Dr. Fuller, the first physician amongst the colonists of New England,
wrote to Governor Bradford, June, 1630, saying,--
"I have been to Matapan (now Dorchester), and let some twenty of those
people's blood."
What disease demanded, in the estimation of the good and wise doctor, this
seemingly bloody visit, we are not informed.
"The _Mercure de France_, April, 1728, and December, 1729, gives an
account of a French woman, the wife of a hussar named Gignoult, whom,
under the direction of Monsieur Theveneau, Dr. Palmery bled _three
thousand nine hundred and four times_, and that within the space of nine
months. Again the bleeding was renewed, and in the course of a few years,
from 1726 to the end of 1729, she had been bled twenty-six thousand two
hundred and thirty times."
No wonder our informant asks, "Did this really occur? Or was the editor of
the _Mercure_ the original Baron Munchausen?"
"Once, in the Duchy of Wurtemberg, the public executioner, after having
sent a certain number of his fellow-creatures out of this troublesome
world, was dignified by the title of 'Doctor.' Would it not be well to
reverse the thing, and make such murderous physicians as Theveneau and M.
Palmery rank as hangmen-extraordinary?"