THE podagric unguent of the “so much famed Franciscus Jos. Borrhi," was made up of almost all the parts of a stag. It was inferred, from the supposed longevity of this animal, that nature had stored it with a balsamic preservative salt in a greater proportion than most other creatures, and therefore that all its parts, even the excrementitious one, were endued with medical virtues. A physician of Jena, Joh. Andrea Gratz by name, wrote a treatise upon this, entitled Elaphographia, sive Cervi Descriptio Physico-Medico-Chymica.-Ibid. pp. 281-2.

"THE parliament of Paris, at the solicitation of the Parisian physicians (among whom Guy Patin was the most conspicuous), prohibited the use of antimony in medicine. This restriction, after some years, was removed; but it was a long time indeed before the French physicians could get the better of their prejudices, or rather of their timidity, in regard to the employment of those active remedies which are derived from the chemical preparations of this and other metallic substances, and which give to the practice of physic a vigour and efficiency that it formerly wanted.”—Ibid. p. 596, N.

MARTIN LISTER describes a cimex of the

largest size, of a red colour, with black spots, as to be found in great abundance upon henbane. "It is observable," he says, "that that horrid and strong smell with which the leaves of this plant affect our nostrils, is very much qualified in this insect, and in some measure aromatic and agreeable; and there we may expect that that dreadful narcosis so eminent in this plant, may likewise be usefully tempered in this insect; which we refer to trial."-Ibid. pp. 602-3.

the Chinese physicians in finding out by their touch, not only that the body is diseased, (which, he said, was all that our practitioners knew by it,) but also from what cause or from what part the sickness proceeds. To make ourselves masters of this skill, he would

"ISAAC VOSSIUS commended the skill of

have us explore the nature of men's pulses, till they became as well known and as familiar to us as a harp or lute is to the players thereon; it not being enough for them to know that there is something amiss which spoils the tune, but they must also know what string it is which causes that fault." -Ibid. vol. 2, p. 63.

"OUR foresters," says SIR G. MACKENZIE, "allege, that when deer are wounded, they lie on a certain herb which grows plentifully in our forests, and that by its virtue the bleeding is stanched, and the wound healed. I took a quantity of it, and reduced it to a salve, with wax and butter. Its effect was, that it healed too suddenly, so that I durst not venture to use it for any deep wound, but for superficial scars it has a very sudden operation. It is the Asphodelus Lancastriæ Verus of Johnstone; or the Lancashire Asphodel."-Ibid. p. 227.

66

JOHANNES BAPTISTA ALPRUNUS, physician to the Empress Eleonora, in A.D. 1670, at Prague, lanced a plague-boil in one of his patients. Having conceived that the way for him to penetrate into the most latent quality of this pestiferous venom was by chemistry; not with knives, but glasses, -not with iron, but fire,-I collected the virulent matter, and putting it in a retort, and luting a receiver to it very close, I applied degrees of fire. At first came over a water, then a more fat and oily matter, and at last a salt ascended into the neck of the retort. The fire being removed, and the glasses separated, there came forth so great

The discovery is subsequent to the old edition of GERARDE by JOHNSON, where it is stated, "it is not yet found out what use there is of any of them in nourishment or medicines:" p. 97. No scholar, but knows the Dictamnus of VIRGIL. Æn. xii. v. 411; Cf. Cic. de N. D. ii. 50. BISHOP HACKET says in the Christian Consolutions, which were long given to Jeremy Taylor, "The hart wounded with an arrow, runs to the herb dittany to bite it, that the shaft may fall out that stuck in his body:" vol. i. p. 129. Ed. Heber.-J. W. W.

a stench that a thousand wounds exposed to the summer heat could not have equalled it. And though I thought I had sufficiently armed my senses against it, that is, my ears with cotton, my nose with pessaries, my mouth with sponges, all dipt in vinegars and | treacles, yet, as if touched with a thunderbolt, I was struck with a violent trembling of my body. Having broken the glass, I gave some of this horridly-stinking salt to to M. Reshel to taste, and then I tasted it myself, and it was found to have an acrimony as great as aqua regis." To this acrimony he ascribed all the phenomena which occur in the plague.—Ibid. p. 491.

THE same physician thought he preserved himself by setons in the groin, thinking that the venom would find its way into his system, and that the safest course was thus to open a way out for it.-Ibid. p. 492.

A SADDLER'S daughter at Burford had an imposthume which broke in the corner of one of her eyes, out of which came about thirty stones, splendid, and as large as pearls. -Ibid. vol. 3, 81. p.

MEDICINE among the Egyptians wholly built upon astrological or magical grounds. They thought the heart increased two drachms in weight annually till men were 50 years old, then decreased in the same proportion, so that no one could live beyond of 100.-Ibid. p. 681.

the

age

DR. ARCHIBALD PITCAIRN endeavoured, after Borelli and Bellini, to account for the principal phenomena, natural and morbid, which occur in the animal body,-upon mathematical principles !—Ibid. vol. 4, p. 46. See the passage.

A GIRL with horns on various parts of her body.-Ibid. vol. 3, p. 229.

CLAWS instead of nails.-Ibid. 4, p. 176.

A BOY three years without eating and drinking. Ibid. vol. 6. p. 459,

Ibid. vol. 7, p. 543, tuburculated skin.vol. 10, p. 562.

CASSINI saw a Russian at Florence who during two different years in his life had in his body an electrical virtue similar to that of the torpedo.-Monthly Review, vol. 66, p. 500.

SIR JOHN FLOYER in his Pharmacobasanos, or Touchstone of Medicines, attempted to account for their virtues by their taste and smell.-Phil. Trans. Abr. vol. 4, p. 458.

M. DE CHERAC, who was first physician to Louis XV. maintained that it is as much the duty of a physician to enforce discipline to the sick, as of a general to enforce it in an army.—Ibid. p. 497.

LINIMENTS for the itch "may be made agreeable enough, and of a good smell, as particularly is that compounded of the ointment of orange flowers, or roses, and a small quantity of red precipitate."-DR. MEAD. Ibid. vol. 5, p. 4.

WHEN the small pox is epidemical in the main land over against Skie Isle as in the isle itself, the natives bathe their children in the infusion of juniper wood, and they generally escape; when this is neglected they often die.-Ibid. p. 379.

PEARLS prescribed, to all those that are able to pay for them.-Ibid. p. 366. Gold and silver also. p. 368.

MANY Swallowed the stones of sloes and cherries, thinking they would prevent any danger of surfeit, or indigestion from the fruit.-Ibid. vol. 6, p. 253.

DODDRIDGE relates that a clergyman's lady, whose husband was of some eminence in the literary world, in a frenzy after a lying in (which was quickly removed) found during the time of it such an alteration in the state and tone of her nerves, that though she never had before nor since any ear for music, nor any voice, she was then capable

of singing, to the admiration of all about her, several fine tunes, which her sister had learnt in her presence some time before, but of which she had not then seemed to take any particular notice.—Ibid. vol. 9, p. 370.

A MAN who had lost the use of his speech for about four years, recovered it, by being extremely frightened in a dream. The dream was that he had fallen into a furnace of boiling wort, and he called for help.Ibid. p. 465.

Ibid. pp. 495-8. Medicines said to be insinuated into the body by electricity.-vol. 10, p. 13.

NICOLAS REEKS born with both feet turn

ed inwards, and pronounced incurable. Apprenticed at eleven years of age to a taylor, in six years sitting cross legged had produced a manifest alteration; in less than two years more, his feet and legs became like those of other men: he ran away and entered as a marine.—Ibid. p. 685.

THERE were two kinds of Usnea Humana, the crustacea et villosa; the former was most esteemed, and any of the crustacean lichens, but more properly the common grey-blue pitted lichenoides of Dillenius. The villosa was a species of the genus hypnum; any moss that happened to grow on a human skull was thought efficacious.Ibid. vol. 40, p. 252.

THE cup moss was long accounted a specific for hooping-cough. Willis had great faith in it.-Ibid. p. 255.

STRICT laws, vigilantly enforced, preserved New England from the small pox generally, Boston excepted, where it struck root, 1649, and was often epidemical.—Ibid. vol. 12, p. 229.

FAMILY at Maryport (the Harrises) who could not distinguish colours.-Ibid. vol. 14, p. 143.

DR. WHITE (of York, 1778) says "diseases which usually in private practice of an easy cure, are often very tedious in hospitals, and apt to assume anomalous symptoms. Healthy persons, admitted for the cure of recent wounds and other accidents, soon become pale, lose their appetite, and are generally discharged weak and emaciated, but soon recover by the benefit of fresh air. In some hospitals the cure of a compound fracture is rarely seen; in private practice and a pure air, such cases seldom fail."-Ibid. p. 326.

“THE Philosopher says that the phancy is seated in the middle region of the brain above the eyes, which upon great and sudden wrath calls up the spirits hastily into itself, and with that swift motion they are heated, and seem to flame in the eyes."BP. HACKET, p. 423.

"WOMEN, in certain circumstances to us unknown, are every now and then capable of very far exceeding the usual number of children at a birth."-Phil. Trans. Abr. vol. 16, p. 301.

HORNS on women.-Ibid. vol. 17, p. 28.

JULIAN calls Jupiter to witness that he had often been cured by remedies which Esculapius directed him to use. "But this," says Dr. Jenkins, "supposing the truth of the fact, doth not prove that false God to have had more skill than a physician might have had, but only shows that devils may have such knowledge of the nature of things, as to give prescriptions in physic."-Reasonableness of the Christian Religion, vol. 1, p. 349.

SUIDAS and Cedrenus report that Solomon wrote of the remedies of all diseases, and graved the same on the sides of the porch of the temple, which they say Hezekiah pulled down, because the people neglecting help from God by prayer, repaired thither for their recovery.-RALEIGH, b. 2, p. 429.

ON ne doit pas craindre d'avancer que la medecine est de toutes les sciences physiques celle qui a donné lieu au plus grand nombre de speculations."—Trans. Preface to Sprengel.

A GOOD severe jest of Henri IV. to the Parisians. If they instead of accepting his gracious offers should be by famine constrained "de se rendre la corde au col, au lieu," said he, "de la miséricorde que je leur offre, j'en ôterai la misère, et ils auront la corde.". Coll, des Mem. vol. 51, p. 340.

GILBERTUS ANGLICUS. His treatment of lethargy was to fasten a sow in the patient's bed. And in cases of apoplexy he administered ant's eggs, scorpion's oil, and lion's flesh, in order to induce fever; but Sprengel asks how lion's flesh was to be got in England ?-SPRENGEL, vol. 2, p. 406.

FICINUS advises old men to drink the blood of healthy young persons, as a means of prolonging life.-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 464.