Some years ago I found among my old books a small manuscript marked “James Oliver. This Book Begun Aug. 12, 1685.” It is a rough sort of account-book, containing among other things prescriptions for patients, and charges for the same, with counter-charges for the purchase of medicines and other matters. Dr. Oliver practised in Cambridge, where may be seen his tomb with inscriptions, and with sculptured figures that look more like Diana of the Ephesians, as given in Calmet's Dictionary, than like any angels admitted into good society here or elsewhere.
I do not find any particular record of what his patients suffered from, but I have carefully copied out the remedies he mentions, and find that they form a very respectable catalogue. Besides the usual simples, elder, parsley, fennel, saffron, snake-root, wormwood, I find the Elixir Proprietatis, with other elixire and cordials, as if he rather fancied warming medicines; but he called in the aid of some of the more energetic remedies, including iron, and probably mercury, as he bought two pounds of it at one time.
The most interesting item is his bill against the estate of Samuel Pason of Roxbury, for services during his last illness. He attended this gentleman,—for such he must have been, by the amount of physic which he took, and which his heirs paid for,—from June 4th, 1696, to September 3d of the same year, three months. I observe he charges for visits as well as for medicines, which is not the case in most of his bills. He opens the attack with a carminative appeal to the visceral conscience, and follows it up with good hard-hitting remedies for dropsy,—as I suppose the disease would have been called,—and finishes off with a rallying dose of hartshorn and iron.
It is a source of honest pride to his descendant that his bill, which was honestly paid, as it seems to have been honorably earned, amounted to the handsome total of seven pounds and two shillings. Let me add that he repeatedly prescribes plaster, one of which was very probably the “Dr. Oliver” that soothed my infant griefs, and for which I blush to say that my venerated ancestor received from Goodman Hancock the painfully exiguous sum of no pounds, no shillings, and sixpence.
I have illustrated the practice of the first century, from the two manuscripts I have examined, as giving an impartial idea of its every-day methods. The Governor, Johannes Secundus, it is fair to remember, was an amateur practitioner, while my ancestor was a professed physician. Comparing their modes of treatment with the many scientific follies still prevailing in the Old World, and still more with the extraordinary theological superstitions of the community in which they lived, we shall find reason, I think, to consider the art of healing as in a comparatively creditable state during the first century of New England.
In addition to the evidence as to methods of treatment furnished by the manuscripts I have cited, I subjoin the following document, to which my attention was called by Dr. Shurtleff, our present Mayor. This is a letter of which the original is to be found in vol. lxix. page 10 of the “Archives” preserved at the State House in Boston. It will be seen that what the surgeon wanted consisted chiefly of opiates, stimulants, cathartics, plasters, and materials for bandages. The complex and varied formulae have given place to simpler and often more effective forms of the same remedies; but the list and the manner in which it is made out are proofs of the good sense and schooling of the surgeon, who, it may be noted, was in such haste that he neglected all his stops. He might well be in a hurry, as on the very day upon which he wrote, a great body of Indians—supposed to be six or seven hundred—appeared before Hatfield; and twenty-five resolute young men of Hadley, from which town he wrote, crossed the river and drove them away.
HADLY May 30: 76
Mr RAWSON Sr
What we have recd by Tho: Houey the past month is not the chiefest of our wants as you have love for poor wounded I pray let us not want for these following medicines if you have not a speedy conveyance of them I pray send on purpose they are those things mentioned in my former letter but to prevent future mistakes I have wrote them att large wee have great want with the greatest halt and speed let us be supplyed. Sr Yr Sert WILL LOCHS.
(Endorsed)