3. The same author (Formius) tells us of a man and his wife and wife’s sister, in Montpelier, who, being taken with the plague, swallowed a solution of their own excrements in urine, strained through a linen cloth, and thus got clear of the distemper. It produced excessive vomiting and purging. Dr. Russel mentions one of his patients, who, he suspected, had got a dose of bezoar in urine.
4. Johannes Helmontius says, that to his certain knowledge (me conscio) Hibernus Butlerus cured some thousands of the plague, at London; though unhappily our author got only part of the secret, and which is to the following purpose. “He ordered me to suspend by the legs before the fire, a large toad taken in the afternoon in the month of June; putting below him a cake of yellow wax. At length, after three days suspension, the toad vomited earth, and some walking insects (insectas ambulantes) viz. flies with shining wings of a greenish colour, as if gilt: the toad died immediately after this evacuation, nor did it take place, notwithstanding his suspension till the third day. He (Butlerus) then told me that I had medicine enough for curing forty thousand people infected with the plague, and promised to show me the mystery of the matter (rei cardinem) but being suddenly sent into banishment he departed.” The best part of the secret being thus lost, it is needless to trouble the reader with any further account of experiments made with other toads roasted alive, powdered and made up into troches,&c. presuming that these could not equal the value of the original receipt. I proceed therefore,
5. To the antidote of the celebrated Avenzoar, who drove away the plague by the smell of the urine of an he goat; and Mercurialis says that in the house of a most reverend canon in Hungary, he saw a large he goat kept for this purpose.
6. From such horribly disgusting remedies we certainly turn with pleasure to the elegant tablets prepared for the Emperor Maximilian II. These were composed of Armenian bole, prepared pearl, prepared coral, prepared emeralds, prepared jacinct, gold-leaves (ingredients in a medical view equally efficacious with chalk or oyster shells) along with a little ambergrease and some other ingredients of little value, as medicines, and made into tablets with conserve of roses——It is needless to spend time in commenting on such ridiculous remedies; suffice it to say, that the intention of all rational practice both ancient and modern has been to effect a cure by sweating. From the instance related by Sydenham, as well as that of Dr. Power above mentioned, it seems, that if the exact time in which the disease begins could be known, it might be carried off by profuse blood-letting; but as this for the most part cannot be discovered, it is certainly better to wait, even though the event should not prove favourable, than to run the risk of killing, the patient instantly by an ignorant effort to save him.
[139] These two last conclusions (though I believe them myself) are proposed only as probable conjectures, which as yet I see nothing to contradict.
[141] The operation of oil so much recommended by Mr. Baldwin is said to be by producing sweat. (See above p. [341].)
[142] Naturally belonging to the climate.