Then quote his lady’s ECCHYMOSIS.
The celebrated story of the lady’s ecchymosis comes handed down to your worships by five successive reporters. The lady incog. who makes so conspicuous a figure in Dr Haygarth’s narration, told another lady, who told a medical friend of Dr H. who told Dr Caustic, who tells your worships this important anecdote. Now, as “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety,” so in a multitude of reporters there is certainty. But to the story; which I shall give in the language of Dr H.’s medical friend aforesaid.
“A lady informed me, that a lady of her acquaintance, who had great faith in the efficacy of the tractors, on seeing a small ecchymosis, about the size of a silver penny, at the corner of the eye, desired to try on it the effect of her favorite remedy. The lady, who was intended to be the subject of the trial, consented, and the other lady produced the instruments, and, after drawing them four or five times over the spot, declared that it changed to a paler color; and on repeating the use of them a few minutes longer, that it had almost vanished, and was scarcely visible, and departed in high triumph at her success. I was assured by the lady who underwent the operation, that she looked in the glass immediately after, and that not the least visible alteration had taken place!!” (From Haygarth’s book, page 40.)
I had determined to exert my influence in all the medical societies, that the above case be read at the opening of each meeting, until there should not be left of the tractors, in this island, “a wreck behind.” But a far better plan of Dr H. himself has precluded the necessity of this measure, which was to announce in all the advertisements of his book in the public papers, that “it explains why the disorders of infants and horses are said to have been cured by the tractors.” See his daily advertisements in the papers.
Indeed, I am at a loss which to admire most, the pretty fanciful relation above cited, which is all the new edition of the doctor’s treatise against the tractors contains to justify the assertion in the advertisements before mentioned, or his singular skill in constructing such a fabric on this foundation. Did I possess the talents of the doctor in the advertising department, I should announce this my pithy performance to the public, by publishing in all the papers, that the price of the tractors was, in consequence of Dr Caustic’s opposition, fallen to the price of old iron, and Perkins’s pamphlets having been proscribed by physicians, were condemned, and actually burnt by the hangman on execution-day, at the Old Bailey, in the presence of every individual of the college of physicians, and half the citizens of London.
I would beg leave to add to this incomparable Haygarthian demonstration an argument of my own, which I think is not less powerful. It is impossible that these tractors should perform any real cure, as they act solely on the imagination either of the patient or the operator. But cures performed by the power of imagination must be imaginary cures, that is, no cures at all.
By Haygarth’s tale of lady Hoax.
It is not true, as some sagacious coffee-house politicians have asserted, that madame Hoax (or more correctly double Hoax) is the wife of a Chinese Mandarin, settled on the mountains of the Moon, in Abyssinia, for the purpose of ascertaining the influence of imagination in the cure of diseases. No, gentlemen, she is a baroness of true English breed, more sturdy than a Semiramis, a Penthesilea, or a Joan of Arc, and will prove, in our cause, a championess of pre-eminent prowess. Should your worships wish for further acquaintance with this lady, which in my opinion would be for your mutual advantage, you will take the trouble to inquire at my garret, No. 299, Dyot street, St Giles’s (having removed from my former place of residence, third floor, 327, Grub street, with a view of being nearer my friend, Sir Joseph, in Soho square) and her address shall be at your service.
I am now preparing a most awful tragedy for Drury lane theatre (Mr Sheridan’s approbation being already obtained) to be entitled and called, the Dreadful Downfal of Terrible Tractorizing Confounded Conjuration; in which I propose to introduce a new song, that I have no doubt will be so celebrated as to be the theme of every ballad-singer in the metropolis. I cannot forbear anticipating some small share of that applause, which I have reason to suppose will be piled on Dr Caustic, as soon as he is publicly known as the author of such an inimitable production, by obliging your worships with a part of the chorus to the song aforesaid.