The items for one day (August 12) are:—
| s. | d. | |
| An emulsion | 4 | 6 |
| A mucilage | 3 | 4 |
| Jelly of hawthorn | 4 | 0 |
| Plaster to dress blister | 1 | 0 |
| A clyster | 2 | 6 |
| An ivory pipe | 1 | 0 |
| A cordial bolus | 2 | 6 |
| The same again | 2 | 6 |
| A cordial draught | 2 | 4 |
| The same again | 2 | 4 |
| Another bolus | 2 | 6 |
| Another draught | 2 | 4 |
| A glass of cordial spirits | 3 | 6 |
| Blister to the arm | 5 | 0 |
| The same to the wrists | 5 | 0 |
| Two boluses again | 5 | 0 |
| Two draughts again | 4 | 8 |
| Another emulsion | 4 | 6 |
| Another pearl julep | 4 | 6 |
This is quoted in the Historical Sketch of the Progress of Pharmacy in Great Britain,[1022] p. 17, not as an isolated case, but as an illustration of the practice of apothecaries when attending patients of the higher classes.
Homœopathy did much to remedy this state of affairs, and by deluding people into believing that the billionth of a grain of a certain drug skilfully manipulated was more effectual than the bolus and decoction of the medicine-monger, tended gradually to destroy the popular faith in the dosing system.
The student of medical history is often reminded forcibly of Tennyson’s lines:—
“Our little systems have their day;
They have their day, and cease to be.”
As he reflects on the many schools, sects, and systems which have dominated the practice of physic, he will often, as he passes them in review one by one, ask mournfully with Hans Breitmann:—
“Vhere ish dot barty now?”
Where now is the Iatro-mathematical School, the party of the Iatro-chemists, the Brunonian sect? One and all vanished into the Ewigkeit!