[40]. Van Swieten, in his Commentaries on the Venereal disease, has an aphorism founded on the same hypothesis, ‘Render the blood and lymph more fluid, and you will have destroyed the virus.’ Sect. 1477.
In the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal College of Physicians, there is a paper to the same effect, entitled, ‘On the Operation of Mercury, in different diseases and constitutions, by Edward Barry, M.D. F.R.S.’ Read at the College, July 13, 1767.
[41]. Genesis ix. 23.
[42]. The animal nature of the colouring matter of the blood was first pointed out by Dr. Wells, but Fourcroy and Vauquelin considered it to be owing to subphosphate of iron. Mr. Brande, in 1812, demonstrated the fallacy of this opinion, and proved, by satisfactory experiments, its title to be considered as a peculiar animal principle; the subsequent experiments of M. Vauquelin have confirmed Mr. Brande’s results.
[43]. The Magnet, or Loadstone, in powder, entered also as an ingredient in several plaisters, to draw bullets, and heads of arrows, out of the body, as in the ‘Emplastrum Divinum Nicolai,’ the ‘Emplastrum Nigrum’ of Augsburg, the ‘Opodeldock’ and ‘Attractivum,’ of Paracelsus, with several other preparations, to be found in the Dispensatory of Wecker, and in the practice of Sennertus.
[44]. Pyretologia, p. 17, A. D. 1692.
[45]. Sturmius, in his ‘Febrifugi Peruviani Vindiciæ,’ published in 1658, observes that he saw twenty doses of the powder sold at Brussels for sixty florins, in order to be sent to Paris, and that he would willingly have been a purchaser of some doses, even at that price; but the Apothecary was unable to supply him: an anecdote not more illustrative of the reputation of the bark, than of the honesty of the vender.
[46]. This produced a pamphlet from Dr. Slare, entitled ‘A Vindication of Sugars against the Charge of Dr. Willis and others: dedicated to the Ladies.’ 1715.
[47]. This conceit did not escape the notice of the metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century; Cowley frequently availed himself of it to embellish his verse.
[48]. Genesis xxx. 14.