LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 325, 28 June 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

CURIOUS CURATIVES,

( Concluded .) Lameness of a certain kind may often be cured by fright. Hone [relates how an old gentleman, hobbling along as well as gouty feet would allow him, suddenly became aware that a bull was making a rapid advance on his rear, and forgetting _ his gout, and dropping his stick, by a dashing bit of steeple-chasing, in a very few moments put himself on the safe side of a gate, and left his gout behind him. We knew a man cured of rheumatism quite as quickly. He had kept his room for six weeks, when somebody advised him to try the effects of a cayene lotion, A jugful was made, and the very first night of using it, he awoke, feeling very dry-throated. He always kept a jug of water at his bedside ; so, stretching out his hand, he seized the jug, and took a pull at its contents. He was on the floor almost before he knew it. He had got hold of the wrong jug, and taken his lotion internally ; but the blunder frightened away his rheumatism for ever. ‘ Fright,’ says a v/riter in the “ Book of Hays,” ‘ is looked upon as a cure for ague! An old woman told me that she was actually cured in this manner when she was young. She had had ague for a long time, and nothing would cure it. Now, it happened she had a fat pig in the sty, and a fat pig is an important personage in a poor man’s establishment. Well aware of the importance of piggy in her eyes, and determined to give her as great a shock as possible, her husband came to her with a very long face, as she was tottering down stairs one day, and told her that ‘the pig was dead.’ Horror at this fearful news overcame all other feelings; she forgot all about her ague, and hurried to the scene of the catastrophe, where she found, to her great relief, the pig alive and well; but from that day to thi» (she must be about eighty years old) she

his never had a touch of ague, though she has resided on the same spot. ’ When a man discovers, to his dismay, that his

Hair is thinning away at the crown, And the silver fights with the worn-out brown, he is sometimes tempted to stave off the evil day, when a general verdict shall set him down as an irreclaimable fogy, by trying some well puffed nostrum, guaranteed to restore gray hair to its original color, and force the growth of hair upon the smoothest of pates. A French tobacconist, who had reached this unhappy stage, heard a hairdresser boast he had discovered an infallible restorer, and pointed out as such by Nature herself. The discovery came about in this wise. Taking a walk one Sunday morning in the woods, the hairdresser was astonished by the multitude of mushrooms he beheld whichever way he turned. It flashed upon his brain that he saw before him the real remedy for baldness. Filling his handkerchief with mushrooms, he hastened home, and lost no time in boiling them down, in readiness for the first chance of testing the truth of his theory that might present itself. The bald-headed tobacconist was marked out as his prey ; he could not resist the ardent eloquence of the eager artist, and a bargain was soon struck between them. For two months both parties patiently persevered with the mushroom lotion; then the tobacconist was horrified at finding that his head was not only as hairless as ever, but dotted over with hideous little wens. He was furious; he went to law; but what came of that we cannot tell.

A good pendant to this sad story comes to us from Madras. A native government employe, owning to fifty-five, entreated an Englishman to give him a receipt for something that would convert his gray beard and moustache to a more youthful hue. Thinking a re f usal would offend him, though he had the Jbest of reasons for denial, the Englishman wrote at random a perfectly original prescription, never dreaming his native friend would follow his instructions. He did, though. Procuring a drachm each of oil of roses, oil of cloves, gum-arabic, lamp-black, and sulphuric acid, he mixed them well together, and before retiring for the night, rubbed the concoction well into his beard and moustache, afterwards drinking a stiff glass of arrack, to expedite the action of the dye. Next morning, he arose betimes, in hopes of beholding himself the proud possessor of a mass of glossy jet-black hair. His amazed horror may be imagined when he looked in the glass and saw no signs of beard or lip ornaments ; they had vanished altogether, leaving nothing but a sorely blistered skin to tell they had ever existed. Possibly he might have recovered his lost hair if he had tried the Yankee plan of applying brandy externally until it began to grow, and then taken plenty of the same internally, to clinch the roots. After ages of experiment and experience, the art of curing is still such an uncertain art, that thousands might say, as the poor invalid said : * 1 never took a remedy, but I’ve had lots of physic.’ Dr Whately could have said just the contrary ; he did not take lots of physic, but had a remedy nevertheless that stood him in good stead at all times and seasons. A gentleman making an evening call at Redesdale when the snow lay two feet thick upon the ground, was much scandalised at beholding an old man in shirt sleeves hard at work felling a tree, while the sleet drifted pitilessly in his wrinkled face. Upon expressing his surprise that the archbishop should let an old labourer work in such fashion, he was astonished to learn that the poor fellow exciting his wrathful pity was the archbishop himself, getting lid of a headache in his usual way, which was, to throw off his coat, lay hold of an axe, rush out of doors, and belabour some stout old trunk till he found himself perspiring freely; when down went the axe, and off went Dr Whately as hard as he could tear to his bedroom, to wrap himself up in his newest blankets, go to sleep, and arise by-and-bye ‘as fresh as a four-old-old,’ Sydney Smith prepared for all eventualities, by devoting one side of a room to a collection of medicines, on the efficacy of which he plumed himself not a little. * There’s the gentle joy, a pleasure to take it; the Bull-dog for more serious cases ; Peter’s Puke, and Heart’s Delight—the comfort of all the old women in the village ; Rub-a-dub, a capital embrocation ; Dead-stop settles the matter at once, and Up-with-it-then needs no explanation. This is the house to be ill in $ everybody who comes here is expected to take a little of something. I consider it a delicate compliment when my guests have a slight illness. We have contrivances for everything. If you have a stiff neck or a swelled face, here is this sweet case of tin, filled with hot water, and covered with flannel, to put round your neck, and you are well directly. Likewise, a patent tin shoulder, in case of rheumatism. There you see a stomach-tin, the greatest comfort in life ; and lastly, here is a tin slipper, to be filled with hot water, which you can sit with in the drawing-room should you come in chilled, without wetting your feet.’ Sydney Smith had almost as much faith in hot water as Burke, only he was for its external use ; some of his contrivances might certainly be generally adopted with advantage. Scott’s Ashestiel blacksmith, who; upon the strength of a little veterinary skill, set up as a doctor of humankind in a small English town, was a man of few remedies. As he told Sir Walter, his practice was very sure, and perfectly orthodox, for he depended entirely i>pon ‘ twa simples. ’ ‘ And what may thev be ? ’ asked Scott, with some curiosity.—‘l’ll tell your honor,’ said Lundie ; ‘my twa simples are just laudamy and calamy ! ’ —‘ Simples with a vengeance ! ’ exclaimed the poet. ‘ But do you never happen to kill some of your patients, J ohn ? ’ — ‘ Kill ?On ay, may be sae ! Whiles they die, and whiles no—but it’s the will o’ Providence. Onyhow, your honor, it wad be lang before it makes up for Flodden ? ’ That last touch went straight to Seotts’s heart, we may be sure. Johnny Lundie was not quite so frank with the unlucky victims of his orthodox practice; frankness with them would have been unprofessional. It would perhaps be a change for the better if European doctors could imitate the plain-speak-ing Chinaman, Li Po Sai, who, when called in by a Californian gentleman, after the usual examination, said : ‘ I think you too much dance, too much eat, too much goot round. If you dance, you no get better ; too much eating, no good; too much gooting round, no good.—Good-bye ! ’ Dared our medical advisers be as honest as their Chinese brother, drugs would be at a discount indeed ; but then, it is just possible the Registrar-General might be able to show a cleaner bill of health.