A Book about Doctors Part 20

"In like manner, take garden snails, with their sh.e.l.ls, cleaned from the dirt; fill a crucible of the same size with them whole, cover it, and place it on the fire as before, till the snails have done smoaking, which will be in about an hour--taking care that they do not continue in the fire after that. They are then to be taken out of the crucible, and immediately rubbed in a mortar to a fine powder, which ought to be of a very dark-grey colour.

"_Note._--If pit-coal be made use of, it will be proper--in order that the fire may the sooner burn clear on the top--that large cinders, and not fresh coals, be placed upon the tiles which cover the crucibles.

"These powders being thus prepared, take the egg-sh.e.l.l powder of six crucibles, and the snail-powder of one; mix them together, and rub them in a mortar, and pa.s.s them through a cypress sieve. This mixture is immediately to be put up into bottles, which must be close stopped, and kept in a dry place for use. I have generally added a small quant.i.ty of swine's-cresses, burnt to a blackness, and rubbed fine; but this was only with a view to disguise it.

"The egg-sh.e.l.ls may be prepared at any time of the year, but it is best to do them in summer. The snails ought only to be prepared in May, June, July, and August; and I esteem those best which are done in the first of these months.

"The decoction is thus prepared:--Take four ounces and a half of the best Alicant soap, beat it in a mortar with a large spoonful of swine's-cresses burnt to a blackness, and as much honey as will make the whole of the consistence of paste. Let this be formed into a ball.

Take this ball, and green camomile, or camomile flowers, sweet fennel, parsley, and burdock leaves, of each an ounce (when there are not greens, take the same quant.i.ty of roots); slice the ball, and boil them in two quarts of soft water half an hour, then strain it off, and sweeten it with honey.

"The pills are thus prepared:--Take equal quant.i.ties by measure of snails calcined as before, of wild carrot seeds, burdock seeds, ashen keys, hips and hawes, all burnt to a blackness, or, which is the same thing, till they have done smoaking; mix them together, rub them in a mortar, and pa.s.s them through a cypress sieve. Then take a large spoonful of this mixture, and four ounces of the best Alicant soap, and beat them in a mortar with as much honey as will make the whole of a proper consistence for pills; sixty of which are to be made out of every ounce of the composition."

Five thousand pounds for such stuff as this!--and the time was coming when the nation grudged an inadequate reward to Jenner, and haggled about the purchase of Hunter's Museum!

But a more remarkable case of feminine success in the doctoring line was that of Mrs. Mapp, who was a contemporary of Mrs. Stephens. Under the patronage of the Court, "Drop and Pill" Ward (or "Spot" Ward, as he was also called, from a mole on his cheek) was astonis.h.i.+ng London with his cures, and his gorgeous equipage which he had the royal permission to drive through St. James Park, when the attention of the fas.h.i.+onable world was suddenly diverted to the proceeding of "Crazy Sally of Epsom." She was an enormous, fat, ugly, drunken woman, known as a haunter of fairs, about which she loved to reel, screaming and abusive, in a state of roaring intoxication. This attractive lady was a bone-setter; and so much esteemed was she for skill in her art, that the town of Epsom offered her ?100 if she would reside there for a year. The following pa.s.sage we take from the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1736: "Sat.u.r.day 31. In the _Daily Advertiser_, July 28, Joshua Ward, Esq., having the queen's leave, recites seven extraordinary cases of persons which were cured by him, and examined before her Majesty, June 7, objections to which had been made in the _Grub Street Journal_, June 24. But the attention of the public has been taken off from the wonder-working Mr. Ward to a strolling woman now at Epsom, who calls herself Crazy Sally; and had performed cures in bone-setting to admiration, and occasioned so great a resort, that the town offered her 100 guineas to continue there a year."

"Crazy Sally" awoke one morning and found herself famous. Patients of rank and wealth flocked in from every quarter. Attracted by her success, an Epsom swain made an offer of marriage to Sally, which she like a fool accepted. Her maiden name of Wallin (she was the daughter of a Wilts.h.i.+re bone-setter of that name) she exchanged at the altar for that of Mapp. If her marriage was not in all respects fortunate, she was not burdened with much of her husband's society. He lived with her only for a fortnight, during which short s.p.a.ce of time he thrashed her soundly twice or thrice, and then decamped with a hundred guineas of her earnings. She found consolation for her wounded affections in the homage of the world. She became a notoriety of the first water, and every day some interesting fact appeared about her in the prints and public journals. In one we are told "the cures of the woman bone-setter of Epsom are too many to be enumerated: her bandages are extraordinary neat, and her dexterity in reducing dislocations and setting fractured bones wonderful. She has cured persons who have been twenty years disabled, and has given incredible relief in the most difficult cases. The lame come daily to her, and she gets a great deal of money, persons of quality who attend her operations making her presents."

Poets sounded her praises. Vide _Gentleman's Magazine_, August, 1736:

"ON MRS MAPP, THE FAMOUS BONE-SETTER OF EPSOM.

"Of late, without the least pretence to skill, Ward's grown a fam'd physician by a pill; Yet he can but a doubtful honour claim, While envious Death oft blasts his rising fame.

Next travell'd Taylor fills us with surprise, Who pours new light upon the blindest eyes; Each journal tells his circuit through the land, Each journal tells the blessings of his hand; And lest some hireling scribbler of the town Injure his history, he writes his own.

We read the long accounts with wonder o'er; Had he wrote less, we had believed him more.

Let these, O Mapp, thou wonder of the age!

With dubious arts endeavor to engage; While you, irregularly strict to rules, Teach dull collegiate pedants they are fools; By merit, the sure path to fame pursue-- For all who see thy art must own it true."

Mrs. Mapp continued to reside in Epsom, but she visited London once a week. Her journeys to and from the metropolis she performed in a chariot drawn by four horses, with servants wearing splendid liveries.

She used to put up at the Grecian Coffee-House, where Sir Hans Sloane witnessed her operations, and was so favourably impressed by them, that he put under her charge his niece, who was suffering from a spinal affection, or, to use the exact and scientific language of the newspapers, "whose back had been broke nine years, and stuck out two inches." The eminent lady went to the playhouse in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields to see the _Husband's Relief_ acted. Her presence not only produced a crowded house, but the fact that she sate between Taylor the quack oculist on one side, and Ward the drysalter on the other, gave occasion for the production of the following epigram, the point of which is perhaps almost as remarkable as its polish:--

"While Mapp to the actors showed a kind regard, On one side _Taylor_ sat, on the other _Ward_; When their mock persons of the drama came, Both _Ward_ and _Taylor_ thought it hurt their fame; Wonder'd how Mapp could in good humour be, '_Zoons!_' crys the manly dame, 'it hurts not me; Quacks without art may either blind or kill, But demonstration proves that mine is skill.'"

On the stage, also, a song was sung in honour of Mrs. Mapp, and in derision of Taylor and Ward. It ran thus:--

"You surgeons of London, who puzzle your pates, To ride in your coaches, and purchase estates, Give over for shame, for pride has a fall, And the doctress of Epsom has out-done you all.

Derry down, &c.

"What signifies learning, or going to school, When a woman can do, without reason or rule, What puts you to nonplus, and baffles your art; For petticoat practice has now got the start.

Derry down, &c.

"In physic, as well as in fas.h.i.+ons, we find The newest has always its run with mankind; Forgot is the bustle 'bout Taylor and Ward, And Mapp's all the cry, and her fame's on record.

Derry down, &c.

"Dame Nature has given a doctor's degree-- She gets all the patients, and pockets the fee; So if you don't instantly prove her a cheat, She'll loll in her carriage, whilst you walk the street.

Derry down, &c."

On one occasion, as this lady was proceeding up the Old Kent Road to the Borough, in her carriage and four, dressed in a loosely-fitting robe-de-chambre, and manifesting by her manner that she had partaken somewhat too freely of Geneva water, she found herself in a very trying position. Her fat frame, indecorous dress, intoxication, and dazzling equipage, were in the eyes of the mob such sure signs of royalty, that she was immediately taken for a Court lady, of German origin and unpopular repute, whose word was omnipotent at St. James's.

Soon a crowd gathered round the carriage, and, with the proper amount of swearing and yelling, were about to break the windows with stones, when the spirited occupant of the vehicle, acting very much as Nell Gwyn did on a similar occasion, rose from her seat, and letting down the gla.s.ses, exclaimed, with an imprecation more emphatic than polite, "-- --! Don't you know me? I am Mrs. Mapp, the bone-setter!"

This brief address so tickled the humour of the mob, that the lady proceeded on her way amidst deafening acclamations and laughter.

The Taylor mentioned as sitting on one side of Mrs. Mapp in the playhouse was a notable character. A cunning, plausible, shameless blackguard, he was eminently successful in his vocation of quack. Dr.

King, in his "Anecdotes of his own Times," speaks of him with respect.

"I was at Tunbridge," says the Doctor, "with Chevalier Taylor, the oculist. He seems to understand the anatomy of the eye perfectly well; he has a fine hand and good instruments, and performs all his operations with great dexterity; but he undertakes everything (even impossible cases), and promises everything. No charlatan ever appeared with fitter and more excellent talents, or to greater advantage; he has a good person, is a natural orator, and has a faculty of learning foreign languages. He has travelled over all Europe, and has always with him an equipage suitable to a man of the first quality; and has been introduced to most of the sovereign princes, from whom he has received many marks of their liberality and esteem."

Dr. King, in a Latin inscription to the mountebank, says:--

"Hic est, hic vir est, Quem docti, indoctique omnes impense mirantur, Johannes Taylor; C?cigenorum, c?corum, c?citantium, Quot quot sunt ubique, Spes unica--Solamen--Salus."

The Chevalier Taylor (as he always styled himself), in his travels about the country, used to give lectures on "The Eye," in whatever place he tarried. These addresses were never explanatory of the anatomy of the organ, but mere absurd rhapsodies on it as an ingenious and wonderful contrivance.

Chevalier's oration to the university of Oxford, which is still extant, began thus:--

"The eye, most ill.u.s.trious sons of the muses, most learned Oxonians, whose fame I have heard celebrated in all parts of the globe--the eye, that most amazing, that stupendous, that comprehending, that incomprehensible, that miraculous organ, the eye, is the Proteus of the pa.s.sions, the herald of the mind, the interpreter of the heart, and the window of the soul. The eye has dominion over all things. The world was made for the eye, and the eye for the world.

"My subject is Light, most ill.u.s.trious sons of literature--intellectual light. Ah! my philosophical, metaphysical, my cla.s.sical, mathematical, mechanical, my theological, my critical audience, my subject is the eye. You are the eye of England!

"England has two eyes--Oxford and Cambridge. They are the two eyes of England, and two intellectual eyes. You are the right eye of England, the elder sister in science, and the first fountain of learning in all Europe. What filial joy must exult in my bosom, in my vast circuit, as copious as that of the sun himself, to s.h.i.+ne in my course, upon this my native soil, and give light even at Oxford!

"The eye is the husband of the soul!

"The eye is indefatigable. The eye is an angelic faculty. The eye in this respect is a female. The eye is never tired of seeing; that is, of taking in, a.s.similating, and enjoying all Nature's vigour."

When the Chevalier was ranting on in this fas.h.i.+on at Cambridge (of course there terming Oxford the _left_ eye of England), he undertook to express every pa.s.sion of the mind by the eye alone.

"Here you have surprise, gentlemen; here you have delight; here you have terror!"

"Ah!" cried an undergraduate, "there's no merit in that, for you tell us beforehand what the emotion is. Now next time say nothing--and let me guess what the feeling is you desire to express."

"Certainly," responded the Doctor, cordially; "nothing can be more reasonable in the way of a proposition. Now then, sir, what is this?"

"Oh, veneration, I suppose."

"Certainly--quite right--and this?"

"Pity."

"Of course, sir: you see it's impossible for an observant gentleman like yourself to misunderstand the language of the eye," answered the oculist, whose plan was only to a.s.sent to his young friend's decisions.

In the year 1736, when the Chevalier was at the height of his fame, he received the following humorous letter:--

"DOMINE,--O tu, qui in oculis hominum versaris, et quamcunque tractas rem, _acu_ tangis, salve! Tu, qui, instar Ph?bi, lumen orbi, et orbes luminibus reddis, iterum salve!

"c.u.m per te Gallia, per te nostr? academi?, duo regni lumina, clarius intuentur, cur non ad urbem Edinburgi, c.u.m toties ubique erras, cursum tendis? nam qu?dam c?citas cives illic invasit. Ipsos magistratus _Gutta Serena_ occupavit, videntur enim videre, sed nihil vident.

Idcirco tu istam _Scoticam Nebulam_ ex oculis remove, et quodcunque latet in tenebris, in lucem profer. Illi violenter carcerem, tu oculos leniter reclude; illi lucem Porteio ademerunt, tu illis lucem rest.i.tue, et quamvis fingant se dupliciter videre, fac ut simpliciter tantum oculo irretorto conspiciant. Peractoque cursu, ad Angliam redi artis tu? plenus, Toriosque (ut vulgo vocantur) qui adhuc c?cutiant et hallucinantur, illuminato. Ab ipsis clericis, si qui sint c?ci ductores, nubem discute; immo ipso Sole lunaque, c.u.m laborant eclipsi, qu?, instar tui ipsius, transit per varias regiones ob.u.mbrans, istam molem caliginis amoveto. Sic eris Sol Mundi, sic eris non solum nomine Sartor, sed re Oculorum omnium resarcitor; sic omuis Charta Publica tuam Claritudinem celebrabit, et ubicunque frontem tuam ostendis, nemo non te, O vir spectatissime, admirabitur. Ipse lippus scriptor hujus epistol? maxime gauderet te Medic.u.m Ill.u.s.trissimum, c.u.m omnibus tuis oculatis testibus, Vindsori? videre.--VALE."