‘While I was in these thoughts, I unluckily called to mind a story of an ingenious gentleman of the last age, who, lying violently afflicted with the gout, a person came and offered his services to cure him by a method which, he assured him, was infallible; the servant who received the message carried it up to his master, who, inquiring whether the person came on foot or in a chariot, and being informed that he was on foot: “Go,” says he, “send the knave about his business; was his method infallible as he pretends, he would, long before now, have been in his coach and six.” In like manner I concluded that, had all these advertisers arrived to that skill they pretend to, they would have no need, for so many years successively, to publish to the world the place of their abode, and the virtues of their medicines. One of these gentlemen, indeed, pretends to an effectual cure for leanness: what effects it may have had upon those who have tried it, I cannot tell; but I am credibly informed that the call for it has been so great, that it has effectually cured the doctor himself of that distemper. Could each of them produce so good an instance of the success of his medicines, they might soon persuade the world into an opinion of them.
‘I observe that most of the bills agree in one expression, viz., that, “with God’s blessing,” they perform such and such cures: this expression is certainly very proper and emphatical, for that is all they have for it. And, if ever a cure is performed on a patient where they are concerned, they can claim a greater share than Virgil’s Iapis in the curing of Æneas; he tried his skill, was very assiduous about the wound, and, indeed, was the only visible means that relieved the hero, but the poet assures us it was the particular assistance of a deity that speeded the whole operation.’
There was another female quack in 1738, one Mrs. Stephens, and in the Gentleman’s Magazine for that year, p. 218, we read that ‘Mrs. Stephens has proposed to make her Medicines for the Stone publick, on Consideration of the sum of £5,000 to be rais’d by Contribution, and lodged with Mr. Drummond, Banker. He has receiv’d since the 11th of this month (April) about £500 on that Account.’ She advertised her cures very fully, and she obtained and acknowledged, as subscriptions from April 11 to the end of December, 1738, the receipt of £1,356 3s. (Gentleman’s Magazine, 1739, p. 49). And the subscribers were of no mean quality; they included five bishops, three dukes, two duchesses, four earls, two countesses, five lords, and of smaller fry a vast quantity. But this did not satisfy her; she had influence enough to get a short Act of Parliament passed in her favour (Cap. 23, 12, Geo. II., 1739), entitled:
‘An Act for providing a reward to Joanna Stephens upon a proper discovery to be made by her for the use of the publick, of the medicines prepared by her for the cure of the stone.
‘Whereas Joanna Stevens (sic) of the City of Westminster, spinster, hath acquired the knowledge of medicines, and the skill of preparing them, which by a dissolving power seem capable of removing the cause of the painful distemper of the stone, and may be improved, and more successfully applied when the same shall be discovered to persons learned in the science of physick; now, for encouraging the said Joanna Stephens to make discovery thereof, and for providing her a recompence in case the said medicines shall be submitted to the examination of proper judges, and by them be found worthy of the reward hereby provided; may it please your Majesty, that it be enacted, etc.
‘£5,000 granted out of the supplies for the discovery of Mrs. Stephens’s medicines. Treasury to issue the said sum on a proper certificate.’
A committee of twenty scientists investigated her medicines, and reported favourably on them. They were trifold. A powder, a draught, and a pill—and what think you they were made of? The powder was made of egg-shells and snails, both burnt; the draught was made of Alicante soap, swine’s cresses burnt, and honey. This was made into a ball, which was afterwards sliced and dissolved in a broth composed of green camomile, or camomile flowers, sweet fennel, parsley, and burdock leaves, boiled in water and sweetened with honey; whilst the pill was compounded of snails, wild carrot seeds, burdock seeds, ashen keys, hips and haws, all burnt to blackness, and then mixed with Alicante soap! These were the famous remedies for which a grateful nation paid such a large sum!!!
CAGLIOSTRO IN LONDON.
