shall annoynte his face mornynge and evenynge, this will kill and destroy all redness." "To cause hayre to grow-take the water of flower-deluce, and washe thy heade therewithe, and it shall cause hayre to grow. Also the water of rosemary hath the same virtue; if thou wash thy heade with the same, and let it dry on agayne by itself, it causeth haire to growe if thou be balde." Possibly Mr. Clirebugh may thank us for taking up this "old established" remedy against the too common practice of father Time filching away our coveted curls, and a new "Tricopherous" may be the result. "If physic be a trade," it has been remarked, (and it is to be observed, the speculation is put hypothetically,) "it is the trade of all others, the most exactly cut out for a rogue." For what with the mongrel Latin for their dialect, which invests with a species of free-masonry all their mysterious movements and manœuvres; and their interminable variety of drugs, potions and delectable draughts, it seems almost next to an impossibility to look for indemnity against quackery and quacks. Can anything be more ludicrous than the foregoing samples of the wisdom of both practitioners and patients in the boasted days of "good Queen Bess?" Formerly, the mountebank doctor was as constant a visitor of the market-place, as the pedlar with his pack; one Dr. Bossy was the last who is said to have thus exhibited in the British metropolis. This illustrious "" green horn" used to ascend a platform erected in Covent Garden, prepared for his express accommodation, in order, it is presumed, that he might obtain a brief, temporary elevation above the benighted ranks of ignorance and superstition from which he sprang. On one side was a table with a medicine chest and surgical apparatus, displayed in a most imposing array; in the centre of the platform was the horrible chair in which the devoted victim of this sapient impersonation of surgical skill was to be seated. Before the gentleman in question commenced operations, however, after laying aside his gold-laced cocked-hat and cane, his usual custom was to regale his gaping, gazing auditory, with a delicate taste of his profound erudition. In the year 1728, one Villars informed his credulous companions and the community of his day, that his uncle, who had attained to the age of nearly a century, and who was then indebted to an accident for his dismission, (for it is to be inferred from the writer he never meant to die,) had left him a certain preparation, which had the virtue of prolonging a man's life to a hundred and fifty years, if he lived soberly, and did not live "too fast." When he happened to observe the procession of a funeral, he used to shrug up his shoulders, and in a generous burst of pity, exclaim, "Ah, if the deceased bad but taken my medicine, he would not have been where he is." Those who became his patients, usually paid due attention to his instructions as to regimen and diet, and for the most part enjoyed good health and attained to comparative longevity, so that the professional repute of the practitioner, and his harmless cheat, alike prospered, while his purse, as a matter of consequence, became endowed with large accessions of "the root of all evil." A certain dignitary, styled the Abbé Pones, extolled this quack, and gave him the preference to the Marischal de Villars; "the latter," says he, "kills men; the former prolongs their existence." In process of time, however, this distinguished humbug survived his popularity, for his "infallible specific" at length became betrayed, it was found to consist nine-tenths of water, from the river Seine. The medicine was inoffensive enough, possibly, but the price charged for the same was, like its vaunted efficacy, a fascinating delusion and imposture. But really, we can scarcely afford any sympathy for the vic timized, when we reflect what a strange, eager proclivity there has ever been observable among mankind, and womankind too, to relish the cheat, and even to do honor to the fabricator of the fraud. A lady, who was much afflicted, and who had been attended in vain by several physicians, was induced to invite the services of an acknowledged quack, and a verification, like most of his class, of Pope's maxim, about a little learning being dangerous; he came, appealed to her pulse, when, trying to look sublimely mysterious, "well, doctor," says the piteous patient, ready for anything, "do you comprehend my case?" "Oh yes, mem, it is a plain case," quoth he. "Well, doctor, what is it?" "Why, madam, it is a serutanutory case!" "Scrunatory case, doctor, pray, what in the world is that?" "It is a dropping of the nerves, mem!" Dropping of the nerves, Sir?" "Yes, mem, the nummaticals drop down into the pizer-inchum, and the head goes tizer rizer, tizer rizer." 'Ah, dear doctor, you have just hit my case precisely." Nothing further was of course necessary, except a mutual consent to barter for a portion of her money a liberal dose of his drugs and canine latin. "Please, sir," said a doctor's boy to an honest disciple of Esculapius, "I don't think Mr. Dosem takes his physic reg'lar." "How so?" "Because he's getting well so precious fast!" Hutchinson's clever satire in song, entitled " A Dose of Calomel," comes to our point: "Physicians of the highest rank, To pay their fees would need a bank, "The man grows worse quite fast indeed! "The man in death begins to groan, A sacrifice to-calomel! This abominable calomel may be considered the dividing line between the rival systems of Allopathy and Homeopathy; whatever virtues may result from the introduction of the mineral as a medicament, there can be no doubt it has been also a fearful auxiliary of the grim monster. But we have not yet done with the quacks; and the next we want to introduce to our friends, rejoiced in the not uncommon name of Graham, who, in the year 1782, made a tremendous sensation in London. He was gifted with great fluency of speech, and indulged in towering hyperbole and bombast with which he sought to gull the wonder-loving multitude. He opened a splendid mansion in Pall-mall, which he styled the "Temple of Health." The front was ornamented with an enormous gilt sun, a statue of Hygeia, and other attractive emblems; and the suite of rooms, in the interior, was superbly furnished, and the walls decorated with mirrors, so as to confer on the place an effect like that from an enchanted palace. Here he delivered lectures on health at the extravagant price of two guineas per lecture; and the price, together with the novelty of the subjects, drew together considerable audiences of the wealthy and dissi pated. He entertained a female, whom he called the goddess of health; and it was her business to deliver a concluding discourse after the doctor himself had delivered his lecture. He hired two men of extraordinary stature, provided with enormous cocked-hats, and with showy liveries, whose business it was to distribute bills from house to house through the city. He became, therefore, an object of curiosity. When his two guinea auditors became exhausted, he dropped his lectures successively to one guinea, half-a-guinea, five shillings, and, as he said, "for the benefit of all," to half-a-crown; and, when he could no longer draw at this price, he exhibited the temple itself for one shilling, to daily crowds, for several months. Among other whimsicalities, he pretended to have discovered the "elixir of life," by the taking of a quantum of which, a person might live as long as he might list. His terms for this invaluable invention, were, it is true, rather extravagant for common people-but of course, so desirable a boon ought not to be made too cheap. More than one nobleman, it is recorded, actually paid him the enormous fee of one thousand pounds sterling! Rather an expensive premium for the purchase of a little common sense. This wonderful discovery, however, did not last long, for the delusion soon exploded, and poor Graham, himself, soon died, after vainly practising various other mummeries, at the early age of 52 years-poor, and despised by all. Such wretched victims of folly, sin as much against themselves, one would suppose, as against society; for they too often pay the most heavily in the end for their errors and delinquencies. Such objects are the exuberant outgrowth of the times; if the masses were better informed in medical lore themselves, there would be found fewer willing to be duped. Dr. Ticknor has some remarks to this effect. He says: "In ancient times, when the people were groping their way in the darkness of ignorance and superstition, it is not to be wondered at that they should be deceived by false appearances, by mystery, magic, and incantation, and by the various arts and devices of a cunning priesthood; but it is most truly astonishing, that, with all the light of the nineteenth century, people should be so impudently cheated, when the imposture is so easily detected. It is neither the ignorant nor the superstitious alone who are gulled by the designing; for in this country such individuals are rarely to be found-and yet there are plenty of subjects upon whom these harpies prey. And who are they? They are not ignorant in matters not pertaining to themselves; they are by no means superstitious, or particularly credulous on other subjects to which they give their attention. But of the structure of their own bodies, the laws which govern their actions in health and disease, and the causes which derange their operations, they have no correct idea; they have never, perhaps, seen a human skeleton, and, in all probability, ninety-nine in a hundred of the non-professional public, have never even seen a single human bone. They know not how the circulation of the blood is performed, in what vessels it runs its course, nor what will hasten or retard its celerity; they know not the difference between a muscle and a nerve-a tendon and a vein; and those who pride themselves on their extensive acquirements, daily betray the grossest ignorance when speaking of the human system. These are the persons who are the dupes of quacks; and they fall a prey to their arts, not from a general lack of information, but for a want of it in regard to that in which they are most deeply concerned-their health and comfort. Were the positively ignorant the only supporters of quacks, they would soon be driven from the field by starvation; but unfortunately for the interests of science, the universal ignorance of the human system in health and in disease, propagates a race of unprincipled empirics; and on this ignorance they grow and fatten. Encouraged by success, it matters little how gross the absurdity, or how glaring the imposture, they attempt to practice; and if they envelope their whole scheme in as deep a mystery as that which involved the oracles of Pythian Apollo, so much the more likely are they to become equally celebrated." While we think of it, a word or two concerning "touching for the evil," may not be inappropriate; it is a ticklish topic, however, to touch upon, since formerly kings claimed the exclusive privilege as their prerogative. The custom took its rise with Edward the Confessor, and was continued down to the age of Dr. Samuel Johnson-who was himself" touched" by Queen Anne. During the reign of Charles II-temp. 1664, the following advertisement was published, respecting the pretended kingly cure, &c. :- Notice. His sacred majesty having declared it to be his royal will and purpose to continue the healing of the people during the month of May, and then give over till Michaelmas next, I am commanded to give notice thereof, that the people may not come up to the town in the interim, and lose their labor." On the 6th of March, 1667, the king touched 133 pretended cases, and to every one a gold medal was given in connection with the sanatory touch. About the same time, Greatrex, the supposed first mesmerizer, touched a man for the cure of the consumption! People, in those days, as in our own, seem to have been afflicted with bad humors, and been very touchy, to account for the needed kingly intervention for the redress of their wrongs; but enough about kingly quacks. The power of imagination is often no less potent in the cure of diseases, than in their production; and as it will not be necessary for us to refer, as we might, to instances where death has actually been superinduced by the influence of fear, we shall simply notice a solitary case of the effect of the imagination on the judgment. Says a practicing physician in Worcester, Mass.: "In an early part of my practice I was called into a neighboring town to visit a patient. It being the middle of the day, the old gentleman of the house (being over sixty years of age) invited me to stop and dine. While at dinner he says, 'I don't know as you like my dinner.' Why, yes,' said I, 'I do; I like it very well; it is very good.' 'I guess,' said he, you don't know what you are eating.' Why, yes,' said I, it is some new corned beef.' Ah,' said the old gentleman, 'it is horse beef.' I replied, I don't believe it.' It is,' said he, I declare it is some of my old mare.' I was not much acquainted with him at that time; I looked at him, supposing him to be joking, but could not discover a muscle of his face to alter or change. I had just taken another piece on my plate, and a mouthful of the second slice in my mouth, and in fact it was horse meat, sure enough; I could taste it as plainly as my olfactory nerves could discover the scent of an old horse. The more I chewed it, the more disagreeable it tasted. I continued picking and tasting a little sauce which I could swallow, but the meat, as the negro said, would no go. I at last gave a swallow, as I do with a dose of physic. I afterwards tasted a little sauce, but took care not to put any meat in my mouth, and kept time with the family. Glad was I when dinner was over. It being cool weather, the old gentleman went to smoking and telling stories. At last he says, 'I won't leave you in the dark about your dinner. I told you we had horse meat for dinner, and so it was. I told you it was some of my old mare, and so it was, for 1 swapt her away for a steer, and that was some of her beef.'"' The nostrums of quacks owe, doubtless, three-fourths of their success, and that is not little, to the charm of the patients' faith; but it is diffi cult to ascertain what proportion of them lose their lives with their disease. It is stated that the late Lord Gardenstone, himself a valetudinarian, took the pains to inquire for those persons, who had actually attested marvellous cures, and found that more than two-thirds of the number died very shortly after they had been cured. Sir Robert Wal pole, and Lord Bolingbroke, with many others that might be named, were among the victims of these universal cure-mongers. The days of Charms and Amulets are past, and in their stead we have a plentiful supply of patent pills and plasters. A physician, on a certain occasion, prescribed a blister on the breast of an Irishman, whom he was attending. "I beg your worship's pardon," said Pat, "but I'm sure it's of no use-it wouldn't stay on my stomach a minute," (To be Continued.)| POPULAR PORTRAITS WITH PEN AND PENCIL. HON. JOSHUA A. LOWELL. HISTORY and true philosophy, when carefully examined, will be found intimately connected together. The principles and doctrines of the one can be safe and valuable only in proportion as they are based upon, and deduced from, the facts of the other. Nations, as well as individuals, have been in all past time, and must forever continue to be, guided mainly by the light of experience. Even this solitary light may sometimes be faint and glimmering! yet, such as it is, it by necessity dawns from the past, illuminates the present, and casts its cheering beams forward into the dark and undiscovered regions of the future. Will it be objected, that the history of past nations furnishes little else than a record that they once existed, and long since ceased to be? and that, therefore, it fails to interest us who are now engaged in the tiresome "bivouac of life;" that it excites in us no strong desire, nor instructs us how to become "heroes in the strife?" This objection is indeed too true; and it results from the fact that we are apt to isolate the present from the past, and to look upon the teachings of history as we do upon the old Mythological Fables, or upon some ascetic precept gravely uttered, but illustrated by no example. Here, then, may be seen the superiority of biography over history. The facts of the latter are too often but dimly seen, and then appear disconnected and alone; its results seem unfounded, and at variance with their causes; and its examples monstrous, or too impracticable for imitation! It thus becomes the ivory gate, through which "falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia Manes." But, in the former, and especially in the biography of persons still living, motive and action, cause and effect, are all placed in near proximity, and their connections with each other seem evident and natural. The teachings it gives are to the point-plain, practical. It discourses of men in their individual capacities, and holds up to view for individual imitation, such examples of excellence as may be imitated and equalled, or even excelled, pointing out at the same time, to all who are desirous of learning, the steps by which others have ascended to the temple of fame. But it is only in a country like our own, where there are no titled, no proud nor privileged nobility; where the government is administered on republi |