il meglio. E a scegliere il sentieroChi vuol troppo esser saggio,Del tempo abusa, e non fa mai viaggio.3

2RICCIARDETTO.

3METASTASIO.

THE AUTHOR RECOMMENDS A CERTAIN WELL-KNOWN CHARACTER AS A CANDIDATE FOR HONOURS, BOTH ON THE SCORE OF HIS FAMILY AND HIS DESERTS. HE NOTICES ALSO OTHER PERSONS WHO HAVE SIMILAR CLAIMS.

Thoricht, auf Bessrung der Thoren zu harren!Kinder der klugheit, o habet die NarrenEben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehort.GOETHE.

In these days when honours have been so profusely distributed by the most liberal of Administrations and the most popular of Kings, I cannot but think that Tom Fool ought to be knighted. And I assure the reader that this is not said on the score of personal feeling, because I have the honour to be one of his relations, but purely with regard to his own claims, and the fitness of things, as well as to the character of the Government.

It is disparaging him, and derogatory to his family, which in undisputed and indisputable antiquity exceeds any other in these kingdoms,—it is disparaging him, I say, to speak of him as we do of Tom Duncombe, and Tom Cribb, and Tom Campbell; or of Tom Hood and Tom Moore, and Tom Sheridan; and before them of Tom Browne and Tom D'Urfey, and Tom Killigrew. Can it be supposed if he were properly presented to his Majesty (Lord Nugent would introduce him), and knelt to kiss the royal hand, that our most gracious and good-natured King would for a moment hesitate to give him the accollade, and say to him “Rise Sir Thomas!”

I do not ask for the Guelphic Order; simple Knighthood would in this case be more appropriate.

It is perfectly certain that Sir Thomas More, if he were alive, would not object to have him for a brother knight and namesake. It is equally certain that Sir Thomas Lethbridge could not, and ought not.

Dryden was led into a great error by his animosity against Hunt and Shadwell when he surmised that “dullness and clumsiness were fated to the name of Tom.” “There are,” says Serjeant Kite, “several sorts of Toms; Tom o'Lincoln, Tom Tit, Tom Tell-truth, Tom o'Bedlam and Tom Fool!” With neither of these is dullness or clumsiness associated. And in the Primitive World, according to the erudite philologist who with so much industry and acumen collected the fragments of its language, the word itself signified just or perfect. Therefore the first Decan of the constellation Virgo was called Tom, and from thence Court de Gebelin derives Themis: and thus it becomes evident that Themistocles belongs to the Toms. Let no Thomas then or Sir Thomas, who has made shipwreck of his fortune or his reputation or of both, consider himself as having been destined to such disgrace by his godfathers and godmothers when they gave him that name. The name is a good name. Any one who has ever known Sir Thomas Acland may like it and love it for his sake: and no wise man will think the worse of it for Tom Fool's.

No! the name Thomas is a good name, however it has been disparaged by some of those persons who are known by it at this time. Though Bovius chose to drop it and assume the name Zephiriel in its stead in honour of his tutelary Angel, the change was not for the better, being indeed only a manifestation of his own unsound state of mind. And though in the reign of King James the First, Mr. William Shepherd of Towcester christened his son by it for a reason savouring of disrespect, it is not the worse for the whimsical consideration that induced him to fix upon it. The boy was born on the never to be forgotten fifth of November 1605, about the very hour when the Gunpowder Treason was to have been consummated; and the father chose to have him called Thomas, because he said this child if he lived to grow up wouldhardly believethat ever such wickedness could be attempted by the sons of men.

It is recorded that a parrot which was seized by a kite and carried into the air, escaped by exclaimingSancte Thoma adjuva me!for upon that powerful appeal the kite relaxed his hold, and let loose the intended victim. This may be believed, though it is among the miracles of Thomas a Becket, to whom and not to the great schoolman of Aquino, nor the Apostle of the East, the invocation was addressed. Has any other human name ever wrought so remarkable a deliverance?

Has any other name made a greater noise in the world. Let Lincoln tell, and Oxford; for although “omnis clocha clochabilis in clocherio clochando, clochans clochativo, clochare facit clochabiliter clochantes,” yet among them all, Master Janotus de Bragmardo would have assigned pre-eminence to the mighty Toms.

The name then is sufficiently vindicated, even if any vindication were needed, when the paramount merits of my claimant are considered.

Merry Andrew likewise should be presented to receive the same honour, for sundry good reasons, and especially for this, that there is already a Sir Sorry Andrew.

I should also recommend Tom Noddy, were it not for this consideration, that the honour would probably soon be merged in an official designation, and therefore lost upon him; for when a certain eminent statesman shall be called from the Lower House, as needs he must ere long, unless the party who keep moving and push him forward as their leader, should before that time relieve him of his hereditary rights, dignities, and privileges, no person can possibly be found so worthy to succeed him in office and tread in his steps, as Tom Noddy.

Nor is Jack Pudding to be forgotten who is cousin-german to that merry man Andrew! He moreover deserves it by virtue of his Puddingship; the Puddings are of an ancient and good family: the Blacks in particular boast of their blood.

Take reader this epigram of that cheerful and kind-hearted schoolmaster Samuel Bishop of Merchant Taylors, written in his vocation upon the themeAliusque et Idem—

Five countries from five favorite dishes nameThe popular stage buffoon's professional name.Half fish himself, the Dutchman never erringFrom native instinct, styles himPickle Herring.The German whose strong palatehaut-goutsfit,Calls himHans Werst, that isJohn-Sausage-Wit.The Frenchman ever prone tobadinageThinks of his soup, and shrugs,Eh! voila Jean Potage!Full of ideas his sweet food supplies,The Italian,Ecco Macaroni!cries.While English Taste, whose board with dumplin smokes,Inspired by what it loves, applaudsJack Pudding'sjokes.A charming bill of fare, you'll say, to suitOne dish, and that one dish a Fool, to boot!

“A learned man will have it,” says Fuller, “that Serapis is nothing more than Apis with the addition of the HebrewSar, a Prince, whence perchance our English Sir.” Odd, that the whole beast should have obtained this title in Egypt, and a part of it in England. For we all know that Loin of Beef has been knighted, and who is not pleased to meet with him at dinner? and John Barleycorn has been knighted, and who is not willing to pledge him in all companies in a glass?

But wherefore should I adduce precedents, as if in this age any regard were paid to them in the distribution of honours, or there could be any need of them in a case which may so well stand upon its own merits.

THE DOCTOR IN HIS CURE. IRRELIGION THE REPROACH OF HIS PROFESSION.

Virtue, and that part of philosophyWill I apply, that treats of happinessBy virtue specially to be achieved.TAMING OF THESHREW.

A practitioner of medicine possesses in what may be called his cure, that knowledge of all who are under his care, which the parochial priest used to possess in former times, and will it is to be hoped regain whenever the most beneficial of all alterations shall be effected in the Church Establishment, and no Clergyman shall have a duty imposed upon him which it is impossible to fulfil,—impossible it is, if his parishioners are numbered by thousands instead of hundreds. In such cases one of two consequences must inevitably ensue. Either he will confine himself to the formalities of his office, and because he cannot by any exertions do what ought to be done, rest contented with performing the perfunctory routine; or he will exert himself to the utmost till his health, and perhaps his heart also, is broken in a service which is too often found as thankless as it is hopeless.

Our Doctor was, among the poorer families in his cure, very much what Herbert's Country Parson is imagined to be in his parish. There was little pauperism there at that time; indeed none that existed in a degree reproachful to humanity; or in that obtrusive and clamorous form which at present in so many parts of this misgoverned country insults and outrages and endangers society. The labourers were not so ill paid as to be justly discontented with their lot; and he was not in a manufacturing district. His profession led him among all classes; and his temper as well as his education qualified him to sympathize with all, and accommodate himself to each as far as such accommodation was becoming. Yet he was every where the same man; he spoke the King's English in one circle, and the King's Yorkshire in another; but this was the only difference in his conversation with high and low. Before the professors of his art indeed, in the exercise of their calling, the distinctions of society disappear, and poor human nature is stript to its humanities. Rank, and power, and riches,—these—

cannot take a passion away, Sir,Nor cut a fit but one poor hour shorter.1

The most successful stock jobber, or manufacturer that ever counted his wealth by hundreds of thousands—

must endure as much as the poorest beggarThat cannot change his money,—this is the equalityIn our impartial essences!1

Death is not a more inexorable leveller than his precursors age and infirmity and sickness and pain.

1BEAUMONTand FLETCHER.

Hope and fear and grief and joy act with the same equitable disregard of conventional distinctions. And though there is reason for disbelieving that the beetle which we tread upon feels as much as a human being suffers in being crushed, it is yet undoubtedly true that except in those cases where individuals have so thoroughly corrupted their feelings as to have thereby destroyed the instinctive sense of right and wrong, making evil their good, what may be termed the primitive affections exist in as much strength among the rudest as among the most refined. They may be paralyzed by pauperism, they may be rotted by the licentiousness of luxury; but there is no grade of society in which they do not exhibit themselves in the highest degree. Tragic poets have been attracted by the sufferings of the great, and have laid the scene of their fables in the higher circles of life; yet tragedy represents no examples more touching or more dreadful, for our admiration or abhorrence, to thrill us with sympathy or with indignation, than are continually occurring in all classes of society.

They who call themselves men of the world and pride themselves accordingly upon their knowledge, are of all men those who know least of human nature. It was well said by a French biographer, though not well applied to the subject2of his biography, thatil avait pu, dans la solitude, se former à l'amour du vrai et du juste, et même à la connoissance de l'homme, si souvent et si mal à propos confondue avec celle des hommes; c'est-à-dire, avec la petite experience des intrigues mouvantes d'un petit nombre d'individus plus ou moins accrédités et des habitudes etroites de leurs petites coteries. La connoissance des hommes est à celle de l'homme ce qu'est l'intrigue sociale à l'art social.

2The ABBESIEYES.

Of those passions which are or deserve to be the subject of legal and judicial tragedy, the lawyers necessarily see most, and for this reason perhaps they think worse of human nature than any other class of men, except the Roman Catholic Clergy. Physicians on the contrary, though they see humanity in its most humiliating state, see it also in the exercise of its holiest and most painful duties. No other persons witness such deep emotions and such exertions of self-controul. They know what virtues are developed by the evils which flesh is heir to, what self-devotion, what patience, what fortitude, what piety, what religious resignation.

Wherefore is it then that physicians have lain under the reproach of irreligion, who of all men best know how fearfully and wonderfully we are made, and who it might be thought would be rendered by the scenes at which they are continually called upon to assist, of all men the most religious? Sir Thomas Brown acknowledges that this was the general scandal of his profession, and his commentator Sir Kenelm Digby observes upon the passage, that “Physicians do commonly hear ill in this behalf,” and that “it is a common speech (but,” he parenthesizes, “only amongst the unlearned sort)ubi tres medici duo athei.” Rabelais defines a Physician to beanimal incombustible propter reliqionem.

“As some mathematicians,” says an old Preacher, “deal so much in Jacob's staff that they forget Jacob's ladder, so some Physicians (God decrease the number!) are so deep naturalists that they are very shallow Christians. With us, Grace waits at the heels of Nature, and they dive so deep into the secrets of philosophy that they never look up to the mysteries of Divinity.”

Old Adam Littleton who looked at every thing in its best light, took a different view of the effect of medical studies, in his sermon upon St. Luke's day. “His character of Physician,” said he, “certainly gave him no mean advantage, not only in the exercise of his ministry by an acceptable address and easy admission which men of that profession every where find among persons of any civility; but even to his understanding of Christian truths and to the apprehending the mysteries of faith.

“For having as that study directed him, gone orderly over all the links of that chain by which natural causes are mutually tied to one another, till he found God the supreme cause and first mover at the top; having traced the footsteps of Divine Goodness through all the most minute productions of his handmaid Nature, and yet finding human reason puzzled and at a loss in giving an account of his almighty power and infinite wisdom in the least and meanest of his works; with what pious humility must he needs entertain supernatural truths, when upon trial he had found every the plainest thing in common nature itself was mystery, and saw he had as much reason for his believing these proposals of faith, as he had for trusting the operations of sense, or the collections of reason itself.

“I know there is an unworthy reproach cast upon this excellent study that it inclines men to atheism. 'Tis true the ignorance and corruption of men that profess any of the three honourable faculties, bring scandal upon the faculty itself. Again, sciolists and half-witted men are those that discredit any science they meddle with. But he that pretends to the noble skill of physic, and dares to deny that which doth continuallyincurrere in sensus, that which in all his researches and experiments he must meet with at every turn, I dare to say he is no Physician; or at least that he doth at once give his profession and his conscience too the lye.”

EFFECT OF MEDICAL STUDIES ON DIFFERENT DISPOSITIONS. JEW PHYSICIANS, ESTIMATION AND ODIUM IN WHICH THEY WERE HELD.

Confiesso la digression; mas es facil al que no quisiere leerla, passar al capitulo siguiente, y esta advertencia sirva de disculpa.

LUISMUNOZ.

If the elder Daniel had thought that the moral feelings and religious principles of his son were likely to be endangered by the study of medicine, he would never have been induced to place him with a medical practitioner. But it seemed to him, good man, that the more we study the works of the Creator, the more we must perceive and feel his wisdom and his power and his goodness. It was so in his own case, and like Adam Littleton and all simple-hearted men, he judged of others by himself.

Nevertheless that the practice of Physic, and still more of surgery, should have an effect like that of war upon the persons engaged in it, is what those who are well acquainted with human nature might expect, and would be at no loss to account for. It is apparent that in all these professions coarse minds must be rendered coarser, and hard hearts still farther indurated; and that there is a large majority of such minds and hearts in every profession, trade and calling, few who have had any experience of the ways of the world can doubt. We need not look farther for the immediate cause. Add to a depraved mind and an unfeeling disposition, either a subtle intellect or a daring one, and you have all the preparations for atheism that the Enemy could desire.

But other causes may be found in the history of the medical profession which was an art in the worst sense of the word, before it became a science, and long after it pretended to be a science, was little better than a craft. Among savages the sorcerer is always the physician; and to this day superstitious remedies are in common use among the ignorant in all countries. But wherever the practice is connected with superstition as free scope is presented to wickedness as to imagination; and there have been times in which it became obnoxious to much obloquy, which on this score was well deserved.

Nothing exposed the Jews to more odium in ages when they were held most odious, than the reputation which they possessed as physicians. There is a remarkable instance of the esteem in which they were held for their supposed superiority in this art as late as the middle of the sixteenth century. Francis I. after a long illness in which he found no benefit from his own physicians, dispatched a courier into Spain, requesting Charles V. to send him the most skilful Jewish practitioner in his dominions. This afforded matter for merriment to the Spaniards; the Emperor however gave orders to make enquiry for one, and when he could hear of none who would trust himself in that character, he sent a New-Christian physician, with whom he supposed Francis would be equally satisfied. But when this person arrived in France, the King by way of familiar discourse sportively asked him if he were not yet tired of expecting the Messiah? Such a question produced from the new Convert a declaration that he was a Christian, upon which the King dismissed him immediately without consulting him, and sent forthwith to Constantinople for a Jew. The one who came found it necessary to prescribe nothing more for his royal patient than Asses milk.

This reputation in which their physicians were held was owing in great measure to the same cause which gave them their superiority in trade. The general celebrity which they had obtained in the dark ages, and which is attested by Eastern tales as well as by European history, implies that they had stores of knowledge which were not accessible to other people. And indeed as they communicated with all parts of the known world, and with parts of it which were unknown to the Christian nations, they had means of obtaining the drugs of the East, and the knowledge of what remedies were in use there, which was not of less importance in an art, founded, as far as it was of any avail, wholly upon experience. That knowledge they reserved to themselves, perhaps as much with a view to national as to professional interests.

Nicolas Antonio sent to Bertolacci a manuscript entitledOtzar Haanijm, that is, “the Treasure of the Poor,” written by a certain Master Julian in the Portuguese language, but in rabbinical characters. It was a collection of simple receipts for all diseases, and appears to have been written thus that it might be serviceable to those only who were acquainted with Hebrew. There was good policy in this. A king's physician in those days was hardly a less important person than a king's confessor; with many princes indeed he would be the more influential of the two, as being the most useful, and frequently the best informed; and in those times of fearful insecurity, it might fall within his power, like Mordecai, to avert some great calamity from his nation.

Among the articles which fantastic superstition, or theories not less fantastic had introduced into themateria medica, there were some which seemed more appropriate to the purposes of magic than of medicine, and some of an atrocious kind. Human fat was used as an unguent,—that of infants as a cosmetic. Romances mention baths of children's blood; and there were times and countries in which such a remedy was as likely to be prescribed, as imagined in fiction. It was believed that deadly poisons might be extracted from the human body;—and they who were wicked enough to administer the product, would not be scrupulous concerning the means whereby it was procured. One means indeed was by tormenting the living subject. To such practices no doubt Harrison alludes when, speaking, in Elizabeth's reign, of those who graduated in the professions of law or physic, he says, “one thing only I mislike in them, and that is their usual going into Italy, from whence very few without special grace do return good men, whatever they pretend of conference or practice; chiefly the physicians, who under pretence of seeking of foreign simples, do oftentimes learn the framing of such compositions as were better unknown than practised, as I have often heard alleged.” The suspicion of such practices attached more to the Jewish than to any other physicians, because of the hatred with which they were supposed to regard all Christians, a feeling which the populace in every country, and very frequently the Rulers also did every thing to deserve. The general scandal of atheism lay against the profession; but to be a Jew was in common opinion to be worse than an atheist, and calumnies were raised against the Jew Physicians on the specific ground of their religion, which, absurd and monstrous as they were, popular credulity was ready to receive. One imputation was that they made it a point of conscience to kill one patient in five, as a sacrifice of atonement for the good which they had done to the other four. Another was that the blood of a Christian infant was always administered to a Jewess in child-bed, and was esteemed so necessary an ingredient in their superstitious ceremonies or their medical practice at such times, that they exported it in a dried and pulverized form to Mahommedan countries, where it could not be obtained fresh.

There are some pages in Jackson's Treatise upon the Eternal Truth of Scripture and Christian Belief, which occurring in a work of such excellent worth, and coming from so profound and admirable a writer, must be perused by every considerate reader with as much sorrow as surprize. They show to what a degree the most judicious and charitable mind may be deluded when seeking eagerly for proofs of a favorite position or important doctrine, even though the position and the doctrine should be certainly just. Forgetful of the excuse which he has himself suggested for the unbelief of the Jews since the destruction of Jerusalem, saying, with equal truth and felicity of expression, that “their stubborness is but a strong hope malignified, or, as we say, grown wild and out of kind,” he gives credit to the old atrocious tales of their crucifying Christian children, and finds in them an argument for confirming our faith at which the most iron-hearted supralapsarian might shudder. For one who passes much of his time with books, and with whom the dead are as it were living and conversing, it is almost as painful to meet in an author whom he reveres and loves, with anything which shocks his understanding and disturbs his moral sense, as it is to perceive the faults of a dear friend. When we discover aberrations of this kind in such men, it should teach us caution for ourselves as well as tolerance for others; and thus we may derive some benefit even from the errors of the wise and good.

That the primitive Christians should have regarded the Jews with hostile feelings as their first persecutors, was but natural, and that that feeling should have been aggravated by a just and religious horror for the crime which has drawn upon this unhappy nation it's abiding punishment. But it is indeed strange that during so many centuries this enmity should have continued to exist, and that no sense of compassion should have mitigated it. For the Jews to have inherited the curse of their fathers was in the apprehension of ordinary minds to inherit their guilt; and the cruelties which man inflicted upon them were interpreted as proofs of the continued wrath of Heaven, so that the very injuries and sufferings which in any other case would have excited commiseration, served in this to close the heart against it. Being looked upon as God's outlaws, they were everywhere placed as it were under the ban of humanity. And while these heart-hardening prepossessions subsisted against them in full force, the very advantages of which they were in possession rendered them more especial objects of envy, suspicion and popular hatred. In times when literature had gone to decay throughout all Christendom, the Jews had not partaken of the general degradation. They had Moses and the Prophets whose everlasting lamps were kept trimmed amongst them, and burning clearly through the dark when the light of the Gospel had grown dim in the socket, and Monkery and Popery had well nigh extinguished it. They possessed a knowledge of distant countries which was confined to themselves; for being dispersed every where, they travelled every where with the advantage of a language which was spoken by the Children of Israel wherever they were found, and nowhere by any other people. As merchants therefore and as statesmen they had opportunities peculiar to themselves. In both capacities those Princes who had any sense of policy found them eminently useful. But wealth made them envied, and the way in which they increased it by lending money made them odious in ages when to take any interest was accounted usury. That odium was aggravated whenever they were employed in raising taxes; and as they could not escape odium, they seem sometimes to have braved it in despite or in despair, and to have practised extortion if not in defiance of public opinion, at least as a species of retaliation for the exactions which they themselves endured, and the frauds which unprincipled debtors were always endeavouring to practise upon them.

But as has already been observed, nothing exposed them to greater obloquy than the general opinion which was entertained of their skill in medicine, and of the flagitious practices with which it was accompanied. The conduct of the Romish Church tended to strengthen that obloquy, even when it did not directly accredit the calumnies which exasperated it. Several Councils denounced excommunication against any persons who should place themselves under the care of a Jewish Physician, for it was pernicious and scandalous they said, that Christians who ought to despise and hold in horror the enemies of their holy religion, should have recourse to them for remedies in sickness. They affirmed that medicines administered by such impious hands became hurtful instead of helpful; and moreover that the familiarity thus produced between a Jewish practitioner and a Christian family, gave occasion to great evil and to many crimes. The decree of the Lateran Council by which physicians were enjoined under heavy penalties to require that their patients should confess and communicate before they administered any medicines to them, seems to have been designed as much against Jewish practitioners as heretical patients. The Jews on their part were not more charitable when they could express their feelings with safety. It appears in their own books that a physician was forbidden by the Rabbis to attend upon either a Christian or Gentile, unless he dared not refuse; under compulsion it was lawful, but he was required to demand payment for his services, and never to attend any such patients gratuitously.

WHEREIN IT APPEARS THAT SANCHO'S PHYSICIAN AT BARATARIA ACTED ACCORDING TO PRECEDENTS AND PRESCRIBED LAWS.

Lettor, tu vedi ben com' io innalzoLa mia materia, e però con piu arteNon ti maravigliar s' i' la rincalzo.DANTE.

But the practice both of medicine and of surgery, whatever might be the religion of the practitioner, was obnoxious to suspicions for which the manners of antiquity, of the dark ages and of every corrupted society gave but too much cause. It was a power that could be exercised for evil as well as for good.

One of the most detestable acts recorded in ancient history is that of the Syrian usurper Tryphon, who when he thought it expedient to make away with young Antiochus the heir to the kingdom, delivered him into a surgeon's hands to be cut for the stone, that he might in that manner be put to death. It is a disgraceful fact that the most ancient operation known to have been used in surgery, is that abominable one which to the reproach of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities is still practised in Italy.

Physicians were not supposed to be more scrupulous than surgeons. The most famous and learned Doctor Christopher Wirtzung, whose General Practice of Physic was translated from German into English at the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign by his countryman Jacob Mosan, Doctor in the same faculty, has this remarkable section in his work:

“Ancient Physicians were wont to have an old proverb, and to say that Venom is so proud that it dwelleth commonly in gold and silver; whereby they meant that great personages that eat and drink out of gold and silver, are in greater danger to be poisoned than the common people that do eat and drink out of earthen dishes.” Christopher Wirtzung might have quoted Juvenal here;

Nulla aconita bibunturFictilibus. Tunc illa time, cum pocula sumesGemmata, et lato Setinum ardebit in auro.

“Wherefore,” proceeds the German Doctor, “must such high personages that are afraid to be poisoned, diligently take heed of the meat and drink that they eat, and that are drest of divers things. Also they must not take too much of all sweet, salt and sour drinks; and they must not eat too eagerly, nor too hastily; and they must at all times have great regard of the first taste of their meat and drink. But the most surest way is, that before the mealtide he take somewhat that may resist venom, as figs, rue, or nuts, each by himself, or tempered together. The citrons, rape-seed, nepe, or any of those that are described before, the weight of a drachm taken with wine, now one and then another, is very much commended. Sometimes also two figs with a little salt, then again mithridate or treacle, and such like more may be used before the mealtide.”

“It is a matter of much difficulty,” says Ambrose Paré, “to avoid poisons, because such as at this time temper them are so thoroughly prepared for deceit and mischief that they will deceive even the most wary and quick-sighted; for they so qualify the ingrate taste and smell by the admixture of sweet and well-smelling things that they cannot easily be perceived even by the skilful. Therefore such as fear poisoning ought to take heed of meats cooked with much art, very sweet, salt, sour, or notably endued with any other taste. And when they are opprest with hunger or thirst, they must not eat nor drink too greedily, but have a diligent regard to the taste of such things as they eat or drink. Besides, before meat let them take such things as may weaken the strength of the poisons, such as is the fat broth of good nourishing flesh-meats. In the morning let them arm themselves with treacle or mithridate, and conserve of roses, or the leaves of rue, a walnut and dry figs: besides let him presently drink a little draught of muscadine, or some other good wine.”

How frequent the crime of poisoning had become in the dark ages appears by the old laws of almost every European people, in some of which indeed its frequency, “proh dolor,” is alleged as a reason for enacting statutes against it. And whilst in the empire the capital sentence might be compounded for, like other cases of homicide, by a stated compensation to the representatives of the deceased, no such redemption was allowed among the Wisi-Goths, but the poisoner, whether freeman or slave, was to suffer the most ignominious death. In the lower ranks of life men were thought to be in most danger of being thus made away with by their wives, in the higher by their Physicians and their cooks.

There are two curious sections upon this subject in the Laws of Alphonso the Wise, the one entitledQuáles deben ser los fisicos del Rey, et qué es lo que deben facer;—What the Physicians of a King ought to be, and what it is they ought to do:—the other,Quáles deben ser los oficiales del Rey que le han de servir en su comer et en su beber:What the officers of a King ought to be who minister to him at his eating and at his drinking.

“Physic,” says the royal author, “according as the wise antients have shown, is as much as to say the knowledge of understanding things according to nature, what they are in themselves, and what effect each produces upon other things; and therefore they who understand this well, can do much good, and remove many evils; especially by preserving life and keeping men in health, averting from them the infirmities whereby they suffer great misery, or are brought to death. And they who do this are called Physicians, who not only must endeavour to deliver men from their maladies, but also to preserve their health in such manner that they may not become sick; wherefore it is necessary that those whom the King has with him should be right good. And as Aristotle said to Alexander, four things are required in them,—first that they should be knowing in their art; secondly, that they should be well approved in it; thirdly, that they should be skilled in the cases which may occur; fourthly, that they should be right loyal and true. For if they are not knowing in their art, they will not know how to distinguish diseases; and if they are not well approved in it, they will not be able to give such certain advice, which is a thing from whence great hurt arises; and if they are not skilful, they will not be able to act in cases of great danger when such may happen; and if they are not loyal, they can commit greater treasons than other men, because they can commit them covertly. And when the King shall have Physicians in whom these four aforesaid things are found, and who use them well, he ought to do them much honour and much good; and if peradventure they should act otherwise knowingly, they commit known treason, and deserve such punishment as men who treacherously kill others that have confided in them.

“Regiment also in eating and drinking is a thing without which the body cannot be maintained, and therefore the officers who have to minister to the King or others, have no less place than those of whom we have spoken above, as to the preservation of his life and his health. For albeit the Physicians should do all their endeavours to preserve him, they will not be able to do it if he who prepares his food for him should not chuse to take the same care; we say the same also of those who serve him with bread, and wine, and fruit, and all other things of which he has to eat, or drink. And according as Aristotle said to Alexander, in these officers seven things are required: first, that they be of good lineage, for if they be, they will always take heed of doing things which would be ill for them; secondly, that they be loyal, for if they be not so, great danger might come to the King from them; thirdly, that they be skilful, so that they may know how to do those things well which appertain to their offices: fourthly, that they be of good understanding, so that they may know how to comprehend the good which the King may do them, and that they be not puffed up, nor become insolent because of their good fortune; fifthly, that they be not over covetous, for great covetousness is the root of all evil; sixthly, that they be not envious in evil envy, lest if they should be, they might haply be moved thereby to commit some wrong; seventhly, that they be not much given to anger, for it is a thing which makes a man beside himself, and this is unseemly in those who hold such offices. And also besides all those things which we have specified, it behoveth them greatly that they be debonair and clean, so that what they have to prepare for the King, whether to eat or drink, may be well prepared; and that they serve it to him cleanlily, for if it be clean he will be pleased with it, and if it be well prepared he will savour it the better, and it will do him the more good. And when the King shall have such men as these in these offices, he ought to love them, and to do them good and honour; and if peradventure he should find that any one offends in not doing his office loyally, so that hurt might come thereof to the person of the King, he ought to punish him both in his body and in his goods, as a man who doth one of the greatest treasons that can be.”

The fear in which the Princes of more barbarous states lived in those ages is no where so fully declared as in the Palace-laws compiled by that King of Majorca who was slain at the battle of Cressy, from which laws those of his kinsman Pedro the Ceremonious of Arragon, who drove him from his kingdom, were chiefly taken. His butler, his under butler, his major domo, and his cooks were to swear fealty and homage,quia tam propter nefandissimam infidelitatem aliquorum ministrorum, quam ipsorum negligentiam, quæ est totius boni inimica, quâ ministrante omittuntur præcavenda, audivimus pluries tam Regibus quam aliis Principibus maxima pericula evenisse, quod est plus quam summe abhorrendum.No stranger might approach the place where any food for the King's table was prepared or kept; and all the cooks purveyors and sub-purveyors, and the major domo, and the chamberlain were to taste of every dish which was served up to him. The noble who ministered to him when he washed at table was to taste the water, and the barber who washed his head was to do the like; for great as the King was, being mindful that he was still but a man, he acknowledged it necessary that he should have a barber,pro humanis necessitatibus, quibus natura hominum quantâcunque fretum potentiâ nullum fecit expertem, etiam nos Barbitonsorum officio indigemus.His taylor was to work in a place where no suspicious people could have access; and whatever linen was used for his bed, or board, or more especially for his apparel, was to be washed in a secret place, and by none but known persons. The Chief Physician was to taste all the medicines that he administered. Every morning he was to inspect the royal urinal, and if he perceived any thing amiss prescribe accordingly. He was to attend at table, caution the King against eating of any thing that might prove hurtful, and if notwithstanding all precautions poison should be administered, he was to have his remedies at hand.

By the Chinese laws if either the superintending or dispensing officer, or the cook introduces into the Emperor's kitchen any unusual drug, or article of food, he is to be punished with an hundred blows, and compelled to swallow the same.

A CHAPTER WHEREIN STUDENTS IN SURGERY MAY FIND SOME FACTS WHICH WERE NEW TO THEM IN THE HISTORY OF THEIR OWN PROFESSION.

If I have more to spinThe wheel shall go.HERBERT.

Another reproach to which the medical profession was exposed arose from the preparatory studies which it required. The natural but unreflecting sentiment of horror with which anatomy is everywhere regarded by the populace, was unfortunately sanctioned by the highest authorities of the Roman Church. Absolutely necessary for the general good as that branch of science indisputably is, it was reprobated by some of the Fathers in the strongest and most unqualified terms; they called it butchering the bodies of the dead; and all persons who should disinter a corpse for this purpose, were excommunicated by a decree of Boniface the 8th, wherein the science itself was pronounced abominable both in the eyes of God and man. In addition to this cause of obloquy, there was a notion that cruel experiments, such as are now made upon animals, and too often unnecessarily, and therefore wickedly repeated, were sometimes performed upon living men. The Egyptian Physician who is believed first to have taught that the nerves are the organs of sensation, is said to have made the discovery by dissecting criminals alive. The fact is not merely stated by Celsus, but justified by him. Deducing its justification as a consequence from the not-to-be disputed assertioncum in interioribus partibus et dolores, et morborum varia genera nascantur, neminem his adhibere posse remedia, quæ ipse ignoret:—necessarium ergo esse,he proceeds to say,incidere corpora mortuorum, eorumque viscera atque intestina scrutari.LONGEQUE OPTIME FECISSEHerophilum et Erasistratum, qui nocentes homines à regibus ex carcere acceptos,VIVOS INCIDERINT;considerarintque,ETIAM SPIRATU MANENTE,ea quæ natura antea clausisset, eorumque posituram, colorem, figuram, magnitudinem, ordinem, duritiem, mollitiem, lævorem, contactum; processus deinde singulorum et recessus; et sive quid inseritur alteri, sive quid partem alterius in se recipit.As late as the sixteenth century surgeons were wont to beg (as it was called) condemned malefactors, whom they professed to put to death in their own way, by opium before they opened them. It might well be suspected that these disciples of Celsus were not more scrupulous than their master; and they who thus took upon themselves the business of an executioner, had no reason to complain if they shared in the reproach attached to his infamous office.

A French author1of the sixteenth century says that the Physicians at Montpelier, which was then a great school of medicine, had every year two criminals, the one living, the other dead, delivered to them for dissection. He relates that on one occasion they tried what effect the mere expectation of death would produce upon a subject in perfect health, and in order to this experiment they told the gentleman (for such was his rank) who was placed at their discretion, that, as the easiest mode of taking away his life, they would employ the means which Seneca had chosen for himself, and would therefore open his veins in warm water. Accordingly they covered his face, pinched his feet without lancing them, and set them in a foot-bath, and then spoke to each other as if they saw that the blood were flowing freely, and life departing with it. The man remained motionless, and when after a while they uncovered his face they found him dead.

1BOUCHET.

It would be weakness or folly to deny that dangerous experiments for the promotion of medical or surgical practice may, without breach of any moral law, or any compunctious feeling, be tried upon criminals whose lives are justly forfeited. The Laureate has somewhere in his farraginous notesde omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, produced a story of certain Polish physicians who obtained permission to put on the head of a criminal as soon as it had been cut off, and an assurance of his pardon if they should succeed in reuniting it. There is nothing to be objected to such an experiment, except its utter unreasonableness.

When it was necessary that what was at that time a most difficult and dangerous surgical operation should be performed upon Louis XIV, enquiry was made for men afflicted with the same disease, they were conveyed to the house of the minister Louvois, and there in presence of the King's physician Fagon, Felix the chief surgeon operated upon them. Most of these patients died; they were interred by night, but notwithstanding all precautions it was observed that dead bodies were secretly carried from that house, and rumours got abroad that a conspiracy had been discovered, that suspected persons had been brought before the minister and had either died under the question or been made away with by poison under his roof. The motive for this secresy was that the King might be saved from that anxiety which the knowledge of what was going on must have excited in him. In consequence of these experiments, Felix invented new instruments which he tried at the Hotel des Invalides, and when he had succeeded with them the result was communicated to the King, who submitted to the operation with characteristic fortitude. The surgeon performed it firmly and successfully; but the agitation which he had long struggled against and suppressed, produced then a general tremour from which he never recovered. The next day, in bleeding one of his own friends he maimed him for life.

This was a case in which the most conscientious practitioner would have felt no misgiving; there was no intentional sacrifice of life, or infliction of unnecessary suffering. So too when inoculation for the small-pox was introduced into this country; some condemned criminals gladly consented to be inoculated instead of hanged, and saved their lives by the exchange.

It is within the memory of some old members of the profession, that a man was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey, who had a wen upon his throat weighing between thirty and forty pounds. To hang him was impossible without circumstances of such revolting cruelty as would, even at that time, have provoked a general outcry of indignation. The case found its way from the lawyers to the surgeons; the latter obtained his pardon, and took off the tumour. John Hunter was the operator; the man, his offence not having been of a very heinous kind, though the indiscriminating laws made it at that time capital, was taken into his service, and used to show his own wen in his master's museum; it was the largest from which any person had ever been relieved. The fate of the poor Chinese who underwent a similar operation in London with a different result, is fresh in remembrance and will long be remembered. The operation was made a public exhibition for medical students, instead of being performed with all circumstances that could tend to soothe the patient; and to the consequent heat of a crowded room, and partly perhaps to the excitement which such an assemblage occasioned in the object of their curiosity, the fatal termination was with too much probability imputed. We may be sure that no such hazardous operation will ever again be performed in this country in the same public manner.

The remarks which were called forth on that occasion are proofs of the great improvement in general feeling upon such points, that has taken place in modern times. In the reign of Louis XI. a franc-archer of Meudon was condemned to be hanged for robbery and sacrilege; he appealed to the Court of Parliament, but that Court confirmed the sentence, and remanded him to the Provost of Paris for execution. The appeal however seems to have brought the man into notice, and as he happened to afford a surgical case as well as a criminal one, the surgeons and physicians of the French capital petitioned the King for leave to operate upon him. They represented that many persons were afflicted with the stone and other internal disorders; that the case of this criminal resembled that of the Sieur de Bouchage who was then lying dangerously ill; it was much to be desired for his sake that the inside of a living man should be inspected, and no better subject could have occurred than this franc-archer who was under sentence of death. This application was made at the instance of Germaine Colot, a practitioner who had learned his art under one of the Norsini, a Milanese family of itinerant surgeons, celebrated during several generations for their skill in lithotomy. Whether the criminal had his option of being hanged, or opened alive, is not stated; but Monstrelet by whom the fact is recorded, says that permission was granted, that the surgeons and physicians opened him, inspected his bowels, replaced them, and then sewed him up; that the utmost care was taken of him by the King's orders, that in the course of fifteen days he was perfectly cured, and that he was not only pardoned but had a sum of money given him. To such means were the members of this profession driven, because anatomy was virtually if not formally prohibited.

A much worse example occurred when the French King Henry II. was mortally wounded in tilting with Montgomery. It is stated by most historians that a splinter from Montgomery's spear entered the King's visor and pierced his eye; but Vincent Carloix, who probably was present, and if not, had certainly the best means of information, shows that this is altogether an erroneous statement. He says that when the Scot had broken his spear upon the King, instead of immediately throwing away the truncheon, as he ought to have done, he rode on holding it couched; the consequence of this inadvertence was that it struck the King's visor, forced it up, and ran into his eye. His words are these,ayans tous deux fort valeureusement couru et rompu d'une grande dexterité et adresse leurs lances, ce mal-habile Lorges ne jecta pas, selon l'ordinaire coustume, le trousse qui demoura en la main la lance rompue; mais le porta tousjours baissé, et en courant, rencontra la teste du Roy, du quel il donna droit dedans la visiere qui le coup haulsa, et luy creva un œil.

The accuracy of this account happens to be of some importance, because the course which the King's surgeons pursued in consequence illustrates the state of surgery at that time, and of manners and laws also; for with the hope of ascertaining in what direction the broken truncheon had entered the brain and how they might best proceed to extract the splinters, they cut off the heads of four criminals, and drove broken truncheons into them, as nearly as they could judge at the same inclination, and then opened the heads. But after these lessons, five or six of the most expert surgeons in France were as much at a loss as before.

It was well that there were criminals ready upon the occasion, otherwise perhaps, in the then temper of the French Court, the first Huguenots who came to hand might have been made to serve the turn. And it was well for the subjects that it was not thought advisable to practise upon them alive; for no scruples would have been entertained upon the score of humanity. When Philip Von Huten, whom the Spanish writers call Felipe de Utre, made his expedition from Venezuela in search of the Omeguas, an Indian wounded him with a spear, under the right arm, through the ribs. One Diego de Montes, who was neither surgeon nor physician, undertook to treat the wound, because there was no person in the party better qualified to attempt it. A life was to be sacrificed for his instruction, and accordingly a friendly Cacique placed the oldest Indian in the village at his disposal. This poor creature was drest in Von Huten's coat of mail (sayo o escaulpil) and set on horseback; Montes then ran a spear into him through the hole in this armour, after which he opened him, and found that the integuments of the heart had not been touched, this being what he wished to ascertain. The Indian died; but Von Huten's wound was opened and cleansed in full reliance upon the knowledge thus obtained, and he recovered.

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