Sketches of Imposture, Deception, and Credulity

by R. A. Davenport

The rationale of the Materia Medica one hundred and fifty or two hundred years since was very extraordinary, as well with respect to the nature of the substances proposed as remedies, as to the number of ingredients, sometimes thirty or forty, which were congregated together in each composition, upon the principle that if one did not reach the disorder another might.

The nature of the substances used was, often, even more extraordinary and disgusting than their variety; many of them were thought to act by a charm, or by the strong sensation of disgust which their exhibition excited, rather than by any more direct appeal to the disordered part. The more precious also the article, the more certain was thought the cure.

The aurum potabile, and other preparations of gold, were conceived to have many virtues. Gold, by the chemical writers, was styled the sun and king of metals. Kings and princes were thus amused and defrauded, and their lives made shorter than those of their subjects who were beneath the use of gold. The chickens they ate were fed with gold, that they might extract the sulphur, and prepare the metal by their circulation; the physicians were contented to collect all the gold, which passed unaltered and undiminished through the poultry, into their pockets.

Bezoar denotes an antidote, from a Persian word, and is generally applied to medicinal stones, generated in the stomach and other viscera of animals. Bezoars usually attain the size of acorns or pigeons’ eggs, the larger the more valuable. A stone of one ounce was sold in India for one hundred livres, and one of four ounces and a quarter for two thousand; they were very scarce, and few of the genuine ever came into the European market, the greater number that were sold being artificial compounds. The hog bezoar, or Pedra del Porco, was first brought into Europe by the Portuguese; it is found in the gall-bladder of a boar in the East Indies; the Indians attribute infinite virtues to it, as a preservative against poison, cholera, &c. The porcupine and monkey bezoars were held in such esteem by the natives of Malacca, that they never parted with them unless as presents to ambassadors and princes; single stones have been sold for sixty or eighty pounds sterling. In 1715, bezoar was thought equal in value to gold. Dr. Patin says of it, the most visible operation it hath is when the bill is paid; and he calls it the scandalous stone of offence, and lasting monument of perseverance in imposture.

The most loathsome preparations were recommended, and eagerly used by the sick. Mummy had the honour to be worn in the bosom, next the heart, by kings and princes, and all those who could bear the price. It was pretended, that it was able to preserve the wearer from the most deadly infections, and that the heart was secured by it from the invasion of all malignity. A dram of a preparation called treacle of mummy, taken in the morning, prevented the danger of poison for all that day. Thus decayed spices and gums, with the dead body of an Egyptian, were thought to give long life.

To cure a quartan, or the gout, “take the hair and nails, cut them small, mix them with wax, and stick them to a live crab, casting it into the river again.” The moss from a dead man’s skull was held to be of sovereign virtue in some cases.

Amulets were much used formerly, not only to cure but to prevent disease, and also were thought to have a wonderful power over the moral qualities and affections. The onyx, worn as an amulet, strengthened the heart, and refreshed phantasms. The ruby resisted poisons, and preserved from the plague. If a man was in danger it changed colour, and became dim, but recovered its brightness when the danger was past. Hence, perhaps, was the original motive for carrying jewels and precious stones, set in rings or in seals.

Corals, says Paracelsus, “are of two sorts: one, a clear bright shining red; the other, a purple dark red. The bright is good to quicken phansie, and is against phantasies, or nocturnal spirits, which fly from these bright corals, as a dog from a staff, but they gather where the dark coral is. A spectre or ghost is the starry body of a dead man: now these ethereal or starry bodies cannot endure to be where the bright corals are, but the dark coloured allures them; the operation therefore, is natural, not magical, or superstitious, as some may think. Bright coral restrains tempests of thunder and lightning, and defends us from the cruelty of savage monsters, that are bred by the heavens contrary to the course of nature; for sometimes the stars pour out a seed, of which a monster is begotten; now these monsters cannot be where corals are.”

The use of charms in medicine was a very ancient practice, and, when once commenced, each succeeding charm became more ridiculous. Pierius mentions an antidote against the sting of a scorpion; the patient was to sit on an ass, with his face to the tail, for by this means the poison was transmitted from the man to the beast. Sammonicus, a poetical physician, recommended the fourth book of Homer’s Iliad to be laid under the patient’s head to cure a quartan ague. The efficacy of scriptural sentences was deduced from the custom of the Jews wearing phylacteries.

An approved spell for sore eyes was worn as a jewel about many necks: it was written on paper, and enclosed in silk, “never failing to do sovereign good when all other helps were helpless. No sight might dare to read it, but at length a curious mind, while the patient slept, by stealth ripped open the mystical cover, and found in Latin, Diabolus effodiat tibi oculos, impleat foramina stercoribus.”