PRESCRIPTIONS REMARKABLE AND RIDICULOUS.

“He finds out what stuff they’re made of.”—Shakspeare. “By setting brother against brother, To claw and curry one another.”—Butler.

Mythology informs us that Heraclitus, the melancholy philosopher of Ephesus, fixed his residence in a manure heap, by the advice of his physicians, in hopes of thereby being cured of the dropsy. The remedy proved worse than the disease, and the philosopher died. From that time till the present, medical prescriptions have rather partaken of the extravagant and the ridiculous, than of the rational and beneficial.

In biblical times the real remedies consisted of a few simples, and were almost totally confined to external uses. Fig paste was a favorite remedy for swellings, boils, and ulcers, and an ointment made of olives and some spices was used for wounds, etc. Mrs. Eve, it is said, took to fig leaves. The myrrh and hyssop were used chiefly among the Jews for purification. The former was obtained from Egypt and Arabia East. The original name was, in Arabic, marra, meaning bitter.

The history of medicine is referable to about 1184 before Christ, from which time to Hippocrates, 460 B. C., it could not lay claim to the name of science. It was confined almost entirely to the priestcraft, and partook largely of the fabulous notions of that superstitious age, and was connected with their gods and heroes. Then, necessarily with such a belief, the remedies lay in ceremonies and incantations, as before mentioned in chapter first, and the priests had it all their own way.

Chiron, according to Grecian bibliographers, was about the first who practised medicine to any extent, and who, with Apollo, claimed to have received his knowledge direct from Jupiter. Æsculapius was a son of Apollo. Æsculapius had two sons, who became celebrated physicians, and one daughter, Hygeia, the goddess of health. For a long time the practice of medicine was confined to the descendants of Æsculapius, who was worshipped in the temples of Epidaurus, the ruins of one of which is said to still be seen.

Hippocrates claimed to be a descendant of Æsculapius (460 B. C.). The remedies used by his predecessors were a few vegetable medicines, accelerated by a good many mystical rites. It would seem that medicinal springs were patronized at this early date, as temples of health were established near such wells, in Greece. Theophrastus, of Lesbos, was a fuller’s son, and wrote a book on plants. He was a pupil to Plato and Aristotle.

Podalirius was going to cure every disease by bleeding, Herodicus by gymnastics, and Archagathus by burning and gouging out the diseased parts. Then arose Chrysippus, who reversed the blood-letting theory, and would allay the venous excitement by simple medications (not having discovered the difference between veins and arteries, and when they did, it was supposed the latter contained only air; hence the name); Asclepiades, who “kicked Hippocrates’ nature out of doors,” and the thermo-therapeutists, who turned out the latter.

After the followers of Archagathus, or Archegenus, were driven out of Rome, the hot baths were established, which were the earliest mentioned. There was a very celebrated cold water bath established somewhat earlier, for which Mr. Noah, who owned the right, got up a very large tub, for the exclusive use of himself, family, and household pets. The bath—like nearly all cold water baths extensively used since—was a complete success, killing off all who ventured into the water.

During the reign of the Roman emperor Caracalla (211-217) thermal baths were extensively established at Rome, and Gibbon informs us that they were open for the reception of both senators and people; that they would accommodate three thousand persons at once. The enclosure exceeded a mile in circumference. At one end there was a magnificent temple, dedicated to the god Apollo, and at the reverse another, sacred to Æsculapius, the tutelary divinities of the ThermÆ. The Grecians also established cold, warm, and hot baths; and in Turkey the bathing was a religious rite until a very recent period. More recently, it is a source of diversion. “Cleanliness is akin to godliness,” and recreation is a religious duty; therefore the warm bath, whether followed as a superstitious rite or as a source of amusement, is nevertheless commendable as a sanitary measure.

Dr. Dio Lewis, of Boston, has a grand warm (Turkish) bathing establishment. There are several hot, champooing, and cooling rooms for ladies or gentlemen, and a grand plunge bath, containing sixteen thousand gallons of water, warmed by a steam apparatus. If the Bostonians are dirty hereafter, they must not blame the doctor. No man knows how dirty he is till he tries one of these baths.“Crosby’s History of the English Baptists preserves the opinion of Sir John Floyer, physician, that immersion was of great sanitary value, and that its discontinuance, about the year 1600, had been attended with ill effects on the physical condition of the population. ‘Immersion would prevent many hereditary diseases if it were still practised,’ he said. An old man, eighty years of age, whose father lived at the time while immersion was the practice, said that parents would ask the priest to dip well into the water that part of the child which was diseased, to prevent its descending to posterity.

“Baxter vehemently and exaggeratedly denounced it as a breach of the sixth commandment. It produced catarrh, etc., and, in a word, was good for nothing but to despatch men out of the world.”

“If murder be sin, then dipping ordinarily in cold water over head is a sin.”

So much for Dr. Floyer vs. Baxter. Surely the latter ought to have been “dipped.”

A western paper of respectability is responsible for the statement, that an old lady followed up a bishop as he travelled through his diocese, in that vicinity, and was confirmed several times before detected.

“Why did you do such a remarkable deed?” asked the bishop. “Did you feel that your sins were so great as to require a frequent repetition of the ordinance?”

“O, no,” replied the old lady, complacently; “but I heerd say it was good for the rheumatiz.”

The bishop didn’t confirm her any more. She was really going to baptism as the voters go to the polls and vote in New York—“early and often.”

Old English Prescriptions.

The prescriptions and doses of the old English doctors were “stunning.”Billy Atkins, a gout doctor of Charles II.’s time, who resided in the Old Bailey, did an immense business in his specialty. His remarkable wig and dress will find a place in our chapter on “Dress.” He made a nostrum on the authority of Swift, compounded of thirty different promiscuous ingredients.

The apothecary to Queen Elizabeth brought in his quarter-bill, £83, 7s. 8d. Amongst the items were the following: “A confection made like a manus Christi, with bezoar stone, and unicorn’s horn, 11s. Sweet scent for christening of Sir Richard Knightly’s son, 2s. 6d. A conserve of barberries, damascene plums, and others, for Mr. Ralegh, 6s. Rose water for the King of Navarre’s ambassador, 12s. A royal sweetmeat, with rhubarb, 16d.”

A sweet preparation, and a favorite of Dr. Theodore Mayerne, was “balsam of bats.” A cure for hypochondria was composed of “adders, bats, angle-worms, sucking whelps, ox-bones, marrow, and hog’s grease.” Nice!

After perusing—without swallowing—his medical prescriptions, the reader would scarcely desire to follow the directions in his “Excellent and well-approved Receipts in Cooking.” I should rather, to run my risk, breakfast on boarding-house or hotel hash, than partake of food prepared from Dr. Mayerne’s “Cook Book.”

According to Dr. Sherley, Mayerne gave violent drugs, calomel in scruple doses, mixed sugar of lead with conserves, and fed gouty kings on pulverized human bones.

“A small, young mouse roasted,” is recommended by Dr. Bullyn, as a cure for restlessness and nervousness in children. For cold, cough, and tightness of the lungs, he says, “Snayles (snails) broken from the shells and sodden in whyte wyne, with olyv oyle and sugar, are very holsome.” Snails were long a favorite remedy, and given in consumption for no other reason than that “it was a slow disease.” A young puppy’s skin (warm and fresh) was applied to the chest of a child with croup, because he barked! Fish-worms, sow-bugs, crab’s eyes, fish-oil, sheep-droppings, and such delicious stuff were, and still are, favorite remedies with some physicians and country people. The following was one of Dr. Boleyn’s royal remedies:—

“Electuarium de Gemmis. Take two drachms of white perles; two little peeces of saphyre; jacinth, corneline, emerauldes, garnettes, of each an ounce; setwal, the sweate roote doronike, the rind of pomecitron, mace, basel seede, of each two drachms; of redde corall, amber, shaving of ivory, of each two drachms; rootes both of white and red behen, ginger, long peper, spicknard, folium indicum, saffron, cardamon, of each one drachm; of troch. diarodon, lignum aloes, of each half a small handful; cinnamon, galinga, zurubeth, which is a kind of setwal, of each one drachm and a half; thin pieces of gold and sylver, of each half a scruple; of musk, half a drachm. Make your electuary with honey emblici, which is the fourth kind of mirobalans with roses, strained in equall partes, as much as will suffice. This healeth cold, diseases of ye braine, harte, stomack. It is a medicine proved against the tremblynge of the harte, faynting, and sounin, the weakness of the stomacke, pensivenes, solitarines. Kings and noblemen have used this for their comfort. It causeth them to be bold-spirited, the body to smell wel, and ingendreth to the face good coloure.”

“Truly a medicine for kings and noblemen,” says Jeaffreson, who gives the following:—

“During the railroad panic of England (1846), an unfortunate physician prescribed the following for a nervous lady:—

?.		Great Western, 350 shares.
		Eastern Counties,	}
		North Middlesex,		a. a. 1050.
M.		Haust. 1. Om. noc. cap.

“This direction for a delicate lady to swallow nightly (noc.) 2450 railway shares was cited as proof of the doctor’s insanity, and the management of his private affairs was placed in other hands.”

HOW A LADY PROCURED A VALUABLE PRESCRIPTION.“A humersome doctor,” as Mrs. Partington would say, gives the following

CURE FOR THE BLUES.
Tinc. Peruvii barki bitters, 1 oz.
Sugari albi, vel sweetningus, considerabilibus.
Spiritus frumenti, vel old repeus, ad lib.
Waterus pumpus, non multum.
Nutmegus, sprinklibus.

A Sure Cure.

A physician of our acquaintance was called to a lady patient after she had enjoyed a season of unusual domestic quarrels, who was not over long in “turning herself wrong-side out”—as some females will insist upon doing, for the edification of the medical man—telling, not only all about her pains and aches, but her “trials with that man,” her husband—her brutal usage, her scanty wardrobe, her mortification on seeing Mrs. Outsprout appear in a new blue silk, and a “love of a bonnet,” and (after entertaining the doctor with wine and good things) finally wind up in hysterical sobs—for which he prescribed, as follows:—

The husband enjoyed the joke; the wife enjoyed the clothes, the diamond pin, and the ride; and the doctor heard no more of their quarrels.

Heroic Doses.

Just prior to the year 1800, two brothers, named Taylor, emerged from obscurity in Yorkshire, and set up for doctors. They were farriers, and from shoeing they advanced to doctoring and bleeding horses, thence to drugging and butchering those of their fellow-creatures who naturally preferred brute doctors to respectable physicians. Their system of practice was a wholesale one.

DOSE—ONE QUART EVERY HOUR.

“Soft chirurgions make foul sores,” said Boleyn, the grandfather of the beautiful and unfortunate Anne Boleyn. The Taylors struck no soft blows, “but opened the warfare against disease by bombardment of shot and shell in all directions. They bled their patients by the gallon, and drugged them, as they did the cattle, by the stone. Their druggists, Ewbank & Wallis, of York, supplied them with a ton of Glauber’s salts at a time. Scales and weights in their dispensary were regarded as bugbears of ignoble minds. Everything was mixed by the scoop or handful. If they ordered broth for a delicate patient, they directed the nurse to boil a large leg of mutton in a copper of water, down to a strong decoction, and administer a quart at stated intervals,” nolens volens?

The little Abbe de Voisenon, the celebrated wit and dramatic writer (1708-1775), was once sick at the chateau near Melum, and his physician ordered him to drink a quart of ptisan (a decoction of barley and other ingredients) every hour.

“What was the effect of the ptisan?” asked the doctor, on his next visit.

“None,” replied the Abbe.

“Have you swallowed it all?”

“No; I could not take but half of it at once.”

“No more than half! My order was the whole,” exclaimed the doctor.

“Ah! now, friend,” said the Abbe, “how could you expect me to swallow a quart at a time, when I hold only a pint?”

Drowning a Fever.

As the next anecdote has had to do service for more than one physician, it is immaterial which doctor it was. He was an irascible old fellow, at least, and not at all careful in leaving orders.

“Your husband is very sick, woman,” said the doctor to the wife of an Irish laborer. “His fever is high, and skin as dry as a fish, or a parish contribution box. You must give him plenty of cold water, all he will drink, and to-night I’ll see him again. There, don’t come snivelling around me. My heart is steeled against that sort of thing. But, as you want something to cry for, just hear me. Your husband isn’t going to die! There, now, I know you are disappointed, but you brought it on to yourself.” Going away—“Mind, lots of water—”

“Wather, sir! Hoo much wather, docther dear? He shall have it, but, yer honor didn’t tell me hoo much wather I must give him.”

“Zounds, woman, haven’t I told you to give him all he will take? Hoo much? Give him a couple of buckets full, if he will swallow them. Do you hear now? Two buckets full.”

“The Lord bless yer honor,” cried the woman; and the doctor made his escape.

At evening the doctor stopped, on his return, to ask after the patient. “How is he, woman?” asked the doctor.

“O, he’s been tuck away, save yer honor,” cried the widow. “The wather did him no good, only we couldn’t get down the right quantity. We did our best, doctor dear, and got down him better nor a pailful and a half, when he slipped away from us. Ah, if we could oonly ha’ got him to swaller the other half pailful, he might not have died, yer honor.”

An exact Science.

It is sometimes painfully amusing to observe, not only the difference of opinion expressed by medical men from one generation to another, but by those of the same period, and same school.

In the “London Lancet” of July, 1864, there appeared a curious table. A medical practitioner, who had long suffered from hay fever, had from time to time consulted various other medical men by letter, and he gives us in a tabular survey the opinions they gave him of the causes of this disease, and the remedies, as follows:—

“Herewith,” writes Dr. Jones, “I forward a synopsis of the opinions of a few of the most eminent men, in various countries, that I have consulted. I have substituted a letter for the name, as I do not think it prudent to place before the general reader the names of those who have so disagreed.”

Consulted.	Opinion of Cause.		Recommended.
Dr. A.	A predisposition to phthisis.		Quinine and sea voyage.
Dr. B.	Disease of pneumogastric nerve.		Arsen., bell., and cinchona.
Dr. C.	Disease of the caruncula.		Apply bell. and zinc.
Dr. D.	Inflammation of Schneiderian membrane.		To paint with nitrate of silver.
Dr. E.	Strumous diathesis.		Quinine, cod liver oil, and wine.
Dr. F.	Dyspepsia.		Kreosote, henbane, quinine.
Dr. G.	Vapor of chlorophyll.		Remain in a room from 11 A. M. to 6 P. M.
Dr. H.	Light debility, hay pollen.		Do., port wine, snuff, salt, and opium, and wear blue glasses.
Dr. L.	From large doses of iodine. (Never took any iodine.)		Try quinine and opium.
Dr. M.	Disease of iris.		Avoid the sun’s rays from 11 A. M. to 6 P. M.
Dr. N.	Want of red corpuscles.		Try iron, port wine, and soups.
Dr. O.	Disease of optic nerve.		Phosph. ac. and quinine.
Dr. P.	Asthma from hay pollen.		Chlorodyne and quinine.
Dr. Q.	Phrenitis.		Small doses of opium.
Dr. R.	Nervous debility, from heat.		Turkish baths.

This needs no comment.

The different opinions on doses of medicine is more absurd. We have already mentioned cases wherein certain physicians administered calomel in scruple, and even drachm doses. Before us is a work wherein it is seriously asserted that a medicinal action was obtained from the two hundredth trituration,—a dose so small, in comparison with the scruple doses, as to be counted only by the millionths.

How many of us have had to wake up mornings, and swallow a table-spoonful of sulphur and molasses, with mingled feelings of disgust at the sulphur, and exquisite delight from the molasses, as we retired, lapping our mouths, to get the last taste! Now, L. B. Wells, M. D., of New York, informs us that he has cured an eruption of the skin by the use of the four thousandth dilution of sulphur,—so comparatively small that I cannot express it by figures. Well, these extremes have their uses, and we may look for relief in the mediate ground. The smaller we can get the dose, and still be reliable, the better we shall suit the people,—though we shall seriously offend the apothecaries.

Dr. Francis, in his book, “Surgeons of New York,” tells the following, which illustrates how a desperate remedy may apply to a desperate disease. The cases in reference were “peritonitis.” Dr. Smith (our “plough-boy”) had charge of the lying-in wards, under Professor Clark.

“Dr. Smith, have you ever attended a common school?” asked Professor Clark.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you ever hear a teacher say, ‘I will whip you within an inch of your life?’” pursued Dr. Clark.

“Yes, sir; I have.”

“Well, that is the way I wish you to give opium to these patients,—‘to within an inch of their lives.’”

Dr. Smith determined to follow implicitly his instructions, and gave to one as high as twelve grains of opium an hour.

“At this extreme point the remedy was maintained for several days.

“The patient recovered, and remained in the hospital, attached to kitchen service, for several months.”

Certainly, the poor Irish, even, have their uses in New York city.

Mineral Springs.

The writer, having spent much time at the various mineral springs throughout the United States, and partaken of the water of some for weeks in succession, is competent to give an opinion as to their merits. Collectively, they are commendable, especially those located in country places, away from scenes of dissipation and profligacy.

The only reliable way to expect benefit from spring waters is to select one by the advice of your physician, and go direct to the spring.

Much of the bottled waters sold are “doctored,” either by the retailer, the wholesaler, or often at the springs from where they are exported. Who is to know whether Vichy, Kissengen, Saratoga, or even Vermont mineral water, as sold by the package, ever saw the respective springs from which they are named? The various mineral waters are easily made, by adding to carbonized water such peculiar minerals, or salts, as analysis has shown exists in the natural springs. I knew a man who affirmed that he ruined a suit of clothes, while employed at a certain spring, by the acids with which he “doctored” the water, before it was shipped. Sulphuret of potassium covers the properties of many springs; iron others.

It has been intimated that the waters of a celebrated spring which I visited is indebted for its peculiar flavor to an old tannery, which, within the memory of that mythical being, “the oldest inhabitant,” occupied the site where this favorite spring “gushes forth.” Having no desire to be tanned inside,—after my boyhood’s experience in that delightful external process,—I respectfully declined drinking from this spring.

By the immense quantities of “spring water” gulped down hourly and daily by visitors, one is led to suppose the cure lies in a thorough washing out. There is an excellent spring near Nashville, Tenn., from which I drank for a week; also another at Sheldon, Vt. There are three different springs at this latter place, but I prefer the “Sheldon” to either of the other two. I discovered a good spring at Newport, Vt., and there are others in that vicinity.

Cold Drinks vs. Warm Drinks.

“Drink freely of cold water,” says an author of no small repute, to persons of a weak stomach, viz., dyspeptics.When I was an apprentice, my master (Sir Charles Blicke) used to say, “O, sir, you are faint: pray drink this water.” “And what do you think was the effect of putting cold water into a man’s stomach, under these circumstances?” asks the great Dr. Abernethy. “Why, of course, that it was often rejected in his face.” Never put cold water, or cold victuals, into a weak stomach.

The above surgeon is responsible for the following advice.

An Irishman called in great haste upon the doctor, saying,—

“O, dochter—be jabers, me b’y Tim has swallowed a mouse.”

“Then, Paddy, be jabers, let your boy Tim swallow a cat.”

The Old Lady and the Pump.

One can readily conceive the utility of a warm bath—even a cold water bath, if the bather is robust—or a steam bath, a vapor, or a sun bath; but the advantage of the absurdity which the nineteenth century has introduced from antiquity, viz., the dry cupping, or pumping treatment, is not so self-evident.

An old lady, suffering from “rheumatism, and a humor of the blood,” was persuaded to visit a “pump-doctor’s” rooms.

“What’s that hollow thing for?” she nervously inquired.

“That is a limb-receiver,” replied the polite operator. “If the disease is in the limb, we enclose it within this; the rubber excludes the air, and to this faucet we affix the pump, and remove the air from the limb.”

“Yes, yes; but I thought air was necessary to health; besides, I don’t see how that is going to cure the limb. Does it add anything to, or take anything from the limb?” she inquired.

“Well—no—yes; that is, it draws the disease out from that part.”“Yes, yes; but suppose the disease is all over the person, as mine is.”

“Then we place them in this,” putting his hand upon an article which she had not before discovered.

“That? Why, that looks like the case to a Dutchman’s pipe, only a sight times larger. And do tell if you shet folks up in that box,” cautiously approaching and examining it.

The operator assured her such was the case.

“Is the disease left in the box when you are done pumping? Does it really suck all the disease into the thing by the process?” she inquired.

“Well, madam, you put your questions in a remarkable manner. But it displaces the air around the person, and the vital principle within forces out the disease. It is certain to benefit all diseases,” he replied.

“Well, I don’t see how it can, if it can’t be seen. Does it act as physic, emetic, a bath, or do the sores follow right out of the blood into the box?”

“Neither, madam.” The operator was very patient. “Just try the limb-receiver first; then you can tell better about the whole treatment.”

After much persuasion, and by the assistance of the female operator, the old lady was seated, and the limb-receiver adjusted. Now the man in the next room began to pump. The old lady was very nervous, and felt for her snuff-box, and while so doing the man was still pumping. Having taken the snuff, her mind again referred to the limb in the box, and the pressure (suction) having naturally increased, her nervousness overcame her, and with a scream and a bound she left the chair and rushed for the door, dragging the receiver, which clung tight to the one limb, rather outweighing the boot and hose of the other, drawing the gutta-percha pipe after her, which only added to her fright, and with another scream for “help,” and “O, will nobody save me?—O, murder, murder!” she, like a bound lion, went the length of her chain, and tumbled over in a heap on the floor. The woman rushed from behind the screen, the man from the pump-room, and rescued the old lady, who fled to her carriage in waiting; and doubtless to her dying day she will continue to tell of how narrowly she escaped “being sucked entirely through that gutta-percha pipe—only for her having on a bustle.”

Country Mistakes.

A Canadian, of a nervous, consumptive diathesis, went down to Portland, Maine, to consult a physician, and fell in with old Dr. F., whom he found busily engaged in examining some papers. The old doctor heard his case, and hurriedly wrote him a prescription. The chirography of the doctor was none of the best, yet the Portland druggists, who were familiar with his scrawls, could easily decipher his prescriptions. Not so the country apothecary, to whom the patient took the recipe, to save expense, which was something as follows: “Spiritus frumenti et valerianum,” etc.; then followed the directions for taking.

After much delay and consultation with the green-grocer boy, it was put up as a painter’s article, viz., “spirits turpentine and varnish.”

The first glass-full satisfied the invalid.

Drunk, or Sober.

A gentleman, knowing the parties in his boyhood, rehearsed to me the following anecdote:—

Old Dr. Gallup, of ——, N. H., was an excellent physician, whose failing lay in his propensity to imbibe more spirits then he could carry off.

“Are you drunk, or sober?” was no unusual question, put by those requiring his services, before permitting the old doctor to prescribe.

“PUMPING” AN OLD LADY.

A DANGEROUS PRESCRIPTION.“Sober as a judge. What—hic—do you want?” he would reply.

Mr. B., who had been a long time confined to his house, under the care of an old fogy doctor, one of the “Gods of Medicine,” with whom all knowledge remains, and with whom all knowledge dies, after taking nearly all the drugs contained in his Materia Medica, decided to change, and sent for Dr. Gallup.

“Are you drunk, or sober, doctor?” was the first salutation.

“Sober as a judge. What’s wanted?” was the reply, omitting the “hic.”

“Can you cure me? I’ve been blistered and parboiled, puked and physicked, bled in vein and pocket for the last three months. Now, can you cure me?”

Gallup looked over the case, and the medicine left by the other doctor, threw the latter all out of the window, ordered a nourishing diet, told Mr. B. to take no more drugs, took his fee, and left. Mr. B. recovered without another visit.

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