‘Take of live wood-lice, one ounce; fine sugar, two drams; a little powder of nutmeg; and half a pint of alexeterial water. Let the wood-lice and sugar, with the nutmeg, be ground together in a marble mortar, then gradually add the water, which being well mixed, strain it with hard pressing. Two ounces of this expression are to be taken twice a day, shaking the vessel, so that no part of it may be lost.’
And it also seems that much virtue was attached to the great number of component parts in a medicine, as may be seen in the recipe for Arquebusade Water[93] (from the same book, p. 101).
‘Take of comfrey leaves and root, sage, mugwort, bugloss, each four handfulls; betony, sanicle, ox-eye daisy, common daisy, greater figwort, plantane, agrimony, vervain, wormwood, fennel, each two handfulls; St. John’s wort, long birthwort, orpine, veronica, lesser centaury, milfoil, tobacco, mouse-ear, mint, hyssop, each one handfull; wine twenty-four pounds. Having cut and bruised the herbs, pour on them the wine, and let them stand together, in digestion, in horse dung, or any other equivalent heat, for three days: afterwards distill in an alembic with a moderate fire.
‘This celebrated water has for some time been held in great esteem, in contusions, for resolving coagulated blood, discussing the tumors that arise on fractures and dislocations, for preventing the progress of gangrenes, and cleansing and healing ulcers and wounds, particularly gunshot wounds....’
Amongst the empyrical medicines, the following is much cried up by many people, as an infallible remedy:
‘Take two ounces of the worts that grow dangling to the hinder heels of a stone horse,[94] wash them in common water, then infuse them in white wine all night, and afterwards let them be dried, and reduced to powder. The dose is half a dram twice a day, in any proper vehicle. A dram of Venice soap given twice a day, either in pills, or dissolved in some proper liquor, is likewise said to cure a Cancer.’
In the early part of the eighteenth century, the regular physicians were very ignorant. Ward[95] thus describes them, and, although his language was coarse, he was a keen observer.
‘They rail mightily in their Writings against the ignorance of Quacks and Mountebanks, yet, for the sake of Lucre, they Licence all the Cozening Pretenders about Town, or they could not Practise; which shows it is by their Toleration that the People are Cheated out of their Lives and Money; and yet they think themselves so Honest, as to be no ways answerable for this Publick Injury; as if they could not kill People fast enough themselves, but must depute all the Knaves in the Town to be Death’s Journeymen. Thus do they License what they ought carefully to Suppress; and Practise themselves what they Blame and Condemn in others; And that the Town may not be deceived by Apothecaries, they have made themselves Medicine-Mongers,[96] under a pretence of serving the Publick with more faithful preparations; in order to perswade the World to a belief of which, they have publish’d Bills, where, in the true Quack’s Dialect, they tell you the Poor shall be supply’d for nothing; but whoever is so Needy as to make a Challenge of their promise empty-handed, will find, according to the Mountebank’s saying, No Money, No Cure. The disposal of their Medicines they leave to a Boy’s management, who scarce knows Mercurius Dulcis from White Sugar, or Mint Water from Aqua Fortis: So that People are likely to be well serv’d, or Prescriptions truly observed by such an Agent.’
If this was a faithful portrait of a physician in the commencement of the century, what must a charlatan have been? They sowed their hand-bills broadcast. Gay, in his ‘Trivia,’ book ii., says,
‘If the pale Walker pants with weak’ning Ills,
His sickly Hand is stor’d with Friendly Bills:
From hence he learns the seventh born[97] Doctor’s Fame,
From hence he learns the cheapest Tailor’s name.’