The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-10-22

sIoNs. By WoRTHrNGToN HOOKER, M. d..
Author of physician and patient" For sale
by Taylor & Maury of this city.
This is "THE FIsKE NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. OF THE
RHODE ISLAND MEDICAL SOCIETY"
Dr. HOOKER gives us some amusing accounts
of the medical decisions under which great Phi
losophy labored. Berkely, the celebrated Bishop
of Cloyne, thought that Tar Water was speci-
fic remedy for dozen Of the most formidable
diseases. The Doctor says:
ave wonder that so wise a man as Bishop
Berkeley was, did not know better than to think
so much of Tar Water. But somehow he did
not know better, and many learned men after
him have not known better than to think too
| much of ridiculous things, even such ridiculous
| things as infnitesinal doses of such inert sub
stances rs charcoal and oyster shell. The his
tory of medical decisions most copiously Illus
trates the TRUTH that folly is very far from being
confined to fools.
That even pre-eminent wisdom and mental
power fail, rs ia Berkeley's case, to save from
folly in medicine, might be shown by many ex.
amples. But few will suffice. Boyle, who
has been called the morning star of physical
science, was exceedingly credulous in regard to
specifics, and seriously speaks OF the thigh bone
of an executed criminal as cure tor dysentery
Bacon, who by the force Of his wisdom revolu-
tionized the world of mind, was weak enough
to attribute virtue to charms and amulets, and
could not bring his mind to disbeeve the pro-
priety of applying ointments to the weapons
that made the wounds, instead OF the wounds
themselves. And Luther, who with such mas
terly wisdom and energy revoutionized the re-
lieious world, gave utterance to the following
specimen of weakness and Golly: Experience
has proved the toad to be endowed with valua-
Bile qualities If you rnn stick through three
toads, and after having dried them in the sun ap-
ply them to any pestilent tumour, they draw out
all the poison, and the malady will disappear"
$50, when the celebrated John Wesley was
more disposed to attribute his cure to brown
paper plaster of egg and birthstone, than to DR..
Fothergill's salutary prescription OF country air,
rest, asss milk, and horse exercise he perpe-
trated the very error which lies at the founda-
ton of almost all the quackery in the world
The resuscitating influence of four months re-
pose from his apostolic labors, was, as is the
case with many clerical invalids of the present
day, the antecedent which was the chief cause
Of the cure.
Mental influence explains many of the cures
which have been ascribed to charms and amulets
and incantations. The same may be said of the
cures performed by the royal touch. This prac-
tce was followed by all the kings of England,
from Edward the Conqueror to Queen Anne,
with the exception of William ILL.,, who rejected
the folly. So general was the belief init that
Charles II touched nearly a hundred thousand
persons in the course of twelve years. Mental
influence, too, explains the manifest diminution
of sickness which was so often seen to follow
the driving nail into the wall of the temple of
Jupiter among the Romans in time of pestilence.
The solemn pomp with which dictator was
chosen for this specific purpose, and the ceremo-
ny attending the performance of the act, were
well calculated to inspire confidence in the minds
of the superstitious people. 1t was the calm,
cheerful, hopeful state of feeling, thus diffused
over the community, that produced the result,
though the people referred it to the appeasiug
influence which this public act was supposed to
exert upon an offended deity"
The Doctor is against Homeopathy:
"There is some truth in Hydropathy; some,
q little, in Thompsonianism; some in Calomel-
ism, as it may be termed, for calomel is used by
some in somewhat the same exclusive way as
water is by the Hydropath, and lobelia and red
pepper and steam, are by the Thompsonian. OF
Homeopathy, popular as it is among the refined,
the learned and the wealthy, must make an ex-
ception There is absolutely no truth in this
system. In this mode of practice, if followed
out in good faith, there is nothing done, though
there is a show Of doing much"