Philadelphia.
_Hydropathy._--For a long time, I believe in common with many others, I
have imagined that the water cure is of late origin, and that we are
indebted for it to Germany, to which we look for all novel quackeries (good
and bad) in medicine and theology. This belief was put to flight a short
time ago by a pamphlet which I discovered among others rare and curious. It
is entitled _Curiosities of Common Water, or the Advantages thereof in
preventing and curing many Distempers_. The price of the pamphlet was one
shilling, and the author rejoices in the name of John Smith. After his name
follows a motto, the doctrine of which it {396} is the duty of all licensed
to kill according to law strenuously to protest against both by argument
and practice:
"That's the best physick which doth cure our ills
Without the charge of pothecaries pills."