a situation high enough, and a voice loud enough, I would say to all the valetudinarians upon earth, "Drink tar-water."? But it happened, as had been anticipated in the letter which we have just quoted, that the reputation of tar-water was not of much duration; and it has been long since not only neglected, but forgotten. Another specific which was in vogue about the same time shared no better fate, although it was first recommended on the authority of another distinguished philosopher, who was also a physician, and afterwards sanctioned by the three branches of the legislature. A certain Mrs. Stephens professed to have discovered a cure for the gravel and stone in the bladder and kidneys, in the shape of a powder, and a decoction of pills, all to be administered internally. The celebrated David Hartley collected evidence on the subject, and published an octavo volume recommending Mrs. Stephens's medicine, with an account of 150 cases in which it was supposed to have been administered with advantage, his own case being among the number. Mrs. Stephens offered to make known her secret to the public for the sum of 5000l. An attempt was made to raise the amount by subscription, and several noblemen and gentlemen promised their contributions towards it; in the list of whom we find the names of some eminent physicians and surgeons,-Dr. Peter Shaw, Dr. Monsey, and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Cæsar Hawkins. Not more than 1387, however, having been collected, application was made to parliament, by whom the sum required was granted, the composition of the specific being afterwards published in the London Gazette. It consisted of egg-shells and snail-shells, with the snails in them, all calcined; ash-keys, hips and haws, swinecress and various other vegetables, all burned to a cinder; with camomile-flowers, fennel, and some other vegetables-these last not being burned in the same manner. The disclosure of the mystery did not add to the reputation of the medicine. It gradually fell into disuse. Dr. Hartley himself died of the discase of which he had supposed himself to be cured; and we will venture to say that among the other patients who were really afflicted in the same manner, and who did not resort to other methods of relief, there were none who did not share Dr. Hartley's fate. It would, indeed, be a matter of astonishment that so many grave persons should have arrived at a conclusion on such insufficient evidence as that which Dr. Hartley had furnished, if we did not know how easy it is for mankind to be made to believe that to be true which they wish to be so. These histories are sufficiently instructive to those who are disposed to learn; but the next is more instructive still. It is within the memory of many now alive, that an individual of the name of Perkins claimed the discovery of a new method of curing diseases by the application to the surface of the body of certain pieces of metal, prepared by himself in some unknown manner, and sold by him under the name of 'metallic tractors.' This agency was attributed to some kind of magnetic influence which the tractors possessed, and, if the report of the inventor could be believed, the effects which they had produced in his own country (the United States of America) were indeed marvellous. The trials made of them in England were at first not less successful than those on the other side of the Atlantic. Persons of the highest station, as well as in other grades of society, bore testimony to the wonders which they worked. Among the vouchers,' says Mr. Perkins, will be found eight professors in four universities, in the various branches, as follows: three of natural philosophy, four of medicine, one of natural history: to these may be added nineteen physicians, seventeen surgeons, and twenty clergymen, of whom ten are doctors of divinity; and many others of equal respectability.' Perkinism advanced rapidly in reputation everywhere; but the chief seat of its triumphs seems to have been in Bath, which at that period, before the road was opened to the German Spas, was resorted to by a vast number of invalids of every description, and, what was more to the purpose, by a host of malades imaginaires also. Nor was this all. It was thought, and not without reason, that, if the principle were good, it might be extended further; and many grave and soberminded gentlemen wore pieces of loadstone suspended round the neck, for the purpose of preventing or curing the gout. But, unfortunately for Perkinism, there dwelt in Bath a certain shrewd physician, Dr. Haygarth, who was not inclined to yield implicitly to the authority of the aforesaid university professors, nor of the ten doctors of divinity, and ten other clergymen, nor even of the thirty-six wiseacres of his own craft, who had borne witness to the efficacy of the tractors. It occurred to him that he had neither seen nor heard of any effects following the use of the tractors which might not fairly be attributed to the influence of the imagination either of the patient or of the bystanders. In order to determine how far this was or was not the case, he provided some pieces of wood fashioned to the same shape, and painted of the same colour, as the tractors; and then by an innocent-we will not call it a pious-fraud he caused them to be applied, under the pretence of their being the genuine tractors, in the usual manner, to various patients. The experiments were conducted partly by himself, and partly by a gentleman who still lives enjoying the respect of the profession to which he belongs-Mr. Richard Richard Smith, surgeon to the Bristol infirmary; and they were witnessed by a great number of persons. The results were not less remarkable than those which followed the use of the real Perkinean instruments. There was only one patient among those subjected to the operation who did not declare that he experienced from it more or less benefit, and in him the effect of it was greatly to augment his sufferings, so that he would on no account allow it to be repeated. He said that the tractors had tormented him out of one night's rest, and that they should do so no more.' This exposure was a death-blow to Perkinism. Even in Bath, the following year produced only a single case of supposed cure from the tractors; and in the course of two or three years the delusion had vanished in other places. It was not very long after the period which is here referred to that some one recommended mustard-seed, to be taken internally, as a cure for all sorts of disorders. One or two wonderful recoveries, which were said to have followed the taking of mustardseed, gave it at once a vast reputation. Everybody took mustard-seed. The street in which it was sold was crowded with carriages, the tenants of which were patiently waiting until it came to their turn to be drawn up to the emporium of mustard-seed. This lasted for two or three years. It was then discovered that mustard-seed did no more than a great number of remedies could do, which it was less disagreeable to swallow; and that some persons suffered harm from the quantity of it which they had taken; and the delusion went the way of the tractors. A young man, who had been brought up as a journeymancooper, was instructed by his mother in the art of champooing. Champooing, and other modes of friction, have been long known as useful remedies in certain cases of stiff joints and weakened limbs, and as a substitute for exercise in bedridden patients; and there are many respectable females, of the class of nurses, in London, who practise the art very successfully, and think themselves amply remunerated for their labour by earning a few shillings daily. But this youth was more fortunate. One or two cures, which it was reported that he had made, caused him to be talked of at every dinner-table. It was believed that he had made a prodigious discovery in the healing art-that champooing, performed according to his method, was a remedy for all disorders. Not only those to whose cases the treatment was really applicable, but those to whose cases it was not applicable at all-patients with diseases of the hip and spine, of the lungs and liver-patients with the worst diseases, and patients with no disease whatever went to be champooed. The time of the artist, being fully occupied, rose in value; and we have no doubt that we do not over-estimate his - gains in saying that, for one or two years, his receipts were at the rate of 6000l. annually. A young lady, whose lower limbs had been paralytic from infancy, was brought to him from the country to be cured. At the end of a year, 500l. having been expended in the experiment, she returned home in the same state as when she had left it but promises were made to her that if the process were repeated it would produce the desired effect at last, and she came to London again for the purpose. The result was such as might have been anticipated. Matters went on thus for three or four years, when the delusion ceased about as suddenly as it had leapt into vigour, and the champooer found himself all at once deprived of his vocation. The history of St. John Long is in the recollection of many of our readers. This individual had been brought up as a painter, but, finding this profession to be productive of no immediate profit, he turned his attention to the healing art. His principal remedy was a liniment, of which we believe that oil of turpentine and some kind of mineral acid were the principal ingredients. However that may have been, in common with many other stimulating applications, it had the property of producing an exudation from the surface of the skin. The physician's theory was, that all diseases depend on a morbific matter in the blood, and that the exudation from the skin was this poison drawn out by the power of the liniment. Thus extraordinary cures were made of gout and rheumatism, abscesses of the lungs and liver, and insanity. A noble lord saw a fluid resembling quicksilver extracted from a patient's head. The house in which these miracles were wrought was crowded with patients belonging to the affluent classes of society, and the street with carriages. At last some cases occurred in which the application of the liniment caused a violent inflammation, ending in extensive gangrene. One patient died, and then another, and we have reason to believe that one or two others met with the same fate. The practitioner was convicted of manslaughter. If the remedy were of any real value, we do not know that these cases proved anything but the necessity of greater caution in the use of it; for there are few agents for good which, if carried too far, or had recourse to on improper occasions, may not be agents for evil also. The public, however, did not look so far as this, and their faith in the treatment was rapidly abating when the practitioner himself fell a victim to pulmonary disease. There is a curious sequel to this history, which has been communicated to us on good authority. But we have no wish to make individuals, who had no very wrong intentions, look ridiculous, when it can answer no useful purpose to do so. Suffice it then to say that a medical practitioner, who had a fair reputation in the district district in which he resided in the sister-kingdom, was persuaded to occupy the house in which the liniment had worked such wonders, with a view to carry on the same method of treatment, and with the self-same remedies. The charm, however, was no more in his hands than that of touching for the evil' had been in the hands of Cromwell: the street was empty of carriages, and the drawing-room of patients, and the new-comer was soon glad to return to his former, and, we hope, more useful and profitable occupation. These projects, with a great number of others of the same description, are now matters of history. They have lived their day, and have been long since dead and buried. But we are not to suppose that the race of them is extinct, or that this age of wealth, luxury, and leisure is less favourable to their development than those which have preceded it. Mr. Vallance, the author of one of the works of which the titles are placed at the beginning of this article, is not the inventor, but he fills the no less useful though more humble office of promulgator of the brandy-and-salt remedy. This vast discovery was made by a Mr. Lee, an English gentleman, who, as Mr. Vallance informs us, possesses an estate of 12,000 acres of land in France (it is not said in what part), on which he resides in a castle with two gamekeepers, one chaplain, and eighty doAn accidental circumstance led him to a knowledge of the medicinal virtues of a solution of six ounces of common culinary salt in one pint of French brandy. Sometimes used externally, and at other times taken internally, it removes the effects of the stings of mosquitoes, gnats, wasps, bees, and vipers; it cures the head-ache, and ear-ache, and side-ache; gout, consumption, scrofula, insanity, chilblains, mortification, and about thirty other disorders:— 'Mr. C. C., of Bishop's Lane, was cured of the gravel in a few days.' Richard Cowley, my boy, had his feet crushed by the fall of a window-shutter, so that the blood gushed out at his toe-ends, but, thanks to the influence of brandy and salt, he was cured in a week.' 'John Calvert, James Crowest, and Mr. L. were all dying of consumption, but recovered rapidly under the use of brandy and salt.' Even the worst complications of disease yield to this remedy. A lady who was afflicted at the same time with a sore leg, a bad breast, an abscess in her back, another abscess under her arm, and with rheumatism, was cured of these five disorders in the course of six weeks. But the most interesting case is that of Captain Plumb, of the Ann, London trader, who was extremely ill all over his body, |