THE POWER OF TAR-WATER.
Doctor Hill, a notorious wit, physician, and man of letters, having quarrelled with the members of the Royal Society, who had refused to admit him as an associate, resolved to avenge himself. At the time that Bishop Berkeley had issued his work on the marvellous virtues of tar-water, Hill addressed to their secretary a letter, purporting to be from a country surgeon, and reciting the particulars of a cure which he had effected. "A sailor," he wrote, "broke his leg, and applied to me for help. I bound together the broken portions, and washed them with the celebrated tar-water. Almost immediately the sailor felt the beneficial effects of this remedy, and it was not long before his leg was completely healed!" The letter was read and discussed at the meetings of the Royal Society, and caused considerable difference of opinion. Papers were written for and against the tar-water and the restored leg, when a second letter arrived from the (pretended) country practitioner: "In my last I omitted to mention that the broken limb of the sailor was a wooden leg!"