Dealings With The Dead Volume II Part 9

This seems to be in accordance, with the opinion of those modern Fathers, who consider the use of ether or chloroform, in obstetric cases, a point blank insult to the majesty of Heaven, because of the primeval fiat--_in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children_.

The race of Cyclops entertained a similar sentiment of submission, in sickness, according to Homer, Od. IX. 485. When _Oudeis_ (_Anglice Noman_) which always seemed to me an undignified pun, for an Epic, had put out the eye of Polyphemus, his roaring collected the neighboring giants. They inquired, outside the portal, what was the matter; and he replied, that _Oudeis_--_Noman_--was killing him; upon which they reply--

"If _Noman_ hurts thee, but the power divine Inflict disease, it fits thee to resign.

To Jove or to thy father Neptune pray, The Cyclops cried, and instant strode away."

The theory was, that G.o.d worked upon mortals, by the agency of a great number and variety of evil spirits, or devils; and that the employment of remedial means was therefore neither more nor less, than withstanding the Almighty. Hence arose the custom, being supposed less offensive, in the sight of Heaven, of resorting to charms and incantations; and of employing diviners and magicians; and, as old Sir Robert Walpole is reported to have said, that every man has his price; so it was supposed to be the case, with those devils, who were engaged, in the system of tormenting mankind.

Instead therefore of turning directly to the Lord, the sufferers were much in the habit of making their propitiatory suit, directly, to some false G.o.d, or influential demon. Of this we have an example, in Kings II. i. 2, et seq. Ahaziah, King of Israel, went up into his garret, probably, in the dark, and fell through the scuttle. He was severely bruised, and sent a messenger, post haste, to Ekron, to consult the false G.o.d, Baalzebub.

Elisha, who, though a prophet, had no reputation, as a physician, was consulted by Hazael and by Naaman, about their distempers.

Enchantments, talismans, music, phylacteries were in use, among the Hebrews, and formed no small part of their _materia medica_. Charms were used, as preventives against the bites of serpents. "Who," says Ecclesiasticus xii. 13, "_will pity a charmer, that is bitten with a serpent_?" This seems not to have availed, against the deaf adder, "which," Psalm lviii. 5, "_will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely_." And Jeremiah, viii. 17, declares, that the Lord will send c.o.c.katrices and serpents, that will not be charmed, upon any terms whatever.

Some verses are preserved, by Cato, De Re Rustica, art. 160, which were used, in reducing a dislocated member. Dr. Johnson has informed us, though without naming his authority, that ABRACADABRA was a superst.i.tious charm, against agues.

It is quite amusing, while reading Sir Thomas Browne's remarks on quackery, in his Pseudodoxia, ch. xi. to see how readily he admits satanic agency, himself. Take the following pa.s.sage--"When Gracchus was slain, the same day the chickens refused to come out of the coop; and Claudius Pulcher underwent the like success, when he commanded the tripudiary augurations; they died, not because the pullets would not feed, but because the devil foresaw their death, and contrived that abstinence in them."

Sir Thomas was a wise and safe counsellor, in all cases, in which there was no chance for the devil to operate; but whenever there was a loop hole, according to the belief in those days, for diabolical influence to creep through, no man was more inclined to give the devil his due, than Sir Thomas.

In this chapter, designed to be purely philosophical, he says of satan--"He deludeth us also by philters, ligatures, charms, ungrounded amulets, characters, and many superst.i.tious ways, in the cure of common diseases, seconding herein the expectation of men with events of his own contriving, which, while some, unwilling to fall directly upon magic, impute unto the power of imagination, or the efficacy of hidden causes, he obtains a b.l.o.o.d.y advantage." This description of the devil and of his manoeuvres so precisely fits the empiric, and all his proceedings, that I should suspect Sir Thomas of the unusual sin of perpetrating a pleasantry; and, under the devil's _effigies_, presenting the image of a charlatan; were it not, for the knowledge we have of this great and good man's credulity, and his firm belief in satanic realities; and, that, in part upon his own testimony, two miserable women were condemned and executed, for witchcraft.

No. CVIII.

John Jahn says, in his Biblical Archaeology, Upham's translation, page 105, that, in Babylon, when first attacked with disease, the patients were placed in the streets, for the purpose of ascertaining, from casual pa.s.sengers, what practices or medicines _they_ had found useful, in similar cases. Imagine a poor fellow, suddenly attacked with a windy colic, and deposited for this purpose, in State Street, in the very place, formerly occupied, by the razor-strop man, or the magnolia merchant! If it be true--I very much doubt it--that, in a mult.i.tude of counsellors, there is safety, this must be an excellent arrangement for the patient.

I have often thought, that benevolence was getting to be an epidemic; particularly when I have noticed the attentions of one or two hundred charitably disposed persons, gathered about a conservative horse, that would not budge an inch. They have not the slightest interest in the horse, nor in the driver--it's nothing under heaven, but pure brotherly love. The driver is distracted, by the advice of some twenty persons, pointing with sticks and umbrellas, in every direction, and all vociferating together. In the meanwhile, three or four volunteers are belaboring the shins of the refractory beast, while as many are rapping his nose with their sticks. Four stout fellows, at least, are trying to shove the buggy forward, and as many exerting their energies, to shove the horse backward. Half a dozen sailors, attracted by the noise, tumble up to the rescue; three seize the horse's head, and pull _a starboard_, and three take him, by the tail, and pull _to larboard_, and all yell together, to the driver, to put his helm hard down. At last, urged, by rage, terror, and despair, the poor brute shakes off his persecutors, with a rear, and a plunge, and a leap, and dashes through the bow window of a confectioner's shop, or of some dealer in naked women, done in Parian.

I am very sorry we have been delayed, by this accident. Let us proceed.

Never has there been known, among men, a more universal diffusion of such a little modic.u.m of knowledge. The knowledge of the materia medica and of pathology, what there was of it, seems to have been held, by the Babylonians, as tenants in common, and upon the Agrarian principle--every man and woman had an equal share of it. Such, according to John Jahn, Professor of Orientals in Vienna, was the state of therapeutics, in Babylon.

The Egyptians carried their sick into the temples of Serapis--the Greeks to those of aesculapius. Written receipts were preserved there, for the cure of different diseases. Professor Jahn certainly seems disposed to make the most of the knowledge of physic and surgery, among the Israelites. He says they had "_some acquaintance with chirurgical operations_." In support of this opinion, he refers to the rite of circ.u.mcision, and to--nothing else. He also says, that it is evident "_physicians sometimes undertook to exercise their skill, in removing diseases of an internal nature_."

If the reader is good at conundrums, will he be so obliging as to _guess_, upon what evidence the worthy professor grounds this a.s.sertion? I perceive he gives it up--Well--on Samuel I. xvi. 16. And what sayeth Samuel?--"And Saul's servants said unto him, behold now an evil spirit from G.o.d troubleth thee. Let our Lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on a harp: and it shall come to pa.s.s, when the evil spirit from G.o.d is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well." This, reduced into plain language, is simply this--Saul's servants took the liberty of telling his majesty, that the devil was in him, and he had better have a little music.

Accordingly, David was called in--_as a physician_, according to Jahn--and drove the devil out of Saul, by playing on his Jews'-harp. Jahn also informs us, and the Bible did before, that the art of healing was committed to the priests, who were specially bound, by law, "_to take cognizance of leprosies_." There were, as he admits, other _physicians_, probably of little note. _The priests_ were the regular, legalized faculty. On this ground, we can explain the severe reproach, cast upon Asa, who, when he had the gout, "_sought not the Lord but to the physician_:" that is, he did not seek the Lord, in prayer, through the intermediation of the regular faculty, the priests.

There are ecclesiastics among us, who consider, that the Levitical law is obligatory upon the priesthood, throughout the United States of America, at the present day; and who believe it to be _their_ bounden duty, to take cognizance of leprosies, and all other disorders; and to physick the bodies, not less than the souls, of their respective parishioners. To this I st.u.r.dily object--not at all, from any doubt of their ability, to practise the profession, as skilfully, as did the son of Jesse, and to drive out devils with a Jews'-harp; and to cure all manner of diseases, in the same manner, in which the learned Kircherus avers, according to Sir Thomas Browne, vol. ii. page 536, Lond. 1835, the bite of the tarantula is cured, by songs and tunes; and to soothe boils as big as King Hezekiah's, with fig poultices, according to Scripture; for I have the greatest reverence for that intuition, whereby such men are spared those _studia annorum_, so necessary for the acquirement of any tolerable knowledge of the art of medicine, by all, who are not in holy orders. My objection is of quite another kind--I object to the union of the cure of souls and the cure of bodies, in the same person; as I object to the union of Church and State, and to the union of the power of the purse and the power of the sword. It is true, withal, that when a sufferer is killed, by ministerial physic, which never can happen, of course, but for the patient's want of faith, n.o.body dreams of such an irreverent proceeding, as pursuing the officious priest, for _mala praxis_.

Priests and witches, jugglers, and old women have been the earliest pract.i.tioners of medicine, in every age, and every nation: and the princ.i.p.al, preventive, and remedial medicines, in all the primitive, unwritten pharmacopaeias, have been consecrated herbs and roots, charms and incantations, amulets and prayers, and the free use of the Jews'-harp. The reader has heard the statement of Professor Jahn. In 1803, Dr.

Winterbottom, physician to the colony of Sierra Leone, published, in London, a very interesting account of the state of medicine, in that colony. He says, that the practice of physic, in Africa, is entirely in the hands of old women. These pract.i.tioners, like the servants of Saul, believe, that almost all diseases are caused by evil spirits; in other words, that their patients are bedevilled: and they rely, mainly, on charms and incantations. Dr. W. states, that the natives get terribly drunk, at funerals--funerals produce drunkenness--drunkenness produces fevers--fevers produce death--and death produces funerals. All this is imputed to witchcraft, acting in a circle.

In the account of the Voyage of the Ship Duff to Tongataboo, in 1796, the missionaries give a similar statement of the popular notion, as to the origin of diseases--the devil is at the bottom of them all; and exorcism the only remedy.

In Mill's British India, vol. ii. p. 185, Lond. 1826, the reader may find a statement of the paltry amount of knowledge, on the subject, not only of medicine, but of surgery, among the Hindoos: "Even medicine and surgery, to the cultivation of which so obvious and powerful an interest invites, had scarcely attracted the rude understanding of the Hindus."

Sir William Jones, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 354, says, "there is no evidence, that, in any language of Asia, there exists one original treatise on medicine, considered as a science." Crawford, in his Sketches, and he has an exalted opinion of the Hindoos, states, that surgery is unknown among them; and, that, in cases of wounds from the sabre or musket, they do no more than wash the wound; bind it up with fresh leaves, and keep the patient on rice gruel. Buchanan, in his journey, through Mysore, vol. i. p. 336, informs us, that medicine was in the hands of ignorant and impudent charlatans. Origen, who was born, about 185 A. D., states that the Egyptians believed thirty-six devils divided the human body, among them; and that diseases were cured, by supplication and sacrifice, to the particular devil, within whose precinct the malady lay. This is a convenient kind of practice. May it not have some relation to the fact, referred to by Herodotus, in his History, book ii. sec. 84, that the doctors, in Egypt, were not pract.i.tioners, in a general sense, but for one part of the body only. Possibly, though I affirm nothing of the sort, Origen may have written _devils_ for _doctors_, by mistake: for the doctors, in those days, were, manifestly, very little better.

If it be true--_et quis negat?_--that Hippocrates was the father of physic--the child was neither born nor begotten, before its father, of course, and Hippocrates was born, about 400 B. C., which, according to Calmet, was about 600 years after David practised upon Saul, with his Jews'-harp. His genealogy was quite respectable. He descended from aesculapius, through a long line of doctors; and, by the mother's side, he was the eighteenth from Hercules, who was, of course, the great grandfather of physic, at eighteen removes; and who, it will be remembered, was an eminent pract.i.tioner, and doctored the Hydra. Divesting the subject of all, that is magical and fantastical, Hippocrates thought and taught such rational things, as no physician had thought and taught before. It appears amazing to us, the uninitiated, that the healing art should have been successfully practised at all, from the beginning of the world, till 1628, in utter ignorance of the circulation of the blood; yet it was in that year the discovery was made, when Dr. William Harvey dedicated to Charles I. and published his _Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis_.

No. CIX.

Quackery may be found, in every vocation, from the humblest, to the holiest.

_If the dead rise not at all_, says St. Paul, _what shall they do, who are baptized for the dead_! Nine different opinions are set forth, by Bosius, in regard to the true meaning of this pa.s.sage. Scaliger and Grotius, who were men of common sense, conclude, that St. Paul referred to a practice, existing at the time; and St. Chrysostom tells a frolicsome story of this vicarious baptism; that a living sponsor was concealed under the bed of the defunct, and answered all the questions, put by the sagacious priest, to the corpse, about to be baptized.

The dead have been, occasionally, through inadvertence, summoned to give evidence, in courts of justice. But, fortunately for quacks, in every department, dead men are mute upon the stand.

Saul, if we may believe the singing women, who came out to meet him, after the fall of Goliath, hath slain his thousands; and, could dead men testify, it would, doubtless, appear, that quacks have slain their tens of thousands. When we consider the overbearing influence of that ignorant, impudent, and plausible jabber, which the quack has always at command, it must be admitted, that these, his fatal victories, are achieved, with the very same weapon, employed by Samson, in his destruction of the Philistines.

There is nothing marvellous, in the existence of quackery, if we recognize the maxim of M. Sorbiere, in his _Relation d'une Voiage en Angleterre_, p.

155, _h.o.m.o est animal credulum et mendax_--man is a credulous and lying animal. David said, that all men were liars; but, as this is found in one of his lyrics, and he admits, that he uttered it in haste, it may be fairly carried to the account of _poetica licentia_. With no more, however, than a moderate allowance, for man's notorious diathesis towards lying, for pleasure or profit, it is truly wonderful, that credulity should preserve its relative level, as it does, and ever has done, since the world began. Many, who will not go an inch with the Almighty, without a sign, will deliver their noses, for safe keeping, into the hands of a charlatan, and be led by him, blindfold, to the charnel-house. Take away credulity, and the world would speedily prove an exhausted receiver, for all manner of quackery.

At the close of the seventeenth century, there was a famous impostor in France, whom the royal family, on account of his marvellous powers, invited to Paris. His name was James Aymar. I shall speak of him more fully hereafter; and refer to him, at present, in connection with a remark of Leibnitz. Aymar's imposture had no relation to the healing art, but the remark of Leibnitz is not, on that account, the less applicable. That great man wrote a letter, in 1694, which may be found in the Journal of Tenzelius, in which he refers to Aymar's fraud, and to his subsequent confession, before the Prince of Conde. Aymar said, according to Leibnitz, that he was led on, _non tam propria audacia, quam aliena credulitate hominum, falli volentium, et velut obtrudentium sibi_--not so much by his own audacity, as by the credulity of others, who were not only willing to be cheated, but actually thrust themselves upon him. All Paris was occupied, in attempting to explain the mystery of Aymar's performances, with his wonderful wand: and Leibnitz says--

_Nuper scripsi Parisios, utilius et examine dignius, mihi videri problema morale vel logic.u.m, quomodo tot viri insignes Lugduni in fraudem ducti fuerint, quam illud pseudo-physic.u.m, quomodo virga coryllacea tot miracula operetur_--I wrote lately to the Parisians, that a solution of the moral or logical problem, how it happened, that so many distinguished persons, in Lyons, came to be taken in, seemed to me of much greater utility, and far more worthy of investigation, than how this fellow performed miracles, with his hazel wand.

It is worth noting, perhaps, that Leibnitz himself, according to the statement of the Abbe Conti, in the _Gazzette Litteraire_, for 1765, fell a victim to a quack medicine, given him by a Jesuit, for the gout.

Ignorance is the hotbed of credulity. This axiom is not the less respectable, because the greatest philosophers, occasionally, place confidence in the veriest fools, and do their bidding. Wise and learned men, beyond the pale of their professional pursuits, or peculiar studies, are, very frequently, the simplest of simple folk--_non omnia possumus omnes_. Ignorance must be very common; for a vast majority of the human race have not proceeded so far, in the great volume of wisdom and knowledge, as that profitable but humiliating chapter, whose perusal is likely to stimulate their energies, by convincing them, that they are of yesterday and know nothing. Credulity must therefore be very common.

Credulity has very little scope, for its fantastical operations among the exact sciences. Who does not foresee the fate of a geometrical quack, who should maintain, that the square of the hypothenuse, in a right-angled triangle, is either greater or less than the sum of the squares of the sides; or of the quack arithmetician, who would persuade our housewives, that of two and two pounds of Muscovado sugar, he had actually discovered the art of making five?

The healing art--the science of medicine, cannot be placed, in the exact category.

It is a popular saying, that _there is a glorious uncertainty in the law_.

This opinion has been ably considered, by that most amiable and learned man, the late John Pickering, in his lecture, on the alleged uncertainty of the law--before the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in 1834. The credulity of the client, to which Mr. Pickering does not refer, must, in some cases, be of extraordinary strength and quality. After presenting a case to his counsel, as favorably to himself as he can, and carefully suppressing much, that is material and adverse, he fondly believes, that his advocate will be able to mesmerise the court and jury, and procure a verdict, in opposition to the facts, apparent at the trial.

He is disappointed of course; and then he complains of the uncertainty of the law, instead of the uncertainty of the facts.

In a dissertation, before the Medical Society, in June, 1828, Dr. George Cheyne Shattuck, after setting forth a melancholy catalogue of the troubles and perplexities of the medical profession, concludes by saying, that "all these trials, to which the physician is subjected, do not equal that, which proceeds from the _uncertainty_ of the healing art." When we contrast this candid avowal, from an accomplished and experienced physician, with the splendid promises, and infallible a.s.surances of empirics--with their balms of Gilead, panaceas, and elixirs of everlasting life--we cannot marvel, that the larger part of all the invalids, in this uncertain and credulous world, fly from those conservative professors, who promise nothing, to such as will a.s.sure them of a perfect relief, from their maladies, no matter how complicated, or chronic, they may be--with four words of inspiriting import--NO CURE NO PAY.

I am no physician; my opinion therefore is not presented _ex cathedra_: but the averment of Dr. Shattuck is, I presume, to be viewed in no other light, than as the opinion of an honorable man, who would rather claim too little, than too much, for his own profession: who would rather perform more, than he has promised, than promise more, than he can perform. If the regularly bred and educated physician complains of uncertainty, none but a madman would seek for its opposite, in the palace, or the kennel, of a quack; for the charlatan may occasionally be found in either.

The first thing to be done, I suppose, by the regular doctor, is to ascertain what the disease is. This, I believe, is the very last thing, thought of by the charlatan. He is spared the labor of all pathological inquiry, for all his medicines are, fortunately, panaceas. Thus, he administers a medicine, for the gout; the patient does not happen to have the gout, but the gravel; it is the same thing; for the physic, like our almanacs, was calculated, for different meridians.

These gentlemen sometimes limit their practice to particular diseases, cancers, fistulas, fevers, &c. A memorial was presented, some few years since, to the legislature of Alabama, for the establishment of a medical college, to be devoted, exclusively, to vegetable practice. A shrewd, old member of the a.s.sembly rose, and spoke, much after this fashion--I shall support this measure, Mr. Speaker, on one condition, that a neighbor of mine shall be appointed president of this college. It is proper, therefore, that you should know how far he is qualified. He was a travelling merchant; dealt chiefly in apple-trade and other notions, and failed. He had once taken an old book, on fevers, in exchange for essences. This he got by heart. Fevers are common with us. He was a man of some tact; and, a week after he failed, he put up his sign, "BELA BODKIN, FEVER DOCTOR--ROOTS AND HERBS--F. R. S.--L. L. D.--M. D. No charge to the poor or the reverend clergy."--When asked, what he meant by adding those capital letters to his name, he said the alphabet was common property; that F. R. S. stood for Feverfew, Ragwort, and Slippery Elm--L. L. D. for Liverwort, Lichens, and Dill--and M. D. for Milk Diet.

The thing took--his garret was crowded, from morning till night, and the regular doctor was driven out of that town. Those, who got well, proclaimed Dr. Bodkin's praises--those, who died, were a very silent majority. Everybody declared, of the dead, 'twas a pity they had applied too late. Bodkin was once called to a farmer's wife. He entered the house, with his book under his arm, saying FEVER! with a loud voice, as he crossed the threshhold. This evidence of his skill was astonishing.

Without more than a glance at the patient, he asked the farmer, if he had a sorrel sheep; and, being told, that he had never heard of such a thing, he inquired, if he had a sorrel horse. The farmer replied, that he had, and a very valuable one. Dr. Bodkin a.s.sured him the horse must be killed immediately, and a broth made of the _in'ards_ for the sick wife. The farmer hesitated; the wife groaned; the doctor opened the book, and showed his authority--there it was--readable enough--"_sheep sorrel, horse sorrel, good in fevers_." The farmer smiled--the doctor departed in anger, saying, as he went, "you may decide which you will sacrifice, your wife or your nag." The woman died, and, shortly after, the horse. The neighbors considered the farmer a hard-hearted man--the wife a victim to the husband's selfishness--the sudden death of the horse a particular providence--and Dr. Bodkin the most skilful of physicians.

No. CX.