J. T. Nichols

“ Of course, the axe was properly treated, wrapped up again, and more carefully suspended, and, also of course, the patient recovered rapidly, and without any further discomfort.
These facts, and hundreds of a similar character which might be given, seem just as good as those which are brought to support every medical theory, and which attest the cures of every kind of practice and medicine. Every system, in whatever it may be weak, is strong in its facts. In our day allopathy, homœopathy, hydropathy, and all contradictory systems, are alike in the one important feature. ”

“ Such as had not moved their limbs for a month before, were seen to walk, with their limbs straight, sound, and whole, boasting their cure by the Prince’s remedy.
When we have such facts as these, how are we to discuss or examine the pretensions of any medicine or medical system? And the experience of almost every person can furnish facts of a similar character.
For example, the hands are covered with warts. You try acids, caustic, and the actual cautery, but with no benefit. The old ones grow out again, and new ones are coming. They are uncomfortable and hideous, and you are in despair. ”

“ In the rural districts, when a man has the misfortune to run a nail into his foot, he finds it, carefully greases it, wraps it up, and lays it away in a safe and dry place. This is supposed to promote the healing of the wound and prevent lock-jaw. In like manner, an axe or chisel, which has inflicted a wound, is carefully wiped and protected from rust.
The philosophy of our day is not far-sighted enough to find out the relation between the nail or axe which has given a wound, and the wonderful processes by which nature repairs the injury ”

“ He went, as he was bid, and did not have another fit of ague. There could scarcely be a cheaper or less troublesome cure; but it is not very easily accounted for.
Elias Ashmole wrote in his Diary, April 11, 1687:
“I took early in the morning a good dose of elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and drove my ague away. Deo Gratias.”
Now what drove away the ague? The chips of a gallows, sewed in a bag and worn around the neck, are good for ague; and the shoes in which a man has been hanged, as well as the rope, have great efficacy. ”

“ The usual mode of accounting for such cures as those which were explained as resulting from sympathy, is by attributing them to faith, hope, or imagination. These are powerful agents over the physical system, though it must be confessed that they do not account for all the facts. ”

“ They are emetic, cathartic, or sedative, as the physician may desire. Fear is believed to kill men in a pestilence by becoming a predisposing cause. Hope cures desperate cases. Lord Anson’s expedition to the South Sea had met with many misfortunes, and his ships that escaped storm and wreck lost almost their entire crews by scurvy. ”

“ This incident suspended the fight, and one of the combatants bound up the wounded hand with his garter, took the patient home, and sent for a surgeon. But the wound became inflamed, and, lock-jaw being apprehended, Sir Kenelm Digby was sent for.
The great man, the man of science, the court physician came. ”