The Russellville Democrat., 1884-04-10
The Universal Psnaoea.

A universal medicine, . general pan- acea, is what the impatient world seems to be always yearning after, and Is ever ready to believe in. The stench q tar water is scarcely out of our nostrils be- fore the treacle and birthstone beloved of Mrs. Squcers, or the camph0r drops of Deputy Raspail is announced as the Iong-sought-for n0strum. The grape cure is rather recent craze of harmless enthusiasts, and is likely to last some time, since, if 1t is not very efficacious,
 1t is undeniably pleasant. The same negative tribute may be paid to the odor of pine forests, and the manifold virtues of boiled celery and raw tomatoes. The latter are, indeed, beginning to assert themselves so vigorously in America that before long they will be introduced here as the latest dietetic cure-all; for the world has already heard of diplo- matist who. after damaging his consti- tution by English dinners and an undi- vided attention to the game of euchre, Is renewing his youth on the penitential diet of love-apples and skim-milk. Lines have been vouched for as fruit on which man might live for ever were life worth living on such nutriment, rand at different times there has been . great deal to say for dried .mummics, green tea, Virginia tobacco, cacao leaves, snake's flesh, the eye of newt and toe of frog, glass of water at night and q little whisky early in the morn- ing, as certain means for prOl0nging existence until person addicted to such lhysic would be n burden to his less ambitious relatives. The mandrake, wh oh greaned as it was dragged out of th ground attached to dogs tail. and made all mad within hearing of it's moan, was in Shakespeare's day ac- counted singularly potent drug. It entered into all love potions, and as . sovereign remedy for bringing back re- ca, .traM woocrs is referred to in the book of Genesis. The bryony still keeps its place for similar purposes in the ru- sal herbal. just as tho elder is in repute for the cura Of qunsy. tic bite of adders and mad dogs, as m amulet against erysipelas, an ointment for sore eyes. an a charm against toothache, fever and witches. A raw potato or . load stone in the pocket will protect the owner against rheumatism. and, as late | iis iofSs 6 ntdd-scOul---tt IudIfu d3 OlO as the middle .es, and referred to by Ibn Baithar, the Arabian physician, was in use in Kentucky as euro for 1 hydrophobia. The dock is in folk-med- icne a sort of universal panacea, and though modern monarchs no longer touch for the "King's evil,' Charles X. of France ofliciated in that capacity at his coronation, and in the year 1888, failing the Queens touch, half-crowns bearing the efiigy of Charles L served this end among the Shetland Islanders. 1 just as at Cairo scraps of garments that had come in contact with the camel bearing the .'Grand Seigneur's' annual present were at one time preserved as infallible remedies against every ill.
 Folk-medicine and the search for pam acea is, indeed, branch of fetishism.
 It arises out of the idea that every ere ated object must contain some occult virtue, more CT less supernatural. For it is among the kindlier beliefs of man that there is no evil for winch there is not remedy, and that if Heaven has ordained sickness and old age. perfid- | ity and death, it must also have pro- vided philters against all four, and that even sad memory may be got quit of | by means of ''that enchanted stem'' which made the lotus eaters forget the world behind them. .---L0ndon Standard.