The Funny Side of Physic Part 66

"That's old," replied the priest. "One wears his cross on his breast, the other on his back.--Now for my turn. What is the difference between the doctor and the a.s.s?"

"I cannot tell," replied the doctor; "what is the difference?"

"I see none," quietly replied the priest.

"NOT BY BREAD ALONE."

A physician in P., who had the reputation of being a high liver, was quite publicly reprimanded for his gluttony by an advent preacher of some note, not a thousand miles from Boston. The doctor bore his abuse without flinching, though he believed the man a hypocrite. A long time afterwards, he met the Adventist in his town, and, after some conversation, invited him to dine at his own house. The hungry Grahamite accepted, and at an early moment found himself at the doctor's board.

"Will you ask a blessing?" said the doctor; which request being complied with, he uncovered one of the only two dishes on the table, which contained nothing but bread. The preacher saw the point, and said, with a disappointed grin, "You shall not live by bread alone."

"Yes; I know that much Scripture," replied the doctor; "so I have provided some b.u.t.ter," uncovering the other dis.h.!.+

XX.

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.

FIG PASTE AND FIG LEAVES.--SOME OF THOSE OLD FELLOWS.--THEY SLIGHTLY DISAGREE.--HOW TO KEEP CLEAN.--BAXTER VS. THE DOCTOR.--A CURE FOR "RHEUMATIZ."--OLD ENGLISH DOSES.--CURE FOR BLUES.--FOR HYSTERIA.--HEROIC DOSES.--DROWNING A FEVER.--AN EXACT SCIENCE.--SULPHUR AND MOLa.s.sES.--A USE FOR POOR IRISH.--MINERAL SPRINGS.--COLD DRINKS VS. WARM.--THE OLD LADY AND THE AIR PUMP.--SAVED BY HER BUSTLE.--COUNTRY PRESCRIPTIONS AND A FUNNY MISTAKE.--ARE YOU DRUNK OR SOBER?

Mythology informs us that Herac.l.i.tus, 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 superst.i.tious age, and was connected with their G.o.ds 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. aesculapius was a son of Apollo. aesculapius had two sons, who became celebrated physicians, and one daughter, Hygeia, the G.o.ddess of health. For a long time the practice of medicine was confined to the descendants of aesculapius, who was wors.h.i.+pped in the temples of Epidaurus, the ruins of one of which is said to still be seen.

Hippocrates claimed to be a descendant of aesculapius (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 circ.u.mference. At one end there was a magnificent temple, dedicated to the G.o.d Apollo, and at the reverse another, sacred to aesculapius, the tutelary divinities of the Thermae. 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 G.o.dliness," and recreation is a religious duty; therefore the warm bath, whether followed as a superst.i.tious rite or as a source of amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 repet.i.tion 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 ma.n.u.s 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 amba.s.sador, 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 indic.u.m, 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 n.o.blemen 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 n.o.blemen," says Jeaffreson, who gives the following:--

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

[R]. Great Western, 350 shares.

Eastern Counties,} North Middles.e.x, } 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."