for empiricism was never more in fashion than at the present day, and the chemical art has supplied them with many more arcana and nostrums than the ancients had in all their antidotes and theriacas, etc. since chemistry was made subservient to medicine. Van Helmont, nevertheless was a learned man, and acquired a great name and reputation, at least for some time; but, as neither his theory nor his practice were founded on nature and reason, nor conformable to them, the more judicious physicians soon saw their errors, as well as the fallacy of his new invented chemical terms and unmeaning phrases, which only contained the shadow and not the substance of the medical science; therefore both his chemical theory and hot regimen, together with his writings, sunk soon after his death, into a state of merited oblivion.

Notwithstanding that the science of chemistry was greatly improved by these extraordinary men, who invented or discovered many useful remedies, which they introduced into the practice of medicine in a no less extraordinary manner, and thereby pointed out the way for others to follow them; yet we must allow that the more able and learned chemists have greatly enriched and improved the materia medica since, by making many curious experiments, and thereby discovering several new and very efficacious medicines, not only from the semi-metals, mercury and antimony, and the various chemical preparations from them, but from the more perfect metals, and some other mineral bodies, as

well as from a great variety of remedies which are prepared both from vegetable and animal substances, as salts, oils, essences, spirits, tinctures, elixirs, extracts and many more needless here to be mentioned, but all of which are known to physicians. For all these we are indebted to the chemists who first invented and introduced them into practice; although the use and application, as well as the methods of administering them to the sick, to cure various other diseases than those they were first used for, has been greatly improved by several learned and ingenious physicians.

CHAPTER XXI.

MODERN EMPIRICISM.

In one respect we have but very little occasion to extol our own enlightened age at the expence of those ages which are so frequently and justly termed dark. We allude to the bold and artful designs of imposture, and particulary medical imposture. Daily are seen illiterate and audacious empirics sporting with the lives of a credulous public, that seem obstinately resolved to shut their ears against all the suggestions of reason and experience. The host of empirics, mountebanks, and self-dubbed hygeists, which infest the metropolis, and the tinctures, cordials, pills, balms, and essences, so much extolled by their retailers, and swallowed by the public, are indeed so many proofs of the credulity of the age, that to say the least, the march of intellect has evidently made a faux-pas in this direction.

The celestial beds, the enchanting magnetic powers introduced into this country by Messmer, a German quack, and his numerous disciples, the prevailing indifference to all dietetic precepts, the singular im

position practised on many females, in persuading them to wear the inert acromatic belts, the strange infatuation of the opulent in paying five guineas for a pair of metallic tractors, not worth sixpence, the tables for blood-letting, and other absurdities still inserted in popular almanacs, (against all the rules of common sense)—all these yield in nothing to the absurdities and superstitious notions conveyed through the medium of astrology, dreams, and other ludicrous though by far more imposing and interesting channels. The temple of the gulls is now thronged with votaries as much as that of superstition formerly was ; human reason is still a slave to the most tyrannical prejudices; and certainly, there is no ready way to excite general attention and admiration, than to deal in the mysterious and the marvellous. The visionary system of Jacob Böhman has latterly been revived in some parts of Germany. The ghosts and apparitions which had disappeared from the times of Thomasius and Swedenborg, have again left their graves, to the great terror of fanaticism. New prophets announce their divine mission, and, what is worse, find implicit believers! The inventors of secret medicines are rewarded by patents, and obtain no small celebrity; while some of the more conscientious, but less fortunate adepts, endeavour to amuse the public with popular systems of medicine.

One of the most dazzling and successful inventors in modern times, was Messmer, who commenced his career of medical knight-errantry at Vienna. His house was the focus of high life, the rendezvous of the gay, where the young and opulent were enlivened

and entertained with continual concerts, routs, and illuminations. At a great expence, he imported into Germany the first Harmonica from this country: he established cabinets of natural curiosities, and laboured constantly and secretly in his chemical laboratory; so that he acquired the reputation of being a great alchemist, a philosopher studiously employed in the most useful and important researches. In 1766, he first publicly announced the object and nature of his secret labours :-all his discoveries centered in the magnet, which, according to his hypothesis, was the best and safest remedy hitherto proposed against all diseases incident to the human body.

This declaration of Messmer excited very general attention; the more so as about the same time he established a hospital in his own house, into which he admitted a number of patients gratis. Such disinterestedness procured, as might be expected, no small addition to his fame. He was, besides, fortunate in gaining over many celebrated physicians to his opinions, who lavished the greatest encomiums on his new art, and were instrumental in communicating to the public a number of successful experiments. This seems to have surpassed the expectations of Messmer, and induced him to extend his original plan further than it is likely he first intended. We find him soon after assuming a more dogmatical and mysterious air, when, for the purpose of shining exclusively, he appeared in the character of a magician :—his pride and egotism would brook neither equal nor competitor.