"I am what is called a herbalist, or herb doctor. I was brought up in a workhouse, my parents having died when I was quite a child. I had a great many brothers and sisters, all of whom died young. I had a very delicate constitution, and was thought at one time to be dying of the same disease as carried off my mother and sisters. The doctors gave me up as being beyond their skill. Well, I had begun to study medical botany by this time, and I at last discovered herbs that cured me. I now thought of curing others, and began first with some children belonging to poor people. I succeeded in almost every case, and as I charged nothing at all for the medicines, I was called out by all the poor people in the neighbourhood.
"At last my practice began to interfere with my employment as a weaver, and my master told me that he was willing to keep me and advance my wages, but I was on no account to have anything more to do in curing the sick. Well, I went round my circle of friends to ask their advice, and they unanimously agreed to support me among them rather than be deprived of my assistance. I accordingly gave up my place and opened a herb shop. I studied the properties of herbs constantly. I had no taste for any other employment. I tried the effects of all of them on myself first of all, and sometimes on my wife, before I decided on using them, and I daresay I may have done too much in this way in order to be able to assure my patients that I had first taken a dose myself. I have read all the books on the subject, in addition to my own practical experience; and I will not yield the palm to anyone for having a knowledge of herbs—I mean as to their medical properties. Well, I continued in my first shop for about nine years, got married, and had a comfortable home. About this time a clergyman of my acquaintance happened to be removing to another county, a considerable distance from the town where I lived, and as I had cured his wife after all the regular doctors had given the case up as hopeless, he offered me 52l. per annum if I would go to the same place as he was removing to and open a shop there, and I agreed. I was unfortunate the first year in not getting many patients, and began to regret that I had left my old abode. But by-and-bye the news of my cures spread abroad in the neighbourhood, and I soon had as many patients as I could attend to. I never advertised a line, and yet I had patients as far away as Scotland. Ultimately my patients extended to the middle classes, and that was what brought me here. So long as I confined my labours to the poor, the regular doctors did not interfere with me, but when I began to take away their paying patients by the half-dozen, they tried all they could to damage my character, and get me out of the district."
"What is your sentence?"
"Seven years, and I'll tell you how I got it. I sold a mixture composed of four different herbs, which is the most effectual medicine for certain diseases peculiar to females; in fact, it is invaluable to young unmarried women subject to the complaint I refer to, but, unfortunately for me, it has also the effect of procuring abortion. Well, one day a young woman came to me and wished to purchase some of this medicine. I had cured an unmarried female of her acquaintance, but before giving her the medicine I cautioned her not to take it if she was enciente, as it would procure abortion. The female who now applied to me wished it for that very purpose; her husband was a sailor, she had been faithless in his absence, and she now wished to keep him in ignorance of her sin. All this, however, I learned only when too late. I refused to sell the woman the medicine, as I could see she was married. On being refused, she went to an old woman whose daughter had taken the medicine, and offered her 3l. if she would get her some of it. Of course, I was not aware of this when the old woman came to me and asked me for some more of the medicine for her daughter, as she said. I sold her the medicine, which she gave to the sailor's wife. It had the desired effect, and she was well and going about in a couple of days. Her husband now returned, and the old woman demanded the 3l., which the sailor's wife refused to pay. Determined not to be beaten, she went to the husband and told him all about it. He called in doctors to report on the case, which they did, adding that instruments had been used, which was altogether false. The medicine was easily traced to me. Where I was wrong was, in not having a written statement from everyone to whom I sold the herbs, in order to have protected myself against any such charge as was now brought against me. The doctors, no doubt, believed that instruments had been used, because they do not know the particular herbs at all, and no one in England knows them but myself and I do not intend to let many know either—it's dangerous knowledge; but, as God is my judge, I never used it wilfully except for the relief of a disease that carries thousands of our countrywomen to the grave in the very prime of youth. I have been called to cases over and over again, after all the doctors had given them up, and I have often restored the pale hectic young woman, in an advanced stage of consumption, to health and vigour, by the simple use of herbs—the best of God's gifts to man!"
"What diseases were you most successful with?"
"There is one disease I could never cure, and that's ossification of the heart, but in the great majority of other diseases I succeeded wonderfully. Sometimes, of course, I would be called to a consumptive patient within a few days or hours of his death, when life was so low as to render it impossible for the medicine to be taken."
"What do you think of the cold-water system and homœopathy?"
"The cold water may do for some diseases and for some patients only, but it is nonsense to think to cure all diseases in one way. I am not a quack. In America there are colleges for teaching my system of curing disease, regular teachers of medical botany. As for homœopathy, I think very little of it. I have known it succeed in cholera cases sometimes, however, as well as the allopathy. When patients have very little the matter with them, homœopathy, or any other 'pathy' they have confidence in, does all very well, and it fills the purses of the practitioners, but when real rooted disease has to be encountered, the herbs that God has given for the use of man are the only trustworthy means by which to effect a cure. To give you an idea how many are 'gulled,' I may say robbed, by regular doctors, I will give you the particulars of two cases which happened within my own personal knowledge. Two men were seized with the same fever, and to all appearance the patients were about equal in health, strength, and age. I was called to one, and a regular doctor to the other. The doctor allowed the fever to come to its height, as it is called. He made frequent visits, ran up as large a bill as he thought would be duly paid, and in three or four weeks the patient was at his employment. My patient was at his work in three days, and all it cost him was a few shillings!"
"How did you manage to cure him so speedily?"
"I never allow fevers to come to the height; I strike at the root of the disease. If you were going to build up a house that was out of repair and encumbered with rubbish, you would naturally clear away the rubbish first and then begin your repairs. Well, that is just how I go to work with disease. Every pore of the skin must be cleansed, opened, and stimulated to action. The stomach must be thoroughly emptied and cleansed by a particular herb, and the bowels must be effectually treated in the same way. The house cleansed, I begin my repairs, which consist in aiding Nature with the most powerful assistance given us by Nature's God for that purpose, and the work is soon completed. I would undertake to cure 100 out of the 150 patients here in a fortnight."