The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1889-07-17

is man of too great knowledge and ex-
perience and TOO thorough I student to
taSeu up such an idea as that indicated
in newspaper stories-an idea that the
verieSt tyro would recognize at once as
chimerica.
Probably ever since the study OF
medicine began people have been pre-
tending to find an elixir Of life. The
philosophers stone and the elixir of life
used to go hand in hand. Medical his
tory is full of accounts of operations OF
charlatans who pretended to have dis
covered an elixir of life. One very sue
ceSSful one Was Dr.. Graham. He grad
uatcd in Edinburgh and opened mag
uifcelt house in London he called the
Palace of Health. He delivered lectures
on longevity and preservation at a
guinea apiece and sold preparation
that he claimed would enable one to live
forever for $1,000. Many noblemcn
were his patrons. But DR.. Graham died
when he was fifty-two years old.
In all ages and countries there have
been imposters' with elixirs Of life.
This idea of making the elixir Of parts
of human or animal bodies is going away
back into the Dark Ages, when medi-
c:nc made OF human skeletons was sup
posed to be of especial efficacy. If
there is any part of a human body or OF
an animals body that has any medicinal
virtue it has not been discovered yet"
sWould the infusion of blood from
the body of a strong, healthy person into
the veing of weak or i'll person pro-
long the life of the latters"
CURES FOR OLD AGE.
;'Not a bit. No permanent good
could be done by any such an operation.
This prolonging life by medicines is all
bosh. But the ideas those old fellows
have about it are amusing sometimes.
Here is an old English book of Cures
for Old Age Lord Francis Bacon wrote
a large part of it, In his cure he emu
merates gold, pearls, emeralds and
other precious stones as eticacious for
the cure of old age. But he says the
bezoar stone and uniforms horn have
lost credit with us as Of value in pro-
longing life \ large part of this book
is BY Friar Bacon, who died in 1892.
During his life he was imprisoned fer
magic and witchcraft. He says the
following ingredients form a sure
cure for old age: Gold, coral, rose,
mary, the bone of q stag's breast, aloeS
wood and part of a snake. In
The Code Of Health, by Sir John Sin
clair, printed in 1907, IS a recipe for an
elixir of life, used extensively by a
Swedish doctor. By its use the doctor
lived to he 104 yc.rS. old, and other
members of his faLlily to be over one
hundred. The elixir is made as follows:
One ounce aud one dram of sugar OF
aloes, one dram of zcdoria, one dram OF
gcntiana, one dram of saffron, from the
Levant, one dram of fine rhubarb and
one dram of thetiaqua of Venice. The
elixir was said to have wonderful eff
cheney in prolonging life. Really it has
very Slight medicinal properties, if any.
Hoffman, a celebrated French doctor,
was also the discoverer of an elixir OF
life that was famous. 'Hoffman,S Mix
ture,' prescription of some old doctors:
is medicine still in use by doctors and
is often prescribed. There have been
lots of these elixirs made Of all sorts ol
odd things. They were rife when alchemy
and magic were rife, and when the doc
tors were astrologists and theosophlsts.
Even in more modern years there have
been so-called el.xirs of life, and quackS
have become rich on their sale.