“But Sandwich, though with vast surprise,
He saw the monarch’s weeping eyes,
Told him it would not be amiss,—
The more he cryed, the less he pissed.”
(From “The New Foundling Hospital of Wit,”
vol. lv. p. 204.)
“‘Boh,’ said to be the name of a Danish general, who so terrified his opponent, Foh, that he caused him to bewray himself.”—(Grose, Dict. of Buckish Slang, art. “Boh.” See, also, in same volume, the account of the Puritan preacher who met with the same accident in his pulpit upon hearing that the royal troops were approaching,—art. “Sh—t Sack.”)
XLI.
ORDURE AND URINE IN MEDICINE.
The administration of urine as a curative opens the door to a flood of thought. Medicine, both in theory and practice, even among nations of the highest development and refinement, has not, until within the present century, cleared its skirts of the superstitious hand-prints of the dark ages. With tribes of a lower degree of culture it is still subordinate to the incantations and exorcisms of the “medicine man.” It might not be going a step too far to assert that the science of therapeutics, pure and simple, has not yet taken form among savages; but to shorten discussion and avoid controversy, it will be assumed here that such a science does exist, but in an extremely rude and embryotic state; and to this can be referred all examples of the introduction of urine or ordure in the materia medica, where the aid of the “medicine man” does not seem to have been invoked, as in the method employed for the eradication of dandruff by Mexicans, Eskimo, and others, the Celtiberian dentifrice, etc.[71]
When the compilation and correlation of data bearing upon this subject was first begun, the exceeding importance of the pharmaceutical division was manifest. In the opinion of the author, this part of the investigation should have been assumed by a student possessed of a preliminary training in medicine, and it was not until urged on by friendly correspondents that he concluded, upon resuming his labors, to augment these references by citations from the more prominent writers of ancient and modern times, who have demonstrated the importance of the subject by devoting to its consideration not passing sentences and scant allusions, but pregnant chapters and bulky volumes.