Part 11

Setting out originally from the tablet in Westminster Abbey to describe what manner of man was the old doctor who lay beneath, it became imperatively necessary to bracket the two brothers, John and William Hunter, together, since, according to Sir B. W. Richardson, they were "twins in science," if not in birth. Had not William already come to the front when John sought him out, he could not have been his teacher, or given his younger brother his first start in life, his introduction, or his facilities for study. Then they worked together, became one in anatomical discovery, in their zeal for collecting all that illustrated their theories, all that was rare and curious, into unprecedented museums. Yet how widely the personalities of the brothers differed. They both stood out among contemporaries, yet William, with his slight form, mildly refined face, set off by an unpretentious wig, and delicate hands, under lace ruffles, and wide coat cuffs, a classical scholar, an antiquary, a numismatist, as well as a naturalist,--Queen Charlotte's medical referee, stepping out from his chariot, gold cane in hand, to visit his courtly patients, was the very _beau ideal_ of a fashionable physician of that day, one who shone in drawing-rooms as well as in the lecture-hall. Blue-eyed John, with high cheek bones, broad, slightly receding forehead, tangled red hair, and a shaggy mane of whisker that made his keen face a triangle, tender of heart, yet brusque and coarse of speech, rough in manner as in dress (with not a sign of frill or ruffle), despising dilettante coteries, not squeamish in seeking "subjects," passionate and determined, caring little for empty honours, for money only to swell his museum, and nothing for courtly circles, though created surgeon-extraordinary to George III., and owing his large practice solely to the force of his character, his science, and his skill. So far he was his brother's antithesis. John was a diamond in the rough; William the gem cut and polished. And such were the two old doctors to whom England's College of Surgeons owes its Hunterian Museum; the University of Glasgow the other. Had not the brothers quarrelled, the two would have formed one grand unrivalled collection.

Space is limited, and so must be our notes of these other celebrated "old doctors," whom it would be invidious to overlook. Of these EDWARD JENNER stands prominently out, but he has been already dealt with by another hand.

It is scarcely possible to pass by JOHN ABERNETHY, F.R.S., the eccentric physician, whose principle was that men should eat to live, not live to eat, who maintained that the stomach was the chief seat of health or disease, according as it was used or abused, and that water was the one natural and nutrient beverage. The practical way in which he illustrated his theories respecting overfeeding,--filling a pail with food from various dishes in correspondence with the heterogeneous mixture on his patients' plates--and his brusque replies to some other of his patients, have perpetuated his name through his oddities, rather than as a benefactor of his kind, who revolutionized the medical practice of his time, and of course excited envy and antagonism. His hair, kept together at the nape of the neck with a ribbon tie, was brushed back from his forehead, and added a degree of sharpness to his somewhat hatchet-shaped face, when he told the timorous lady who was "afraid she had swallowed a spider," "Then put a fly in your mouth, madam, and the spider will come up to catch him." Or when he threw the shilling from his fee back to a mother with a delicate daughter, "Take that, madam, and buy her a skipping-rope," an intimation that exercise was needed. It was an age of coarse feeding and strong drinking, an age of drastic purges and much blood-letting, and Abernethy's temperance principles, so much in advance of his time, provoked considerable opposition from his medical brethren, whose satirical epigrams he was not slow to cap.

But contemporary squibs and satires cannot affect the real good which has made Abernethy's name a household word. Indeed it has been stamped upon a biscuit. It is stamped also on a medical society he founded at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where his centenary has recently been celebrated.

Many have been the contributions to scientific medicine and surgery since the rough days of the old doctors I have endeavoured to chronicle, but these men of wigs and ties, gold-headed canes and pouncet-boxes, breeches and buckled shoes, were the pioneers of progress, they cleared the way for the men of this day and generation, and left their mark on their own age, not to be effaced by newer and more advanced successors, to whom they have served as stepping-stones.

The Lee Penny.

The story of the Lee Penny is full of historic interest, and the legends respecting it furnished Sir Walter Scott with some incidents for his novel the "Talisman."

This amulet is a stone of a deep red colour and triangular shape, in size about half-an-inch on each side, and is set in a silver coin. The various accounts which have come under our notice are agreed that this curious relic of antiquity has been in the Lee family since a period immediately after the death of King Robert the Bruce.

The monarch was nearing his end, and as he lay on his death-bed, he was much troubled for having failed to visit in person the Holy Land to assist in the Crusade. His long war with the English had rendered it impossible for him to leave his kingdom to fight in a foreign land, even in the cause of religion.

Sir James Douglas, his tried and trusty friend, stood beside the bed of his king, and was in sore distress. As a last request the king implored that as soon as possible after his soul had left his body Douglas would take his heart to Jerusalem. On the honour of a knight, Sir James faithfully promised to discharge the trust.

The king died in 1329, and his heart was enclosed in a silver case. Sir James suspended it from his neck with a chain, and without delay gathered round him a suitable retinue, and made his way towards the Holy Land. He was not destined to reach that country, for on his route the intelligence reached him that Alphonso, King of Leon and Castile, was waging war with the Moorish chief, Osmyn of Granada. To assist the Christians, he felt it was his duty, and in accordance with the dying charge of his king. With courage he engaged in the fray, but was soon surrounded by horsemen, and he who had fought so long and bravely, realised that he must meet his doom far from the country he loved so well. He made a desperate effort to escape. The precious casket he took from his neck and threw it before him, saying, "Onward, as thou were wont, thou noble heart! Douglas will follow thee." He followed it and was slain. After the battle was over the brave knight was found resting on the heart of Bruce. The mortal remains of the valiant knight were carried back to his home and buried in his church of St. Bride, at Douglas.

The heart of Bruce was entrusted to Sir Simon Locard, and by him borne back to Scotland, and at last found a resting-place beneath the high altar of Melrose Abbey, and its site is still pointed out. Mrs. Hemans wrote a charming poem on Bruce's heart in Melrose Abbey, commencing:--

"Heart! that did'st press forward still, Where the trumpet's note rang shrill; Where the knightly swords are crossing, And the plumes like sea-foam tossing, Leader of the charging spear, Fiery heart! and liest thou here? May this narrow spot inurn Aught that could so beat and burn?"

We are told the family name of Locard was changed to Lockheart, or Lockhart, from the circumstance of Sir Simon having carried the key of the casket, and was granted as armorial insignia, heart with a fetter-lock, with the motto, "Corda serrata pando." According to a contributor to Chambers's "Book of Days," v., 2, p. 415, from the same incident, the Douglases bear a human heart, imperially crowned, and have in their possession an ancient sword, emblazoned with two hands holding a heart, and dated 1329, the year Bruce died.

Lockhart was not daunted at the failure of the first attempt to reach Jerusalem, and, in company with such Scottish knights as escaped the fate of their leader, they once more proceeded, and arrived in the Holy Land, and for some time fought in the wars against the Saracens.

The following adventure is said to have befallen him. He made prisoner in battle an Emir of wealth and note. The aged mother of his captive came to the Christian camp to save her son from his captivity. Lockhart fixed the price at which his prisoner should ransom himself; and the lady, pulling out a large embroidered purse, proceeded to tell down the amount. In this operation, a pebble inserted in a coin, some say of the lower empire, fell out of the purse, and the Saracen matron testified so much haste to recover it as to give the Scottish knight a high idea of its value. "I will not consent," he said, "to grant your son's liberty unless the amulet be added to the ransom." The lady not only consented to this, but explained to Sir Simon the mode in which the talisman was to be used. The water in which it was dipped operated as a styptic, or a febrifuge, and the amulet possessed several other properties as a medical talisman.

Sir Simon Lockhart, after much experience of the wonders which it wrought, brought it to his own country, and left it to his heirs, by whom, and by Clyde side in general, it was, and is still, distinguished by the name of the Lee Penny, from the name of his native seat of Lee.

Its virtues were brought into operation by dropping the stone in water which was afterwards given to the diseased to drink, washing at the same time the part affected. No words were used in dipping the stone, or money permitted to be taken by the servants of Lee. People came from all parts of Scotland, and many places in England, to carry away the water to give to their cattle.

Some interesting information respecting this amulet appears in an account of the Sack and Siege of Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1644. "As one of the natural sequences," says the writer, "of prolonged distress, caused by this brave but foolhardy defence against overwhelming odds, the plague broke out with fatal violence in Newcastle and Gateshead, as well as Tynemouth and Shields, during the following year. Great numbers of poor people were carried off by it; while tents were erected on Bensham Common, to which those infected were removed; and the famous Lee Penny was brought out of Scotland to be dipped in water for the diseased persons to drink, and the result said to be a perfect cure. The inhabitants (that is to say, the Corporation, we presume), gave a bond for a large sum in trust for the loan; and they thought the charm did so much good, that they offered to pay the money down, and keep the marvellous penny with a stone in which it is inserted; but the proprietor, Lockhart of Lee, would not part with it."

We are told that many years ago a remarkable cure is alleged to have been performed on Lady Baird of Sauchton Hall, near Edinburgh, who, having been bitten by a mad dog, was seized with hydrophobia. The Lee Penny was sent for, and she used it for some weeks, drinking and bathing in the water it had been dipped in, and she quite recovered.

"The most remarkable part of the history," as Sir Walter Scott says, "perhaps was, that it so especially escaped condemnation when the Church of Scotland chose to impeach many other cures which savoured of the miraculous, as occasioned by sorcery, and censured the appeal of them, 'excepting only the amulet called the Lee Penny, to which it pleased God to annex certain healing virtues, which the Church did not presume to condemn.'"

The Lee Penny is preserved at Lee House, in Lanarkshire, the residence of the present representative of the family.

How Our Fathers were Physicked.

BY J. A. LANGFORD, LL.D.

Delightful old Fuller tells us "Necessary and ancient their Profession ever since man's body was subject to enmity and casualty." There is no doubt of the necessity and antiquity of the doctor's calling, but there is, without doubt, no profession in which such great and beneficent advance has been made in modern times as in the medical. The tortures which our fathers endured under the old treatment are terrible to think of. It was not enough that they were afflicted by disease; the pains which they had to suffer from the supposed remedies far exceeded those which nature imposed. Cupping, blistering, and especially bleeding, were the common applications in nearly all complaints, the Bleeding was also used as a preventive, which proverb truly tells us "is better than cure"; but in this case the supposed disease could scarcely have been worse than the supposed prevention. Five times in the year--"in September, before Advent, before Lent, after Easter, and at Pentecost"--were the periods at which men in health were accustomed to "breathe a vayne." Besides letting of blood, the physician's cane and the surgeon's club were vigorously used on the unfortunate sufferers. Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson, in his very interesting "Book about Doctors," says, "For many centuries fustigation was believed in as a sovereign remedy for bodily ailments as well as moral failings, and a beating was prescribed for an ague as frequently as for picking and stealing." So what with the lancet and the stick combined, our fathers must indeed have shuddered at the approach of any of the "natural shocks that flesh is heir to."

The medicines of those good old times were of a very strange and objectionable kind. Some of the concoctions were composed of many ingredients, and were formed of abominable, not to say disgusting, materials. All nature was ransacked for out-of-the-way and horrible things which could be used as drugs and nostrums for suffering and gullible sufferers. In the reign of Charles II., Dr. Thomas Sherley "recommended a clumsy and inordinate administration of violent drugs" for gout. "Calomel he habitually administered in simple doses. Sugar of lead he mixed largely in his conserves; pulverized human bones he was very fond of prescribing; and the principal ingredient in his gout-powder was 'raspings of a human skull unburied.' But his sweetest compound was his 'Balsam of Bats,' strongly recommended as an unguent for hypochondriacal persons, into which entered adders, bats, sucking-whelps, earth worms, hogs' grease, the marrow of a stag, and the thigh-bone of an ox." A good idea of the things sold to a confiding public as cures for its ills may be gathered from two verses on Colonel Dalmahoy, a well-known--shall we say quack--of the past:--

"Dalmahoy sold infusions and lotions, Decoctions, and gargles, and pills, Electuaries, powders, and potions, Spermaciti, salts, scammony, squills.

Horse aloes, burnt alum, agaric, Balm, benzoine, blood-stone, and dill; Castor, camphor, and acid tartaric, With specifics for every ill."

Metals and precious stones were extensively used in the prescriptions of bygone doctors. Every metal and every stone was credited with some special and peculiar virtue which it alone possessed, and it was applied as a cure for that ailment over which it had influence and power. Bacon tells us, "We know Diseases of Stoppings, and Suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; And it is not much otherwise in the minde. You may take _Sarza_ to open the Liver; _Steele_ to open the Spleene; _Flowers of Sulphur_ for the Lungs; _Castoreum_ for the Braine," for each of which parts it was believed that the specifics named were most efficacious. The prescriptions of Dr. Bulleyn, in the reign of Elizabeth, are wonderful examples of how our fathers were physicked. Here are two of those quoted by Mr. Jeaffreson. The first is

"_An Embrocation._--An embrocation is made after this manner:--Px. Of a decoction of mallowes, vyolets, barly, quince seed, lettice leaves, one pint; of barly meale, two ounces; of oyle of vyolets and roses, of each, an ounce and half; of butter, one ounce; and then seeth them all together till they be like a brouthe, puttyng thereto, at the ende, foure yolkes of eggs; and the maner of applying is with peeces of cloth, dipped in the aforesaid decoction, being actually hoate."

Our second is "truly a medicine for kings and noblemen;" it is called an

"_Electuarium de Gemmis._--Take two drachms of white perles; two little peeces of saphyre; jacinth, corneline, emerauldes, grannettes, of each an ounce; setwal, the sweete roote dorsnike, the rind of pomecitron, mase, basal seede, of each two drachms; of redde corrall, amber, shewing of ivory, of each two drachms; rootes both of white and red lichen, ginger, long peper, spicknard, folium indicum, saffron, cardamon, of each one drachm; of troch diarodon, lignum aloes, of each half a small handful; cinnamon, galinga, zurnbeth, which is a kind of setwal, of each one drachm and a half; thin pieces of gold and sylver, of each half a scruple; of musk, half a drachm. Make your electuary with honey emblici, which is the fourth kind of mirobulans with roses, strained in equall partes, as much as will suffice. This healeth cold diseases of ye braine, harte, stomack. It is a medicine proved against the tremblynge of the harte, faynting and swooning, the weakness of the stomacke, pensiveness, solitarines. Kings and noble men have used this for their comfort. It causeth them to be bold-spirited, the body to smell wel, and ingendreth to the face good colour."

The most innocent articles used in the old medicines were fruits, and herbs, and vegetables. To some kinds special virtues are assigned, and Dr. Bulleyn's "Book of Simples," is very pleasant reading. "Pears, apples, peaches, quinces, cherries, grapes, raisins, prunes, raspberries, oranges, medlons, raspberries and strawberries, spinage, ginger, and lettuces are the good things thrown upon the board." We are told of a prune growing at Norwich, and known as the "black freere's prune," that it is "very delicious and pleasaunt, and no lesse profitable unto a hoate stomacke." "The red warden is of greate virtue, conserved, roasted or baken to quench choller." We are also informed that "Figges be good agaynst melancholy, and the falling evil, to be eaten. Figges, nuts, and herb grase do make a sufficient medicine against poison or the pestilence. Figges make a good gargarism to cleanse the throates."

Some of the Doctor's prescriptions are very curious. He prescribes "a smal young mouse rosted," for a child afflicted with a nervous ailment. Nor did he disdain to use the snail in certain cases. He tells us that "Snayles broken from the shelles and sodden in whyte wyne with oyle and sugar are very holsome, because they be hoat and moist for the straightnes of the lungs and cold cough. Snails stamped with camphery, and leven will draw forth prycks in the flesh." Snail broth is not entirely unknown in some country places, even at the present time. Bezoar stone and unicorn's horn were also used in confections.

Cancer has always been, and unfortunately still is, a terrible and an incurable disease, and has afforded a fine field for all kinds of nostrums and specifics which were to produce a "safe and certain cure." One of these, called a "precious water," was thus composed. "Take dove's foote, a herb so named, Arkangell ivy with the berries, young red bryer toppes, and leaves, whyte roses, theyre leaves and buds, red sage, celandyne and woodbynde, of each lyke quantity, cut or chopped and put into pure cleane whyte wyne, and clarified honey. Then breake into it alum glasse and put in a little of the pouder of aloes hepatica. Destill these together softly in a limbecke of glasse or pure tin; if not then in a limbecke wherein aqua vitae is made. Keep this water close. It will not onely kyll the canker (cancer), if it be duly washed therewyth; but also two droppes dayly put into the eye wyll sharp the syght, and breake the pearle and spottes, specially if it be dropped in wyth a little fenell water, and close the eyes after."

In 1739, the British Parliament passed an Act which is unprecedented in the annals of folly. A female quack, named Joanna Stephens, was reported to have effected some most extraordinary cures by the use of a medicine of which she only possessed the secret. She proposed to make it public for the sum of L5,000, and a vain attempt was made to raise the sum by subscription, but only L1,356 3s. was thus raised. An appeal was made to Parliament, and a commission was appointed to enquire into the subject, and a certificate signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishops, Peers, and Physicians, was presented to the House, declaring that they were "convinced by experiment of the utility, efficacy, and dissolving power," of the tested medicine, and Joanna Stephens was rewarded with the desired L5,000. The prescriptions were published, and the following extracts will suffice to show how easily sufferers from diseases may be, and sometimes are, gulled. This lucky quack says:--

"My medicines are a Powder, a Decoction, and Pills."

"The Powder consists of egg-shells and snails, both calcined."

"The Decoction is made by boiling some herbs (together with a ball which consists of soap, swine's-cresses burnt to a blackness, and honey), in water."

"The Pills consist of snails calcined, wild carrot seeds, burdock seeds, asken keys, hips and hawes, all burnt to a blackness--soap and honey."

Our readers will willingly dispense with the directions of how these dearly purchased medicines should be prepared. Surely

"The pleasure is as great, In being cheated as to cheat!"

In 1633, Stephen Brasnell, Physician, published a small volume entitled "Helps | for | Svddain | Accidents | Endangering Life. | By which | Those that live farre from Physitions or Chirurgions | may happily preserve the Life | of a true Friend or Neigh-| bour, till such a Man may be | had to perfect the Cure. | Collected out of the best authors | for the generall good." The following is his prescription for all kinds of poisons:--viz. "the Hoofe of an Oxe cut into parings and boyled with bruised mustard-seed in white wine and faire water. The Bloud of a Malard drunke fresh and warme: or els dryed to powder, and so drunke in a draught of white wine. The Bloud of a Stagge also in the same manner. The seeds of Rue and the leaves of Betony boyled together in white wine. Or take ij scruples (that is fortie graines) of Mithridate; of prepared Chrystall, one dram (that is three score grains), fresh Butter one ounce. Mix all well together. Swallow it down by such quantities as you can swallow at once; and drink presently upon it a quarter of a pint of the decoction of French Barley, or so much of six shillings Beere. Of this I have had happy proofe."