[70]. “Magisterium Opii fit solvendo Opium in aceto, et præcipitando cum sale tartari.——”
[71]. This was the favourite remedy of Dr. Andrew Boorde, who practised physic in Hampshire, and in his work printed in the black letter in London, entitled a ‘Breviarie of Health,’ he advises for a tooth-ache depending upon worms, ‘a candell of waxe with Henbane seeds, which must be lighted so that the perfume of the candell do enter into the tooth.’ This said Dr. Andrew Boorde is too important a personage to be passed over without some farther notice in this place, being no less than the Founder of that dignified class of the medical fraternity, better known by the name of Merry Andrews. Dr. Andrew Boorde lived in the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Queen Mary, and was in the constant habit of frequenting fairs and markets, at which he harangued the populace publicly: his speeches were extremely humourous and occasioned considerable mirth; his successors in this same line naturally endeavoured to imitate his bright example, and hence this class of itinerant quacks obtained the generic appellation of Merry Andrews. Since the humiliating triumph of Quackery displayed at the Freemason’s tavern, under the presidency of the member for Coventry, and more recently at Margate, there is reason to believe that this class of itinerant mountebanks will assume a new and more dignified appellation, and that in commemoration of the services of their philosophical president, the worthy member above stated, they will in future be designated by the name of Ranting Peters.
[72]. I have been lately much amused with the lucubrations of a classical friend, who by way of casting ridicule upon such researches, undertakes to prove to my satisfaction that Warren’s Blacking is no other than the νασμος μελαναυγες “Black flowing Splendour,” described in the Hecuba of Euripides.
[73]. This species of delusion, from mistaking the Post hoc, for the Propter hoc, always reminds me of the story of the Florentine Quack, who gave the countryman six pills which were to enable him to discover his lost Ass,—the pills beginning to operate on his road home, obliged him to retire into a wood, where he found his ass. The clown soon spread a report of the wonderful success of the empiric, who in consequence, no doubt, reaped an ample reward from the proprietors of strayed cattle.
[74]. The grant of £5000 to Joanna Stephens, for her discovery of certain medicines for the cure of the Stone, is notified in the London Gazette of June, A. D. 1739. See Liquor Calcis.
[75]. Wesley’s Journal, vol. xxix. 290–293.
[76]. Soon after the invention of the art of Printing, the works of Dioscorides, Theophrastus, and Pliny, were published in various forms, and Commentators swarmed like locusts. The eagerness with which this branch of knowledge was cultivated may be conceived, when it is stated that the Commentary of Matthiolus on Dioscorides, which was first printed in 1554, passed through seventeen editions, and that 32,000 copies had been sold before the year 1561; and he tells us in this work, that he received in its execution the assistance and reward of Emperors,—Kings,—Electors of the Roman Empire,—Arch-dukes,—Cardinals,—Bishops,—Dukes, and Princes, ‘which,’ says he, ‘gives greater credit to our labours than any thing that could be said.’ In very many cases, however, says Dr. Pultney, ‘this learned Commentator mistook the road to truth, and did but perplex the science he so industriously laboured to enlighten.’
[77]. Turner, the father of English Botany, was of opinion, that it was the Polygonum Bistorta; Munting, a Dutch physician, that it was the Hydrolapathum Magnum, or Rumex Aquaticus or Great Water Dock, an opinion which received the sanction of Ray. Others have supposed it to have been Polygonum Persicaria, and some have considered it as the Primula Auricula. This one example is adduced to shew the mortifying uncertainty that involves the history of ancient plants.
[78]. Meade thinks that the Athenian poison was a combination of active substances,—perhaps that described by Theophrastus as the invention of Thrasyas, which, it was said, would cause death without pain, and into which Cicuta and Poppy entered as ingredients.
[79]. .sp 1