that, in fifteen days, he would go to the churchyard, and restore to life its inhabitants, though buried fifteen years. This declaration excited a general rumour and murmur against the doctor, who, not in the least disconcerted, applied to the magistrate, and requested that he might be put under a guard to prevent his escape, until he should perform his undertaking. The proposition inspired the greatest confidence, and the whole city came to consult the clever empiric, and purchase his baume de vie. His consultations were most numerous; and he received large sums of money. At length, the noted day approached, and the doctor's valet, fearing for his shoulders, began to manifest signs of uneasiness. "You know nothing of mankind,” said the quack to his servant; "be quiet." Scarcely had he spoken the words, when the following letter was presented to him from a rich citizen :-"Sir, the great operation you are about to perform has broken my rest. I have a wife buried for some time, who was a fury, and I am unhappy enough already, without her resurrection. In the name of heaven, do not make the experiment. I will give you fifty louis to keep your secret to yourself." Soon after, two dashing beaux arrived, who urged him with the most earnest entreaties not to raise their old father, formerly the greatest miser in the city, as, in such an event, they would be reduced to the most deplorable indigence. They offered him a fee of sixty louis; but the doctor shook his head in doubtful compliance. Scarcely had they retired, when a young widow, on the eve of matrimony, threw herself at the feet of the quack, and, with sobs and sighs, implored his mercy. In short, from morn till night, he received letters, visits, presents, and fees, to an excess which absolutely overwhelmed him. The minds of the citizens were differently and violently agitated: some by fear, and others by curiosity, so that the mayor of the city waited upon the doctor, and said: "Sir, I have not the least doubt, from my experience of your rare talents, that you will be able to accomplish the resurrection in our churchyard, the day after to-morrow, according to your promise; but I pray you to observe that our city is in the utmost uproar and confusion; and to consider the dreadful revolution your experiment must produce in every family: I entreat you, therefore, not to attempt it, but to go away, and thus restore tranquillity to the city. In justice, however, to your rare and divine talents, I shall give you an attestation, in due form, under our seal, that you can revive the dead, and that it was our own fault we were not eye-witnesses of your power." This certificate, our authority continues, was duly signed and delivered. The illustrious Mantaccini left Lyons, for other cities, to work new miracles and manoeuvres. In a short time, he returned to Paris, loaded with gold, laughing at the credulity of his victims. One more citation of the kind. Count Cagliostro and his wife made their début at St. Petersburg, pretending to a power of conferring perpetual youth-investing old people with rejuvenescence. The countess, who was not more than twenty, spoke of her son, who had long served in the army. This expedient of making old people young again could not fail to affect certain aged ladies, who are expert in diminishing instead of adding to their years. This experiment upon popular credulity did not, however, last long; but it yielded a golden harvest while it continued. Among notable and eccentric physicians of former times, was Jerome Cardan of Milan, who flourished, and physicked the valetudinarians of the sixteenth century. In the Dictionnaire Historique de la Médicine, we have the following summary of the qualities and accomplishments of our quondam physician:"His immense knowledge and extraordinary sagacity, his freedom of thought, and his style, in general, manly and spirited, would place him at the head of the celebrated writers of the sixteenth century, if he had not united with these qualities a decided love of paradox and of the marvellous, an infantile credulity, a superstition scarcely conceivable, an insupportable vanity, and a boasting that knew no limits. His works, full of puerilities, of lies, of contradictions, of absurd tales, and charlatanry of every description, nevertheless offer proofs of a bold, inventive genius, which seeks for new paths of science, and succeeds in finding them." Leibnitz is reported to have said of him, that, with all his puerilities, he was a great man. The intellectual character of Cardan presents a problem sufficiently intricate to excite the labours of a biographer; and when we add that his life, also, was full of various incidents— that he endured the extreme of misfortune, and rose to the height of professional honor-that he was battling throughout his life both with men and with books, we need not wonder that he became notorious. His name has been placed in succession to that of Galen, who was the great authority when he made his professional appearance. His first book bore the title De Malo Medendi Usu- denouncing seventy-two errors in existing practice! Most of his corrections have been re-corrected by his successors. Astrology by no means satisfied his thirst for divination. He had a system of Cheiromancy, and was very profound on the lines in the human hand, and a science completely his own, which he called Metoposcopy. The following extract will show that the character and fortunes of an individual are thus revealed by the lines in his forehead :— "Seven lines, drawn at equal distances, one above another, horizontally across the whole forehead, beginning close over the eyes, indicate respectively the regions of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The signification of each planet is always the same, and foreheadreading is thus philosophically allied to the science of palmistry." It is related of a certain quack, in some country town in England, that he resorted to the following expedient, for creating a little notoriety, by way of a start. On his arrival, he announced himself by sending the bell-man-an official of great importance in former times-to disturb the quiet of the honest people of the place, by proclaiming the reward of fifty guineas for the recovery of his pet poodle: of course, the physician who could be so lavish with his money for such a trifling purpose, could not but be a man of pre-eminence in his profession. Milligen records the curious fact of two miracleworking doctors having taken London by storm, many years ago, who laid claim to the unpronounceable and most outrageous names of Tetrachymagogon and Fellino Guffino Cardimo Cardimac Frames (!), which were plastered about the walls of the city, exciting the amazement and curiosity of the gullible multitude. Another announced himself by placards, appealing to the sympathies of the selfish, to the effect that he had studied thirty years by candle-light for the good of his countrymen; which issue may possibly have been deemed a debateable point. He claimed to have been the seventh-son of a seventh-son—and to have been exclusively possessed of sundry certain cures; among others, that of hernia. The following poetical version of a quack-doctor's professional scope may be familiar to some readers : : "Advice given gratis, from ten until four, Anti-spasmodics, sarcotics, emetics. With cures for blue devils, by a clever pathologist, Among the accidental circumstances to which some of the fraternity have been indebted for their first successful début, we may refer to the following case of Dr. Case, which briefly consisted in his having the lines "Within this place lives Doctor Case," written in large characters upon his door: he is said to have acquired a fortune by the quaint expedient. Another disciple of Esculapius tumbled into a good practice through a fit of intoxication. Disappointed on his first arrival in London, he sought to drown his sorrows in muddy ale, at a neighbouring tavern; while there, being still under the effect of his "potations deep," he was summoned to attend a certain countess. The high-sounding title of this unexpected patient tended not a little to increase the excitement under which he laboured he followed the liveried servant as steadily as he could, and was ushered in silence into a noble mansion, where her ladyship's female attendant anxiously waited to conduct him most discreetly to her mistress' room. Her agitation preventing her discovering the doctor's tendency to describe imaginary circles and curves in preference to a direct course. He was introduced into a splendid bed-chamber, and staggering up to the aristocratical patient, he commenced the mechanical process of feeling the pulse, etc.; but on proceeding to the table to write a prescription his weakness betrayed him. In vain he strove to trace the salutary characters, until, wearied in his attempts, he at length threw down the pen, exclaiming, Drunk, 'pon honour!" and he made the best of his way out of the house. Two days after, he was not a little surprised at receiving a letter from his illustrious patient, inclosing a check for 1007., and promising him the patronage of her family and friends, if he would but observe the strictest secrecy as to the condition in which he found her. The patient and her physician were in the same predicament, but by a strange obliquity in the lady, the doctor's intoxication was of a milder type than his patient's. The next instance we have to introduce to our friends rejoiced in the not uncommon name of Graham, who, in the year 1782, made a great sensation in London. He was gifted with great fluency of speech, and indulged in towering hyperbole and bombast, with which he sought to gull the wonder-loving multitude. He opened a splendid mansion in Pall-mall, which he styled the "Temple of Health." The front was ornamented with an enormous gilt sun, a statue of Hygieia, and other attractive emblems; the suite of rooms in the interior was superbly furnished, and the walls decorated with mirrors, so as to confer on the place an effect like that of an enchanted palace. Here he delivered lectures on health, at the extravagant price of two guineas per lecture; yet the price, together with the novelty of the subjects, drew together considerable audiences of the wealthy and dissipated. He entertained a female, whom he called the goddess of health; and it was her business to deliver a concluding discourse, after the doctor himself had delivered his lecture. He hired two men of extraordinary stature, provided with enormous cocked-hats, and with showy liveries, whose business it was to distribute bills, from house to house, through the |
