MAGICAL PRETENSIONS OF CERTAIN HERBS, ETC.
In the enumeration of plants possessing magical properties, Pliny mentions those which, according to Pythagoras, have the property of concealing water. Elsewhere, without having resource to magic, he assigns to hemp an analogous quality. According to him, the juice of this plant poured into water becomes suddenly inspissated and congealed. It is probable enough, that he indicated a species of mallow, the hemp-leaved marsh-mallow, of which the mucilaginous juice produces this effect to a certain point, and an effect which may also be obtained from every vegetable as rich in mucilage.
Of vegetable productions, many produce intoxicating effects, such as berries of the night-shade,[132] scammony, and various species of fungi. These unquestionably have been made subservient to demonological purposes, which, with the ignorant, have passed off for supernatural agency. The priests, to whom the little comparative learning of the dark ages attached, knew well how to impose upon the credulous: but imposition was not always their object; an extent of benevolence prevailed which contemplated the relief of their fellow creatures afflicted with sickness.
It was maintained by the Egyptians that, besides the gods, there were many demons which communicated with mortals, and which were often rendered visible by certain ceremonies and songs; that genii exercised an habitual and powerful influence over every particle of matter; that thirty-six of these beings presided over the various members of the human body; and thus, by magical incantations, it might be strengthened, or debilitated, afflicted with, or delivered from disease. Thus, in every case of sickness, the spirit presiding over the afflicted part, was first duly invoked. But the magicians did not trust solely to their vain invocations; they were well acquainted with the virtues of certain herbs, which they wisely employed in their attempts at healing. These herbs were greatly esteemed: such, for instance, as the cynocephalia, or, as the Egyptians themselves termed the asyrites,[133] which was used as a preventive against witchcraft; and the nepenthes which Helen presented in a potion to Menelaus, and which was believed to be powerful in banishing sadness, and in restoring the mind to its accustomed, or even to greater, cheerfulness, were of Egyptian growth. But whatever may be the virtues of such herbs, they were used rather for their magical, than for their medicinal qualities; every cure was cunningly ascribed to the presiding demons, with which not a few boasted that they were, by means of their art, intimately connected.
There can be no question, as attested by the earliest records, that the ancients were in possession of many potent remedies. Melampus of Argos, the most ancient Greek physician with whom we are acquainted, is reputed to have cured one of the Argonauts of barrenness, by exhibiting the rust of iron dissolved in wine, for the space of ten days. The same physician used hellebore as a purgative on the daughters of King Proteus, who were labouring under hypochondriasis or melancholy. Bleeding was also a remedy of very early origin, and said to have been first suggested by the hypopotamus or sea horse, which at a certain time of the year was observed to cast itself on the sea shore, and to wound itself among the rocks or stones, to relieve its plethora. Podalerius, on his return from the Trojan war, cured the daughter of Damaethus, who had fallen from a height, by bleeding her in both arms. Opium, the concrete juice of the poppy, was known in the earliest ages; and probably it was opium that Helen mixed with wine, and gave to the guests of Menelaus, under the expressive name of Nepenthe, to drown their cares, and encrease their hilarity. This conjecture, in a considerable degree, is supported from the fact, that Homer's Nepenthe was procured from the Egyptian Thebes, whence the tincture of opium, according to the nomenclature of the pharmacopeia about fifty years ago, and still known by this name in the older writers; and, if Dr. Darwin may be credited, the Cumaean Sybil never sat on the portending tripod without first swallowing a few drops of juice of the cherry-laurel.
There is every reason to believe that the Pagan priesthood were under the influence of some narcotic preparation during the display of their oracular power, but the effects produced would seem rather to resemble those of opium, or perhaps of stramonium, than of prussic acid, which the cherry-laurel water is known to contain.
The priests of the American Indians, says Monardur, whenever they were consulted by the chief gentlemen, or caciques, as they are called, took certain leaves of the tobacco, and cast them into the fire, and then received the smoke thus produced by them into their mouths, which caused them to fall upon the ground. After having remained in this position for some time in a state of stupor, they recovered, and delivered the answers, which they pretended to have received during the supposed intercourse with the world of spirits.
The narcotic, or sedative influence of the garden radish, was known in the earliest times. In the fables of antiquity we read, that, after the death of Adonis, Venus, to console herself, and repress her desires, lay down upon a bed of lettuces. The sea onion, or squill, was administered by the Egyptians, in cases of dropsy, under the mystic title of the eye of Typhon. The practices of incision and scarification, were employed in the Greek camp at the siege of Troy; and the application of spirits to wounds, was likewise understood; for we find Nestor applying a poultice compounded of cheese, onion, and meal, mixed up with the wine of Pramnos, to the wounds of Machaon.
To bring some inactive substance into repute, as promising some extraordinary, nay, wonderful medicinal properties, requires only the sanction of a few great names; and when once established on such a basis, ingenuity, argument, and even experiment, may open their otherwise powerful batteries in vain. In this manner all the quack medicines, ever held in any estimation, got into repute. And the same vulgar prejudice, which induces people to retain an accustomed remedy upon bare assertion and presumption, either of ignorance or partiality, will, in like manner, oppose the introduction of any innovation in practice with asperity, and not unfrequently with a quantum sufficit of scrutiny and abuse, unless, indeed, it be supported by authorities of still greater weight and consideration.
The history of many articles of diet, as well as medicine, amply prove how much their reputation and fate have depended upon some authority or other. Ipecacuanha had been imported into England for many years, before Helvetius, under the patronage of Louis XIV, succeeded in introducing it into practice in France; and, to the Queen of Charles II., we are indebted for the introduction of that popular beverage, tea, into England. Tobacco has suffered as many variable vicissitudes in its fame and character. It has been successively opposed and commended by physicians, condemned and praised by priests and kings, and proscribed and protected by governments, until, at length, this once insignificant production of a little island, has succeeded in propagating itself through every climate and country. Nor is the history of the potatoe less remarkable or less strikingly illustrative of the imperious influence of authority. This valuable plant, for upwards of two centuries, received an unprecedented opposition from vulgar prejudice, which all the philosophy of the age was unable to dissipate, until Louis XIV. wore a bunch of the flowers of the potatoe, in the midst of his court, on a day of mirth and festivity. The people then, for the first time, obsequiously acknowledged its utility, and began to express their astonishment at the apathy which had so long prevailed with regard to its general cultivation.
Another instance may be furnished of overbearing authority, in giving celebrity to a medicine, or in depriving it of that reputation to which its virtues entitle it, is seen in the history of the Peruvian bark. This famed medicine was imported into Spain by the Jesuits, where it remained seven years, before a trial was given to it. A Spanish priest was the first to whom it was administered, in the year 1639, and even then its use was extremely limited; and it would undoubtedly have sunk into oblivion, but for the supreme power of the church of Rome, under whose protecting auspices it gained a temporary triumph over the passions and prejudices which opposed its introduction. Pope Innocent X. at the intercession of the Cardinal de Lugo, who was formerly a Spanish Jesuit, ordered the bark to be duly examined, and on the favourable report, which was the result of this examination, it immediately rose into high favour and celebrity.
The root of the male fern, a nostrum for the cure of the tape worm, was secretly retailed by Madame Noufleur. This secret was purchased by Louis XV. for a considerable sum of money. It was not until this event that the physicans discovered, that the same remedy had been administered in the same complaint by Galen. The history of popular remedies in the cure of gout, is equally illustrative of this subject. The Duke of Portland's celebrated powder was nothing less than the deacintaureon of Caelius Aurelianus, or the antidotus et duobus centaurae generibus of Aetius, the receipt for which, a friend of his grace brought with him from Switzerland, into which country, in all likelihood, it had been introduced by the early medical writers, who had transcribed it from the Greek volumes, soon after their arrival into the western part of Europe.[134]
The active ingredient of a no less celebrated preparation for the same complaint, the Eau médicinale de Husson, a medicine brought into fashion by M. de Husson, a military officer in the service of Louis XVI has been discovered to be the meadow saffron. Upon searching after and trying the properties of this herb, it was observed that similar effects in the cure of the gout were ascribed to a certain plant, called hermodaclyllus, by Oribasius (an eminent physician of the 4th century) and Aetius, who flourished at Alexandria towards the end of the 5th century, but more particularly by Alexander of Tralles, a physician of Asia Minor, whose prescription consisted of hermodaclyllus, ginger, pepper, cummin seed, aniseed, and scammony, which he says will enable those who take it to walk immediately. On an inquiry being immediately set on foot for the discovery of this unknown plant, a specimen of it was procured at Constantinople, and it actually did turn out to be a species of meadow saffron, the colchicum autumnale of Linnaeus.
The celebrated fever powder of Dr. James was evidently not his original composition, but an Italian nostrum, invented by a person of the name of Lisle; a receipt for the preparation of which is to be found at length in Colborne's complete English Dispensary for the year 1756. The various secret preparations of opium which have been extolled as the discovery of modern days, may be recognised in the works of ancient authors. The use of prussic acid in the cure of consumptions, lately suggested by M. Magendie, at Paris, is little more than the revival of the Dutch practice in this disorder; for Linnaeus informs us, that distilled laurel water was frequently used in the cure of pulmonary consumption.[135]
We shall conclude these observations with a few remarks on what are termed patent medicines, nostrums, or quack medicines, and their boasted pretensions in general. There is, in fact, but one state of perfect health, yet the deviations from this state, and the general species of diseases are almost infinite. Hence it will easily be understood, that in the classes of medical remedies, there must likewise he a great variety, and that some of them are even of opposite tendencies. Such are both the warm and cold bath considered as medical remedies. Though opposite to each other in their sensible effects, each of them manifests its medical virtues, yet only in such a state of the body as will admit of using it with advantage. From these premises, it is evident that an universal remedy, or one that possesses healing powers for the cure of all diseases, is, in fact, a non-entity, a mere delusion, the existence of which is physically impossible, as the mere idea of such a thing involves a contradiction. How, for instance, can it he conceived, that the same remedy should be capable of restoring the tone of the muscular fibres, when they are relaxed, and also have the power of relaxing them when they are too rigid; that it should coagulate the fluids when in a state of resolution, and again attenuate them when they are too viscid; that it should moderate the nerves when in a state of preturnatural sensibility, and likewise restore them to their proper degree of irritability when they are in a contrary state.
The belief in an universal remedy has long been abandoned, even among the vulgar, and long exploded in those classes of society, which are not influenced by prejudice, or tinctured with fanaticism. It is, however, sincerely to be regretted, that the daily press continues to be inundated with advertisements; and that the lower, and less informed class of the community, are still imposed upon by a set of privileged impostors, who frequently puzzle the intelligent to decide, whether the impudence or the industry with which they endeavour to establish the reputation of their respective poisons, be the most prominent feature in their character. In illustration of this last observation, it may further be observed, that most of the nostrums advertised as cough drops, etc., are preparations of opium, similar, but inferior, to the well-known paregoric elixir of the shops, but disguised and rendered more deleterious by the addition of heating and aromatic gums. The injury which may be occasioned by the indiscriminate employment of such medicines might be very serious and irremediable, as is well known to every person possessing the smallest portion of medical knowledge. The boasted, though groundless pretensions of certain illiterate empirics to cure diseases which have eluded the skill and penetration of the faculty, is another absurdity into which people of good common sense have been most woefully entrapped. The lessons of experience ought to prove the most useful, as purchased at the greatest trouble and expense; but if people choose to run over a precipice with their eyes open, they leave themselves nothing to regret, and the public less to lament, by their fall.
It was justly observed by the sagacious and intelligent Bacon, "that a reflecting physician is not directed by the opinion which the multitude entertain of a favourite remedy, but that be must be guided by a sound judgment; and consequently, he is led to make very important distinctions between those things which only by their name pass for medical remedies, and others, which in reality possess healing powers." We avail ourselves of the quotation, as it indirectly censures the conduct of certain medical practitioners, who do not scruple to recommend what are vulgarly called patent and other quack preparations, the composition of which is carefully concealed from the public. Having acquired their unmerited reputation by mere chance, and being supported by the most refined artifices, in order to delude the unwary, we are unable to come at the evidence of perhaps nine tenths of those who have experienced their fatal effects, and who are now no longer in a situation to complain.
From universal remedies or panaceas, to nostrums and specifics, such, for instance, as pretend to cure the same disease in every patient, is easy and natural. With the latter also, impositions of a dangerous tendency are often practised. It may be asked how far they are practicably admissible, and in what cases they are wholly unavailing? The answer is not difficult. In those diseases, which in every instance depend upon the same cause, as in agues, the small-pox, measles, and many other contagious distempers, the possibility of specifics, in a limited sense, may be rationally, though hypothetically admitted. But in either maladies, the causes of which depend on a variety of other concurrent circumstances, and the cure of which in different individuals, frequently requires very opposite remedies, as in dropsy, various species of colds, the almost infinite variety of consumptions, etc. a specific remedy is an imposition upon the common sense of mankind. Those who are but imperfectly acquainted with the various causes from which the same disorder originates in different individuals, can never entertain such a vulgar and dangerous notion. They will easily perceive, how much depends upon ascertaining with precision, the seat and cause of the complaint, before any medicine can be presented with safety or advantage:—even life and death are, we are sorry to add, too often decided by the first steps. Different constitutions, different symptoms, and stages of disease, all require more or less a separate consideration. What is more natural than to place confidence in a remedy, which has been known to afford relief to others in the same kind of disposition? The patient anxiously enquires after a person who has been afflicted with the same malady; he is eager to know the remedy that has been used with success; his friend or neighbour imparts to him the wished for intelligence; he is determined to give the medicine a fair trial, and takes it with confidence. From what has been stated, it will not be difficult to conceive, that if his case does not exactly correspond with that of his friend, any chance remedy may prove extremely dangerous, if not fatal.
Hence it becomes evident, that the results are not to be depended upon, nor the chance risked. The physician is obliged to employ all his sagacity, supported by his own experience, as well as by that of his predecessors; and yet he is often under the necessity of discovering, from the progress of the disease, what he could not derive from the minutest research. How then can it be expected, that a novice in the art of healing should be more successful, when the whole of his method of cure is either the impulse of the moment, or the effect of his own credulity? It may be therefore truly said, that life and death are frequently entrusted to chance!
The late Dr. Huxham, a physician of some eminence in his day, when speaking of Asclepiades, the Roman empiric, says: "This man from a declaimer turned physician, and set himself up to oppose all the physicians of his time; and the novelty of the thing bore him out, as it frequently doth the quacks of the present time; and ever will while the majority of the world are fools." In another place, he curiously contrasts the too timid practice of some regular physicians, with the hazardous treatment, which is the leading feature of quacks: "The timid, low, insipid practice with some, is almost as dangerous as the bold, unwarranted empiricism of others; time and opportunity, never to be regained, are often lost by the former; while with the latter, by a bold push, you are sent off the stage in a moment."
From what has been said, it may confidently be asserted, that a universal remedy still remains as great a desideratum as the philosopher's stone; and either can only obtain credit with the weak-minded, the credulous, or the fanatic. One of the most unfortunate circumstances in the history of such medicines, is the insinuating and dangerous method, by which they are puffed into notice. And as we have little of the beneficial effects which they daily must produce, by being promiscuously applied, people attend only to the extraordinary instances, perhaps not one in fifty, where they have afforded a temporary or apparent relief. It is well known, that the more powerful a remedy is, the more permanent and dangerous must be its effects on the constitution; especially if it be introduced like many patent medicines, by an almost indefinite encrease of the dose. There is another consideration, not apt to strike those who are unacquainted with the laws of the animal economy. When it is intended to bring about any remarkable change in the system of an organized body, such means are obliged to be employed as may contribute to produce that change without affecting too violently the living powers, or without carrying their action to an improper length. Indeed, the patient may be gradually habituated to almost any stimulus, but at the expence of a paralytic stroke on an impaired constitution. Such are among the melancholy effects of imposture and credulity! "Were it possible," says a learned authority, "to collect all the cases of sacrifices to the mysterious infatuation, it is probable that their number would exceed the enormous havoc made by gunpowder or the sword." Another reputable writer makes the following terse remark on this subject: "As matters stand at present," says he, "it is easier to cheat a man out of his life, than of a shilling: and almost impossible either to detect or punish the offender. Notwithstanding this, people still shut their eyes, and take every thing upon trust, that is administered by any pretender to medicine, without daring to ask him a reason for any part of his conduct. Implicit faith, every where else the object of ridicule, is still sacred here."