MEDICAL DELUSIONS AND FRAUDS.
State of Medicine in remote Ages--Animals Teachers
of Medicine--Gymnastic Medicine--Cato’s Cure for a
Fracture--Dearness of ancient Medicines and Medical
Books--Absurdity of the ancient Materia Medica: Gold,
Bezoar, Mummy--Prescription for a Quartan--Amulets--Virtues
of Gems--Corals--Charms--Charm for sore Eyes--Medicine
connected with Astrology--Cure by Sympathy--Sir Kenelm
Digby--The real Cause of the Cure--The Vulnerary
Powder, &c.--The Royal Touch--Evelyn’s Description of
the Ceremony--Valentine Greatrakes--Morley’s Cure for
Scrofula--Inoculation--Vaccination--Dr. Jenner--Animal
Magnetism--M. Loewe’s Account of it--Mesmer, and his
Feats--Manner of Magnetizing--Report of a Commission on the
Subject--Metallic Tractors--Baron Silfverkielm and the Souls in
White Robes--Mr. Loutherbourg--Empirics--Uroscopy--Mayersbach--Le
Febre--Remedies for the Stone--The Anodyne Necklace--The
Universal Medicine--Conclusion.
The history of the art of medicine begins with fable and conjecture,
and rests on dubious tradition. Fifty years prior to the Trojan war,
Esculapius is said to have been deified, on account of his medical
skill; and Machaon and Podalirius, his sons, formed the medical staff
of the Grecian army before Troy. In the temples of the gods diseases
and cures were registered, and engraved on marble tables and hung up,
for the benefit of others. The priests, at that time, prepared the
medicines, and made it a lucrative trade; and fables were invented to
increase the renown of the oracle, for difficult cases were stated to
be caused by the immediate wrath of Heaven, in which the only remedies
were prayer and sacrifices, fear urging the trembling patients to
follow whatever course was prescribed.
From the sacred writings little medical information is derived: Moses
gave precautionary directions for the prevention or cure of leprosy,
consisting chiefly of cleanliness; and religion was called in to
enforce the medicinal ordinances. In Babylon, we are told by Herodotus,
that the sick were carried out to the public roads, that travellers
might converse with them, and acquaint them with any remedies they had
seen used in such complaints with success. In Egypt, each physician
applied himself to one disease; and Prosper Alpinus, in his History of
Egyptian Medicine, reports that they took the hints of curing divers
diseases from brute beasts: thus phlebotomy was taken from a practice
noticed in the hippopotamus, or river-horse, which bleeds itself when
plethoric, by pressing its thigh on a sharp-pointed reed. Dogs and cats
are known, when sick, to vomit themselves by eating grass; swine, when
ill, refuse meat, and so recover by abstinence. In like manner from
numerous bodies, as flies, locusts, &c., being enclosed in amber, it is
thought the art of embalming was first suggested.
Gymnastic medicine was founded by Herodicus; games and sports had
been early instituted in the Grecian states, and were divided into
religious, military, athletic, and lastly medical gymnastics,
particularly adapted for the prevention or cure of diseases. Herodicus,
from his own observations on its advantages, commenced practising as a
physician, and it was his only panacea. After him came Hippocrates, who
made the first successful attempt to separate the medical profession
from rash empiricism, and the frivolous dreams of philosophers. He
compared the body to a circle, in which an universal sympathy of parts
existed; his great repute arose from his skill in predicting crises,
which he was enabled to do with perfect precision.
Pliny says Rome was inhabited six hundred years before any physicians
established themselves there; and for some time the medicine of the
Romans consisted of charms, fascinations, incantations, and amulets.
The book of Cato de Re Rustica, is a proof of the gross superstition
and ignorance of those times. He proposed in a case of fracture to have
it bound up, and the following words sung every day--“Huat, Hanat, ista
pista, fista, dominabo, damnastra et luxata.”
When the religious frenzy of the Mahometans was abated, and they became
enriched by commerce, arts and literature, after ages of barbarism,
were again cultivated with great industry, and the medical profession,
in particular, was rewarded and encouraged with rank and bountiful
endowments. Ætius complained in his time of the general use of quack
medicines, nostrums, &c., and of the immense price demanded for those
which were fortunate enough to rise into general repute. Danaus, he
tells us, sold his collyrium, at Constantinople, at the astonishing
price of one hundred and twenty pieces of gold to each patient, and
sometimes could scarcely be persuaded upon to sell it at any price.
Nicostratus demanded no less than two talents for his celebrated
isotheosis, or antidote against the colic.
The works of the Grecian and Arabian physicians, when they came to be
more generally known in the fifteenth century, were most highly prized.
In the year 1471, Louis XI. borrowed the works of Rhazes from the Paris
faculty, but was obliged, previously, to deposit a quantity of plate,
and find a nobleman to join with him, as an additional security for
the care and safe return of the book. Jew physicians were at that time
employed by the Pope, and most of the crowned heads in Europe. John of
Gaddesden was the first Englishman appointed Court Physician in London.
His idea of the treatment of diseases was rather different from the
theories of the present day; for when attending the king’s son for
smallpox, he directed the room to be hung with scarlet cloth, and the
patient to be rolled up in similar stuff.
The _rationale_ of the Materia Medica one hundred and fifty or two
hundred years since was very extraordinary, as well with respect to
the nature of the substances proposed as remedies, as to the number of
ingredients, sometimes thirty or forty, which were congregated together
in each composition, upon the principle that if one did not reach the
disorder another might.
The nature of the substances used was, often, even more extraordinary
and disgusting than their variety; many of them were thought to act by
a charm, or by the strong sensation of disgust which their exhibition
excited, rather than by any more direct appeal to the disordered part.
The more precious also the article, the more certain was thought the
cure.
The _aurum potabile_, and other preparations of gold, were conceived to
have many virtues. Gold, by the chemical writers, was styled the sun
and king of metals. Kings and princes were thus amused and defrauded,
and their lives made shorter than those of their subjects who were
beneath the use of gold. The chickens they ate were fed with gold,
that they might extract the sulphur, and prepare the metal by their
circulation; the physicians were contented to collect all the gold,
which passed unaltered and undiminished through the poultry, into their
pockets.
Bezoar denotes an antidote, from a Persian word, and is generally
applied to medicinal stones, generated in the stomach and other viscera
of animals. Bezoars usually attain the size of acorns or pigeons’
eggs, the larger the more valuable. A stone of one ounce was sold in
India for one hundred livres, and one of four ounces and a quarter for
two thousand; they were very scarce, and few of the genuine ever came
into the European market, the greater number that were sold being
artificial compounds. The hog bezoar, or Pedra del Porco, was first
brought into Europe by the Portuguese; it is found in the gall-bladder
of a boar in the East Indies; the Indians attribute infinite virtues
to it, as a preservative against poison, cholera, &c. The porcupine
and monkey bezoars were held in such esteem by the natives of Malacca,
that they never parted with them unless as presents to ambassadors
and princes; single stones have been sold for sixty or eighty pounds
sterling. In 1715, bezoar was thought equal in value to gold. Dr.
Patin says of it, the most visible operation it hath is when the bill
is paid; and he calls it the scandalous stone of offence, and lasting
monument of perseverance in imposture.
The most loathsome preparations were recommended, and eagerly used by
the sick. Mummy had the honour to be worn in the bosom, next the heart,
by kings and princes, and all those who could bear the price. It was
pretended, that it was able to preserve the wearer from the most deadly
infections, and that the heart was secured by it from the invasion
of all malignity. A dram of a preparation called treacle of mummy,
taken in the morning, prevented the danger of poison for all that day.
Thus decayed spices and gums, with the dead body of an Egyptian, were
thought to give long life.
To cure a quartan, or the gout, “take the hair and nails, cut them
small, mix them with wax, and stick them to a live crab, casting it
into the river again.” The moss from a dead man’s skull was held to be
of sovereign virtue in some cases.
Amulets were much used formerly, not only to cure but to prevent
disease, and also were thought to have a wonderful power over the moral
qualities and affections. The onyx, worn as an amulet, strengthened
the heart, and refreshed phantasms. The ruby resisted poisons, and
preserved from the plague. If a man was in danger it changed colour,
and became dim, but recovered its brightness when the danger was
past. Hence, perhaps, was the original motive for carrying jewels and
precious stones, set in rings or in seals.
Corals, says Paracelsus, “are of two sorts: one, a clear bright shining
red; the other, a purple dark red. The bright is good to quicken
phansie, and is against phantasies, or nocturnal spirits, which fly
from these bright corals, as a dog from a staff, but they gather where
the dark coral is. A spectre or ghost is the starry body of a dead
man: now these ethereal or starry bodies cannot endure to be where the
bright corals are, but the dark coloured allures them; the operation
therefore, is natural, not magical, or superstitious, as some may
think. Bright coral restrains tempests of thunder and lightning, and
defends us from the cruelty of savage monsters, that are bred by the
heavens contrary to the course of nature; for sometimes the stars pour
out a seed, of which a monster is begotten; now these monsters cannot
be where corals are.”
The use of charms in medicine was a very ancient practice, and, when
once commenced, each succeeding charm became more ridiculous. Pierius
mentions an antidote against the sting of a scorpion; the patient
was to sit on an ass, with his face to the tail, for by this means
the poison was transmitted from the man to the beast. Sammonicus, a
poetical physician, recommended the fourth book of Homer’s Iliad to be
laid under the patient’s head to cure a quartan ague. The efficacy of
scriptural sentences was deduced from the custom of the Jews wearing
phylacteries.
An approved spell for sore eyes was worn as a jewel about many necks:
it was written on paper, and enclosed in silk, “never failing to do
sovereign good when all other helps were helpless. No sight might dare
to read it, but at length a curious mind, while the patient slept, by
stealth ripped open the mystical cover, and found in Latin, Diabolus
effodiat tibi oculos, impleat foramina stercoribus.”
When astrology was in repute, physic was generally practised with some
reference to the stars, and the astrological judgments became a very
common object of inquiry amongst physicians. A Dr. Saunders, who wrote
very fully on this branch of the science, thus commences:--
“From hence
Withdraw all carping critics that deny
The great art of sublime astrology,
Which, unto such as have attained the key,
Shows the true cause of a disease, and may
Direct the doctor, expeditiously,
The nearest way to cure the malady.”
But, says he, “the firm and steadfast confidence in the Almighty is
quite essential to the happy conclusion of all expectionates; for, if
thou presumest otherwise, no doubt but that will be verified on thee
which the prophet sayeth to the Chaldeans, ‘Sapientia et scientia te
decepiet,’ for either, by thy own ignorance and mistaking, thou wilt be
seduced, or else Heaven itself shall yield unto thee so ambiguous an
answer, that thou shalt not be able to conclude any certainty.
“The Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Arabians, do observe many curious
observations in this art, as translation of light, prohibition,
contraradiation, restitution, frustration, obsession, cursuvacation,
cursutardation, ferality, augedescention, meridiodescentia,
luminiminution, numeriminution, via combusta, &c., which, although I
wish not to deny to have some small effect, yet I have often proved,
that overmuch curiosity doth rather deviate a man from concluding any
thing certainly.
“If thou findest the cusp of the ascendant to fall in the very latter
end of a sign, then, doubtless, the querent comes but to tempt thee;
or if the question be not radical, if the lord of the ascendant or the
hour be not of one triplicity, it signifies the carelessness of the
querent, and that he cares not whether you hit or miss.”
Among the more remarkable of subsequent medical delusions were, the
cure by sympathy, royal touch, and animal magnetism. Sounder views of
medical practice were entertained by degrees; but enough of the old
leaven of folly and superstition has, at different times, shown itself,
to prove that human nature will never be free from the imputation of
lending itself, either from vanity, indolence, or ignorance, to forward
the views of ridiculous or unprincipled empiricism; the disciples
of which would, nevertheless, be the first to disbelieve or dispute
similar assertions or arguments, when applied to the exercise of other
professions or trades.
The first medical delusion which claims our notice is the cure by
sympathy. What is now the common method of healing wounds, appeared
most unnatural to the surgeons at the end of the seventeenth century;
and their legitimate and only cure proved such torture to the
unhappy patients, that, in those days, nothing was to be heard in
the hospitals, at the time of dressing, but howling and cries. A man
proposing the romantic doctrine of adhesion of wounds by union of their
edges, would have been despised; but, if he were bold and cunning
enough to give an air of incantation to his cures, or declare that
they were performed by a secret philosophical sympathy, he was sure
of success. No surgeon in Europe ventured to unite wounds directly,
without pretending to have learnt, from some Eastern sage, or to
have discovered, by abstruse studies in philosophy and alchemy, a
sympathetic or philosophical mode of cure.
The first inventor of the sympathetic powder was the celebrated
Paracelsus, and the Paracelsian doctors flourished in England when
Dr. Charleton wrote his ternary of paradoxes, chiefly on the magnetic
or attractive power of wounds. This fanaticism lasted no short time,
and was hardly to be paralleled, except by the study of the perpetual
elixir, and the universal solvent.
Sir Kenelm Digby, secretary to Charles I., was driven into exile during
the civil wars. In a discourse upon the cure by sympathy, pronounced at
Montpelier before an assembly of nobles and learned men, he gave the
curious case of Mr. Howell, who, whilst endeavouring to part two of his
friends who were fighting, had his hand cut to the bone. Sir Kenelm was
applied to for assistance. “I told him,” says he, “I would willingly
serve him; but if, haply, he knew the manner how I would cure him,
without touching or seeing him, it may be he would not expose himself
to my manner of curing, because he would think it, peradventure, either
ineffectual or superstitious.” He replied, “The wonderful things which
many have related unto me of your way of medicinement makes me nothing
doubt at all of its efficacy; and all that I have to say unto you
is comprehended in the Spanish proverb--Hagase el milagro y hagalo
Mahoma--Let the miracle be done, though Mahomet do it.”
“I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it; so he
presently sent for his garter, wherewith his hand was first bound,
and dissolving some vitriol in a basin of water, I put in the garter,
observing in the interim what Mr. Howell did. He suddenly started,
as if he had found some strange alteration in himself. I asked him
what he ailed? ‘I know not what ails me, but I find that I feel no
more pain; methinks that a pleasing kind of freshness, as it were a
wet cold napkin, did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the
inflammation that tormented me before.’ I replied, ‘Since then that
you feel already so good effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast
away all your plaisters, only _keep the wound clean_, and in a moderate
temper betwixt heat and cold.’ To be brief; there was no sense of pain
afterward; but within five or six days the wounds were cicatrized and
entirely healed.”
The king obtained from Sir Kenelm the discovery of his secret, which he
pretended had been taught him by a Carmelite friar, who had learned it
in Armenia or Persia.
The fact was, the sympathetical physician understood the cure of wounds
by adhesion more perfectly than others; but it was necessary to cheat
the world into this safe method of cure, and they declined the use of
it altogether, where they foresaw, from the nature of the wound, it
could not succeed. The public opinion would have been so strong against
any open innovation, that the sympathetic doctors got credit for
something like witchcraft, and condescended to dress axes and swords,
that the wounds might have leave to lie at rest till they healed. All
cures by adhesion were mysteriously performed, and one in particular,
called the secret dressing, in which great pains were taken, before
laying the lips of the wound together, to suck out all the blood. This
was chiefly used by drummers in regiments, to conceal the quarrels of
the soldiers.
The trick of this way of cure consisted in making grimaces and
contortions, signing their patients with the cross, and muttering
between their teeth some unintelligible jargon. Their care was to keep
the profession among themselves, and it was from the profanation of
the sign of the cross that there arose a hot war between the priests
and the suckers; the former refusing confession, extreme unction, or
any sacrament to those who had undergone the magical or diabolical
ceremonies of the suckers, who, on the other hand, refused to suck
those connected in any way with the priests, being anxious to preserve
their trade, which was not without its emoluments; for Verduc observes
that they were still more skilful in sucking gold than blood.
The “Vulnerary Powder, and Tincture of the Sulphur of Venus,” performed
wonders, one of which Dr. Colebatch relates of a Mr. Pool, who was
run through the body with a sword, and lost four quarts of blood. The
medicines being applied, the bleeding stopped; on the following day he
“was gnawing tough ill-boiled mutton,” and drank a quart of ale; and in
the course of five days he returned to duty in the camp. “A Mr. Cherry
also, sergeant of grenadiers at the attack of the castle of Namur, was
wounded in twenty-six places, twenty-three with bullets, and three
large cuts on the head with a sword. He lay forty-eight hours stripped
naked upon the breach, without a bit of bread or drop of drink, or
any thing done to his wounds; yet this man was cured by the vulnerary
powder and tincture alone, and never had any fever.”[16]
The materials of the sympathetic powder were more heterogeneous and
horrid than those which the witches used to drop into the caldron;
human fat, human blood, mummy, the moss that grows in dead men’s
skulls, or hogs’ brains; and the chief schism among the great masters
of the sympathetic school arose from the question, whether it was
necessary that the moss should grow absolutely in the skull of the
thief who had hung on the gallows, and whether the medicine, while
compounding, was to be stirred with a murderer’s knife?
Some, anxious to avoid the damnable charges which were urged against
this practice, defended it on philosophical principles, and from the
analogy of other natural operations. Any lute, said they, being tuned
in unison with another, is affected when the other is struck, the
magnet turns by sympathy to the pole, amber attracts light bodies,
loadstones hung to the breast make us cheerful and merry, and the
wearing of jewels secures chastity.
All acknowledged sympathetic cures were successful, and the established
surgeons of that day refused to practise the treatment, only because it
was impious and unlawful; for, said they, how can we contradict matters
of fact?
We come now to the second of the great medical delusions, that which
attributed to the royal touch a sanative power in scrofulous cases.
This is supposed to have been a monkish invention, to increase the
reverence for kings, and was practised in England and France.
Becket, a writer in the time of Charles II., fully describes the
royal gift of touching for the evil, which gift had been confirmed
and continued for six hundred and forty years. It is proved out of
Corinthians I. chap. xii. ver. 9. “To another the gift of healing by
the same spirit,” and they must needs be allowed no good subjects who
dare deny this sanative faculty, when so many thousands had received
benefit!
Clovis I., the fifth king of France, who reigned about five hundred
years after the birth of Christ, is reputed to have been the first who
had the gift of curing this disease. William of Malmesbury states,
that Edward the Confessor was the first in England who healed strumous
patients by the touch. Dr. Plott describes a piece of gold of this
monarch, found in St. Giles’s Fields, near Oxford, having E. C. over
the head, as well as two small holes through it by which it was hung
on a riband, and used at the ceremony of touching for the evil. Some
have considered this gift as the most efficacious part of the cure;
some imagined that the success was principally owing to the sign of the
cross made on the swellings.
The power of healing by the royal touch does not seem to have been very
frequently practised till the time of Charles I. and II., after which
it almost ceased.
Mr. Evelyn gives a full description of the ceremony. “His majesty,”
says he, “began to touch for the evil according to custom, thus:--His
Majesty, sitting under his state in the Banqueting House, the
chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought or led up to the throne,
where, they kneeling, the king strokes their faces or cheeks with both
his hands at once, at which instant a chaplain, in his formalities,
says, ‘He put his hands upon them and he healed them;’ this is said to
every one in particular. When they have all been touched they come up
again in the same order, and the other chaplain kneeling, and having
angels of gold strung on white ribands on his arm, delivers them one
by one to his majesty, who puts them about the necks of the touched as
they pass, whilst the first chaplain repeats, ‘That is the true light
who came into the world.’ Then follows an Epistle, with the Liturgy,
and prayers for the sick, with some alteration; lastly the blessing.
Then the lord chamberlain and comptroller of the household bring a
basin, ewer, and towel, for his majesty to wash. John Bird says, the
king expresses his belief in the cure being effected through the grace
of God, saying, at the time of the ceremony, ‘I touch, God heals.’”
One of the historians of the royal touch gives a numerical table of
the number of persons touched by Charles II., from May 1660 to 1680,
distinguishing the exact number of each year; the grand total amounts
to the incredible number of ninety-two thousand one hundred and seven,
at the average of twelve every day!
Others, besides those of royal extraction, set up pretensions of curing
certain diseases by touch. The seventh sons of seventh sons had a more
than usual virtue inherent in them. But the one who attracted public
attention most was Mr. Valentine Greatrakes, called, _par excellence_,
“The Stroker.” He was an Irish gentleman, and came to England, invited
by the Earl of Orrery, to cure the Viscountess Conway of an inveterate
headache; and though he failed in that attempt, he is said to have
wrought many surprising cures, not unlike miracles. He was born in
1628, seemed very religious, his looks grave but simple. He had felt
a strange persuasion, or impulse, that he had the gift of curing the
evil, which suggestion becoming very strong, he stroked several persons
and cured them. During an epidemical fever, he cured all who came to
him, his power of curing extending over divers maladies. He performed
such extraordinary cures that he was cited into the Bishop’s Court, at
Lismore, for not having a license to practise. He arrived in England
in 1666; and, as he proceeded through the country, magistrates of the
cities and towns through which he passed begged him to come and cure
their sick. Having arrived in London, he every day went to a particular
part, where a prodigious number of sick of all ranks and both sexes
assembled. His fame did not last, however. He returned to Ireland in
1667, and lived many years, but no longer kept up the reputation of
performing strange cures. On the strictest inquiry, no sort of blemish
was ever thrown on his character.
A Mr. Morley wrote on the virtues of the vervain root, as an effectual
cure for scrofula. “I recommend,” says he, “a piece of the root of
common purple vervain, fresh, about three or four inches long, all the
fibres to be cut off, and it is to be always worn at the pit of the
stomach, tied with one yard of white satin riband half-inch wide; no
other colour is proper, because the dye may be prejudicial.”
It is the fate of all useful discoveries or improvements to meet with
bigoted or interested opposition from those who would willingly remain
in the beaten path of habit, rather than acknowledge any change to be
profitable.
That most important discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey
was at first furiously opposed, and was _proved_, according to the laws
of hydraulics, to be both impossible and absurd; yet, when it was in
vain to dispute the fact, it was undervalued, as one _almost_ known
long before!
Inoculation, it is well known, as a means of rendering small-pox less
severe, was introduced into England by Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who
had frequent opportunities of seeing the operation performed, when
residing at Constantinople with her husband, the English ambassador
there. She was so thoroughly convinced of the safety of this practice,
that she was resolved to submit her only son to it; a boy about six
years of age. The operation succeeded perfectly; this happened in 1717.
After her return to England, she set the first and great example, by
having her little girl, then five years old, also inoculated.
Mr. C. Maitland, who had accompanied the family of Mr. Wortley, and
had inoculated the son and daughter of that gentleman, performed the
operation, by royal command, on six condemned criminals at Newgate, in
the presence of several eminent physicians and surgeons, and they all
did well. Mr. Maitland, however, was not prepared to find this species
infectious, and was much surprised to find that the disorder was caught
by six servants, who were wont to hug and caress a little child, sick
of the inoculated disease.
So great a novelty, as the inoculation of a disease, produced much
astonishment and dread, and it was opposed professionally and
theologically. Mr. Edmund Massey preached a sermon, at St. Andrew’s,
Holborn, July 8, 1722, against the dangerous and sinful practice of
inoculation. His text was Job, chap. ii. v. 7, “So went Satan forth
from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils, from the
sole of his foot unto his crown.” From this text he argued that the
disease with which Job was smitten was neither more nor less than the
confluent small-pox. “With this view, I shall not,” said he, “scruple
to call it a _diabolical_ operation, usurping an authority founded
neither in nature nor religion. This practice also tends to promote
vice and immorality, inasmuch as it diminishes the salutary terror
which prevails respecting the uncertain approach of the disease.”
Inoculation has doubtless been of infinite benefit to society, but
it is now superseded by a much greater improvement, namely, that of
vaccination. This is, beyond all comparison, the most valuable and the
most important discovery ever made; it strikes out one of the worst in
the catalogue of human evils; it annihilates a disease which has ever
been considered as the most dreadful scourge of mankind.
Dr. Edward Jenner, the inventor of vaccination, was born in
Gloucestershire, in 1749, and, being educated for the medical
profession, was placed under the immediate tuition of Mr. John Hunter,
with whom he lived two years, as a house pupil. After finishing his
studies in London, he settled at Berkeley. His inquiry into the nature
of cow-pox commenced about the year 1776. His attention to this
singular disease was first excited by observing, that among those
whom he inoculated for the small-pox many were insusceptible of that
disorder. These persons, he was informed, had undergone the casual
cow-pox, which had been known in the dairies from time immemorial, and
a vague opinion prevailed that it was a preventive of the small-pox.
He instituted a series of experiments, and several persons were
successively inoculated from each other with vaccine matter, and then
exposed to the infection of small-pox, which they all resisted. When
these facts were communicated to the world envy assailed his fame, his
discovery was depreciated, then denied. Truth, however, ultimately
prevailed, vaccination obtained a complete triumph, and the foes of
Jenner and humanity were covered with confusion. Dr. Mosely, one of his
opponents, asks if any person can say, “What may be the consequences of
introducing a _bestial humour_ into the human frame, after a long lapse
of years?” He was asked, in return, “What may be the consequences,
after a long lapse of years, of introducing into the human frame cow’s
milk, beefsteaks, or a mutton-chop?” Dr. Jenner had numerous presents
of plate, &c., honours were conferred on him by different societies;
and a grant of ten thousand pounds was voted to him by Parliament.
The phenomena of Animal Magnetism, when announced to the world, excited
the greatest sensation on the Continent, particularly in France; for
some years the subject filled their “Journals” and “Mercuries,” and
employed some of their best pens and brightest wits.
M. Mesmer, the inventor, was a native of Switzerland, of great talents,
but enthusiastic fancy. He undertook to defend the old doctrine of
the influence of the planets on the human frame, and he searched for
some means of communication between them. Electricity did not answer
his expectations, and he turned his attention to magnetism. Iron
becomes magnetic after being rubbed with a magnet; he therefore rubbed
the human body with the loadstone. The phenomena which resulted he
attributed, at first, to the magnetic influence; but experience proved
to him that the application of the bare hand produced the same effect,
yet he called this animal magnetism.
M. Loewe, a supporter, says, “On a certain application of the palm of
the hand and tips of the fingers, made by the magnetiser, without,
however, touching the person, or even at the distance of two or three
inches, the magnetised individual feels an increase of warmth, at
times a chilliness or uneasiness within him, particularly near the
pit of the stomach. After repeated applications, the eyelids become
heavy, and the patient falls into a sleep, from which he cannot be
aroused by sense of hearing, or by any other of the external organs
of sense. There was one instance of a magnetised person, who had only
occasion to enter the house of the magnetiser, in order to fall into
a profound and magnetical sleep. A very rare result of this state is
that of clairvoyance, when it has been observed, that the internal
sense seems to present itself wholly unconfined, and all nature appears
to be disclosed to it; the body being, as it were, completely numbed,
eyelids open, pulse soft and hardly perceptible, the countenance is
transformed, and exhibits the picture of innocence. They are in fervent
prayer to the Creator, or perhaps they describe scenes and pastimes
at the antipodes. A female, who had never been in America, and had
never read geographical descriptions, described that continent, its
inhabitants, &c., very accurately.”
Meeting with but little encouragement in Germany, Mesmer went to
France, where he was exceedingly successful. His cures were numerous,
and of the most astonishing nature. He was obliged to form a number of
pupils, under his inspection, to administer his process. His house, at
Creteil, was crowded with patients, and a numerous company was daily
assembled at his house at Paris, where the operation was publicly
performed.
One evening, M. Mesmer walked with six persons in the gardens of the
Prince de Soubise. He performed a magnetical operation upon a tree,
and, a little after, three ladies of the company fainted away. The
duchess, the only remaining lady, supported herself upon the tree,
without being able to quit it. The Count of ----, unable to stand,
was obliged to throw himself upon a bench. The effects upon M. A----,
a gentleman of muscular frame, were more terrible; and M. Mesmer’s
servant, who was summoned to remove the bodies, and who was inured to
these scenes, found himself unable to move. The whole company were
obliged to remain in this situation for a considerable time.
The public method of magnetising was performed in a large room, in the
centre of which stood a circular box, large enough to admit of fifty
persons standing round it. Out of the lid came numerous branches of
iron, one to each patient. The patients applied this branch to the
part affected, and a cord, passed round their bodies, connected one
with the other, and each patient pinched the thumb of his neighbour.
A piano-forte played different airs, with various rapidity, the sound
of which was also a conductor of magnetism. The bucket in the centre
was the grand reservoir, from which the fluid was diffused through the
branches of iron inserted in the lid. All this was purely imaginary,
for, on being tested with an electrometer and needle of iron, it
was evident the bucket contained no substance either electric or
magnetical. By degrees, however, the several ranks of patients round
the bucket became affected with drowsiness, convulsions, or hysterics,
and nothing was more astonishing than the combination of effects at one
view. The patients appeared entirely under the government of the person
who distributed the magnetic virtue.
This system at length was thought to deserve the attention of
government, and a committee, partly physicians and partly members of
the Royal Academy of Sciences, with Dr. Benjamin Franklin at their
head, were appointed to examine it. M. Mesmer refused communication
with them, but M. Deslon, the most considerable of his pupils,
consented to disclose to them his principles. The result of the
investigation was made known by a report from the commissioners. They
decided that, instead of being a novelty, Mesmer’s was merely an
ancient and worthless system, which had long been abandoned by the
learned.
The commissioners afterwards made experiments on single subjects,
and upon themselves. After repeated experiments, not one of the
commissioners felt any sensation that could be ascribed to the action
of magnetism. Of fourteen sick persons, operated upon in private, five
only appeared to feel any effect from the operation. In fact, magnetism
did not appear to them to have any existence for those subjects who
submitted to it with any degree of incredulity.
M. Sigault, by _pretending_ to possess the magnetising power, had
all the success of Mesmer himself. He detailed, in a letter to the
commissioners, the results, as follows:--“The magisterial tone and
serious air I affected, together with certain gestures, made a very
great impression on the woman of the house, which she was desirous to
conceal, but, having guided my hand upon the region of the heart, I
felt it palpitate. Her face became convulsed, her eyes wandered; she at
length fell into a swoon, and was reduced to a state of weakness and
sinking perfectly incredible. I repeated the same trick upon others,
and succeeded more or less, according to their different degrees
of sensibility and credulity. A celebrated artist complained for
several days of an extreme headache, and acquainted me with it on the
Pont-Royal. Having persuaded him that I was initiated in the mysteries
of Mesmerism, I expelled his headache, almost instantaneously, by means
of a few gestures, to his great astonishment.”
From numerous experiments made by the commissioners, it was quite clear
that those who were most susceptible of the magnetic influence, if
magnetised _unknown to themselves_, were not in the least affected;
whereas, when they _suspected_ the operation was performing, they
exhibited all the usual phenomena attributed to that power, though in
reality nothing was done.
Metallic tractors, as the agents of animal magnetism, under the
superintendence of Dr. Perkins, for a time produced a sensation equally
extraordinary in England; but it was satisfactorily proved that the
imagination of the patient alone gave virtue to the tractors. Dr.
Thornton found a wooden skewer had all the power of the tractors in
removing pain when clandestinely used instead of them.
The Baron Silfverkielm, of Uleáteog, in Finland, was a great proficient
in Mesmerism. He imagined the souls of those magnetically asleep were
translated to the regions above, where the souls of the departed were
all dressed in white robes, and enjoyed constant scenes of delight. He
would interrogate the sleepers, concerning the white robes, Paradise,
and the Elysian Fields. He was also desirous to receive intelligence
from his ancestors, and, in general, they very kindly sent him their
compliments by the mouths of the couriers in white jackets.
By directly attacking the imagination did Mr. Loutherbourg cure
vast numbers of patients. He became impressed with the idea that he
had a commission from above to cure diseases, and his door was soon
crowded with patients all day. Amongst others, a respectable man,
from the country, had been afflicted with great pains and swellings,
particularly about the loins, so that he could not walk across the
room. On entering, Mr. Loutherbourg looked steadfastly at him, and
said, “I know your complaint, sir, look at me.” They continued looking
at each other some minutes; then Mr. L. asked, if he did not feel
some warmth at his loins. The man replied that he did. “Then you will
feel in a few minutes much greater warmth.” After a short pause, the
man said, “I feel as if a person was pouring boiling water upon me.”
Still looking him in the face, Mr. L. said, “How did you come here,
sir?” “In a coach.” “Then go and discharge your coach, and walk back to
town” (from Hammersmith Terrace, where Mr. L. resided). The coach was
discharged, and the patient walked to town, and next day he walked five
hours about town without fatigue. He offered ten pounds; but Mr. L.
would not take a farthing.
The easy manner in which people have become a prey to illiterate and
dangerous pretenders, in the medical art, has been long known. Many
thousand volumes would attest the truth of this observation, which has
been often repeated. Cotta, in 1612, says, “There is no place or person
ignorant how all sorts of vile people and unskilful persons, without
restraint, make gainful traffic by botching in physic; and hereby
numbers of unwotting innocents daily enthrall and betray themselves to
sustain the riot of their enemies and common _homicides_.” The late Dr.
Buchan exclaimed, “As matters stand at present it is easier to cheat a
man out of his life than a shilling, and almost impossible to detect or
punish the offender.” The case is still the same.
Uroscopy, or water-casting, was once very much practised, and those
who professed to cure diseases by such inspection, simply, were
consulted by all classes of persons. The absurdity of these pretensions
was forcibly exposed by Dr. Radcliffe, on the following occasion. A
shoemaker’s wife applied to him to relieve her husband, who was very
ill, presenting him with a phial of his water for inspection. The
doctor exchanged the contents, and bade her take that back, and tell
her husband to make a pair of shoes, by the same instructions.
A Dr. Meyersbach started, about 1770, as a water doctor; he had
arrived from Germany in a starving state, and was first an ostler at a
riding-school. Not making money fast enough, he set up as a doctor, and
was consulted by all classes. Dr. Lettsom took great pains to expose
the ignorance and knavery of Meyersbach, whose violent medicines, if
they sometimes cured, more often aggravated, his patients’ sufferings.
It is believed that he acquired a good fortune, with which he retired
to his native country.
Le Fevre, another German, a broken wine-merchant, set up for a gout
doctor, and was much noticed by the nobility. Under pretence of going
to Germany for more of his powders, he quitted this country, and had
the prudence never to return. He carried over above ten thousand
guineas, obtained by subscription and otherwise. Living in the style
of a prince, he drank daily, as his first toast, “To the credulous and
stupid nobility, gentry, and opulent merchants, of Great Britain.”
Calculous disorders are so painful in general, that people suffering
from such causes eagerly fly to what promises relief. Many specifics
for this disease, lithontriptics as they were called, had their day. In
1771, a Dr. Chittick advertised such a remedy, and made use of a very
unusual expedient to keep it secret. He would not intrust it to any one
unmixed. The vehicle in which it was to be taken was weak veal broth,
which was sent him from day to day. Each of his patients sent him three
pints of broth in a tin bottle, padlocked, to prevent curious persons
from prying, the doctor and patient each having a key. His terms
were two guineas a week, regularly paid, besides which he expected a
considerable premium for his pains. Mr. Blackrie, who exposed this
species of fraud, detected by analysis a solution of alkaline salts and
quicklime; yet the doctor greatly exclaimed against the use of those
salts, as highly mischievous.
A Mrs. Joanna Stephens was the proprietor of a lithontriptic, which
for a long time had a great repute, and was even thought worthy the
attention of parliament, who voted her five thousand pounds for making
known the composition of it, a favourable report of its efficacy having
been given by the gentlemen who were appointed trustees to examine into
its pretensions. Subsequent experience has shown that it is not so well
adapted to the ends proposed, being a medley of soap and ill-prepared
alkaline substances, very nauseous and oppressive to the stomach.
The recent and valuable discovery of lithotrity, now practised by
Baron Heurteloup and others, namely, the application of mechanical
power for the destruction of the stone, without the use of the knife,
is likely to be of more signal advantage than internal remedies, and,
though it is candidly stated by its supporters not to be applicable in
every case, yet it may frequently be performed without either pain or
inconvenience.
The anodyne necklace, which was the result of some ridiculous
superstition respecting the efficacy of Sir Hugh’s bones, is still
gravely offered for sale, to facilitate the cutting of the teeth. In
1717, a “philosophical treatise” was published, wherin it says, “The
effluvia and atoms, driven off by the heat of the body, bear such
a tendency to the ailing part, as the loadstone does to iron, and
that they will never leave off acting till they have given ease, and
consequently it is a thing most capable of curing sympathetically the
diseases of a human body, of any thing in the whole world. Since this
famed necklace has been published, the bills of mortality have so
decreased, as to be less than ever they have been known to be.”
But the _summum bonum_, with which this series of medical deceptions
may appropriately be closed, was the “universal medicine, or virtues of
the magnetical antimonial cup, addressed to the houses of parliament
by John Evans, minister and preacher of God’s word. It is warranted to
be alone the phœnix and miracle of all physical miracles: the elixir
of life, balsam of nature. It containeth mystically and essentially
the quintessence of all minerals and vegetables, and magnetically
sympathiseth with all animals.”
In spite, however, of such admirable _never-failing_ specifics,
which, it would seem, ought to have exterminated every malady from
the face of the earth, diseases, hydra-headed, still baffle their
assailants, and return to the charge with renewed force and provoking
obstinacy. But the matter is too serious for the subject of a joke. If
even practitioners who have conscientiously studied their profession
are unavoidably in some degree open to the old charge of “pouring
medicines, of which they know little, into a body of which they know
less,” what must be said, or what ought to be the punishment, of
such villanous pretenders as those who have been described in this
chapter,--men without talent or education, and who seem to think that,
like charity, impudence covers a multitude of sins!
CONCLUDING CHAPTER.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Superstition of the Hindoos--The Malays--Asiatic superstitions--The
Chinese--Miracle of the Blessed Virgin--Stratagem of an
architect--Michael Angelo’s Cupid--Statue of Charles
I.--Ever-burning sepulchral lamps--Lamp in the tomb of
Pallas--The art of mimicry--Superiority of the ancients--Fable
of Proteus--Personation of the insane Ajax--Archimimes at
funerals--Demetrius the cynic converted--Acting portraits
and historical pictures--War dances of the American
Indians--The South Sea Bubble--Gay the poet--Law’s Mississippi
scheme--Numerous bubbles--Speculations in 1825.
Such has been the extent of the credulity of the human mind, that it
would require many volumes to enumerate the whole of its singular
vagaries. Our object in compiling such a work cannot be accomplished
without greatly condensing those accounts which historians and
travellers have communicated; we therefore devote the concluding
chapter to summary notices of several matters, that to enlarge upon
would defeat the intent of this publication.
The religion of India is based upon the grossest superstition; divided
into castes, the persons of the Brahmins are sacred; the food of the
Hindoos is entirely of vegetables, as it was in the time of Alexander;
widows were burned alive to insure their eternal happiness; one hundred
and fifty thousand persons assemble yearly at the temple of Juggernaut
in honour of a blind deity, precipitating themselves voluntarily before
its wheels, where they are crushed to death, thus instantly as they
believe, entering a blessed immortality.
More individual cases of absurd and disgusting fanaticism occur in
the Hindoo religion than, probably, in all the other religions in the
world. The excruciating penances these Indian devotees voluntarily
undergo, their number and extent, have struck all travellers. In making
a pilgrimage to Hurdwar, one zealous devotee performed a journey of
some hundred miles, prostrating himself and measuring every inch of the
way with his body as he advanced; some swing themselves on a rope by
means of a hook passed through the muscles of the back; some over fires
with their heads towards the flame; every variety of personal torture
is endured from a mistaken principle of religion conjoined with pride
of caste; some have literally burned themselves alive; mutilation to
propitiate some goddess is no uncommon occurrence; some years since a
Hindoo actually cut out his tongue to propitiate the amiable goddess
Kali-Ghat.
The Malays have equally absurd superstitions, and charms are bought
at extravagant prices. A volume would alone be required to cite the
superstitions of Asia, where the human mind remains to this day in a
childlike state. The peculiar tenets of the Chinese have been ably set
forth by many writers, and by none more successfully than by Davis, in
his history of this curious nation. Their priests are taken from the
lowest orders, and a Chinaman depends upon their prayers.
But we need not visit China to be convinced of the natural tendency of
man to superstition; a story is current of a picture of the immaculate
conception, which was in the late college of Jesuits in Valencia, that
may challenge competition for absurdity. This picture is the object
of general veneration, and by the devout is considered almost equal
to the Virgin herself; for tradition reports, that it was painted of
Father Alberto, to whom the Blessed Virgin condescended to appear on
the eve of the assumption, ordering her portrait in the dress she
then wore; he employed Juanes, who, after many trials succeeding,
the work was sanctified, and the pencil, like a sword, was blessed
and made invincible by the Pope, so that it never missed its stroke.
One day Juanes seated on a scaffold at work on the upper part of the
picture, the painter being in the act of falling, the holy personage,
whose portrait he had finished, stepped suddenly from the canvass, and
seizing his hand, preserved him from the fall, when the gracious lady
returned to her post!
A very ancient fraud connected with architecture is mentioned by
Sandys, in his curious and rare book on the East. One of the Ptolemies
caused a tower to be built of a wonderful height, having many lanterns
for the use of ships at sea during the night. It was reputed the
seventh wonder of the world. Sostratus, of Cnidos, the ambitious
architect, was refused by the king the satisfaction of setting his
name to the work. This, however, the artist effected by cutting an
inscription on a block of marble, which he encrusted over with a
fictitious stone, on which was engraved a pompous inscription in honour
of the king; when it decayed his own name appeared as the builder.
Michael Angelo, to try how far he could impose upon the curious in
sculpture, carved a statue of Cupid. Having broken off the arm, he
buried the rest of the figure under a certain ruin, where they were
wont to dig in search of marbles. It was soon after discovered, and
passed among the learned antiquaries for an invaluable and undoubted
piece of ancient sculpture, till Angelo produced the arm previously
broken off, which fitted so exactly as to convince them of their too
easy credulity, and the vanity of their speculations.
In the year 1678, was erected the animated statue of Charles I., at
Charing Cross. The parliament, in Cromwell’s time ordered it to be
sold, and broken to pieces; but the brazier who purchased it dug a hole
in his garden, and buried it unmutilated, producing to his masters
several pieces of brass which he told them were parts of the statue;
and in the true spirit of trade, he cast a number of handles of knives
and forks, offering them for sale as composed of the brass of the
statue; they were eagerly sought for, and purchased by the loyalists,
from affection for their murdered monarch. When the second Charles was
restored, the statue was brought forth from its place of concealment,
and eagerly purchased at a great profit to the brazier.
A superstition now forgotten, was long credited, that sepulchral
lamps have burned for several hundred years, and that they would have
continued burning, perhaps for ever, had they not been broken by the
accidental digging into the tombs by husbandmen and others; few have
declared themselves to have been _eye-witnesses_ of the fact, but
many learned and ingenious authors give abundance of instances on
the report of others. The origin of these lamps seems to have been
with the Egyptians, who, through a firm belief of the metempsychosis,
endeavoured to procure a perpetuity to the body itself, by balsams or
embalming, and security to it afterwards, by lodging it in pyramids or
catacombs: so also they endeavoured to animate the defunct by perpetual
fire, the essence of which answered to the nature of the soul in
their opinion: for with them fire was the symbol of an incorruptible,
immortal, and divine nature. The soul was to be lighted by its lamp
when it wandered according to its option, and thus safely return to its
old quarters.
One of the most remarkable of the sepulchral lamps has thus been
described as found in the tomb of Pallas. In the year 1501, a
countryman, digging deep into the earth, near Rome, discovered a tomb
of stone, wherein lay a body, so tall, that being raised erect, it
overtopped the walls of the city, and was as entire as if newly buried,
having a very large wound on the breast, and a lamp burning at the
head, which could neither be extinguished by wind nor water; so that
they were obliged to perforate the bottom of the lamp, and by that
means put out the flame. This was said to be the body of Pallas, slain
by Turnus; the lamp is said to have burned two thousand five hundred
and eleven years; and perhaps would have continued to burn to the end
of the world, had it not been broken, and the liquid spilt!
At the present day of intellectual advancement, this story of the size
of Pallas, and of the lamp whose contumacious flame, well befitting
such a giant, exceeds all belief, however gravely stated; yet the time
was, when, instead of exciting contemptuous laughter, it was implicitly
credited. The lamp in the temple of Jupiter Ammon was reported by
the priests to have burned continually, yet it consumed less oil
each succeeding year; though burning in the open air, neither wind
nor water could extinguish it. A similar lamp also burned in honour
of Venus. Trithemius obliges his readers with two long receipts for
the artificial manufacture of these lamps, yet seems to doubt their
efficacy.
The _possibility_ of such eternal lamps being made in Egypt has been
attributed to the existence of the bituminous wells or fountains, from
which the learned in those days laid secret canals or pipes to the
subterranean caves, where, in a convenient place, they set up a lamp
with a wick of asbestos. It seems, indeed, to have been thought a great
desideratum in the arts to invent a perpetual lamp for the companion of
the dead as a complimentary illumination to the manes of the departed,
or from some foolish desire to strike wonder, in after times, in some
carnal beholder, unwittingly violating the tomb; the accounts of such
appear to have been generally believed authentic up to the end of the
seventeenth century; the utilitarian age we live in is content to
possess a perpetual locomotive fire for those above ground.
The art of mimicry, in its modern sense though confined to a mere
imitation of manners, in former times, by the excellence of its action,
imposed on the imaginations of the spectators, and persuaded them
into a belief of the reality of what was represented, even as it were
against conviction.
The endeavour of one or more individuals to express or relate any
story by mere action, was carried to much greater perfection among the
ancients than now appears to be possible. According to Lucian, a single
dancer or mime was able to express all the incidents and sentiments of
a whole tragedy or epic poem by action, accompanied by music, and the
fable of Proteus he seemed to think meant no more than that he was an
accomplished pantomime. The education of a mime required, he says, his
whole life to make himself master of his profession; he must know the
past, the present, and what is to come; in short, the spectator must
_understand_ the dancer though dumb, and _hear_ him though silent.
Lucian mentions a famous mime, who played Ajax the madman so well, and
raged in such a way that one would have said he did not counterfeit,
but was mad in reality. Timocrates, a tutor in philosophy, and who from
conscientious motives had declined being present at such plays, by
accident seeing a pantomime, cried out, “What admirable sights have I
lost by a philosophical modesty!” and ever afterwards attended them.
This kind of scenic representation was given at funerals, and the
actors were called archimimes; they went before the coffin, and
imitated the gestures and actions of the deceased; his virtues and
vices were depicted. Demetrius the cynic, disdained and railed at the
art of the mime, declaring all the success was derived from the music;
but a famous mime in Nero’s time, invited him to see him dance, and,
having witnessed his performance, then to find fault with him. Having
imposed silence on the music, he danced the story of the amours of Mars
and Venus, the discovery of them by the sun; in short so well was it
done, that Demetrius, transported, cried out aloud, “I hear, my friend,
what you act; I not only see the persons you represent, but methinks
you speak with your hands.”
There is less to be said of this art in its present state, though
pantomime, considered distinct from harlequinade, now receives great
attention in Italy. The acting of portraits and historical pictures,
exhibited with the greatest fidelity of costume and attitude in
Florence, and which amusement is now common in well-bred circles at
home, is another species of ingenious deception, which is almost
perfect. The war-dance among the American Indians is most striking,
representing a campaign. The departure of the warriors from their
village, their march into the enemy’s country, the caution with which
they encamp, the address with which they station some of their
company in ambuscade, the manner of surprising their enemy, the noise
and ferocity of the combat, the scalping of those who are slain, the
seizing of the prisoners, the triumphant return of the conquerors, and
the torture of the victims, are successively and ably exhibited with
the tact of actors. The performers enter with such enthusiastic ardour
into their several parts; their gestures, their countenance, their
voice, are so wild, and so well adapted to their various situations,
that Europeans can hardly believe it to be a mimic scene, or view it
without emotions of horror.
Public credulity, founded on the inordinate desire of gain, was perhaps
never exhibited in a stronger point of view than by the fatal belief
in the South Sea scheme, which to the credulous believer, like that of
Law’s Mississippi bubble, was made to appear a royal road to El Dorado.
It was patronised by persons of both sexes in the highest ranks of
society, and even by royalty itself and men of letters; Gay, the poet,
had a present of some of the stock, and at one time believed himself
worth twenty thousand pounds, but like others lost all; Chandler, the
learned non-conformist divine, lost his whole fortune, and turned
bookseller for subsistence.
The scheme originated in the reign of Queen Anne, in the year 1711, a
fund being formed on the chimerical notion that the English would be
allowed to trade to the coast of Peru. Sir John Blunt, who was bred
a scriviner, devised the scheme, and communicated it to Aislabie,
the chancellor of the exchequer. The pretence of this scheme was to
discharge the national debt by reducing all the funds into one stock.
The Bank of England and the South Sea Company vied with each other,
and the latter ultimately offered such high terms that the proposal
of the Bank was rejected, and the Company’s stock rose considerably.
It produced a kind of national delirium. Sir John Blunt took this
hint from Law’s scheme, which was that a royal bank be erected by
subscription, and, having a fund in hand to answer bills on demand,
the scheme began to take, and established its credit by its punctual
discharge, till it increased to such extraordinary magnitude as to pay
bills for one million and a quarter sterling a day.
In this project of Law, however, there was something substantial; an
exclusive trade to Louisiana promised advantage, though the design was
defeated by the frantic eagerness of the people. Law himself had become
the dupe of the regent, who transferred the burden of fifteen hundred
million of francs of the king’s debt to the shoulders of the people,
while the projector was sacrificed as the scape-goat of political
iniquity.
The South Sea scheme promised no commercial advantage of any
consequence; it was buoyed by nothing but the folly and rapacity of
individuals, who became so blinded with the prospect of gain as to
become easy dupes.
When the projector found that the South Sea stock did not rise to his
expectation, he circulated reports that Gibraltar and Port Mahon would
be exchanged for some places in Peru, by which the South Sea trade
would be protected and enlarged. This report acted like a contagion;
persons of all ranks crowded to subscribe; the Exchange Alley was
filled with a strange concourse of statesmen, clergymen, dissenters,
whigs, tories, physicians, lawyers, &c. &c., and even females. All
other professions and employments were neglected. Other companies
without foundation were got up to deceive, and all found favour with
the mad public. There were actually some shares of a fictitious
company, called Globe Permits, each of which came at last to be
currently sold for sixty guineas and upwards, and yet were only square
bits of card, on which were the impression of a seal in wax, having the
sign of the Globe tavern. A burlesque upon this reigning folly appeared
in an advertisement for a company with a capital of two millions for
melting down sawdust and chips, and casting them into clean deal
boards without knots.
The public infatuation lasted till the 8th of September, when the stock
began to fall and soon reached the point of being worthless. Public
credit received a severe shock; the cunning ones devised a scheme for
relief from the Bank of England, and sold out for what they could
realize; some of the ministry were implicated. Knight, the Treasurer,
fled the kingdom; the Committee of the House of Commons to investigate
discovered a train of the deepest villany; the directors were seized,
and it appeared that large sums had been given to persons in the
administration and House of Commons for promoting the passing of the
act, and a fictitious stock of five hundred and seventy-four thousand
pounds had been disposed of by the directors to facilitate the passing
of the bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was committed to the Tower
and convicted of peculation; the estates of the most guilty directors
were confiscated for the benefit of the sufferers.
In 1825 the general feeling for bubbles was again led captive by the
unreasonable hopes of speculation. In January of that year there
existed in London no less than one hundred and twenty speculating
schemes, carried on by companies, often consisting of only the
projector and his clerk, causing great misery and frequent ruin.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Second Part of King Henry IV.
[2] There recently arrived in London a specimen of this
species of manufacture; it is a singular relic, consisting of
a very elaborate carving in wood of the Crucifixion, and is a
ludicrous evidence of monkish trickery. A hole is perforated
from behind, through which, by the application of a sponge
dipped in blood, a stream was made to travel to the front,
where it was seen to discharge itself from a crevice in the
Saviour’s side, which stands for the spear-wound, so that the
figure had the appearance of shedding real blood, and the drops
so discharged were sold to the devotees at an enormous price.
[3] “The camels which have had the honour to bear presents to
Mecca or Medina, are not to be treated afterwards as common
animals. They are considered consecrated to Mahomet, which
exempts them from all labour and service; they have cottages
built for their abodes, where they live at ease and receive
plenty of food, and the most careful attention.”--_Travels of
Father Strope._
[4] “The rising of dead men’s bones every year in Egypt is a
thing superstitiously believed by the Christian worshippers,
and by the priests out of ignorance, or policy. Metrophanes,
patriarch of Alexandria, thought the possibility of such an
occurrence might be proved out of Isaiah, c. lxvi., v. 24, ‘and
they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men
that have transgressed against me.’ A Frenchman at Cairo, who
had been present at the resurrection of these bones, showed me
an arm from thence; the flesh was shrivelled and dried like the
mummies. He observed the miracle to have been always performed
_behind him_, and once casually looking back, he discovered
some bones carried privately by an Egyptian, under his vest,
whence he understood the mystery.”--_Sandys’s Travels._
[5] “It is as hard as a stone.”
[6] Balaam’s ass may remind the reader of the “Feast of the
Ass.” In several churches in France they used to celebrate a
festival, in commemoration of the Virgin Mary’s flight into
Egypt. It was called the Feast of the Ass. A young girl richly
dressed, with a child in her arms, was set upon an ass superbly
caparisoned. The ass was led to the altar in solemn procession,
high mass was said with great pomp, the ass was taught to
kneel at proper places, a hymn, no less childish than impious,
was sung in its praise, and when the ceremony was ended, the
priest, instead of the usual words with which he dismissed the
people, brayed three times like an ass; and the people, instead
of the usual response, “We bless the Lord,” brayed three times
in the same manner. Vide Du Cange, voc. Festum, vol. iii. p.
424.
[7] Quarterly Review, July, 1819; art. “British Monachism, by
D. Fosbrooke.”
[8] In Candide, or the Optimist, there is an admirable stroke
of Voltaire’s; eight travellers meet in an obscure inn, and
some of them with not sufficient money to pay for a scurvy
dinner. In the course of conversation they are discovered to
be _eight monarchs_ in Europe, who had been deprived of their
crowns. What gave point to this satire was, that these eight
monarchs were not the fictitious majesties of the poetic brain;
imperial shadows, like those that appeared to Macbeth; but
living monarchs, who were wandering at that moment about the
world.
[9] This was not the tree which gave the name to “Royal Oak
Day.”
[10] The hair has often been found very useful as a means of
concealment for other purposes. The Indian lavadores, whilst
washing the sand, for the grains of gold, were observed by the
overseers to be continually scratching their heads, or passing
their fingers through their thick woolly hair. A suspicion
arising, the hair was combed, and was found full of the gold
grains. On keeping their hair quite short it was discovered
that the necessity for such frequent application to the head
had ceased.
[11] The editor saw her at Philadelphia, where she exhibited
_once_ to a small audience, and then disappeared.
[12] This lover of truth, at the commencement of his pamphlet,
with consummate assurance thus proposes himself as a private
tutor: “Gentlemen who are desirous _to secure_ their children
from ill example, by a domestic education, or are themselves
inclined to gain or retrieve the knowledge of the Latin
tongue, may be waited on at their houses, by the author of the
following essay, upon the receipt of a letter directed to the
publisher or author.--N.B. Mr. Lauder’s abilities, and industry
in his profession, can be well attested by persons of the first
rank in literature in this metropolis.”
[13] “Dr. Johnson, who had been so far imposed upon by
Lauder, as to furnish a preface and postscript to his work,
now dictated a letter for him, addressed to Dr. Douglas,
acknowledging his fraud in terms of suitable contrition. This
extraordinary attempt of Lauder’s was no sudden effort; he
had brooded over it for years, and it is uncertain what his
principal motive was.”--_Boswell’s Life of Johnson._
[14] The modern mode of copying coins enables any one with
industry to possess a large cabinet.
[15] Dark blue is called, by the modern Egyptians, _eswed_,
which properly signifies _black_, and is therefore so
translated here.
[16] Mr. Matthews, the comedian, in his “Humours of a Country
Fair,” has hardly exaggerated, in describing a quack thus
reading acknowledgments from those cured by his specific.
‘Sir,--I was cut in two in a saw-pit, and cured by one bottle.’
‘Sir,--By the bursting of a powder-mill, I was blown into ten
thousand _anatomies_. The first bottle of your incomparable
collected all the parts together; the second restored life and
animation--before the third was finished, I was in my usual
state of health.’ This hardly exceeds a reasonable satire on
the presumptuous promises that _still_ frequently accompany
each bottle or box licensed from _the Stamp Office_!
Transcriber’s Notes:
- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
- A few obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
- Otherwise spelling and hyphenation variations remain unchanged.