The Funny Side of Physic Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD PILGARLIC TAKES A BATH.]

A reliable friend of mine has gathered the following facts and statements in regard to Professor Brewster, and taken pains to secure the accompanying engraving of the veritable professor, as he appears in the year 1872.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PROFESSOR BREWSTER.]

"The full name of this remarkable man, now residing in Hartford, Conn., is Worthington Hooker Erasmus Brewster, commonly called, by those who venture on familiarity, 'Worthy' Brewster, for short. Worthy is of full medium height, powerfully built, and well knitted together. His head is very well moulded, and also extremely large, but not disproportionally large for his ma.s.sive shoulders. He was born of 'poor but honest' (though undoubtedly black) parents, in the town of Granby, Conn., on the 21st day of January, 1812.

"The boy Worthy, at the age of six years, went with his mother (his father having died) and her new husband to the hills of Litchfield County to live, and was there brought up to youth's estate, enjoying the opportunities of education at the district school in what is now _West_ Winsted. The places of the birth and early rearing of Professor Brewster are fixed beyond question, which fact will, it is hoped, forbid the contention of other towns, and of 'seven cities,' or more, over the question, after he shall have pa.s.sed away. Worthy was not attracted to literature and science, however. He seemed to spurn these, as unworthy of his natural gifts to waste their time upon. But he learned to read, and can write a 'fair hand.' Seeing no special need of being cramped and confined by the narrow rules of spelling, Worthy has invented a style of orthography for himself, and writes a compact, forcible, and even masterly letter.

"But we must not linger on the details of his youth. Suffice it that Worthy grew up a powerful lad, and became the conquering athlete of all the region about his home. No man, of hundreds who tried, was able to successfully wrestle with him. The strongest men were no match for him. He was as agile as he was powerful, and to this day retains great elasticity of foot and limb. He was a mysterious fellow also, and, before he was sixteen years old, was regarded by his friends and acquaintances, of African descent, especially, as a sort of prophet, while many whites considered him a necromancer, and people all about declared he 'had the devil in him' to no ordinary extent. Worthy claimed, in those days, to 'see visions,' and many stories are current among his contemporaries regarding his then being able to 'charm snakes,' and do other miraculous things. Abundant witnesses, such as they are, can now be found ready to take their oaths that they have seen Worthy, 'with their own eyes,'

perform his miracles. It is certain that these believe in him.

"At the age of twenty Worthy went to New York city, where (in Lawrence Street) he lived for the period of a year, successfully practising the art of fortune-telling. While there Worthy first discovered his powers as a 'mesmerizer,' or magnetic physician. A school-girl, knowing that Worthy 'practised the healing art' somewhat, and suffering intensely with a toothache, jeeringly asked him, 'Why can't you think of something to cure my toothache?' Whereupon Worthy clapped his hands to her head, and vigorously drew them down her cheeks, half in fun, half seriously, when, to his astonishment, he found that all his (sound) teeth ached terribly, while she declared that the pain had left hers. Such is his story; and it is by no means an improbable one; for animal magnetism is a fixed fact (however it may be a.n.a.lyzed or defined), and diseases are often 'magnetically' alleviated; and Worthy, with his powerful body and superb health, as well as native force of intellect, may be as naturally gifted, as a magnetic operator, as even Mesmer himself. Indeed, the writer is inclined to believe that Worthy's great power over many people is largely due to his superior vital forces.

"Worthy now turned his attention considerably to diseases, but returned to Litchfield County for a while. At the age of twenty-six, he resolved 'to see more of the world,' and in the capacity of steward embarked at New Haven on board the brig Marshal, Captain Brison, freighted with horses, and bound for a long trading voyage to the Island of Demarara, and to South America, where they coasted during the winters, and took in coffee, etc., in exchange for their cargo. Worthy was gone from home on this voyage two years and two months, during which time he learned many mysteries. He was a foreign traveller now, and his polite and professional education may be said to have at that time become 'finished.'

"Since then Worthy has practised medicine to considerable extent, told fortunes, 'looked' (in a crystal) for stolen property, and, if we are to believe half of what is attested by many astute people (such as police detectives, etc.), has, by force of his great sagacity, or in some way (he would say, through clairvoyance), managed to achieve great success in ferreting out lost or stolen treasures, and bringing thieves to grief.

"People of all cla.s.ses in society visit him with their troubles of mind and body. But the major part of his clientage is females. The wives and accomplished daughters of wealthy men, as well as poor and ignorant women, come from distant parts of the country to consult him, and a great number of the first ladies of Hartford also consult him. Worthy carries on the business of a 'chair-seater,' partly to occupy his time during the intervals of his divinations, and partly to provide an excuse for cautious persons to call on him for consultations. Those who consult him do so mostly regarding secret matters, and they pretend to visit him to engage him to seat chairs!

"He is consulted in respect to all sorts of diseases, and by unsuccessful, perplexed, or doubting lovers; by husbands whose wives have absconded, and who are anxious to call them back; by wives in regard to their wandering husbands; by hosts of superst.i.tious people (and these are found in all cla.s.ses), who believe themselves 'possessed by devils,' or demons. He is expected to cast out the devils (and he does so as surely as most doctors cure imaginary diseases). People who have lost property, and officers of the law in search of stolen goods, consult him; and bachelors and widowers in want of wives, and countless maids (both old and young), anxious to get married, visit him and receive his sweet consolations, or mourn over the ill luck which he prognosticates for them. His correspondence is large. A hasty glance through several hundred letters in 'Professor Brewster's'

possession convinced the writer that the amount and character of the superst.i.tion and ignorance which exist in these days, in our very midst, are probably but little conjectured by the more cultivated cla.s.ses. They are indeed astounding, but are not confined, as we have before intimated, to the wholly illiterate cla.s.ses. People competent to write letters with grammatical precision, and observing what would ordinarily be called an 'excellent business style,' at least, in their composition, consult the professor; and so successful is Worthy in his diagnoses of and prescriptions for various diseases, that many of his patients write him letters overflowing with grat.i.tude, while others voluntarily and admiringly attest his skill as a 'seer.' To what talent, 'gift,' or what secret of good luck, 'Professor Brewster' owes the many successes he wins (even though he may fail ten times more often than he succeeds), we cannot, of course, decide. But certain it is that he, with all his claims to a knowledge of the 'occult,' exists, practises his arts, and through a period of years has retained his old patients, and the postulants before his supposed demiG.o.ds.h.i.+p, while adding constantly to their number. In this he is a remarkable man. He has acc.u.mulated quite a respectable property, and is decidedly one of the 'inst.i.tutions' of the enlightened and cultivated city of Hartford.

"It should be remarked here that Worthy was, during the late civil war, a true patriot. He was attached to the twenty-ninth regiment Connecticut Volunteers, under Colonel Wooster (a 'colored' regiment), and was 'gone to the war' over two years. His powers as a 'clairvoyant,' or 'fore-seer,'

served him in the war, and he 'always knew what was coming,' he says. As a part of the curious history of the war, serving to show how little the people of the North understood, in the first years of the contest, that they were fighting for a great humanitary end,--the abolition of chattel slavery,--it may be noted here, that Worthy wrote to Governor Buckingham, in August, 1862, proposing to raise a black regiment, and the governor, by his secretary, replied to Worthy's proposition, that he then did 'not deem it expedient,'--which fact inst.i.tutes a comparison between the judgments of the governor and Worthy, not uncomplimentary to the latter."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

II.

APOTHECARIES.

FIRST MENTION OF.--A POOR SPECIMEN.--ELIZABETHAN.--KING JAMES I.

[VI.].--ALLSPICE AND ALOES, SUGAR AND TARTAR EMETIC.--WAR.--PHYSICIAN VS. APOTHECARY.--IGNORANCE.--STEALING A TRADE.--A LAUGHABLE PRESCRIPTION.--"CASTER ILE."--MODERN DRUG SWALLOWING.--MISTAKES.-- "STEALS THE TOOLS ALSO."--SUBSt.i.tUTES.--"A QUID."--A "SMELL" OF PATENT MEDICINES.--"A SAMPLE CLERK."

There are few occupations wherein Old Time has wrought so few changes as in that of the apothecary's. What it was four hundred years ago it is to-day! Who first invented its weights, measures, and symbols, I am unable to say; but it is a fact that they remain the same as when first made mention of by the earliest writers on the subject.

Drop into the "corner drug store,"--and what corner has none!--examine the balances, the tables of weights and measures, the graduating gla.s.s, the signs for grains, scruples, ounces, and pounds, and you will find them the same as those used by the earliest known _medical_ apothecaries, by those of the Elizabethan period, or when King Lear (Lyr) said, "Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination; there's money for thee."

The money has changed; _names_ of drugs are somewhat altered; some new ones have taken the place of old ones; prescriptions changed in quality; but quant.i.ties, and modes of expressing them, are unchanged.

"In the middle ages an apothecary was the keeper of any shop or warehouse, and an officer appointed to take charge of a magazine."--_Webster._

We have good grounds for supposing this to have been the case in the time of the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, more that two thousand years ago. Nehemiah informs us that the son of an apothecary a.s.sisted in "fortifying Jerusalem unto the broad wall." Was not this the office of an overseer, or "keeper of a magazine"? Various artisans were employed to perform certain portions of the work, and who more appropriate or better qualified to oversee the rebuilding of the fortifications than "an officer appointed to take charge of the magazines"?

One more reference we draw from Scripture,[2] viz., in Exodus x.x.xvii. 29, where "the holy anointing oil" (not for medicine, but for the tabernacle), "and the pure incense of sweet spices" (not medical), "were made according to the work [book?] of the apothecary." This, however, no more implies that the said "apothecary" was a medical man, a dispenser of physic, or versed in medical lore, than that the maker of shewbread (Lev. xxiv. 5) was necessarily a pharmacist.

In fact, there seems to have been no need of an apothecary, as medicine dispenser, until about the latter part of the thirteenth century.

The oldest known work on compounding medicines was written by Nicolaus Mynepsus, who died in the commencement of the fourteenth century.

The first apothecaries were merely growers and dispensers of herbs, and were but a poor and beggarly set.

Shakspeare's delineation of the "_poor apothecary of Mantua_," in Romeo and Juliet, so completely answers the description of the whole "kit" of druggists of the times, that we may be pardoned in quoting him.

Romeo says,--

"I do remember an apothecary,-- And hereabouts he dwells,--whom late I noted In tattered weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples (herbs). Meagre were his looks; Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuffed, and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds; Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scattered to make up a show.

Noting this penury, to myself I said,-- 'An' if a man did need a poison now, Whose sale is present death in Mantua, Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'

What, ho! apothecary!

_Apothecary._ Who calls so loud?

_Romeo._ Come hither, man! I see that thou art poor.

Hold! There is forty ducats! [$80.] Let me have A dram of poison.

_Apoth._ Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua's law Is death to any he that utters them.

_Rom._ Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness, And fear'st to die? Famine is on thy cheeks; Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes; Upon thy back hangs ragged misery; The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law; The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.

_Apoth._ My poverty, but not my will, consents."

When we behold the opulent druggists of the present day, we can hardly credit the fact that for nearly two hundred years the apothecary of Mantua was a fair specimen of the wretches who represented that now important branch of business.

The physician was the master, the apothecary the slave!

The following were among the rules prescribed by Dr. Bullyn for the "apothecary's life and conduct" during the Elizabethan era:--

"1. He must serve G.o.d, be clenly, pity the poore.

2. Must not be suborned for money to hurt mankind.

4. His garden must be at hand, with plenty of herbes, seedes, and rootes.

5. To sow, set, plant, gather, preserve, and keepe them in due time.

6. To read Dioscorides, to learn ye nature of plants and herbes.

(Dioscorides published a work on vegetable remedies about 1499, in Greek. The _translation_ was referred to.)

8. To have his morters, stilles, pottes, filters, gla.s.ses, and boxes cleane and sweete.

12. That he neither increase nor diminish the physician's bill (prescription), nor keepe it for his own use.

14. That he peruse often his wares, that they corrupt not.

15. That he put not in _quid pro quo_ (i. e., subst.i.tute one drug for another.) (Would not this be excellent advice to some of the apothecaries of the present day?)