Dealings With The Dead Volume II Part 11

In 1840, we had, in Boston, one hundred and twenty-two physicians, surgeons, and dentists, and a population of 93,383. There are now, in this physicky metropolis, according to the Directory, for 1848-9, physicians, of all sorts, not including those for the soul, but doctors, surgeons, dentists, regulars and quacks, of all colors and both s.e.xes, 362. THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-TWO: an increase of two hundred and forty, in eight years. This is certainly encouraging. If 122 doctors are quite as many, as 93,383 Athenians ought to bear, 362 require about 280,000 patients, and such should be our population. Let us arrange this formidable host. At the very _tete d'armee_, marching left in front, we have seven _Female Physicians_, preceded by an _Indian doctress_--next in order, come the surgeon _Dentists_, seventy in number--then the main body, to whom the publisher of the Directory courteously and indiscriminately applies the t.i.tle of _Physicians_, two hundred and fifty-seven, rank and file;--seven and twenty _Botanic Doctors_ bring up the rear! How appropriate, in the hand of the very last of this enormous _cortege_, would be a banner, inscribed with those well known words--G.o.d SAVE THE COMMONWEALTH OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS!

I shall devote this paper to comparative statistics. In 1789, with twenty-three physicians in Boston, four less, than the present number of _botanic doctors_ alone, and three hundred and thirty-nine less, than the present number of regulars and pretenders, there were nine only of _our_ profession, regularly enrolled, as F. U., funeral undertakers, and placed upon a footing with the Roman _designatores_, or _domini funerum_. There were several others, who bore to our profession the same relation, which bachelors of medicine bear to theirs, and who were ent.i.tled to subscribe themselves D. G., diggers of graves. Yet in 1840, the year, which I take, as a _point d'appui_ for my calculations, there were only twenty, enrolled as F. U., with 362 medical operatives, busily at work, day and night, upon the insides and outsides of our fellow-citizens! Here is matter for marvel! How was it done? Did the dead bury the dead? I presume the solution lies, in the fact, that there existed an unrecorded number of those, who were D. G. only.

There were few dentists, _eo nomine_, some sixty years ago. Our ancestors appear to have gotten along pretty comfortably, in spite of their teeth.

Many of those, who practised the "_dental art_," had so little employment, that it became convenient to unite their dental practice, with some other occupation. Thus John Templeman, was a _broker and dentist_, at the northeast corner of the Old State House. Whitlock was, doubtless, frequently called out, from a rehearsal, at the play house, to pull a refractory grinder. Isaac Greenwood advertises, in the Columbian Sentinel of June 1, 1785, not only his desire to wait upon all, who may require his services, at their houses, in the dental line; but a variety of umbrellas, canes, silk caps for bathing, dice, chess men, and cane for hoops and bonnets, by the dozen, or single stick. In the Boston Mercury of Jan. 6, 1797, W. P. Greenwood combines, with his dental profession, the sale of piano-fortes and guitars. In 1799, the registered dentists were three only, Messrs. Isaac and Wm. P. Greenwood, and Josiah Flagg. In 1816, there were three only, Wm. P. Greenwood, Thomas Parsons, and Thomas Barnes.

It would appear somewhat extravagant, perhaps, to state, that, including doctors of all sorts, there is a fraction more than two doctors to every one merchant, _eo nomine_, excluding commission merchants, of course, in the city of Boston. Such, nevertheless, appears to be the fact, unless Mr.

Adams has made some important error, which I do not suspect, in his valuable Directory, for 1848-9.

It will not be utterly worthless, to contemplate the quartermaster's department of this portentous army; and compare it with the corresponding establishment of other times. In 1789, there were fifteen druggists and apothecaries, in the town of Boston. Examples were exceedingly rare, in those days, of wholesale establishments, exclusively dealing in drugs and medicines. At present, we have, in this city, eighty-nine apothecaries, doing business, in as many different places--drugs and medicines are also sold, at wholesale, in forty-four establishments--there are fourteen special depots, for the sale of patent medicines, Gordak's drugs, Indian purgatives, Holman's restorative, Brandreth's pills, Sherry wine bitters, and pectoral balsam, Graefenberg's medicines, and many other kinds of nastiness--eighteen dealers exclusively in botanic medicines--ninety-seven nurses--twenty-eight undertakers--and eight warehouses for the sale of coffins!

It is amusing, if nothing worse, to compare the relative increase, in the number of persons, who are, in various ways, employed about the sick, the dying, and the dead, in killing, or curing, or comforting, or burying, with the increase in some other crafts and callings. In 1789, there were thirty-one bakers, in Boston: there are now fifty-seven. The number has not doubled in sixty years. The number of doctors then, as I have stated, was twenty-three: now, charlatans included, it falls short, only six, of sixteen times that number.

There were then sixty-seven tailors' shops; there are now one hundred and forty-eight such establishments. There were then thirty-six barbers, hair-dressers, and wig-makers: there are now ninety-one. There were then one hundred and five cabinet-makers and carpenters: there are now three hundred and fifty. This ratio of comparison will, by no means, hold, in some other callings. There were then nine auctioneers: there are now fifty-two. There were then seven brokers, of all sorts: there are now two hundred and ten. The source from which I draw my information, is the Directory of 1789, "printed and sold by John Norman, at Oliver's Dock,"

and of which the writer speaks, in his preface, as "_this first attempt_."

For want of sufficient designation, it is impossible, in this primitive work, to pick out the members of the legal profession. Compared with the present fraternity, whose name is legion, they were very few. There are more than three hundred and fifty pract.i.tioners of the law, in this city.

In this, as in the medical profession, there are, and ever will be, _ex necessitate rei_, infernal scoundrels, and highly intelligent and honorable men--blind guides and safe counsellors. Not very long ago, a day of purification was appointed--some plan seemed to be excogitating, for the ventilation of the brotherhood. For once, they were gathered together, brothers, looking upon the features of brothers, and knowing them not.

This was an occasion of mutual interest, and the arena was common ground--they came, some of them, doubtless, from strange quarters, lofty attics and lowly places--

"From all their dens the one-eyed race repair, From rifted rocks, and mountains high in air."

When doctors, lawyers, and brokers are greatly upon the increase, it is very clear, that we are getting into the way of submitting our bodies and estates, to be frequently, and extensively, tinkered.

I cannot doubt, that in 1789, there were quacks, about town, who could not contrive to get their names inserted, in the same page, with the regular physicians. I cannot believe, however, that they bore any proportion to the unprincipled and ignorant impostors, at the present time. In the "Ma.s.sachusetts Centinel," of Sept. 21, 1785, is the following advertis.e.m.e.nt--"_John Pope, who, for eighteen years past, has been noted for curing Cancers, schrophulous Tumours, fetid and phagedenic Ulcers, &c., has removed into a house, the north corner of Orange and Hollis Street, South End, Boston, where he proposes to open a school, for Reading, Writing, Arithmetick, &c._"

In 1789 there were twenty-two distillers of rum in Boston: there are nine only, named in the Directory of 1848-9. The increase of doctors and all the appliances of sickness and death have not probably arisen from the falling off, among distillers. In 1789, there were about twenty innholders: there are now eighty-eight public houses, hotels, or taverns--ninety-two restaurants--thirty-five confectionery establishments--thirty-nine stores, under the caption of "liquors and wines"--sixty-nine places, for the sale of oysters, which are not always the _spiritless_ things they appear to be--one hundred and forty-three wholesale dealers, in West India goods and groceries--three hundred and seventy-three retailers of such articles: I speak not of those, who fall below the dignity of history; whose operations are entirely subterraneous; and whose entire stock in trade might be carried, in a wheelbarrow. We have also one hundred and fifty-two provision dealers. We live well in this city. It would be very pleasant, to walk over it, with old Captain Keayne, who died here, March 23, 1656, and who left a sum of money to the town, to erect a granary or storehouse, for the poor, in case of famine!

No. CXIII.

The Quack is commonly accounted a spurious leech--a false doctor--clinging, like a vicious barnacle, to the very bottom of the medical profession. But impostors exist, in every craft, calling, and profession, under the names of quacks, empirics, charmers, magicians, professors, sciolists, plagiaries, enchanters, charlatans, pretenders, judicial astrologers, quacksalvers, m.u.f.fs, mountebanks, medicasters, barrators, cheats, puffs, champertors, cuckoos, diviners, jugglers, and verifiers of suggestions.

Butler, in his Hudibras, says, of medical quacks, they

Seek out for plants, with signatures, To quack of universal cures.

In the Spectator, Addison has this observation--"At the first appearance, that a French quack made in Paris, a boy walked before him, publis.h.i.+ng, with a shrill voice, '_my father cures all sorts of distempers_;' to which the doctor added, in a grave manner, '_what the boy says is true_.'"

The imposture of James Aymar, to which I have alluded, was of a different kind. Aymar was an ignorant peasant of Dauphine. He finally confessed himself to be an impostor, before the Prince of Conde; and the whole affair is narrated, by the apothecary of the prince, in a _Lettre a M.

L'Abbe, D. L., sur les veritables effets de la baguette de Jaques Aymar par P. Buissiere; chez Louis Lucas, a Paris, 1694_.

The power of this fellow's wand was not limited, to the discovery of hidden treasures, or springs of water; nor were his only dupes the lowly and the ignorant. As I have said, he was detected, and made a full confession, before the Prince of Conde. The magistrates published an official account of the imposture; yet such is the energy of the credulous principle, that M. Vallemont, a man of note, published a treatise "_on the occult philosophy of the divining wand_;" in which he tries to show, that Aymar, notwithstanding his mistakes, before the Prince, was really possessed of all the wonderful power he claimed, of divining with his wand. The measure of this popular credulity will be better understood, after perusing the following translation of an extract from the _Mercure Historique_, for April, 1697, page 440.--"The Prior of the Carthusians pa.s.sed through Villeneuve with Aymar, to discover, by the aid of his wand, some landmarks, that were lost. Just before, a foundling had been left on the steps of the monastery. Aymar was employed, by the Superior, to find out the father. Followed by a great crowd, and guided by the indications of his wand, he went to the village of Comaret, in the County of Venaissin, and thence to a cottage, where he affirmed the child was born."

Bayle says, on the authority of another letter from M. Buissiere, in 1698, that Aymar's apparent simplicity, and rustic dialect, and the rapid motion of his wand went far, to complete the delusion. He was also exceedingly devout, and never absent from ma.s.s, or confession. While he was at Paris, and before his exposure, the Pythoness, herself, would not have been more frequently, and zealously consulted, than was this crafty and ignorant boor, by the Parisians. Fees showered in from all quarters; and he was summoned, in all directions, to detect thieves; recover lost property; settle the question of genuine ident.i.ty, among the relics of _prima facie_ saints, in different churches; and, in truth, no limit was set, by his innumerable dupes, to the power of his miraculous wand. "I myself," says M. Buissiere, "saw a simple, young fellow, a silk weaver, who was engaged to a girl, give Aymar a couple of crowns, to know if she were a virgin."

Joseph Francis Borri flourished, about the middle of the seventeenth century, and a most complicated scoundrel he was--heresiarch, traitor, alchymist, and empiric. He had spiritual revelations, of course. He was an intelligent and audacious liar, and converts came in apace. At his suggestion, his followers took upon themselves an oath of poverty, and placed all they possessed in the hands of Borri, who told them he would take care it should never again interfere with their devotions, but would be spent in prayers and ma.s.ses, for their ulcerated souls. The bloodhounds of the Inquisition were soon upon his track, at the moment he was about to raise the standard of insurrection in Milan.

He fled to Amsterdam--made capital of his persecution by the Inquisition; and won the reputation of a great chemist, and wonderful physician. He then went to Hamburg, and persuaded Queen Christina, to advance him a large sum of money, to be reimbursed, from the avails of the philosopher's stone, which Borri was to discover. This trick was clearly worth repeating. So thought Borri; and he tried it, with still better success, on his Majesty of Denmark. Still the stone remained undiscovered; and the thought occurred to Signor Borri, that it might not be amiss, to look for it, in Turkey. He accordingly removed; but was arrested at Vienna, by the Pope's agents; and consigned to the prisons of the Inquisition, for life.

His fame, however, had become so omnipotent, that, upon the earnest application of the Duke d'Etree, he was let loose, to prescribe for that n.o.bleman, whom the regular physicians had given over. The Duke got well, and the world gave Borri the credit of the cure. When a poor suffering mortal is given over, in other words, _let alone_, by half a dozen doctors--I am speaking now of the regulars, not less than of the volunteers--he, occasionally, gets well.

A wit replied to a French physician, who was marvelling how a certain Abbe came to die, since he himself and three other physicians were unremitting, in their attentions--"_My dear doctor, how could the poor abbe sustain himself, against you all four?_" The doctors do much as they did of old.

Pliny, lib. xxix. 5, says, of consultations--"_Hinc illae circa aegros miserae sententiarum concertationes, nullo idem censente ne videatur accessio alterius. Hinc illa infelicis monumenti inscriptio_, TURBA SE MEDICORUM PERIISSE." Hence those contemptible consultations, round the beds of the sick--no one a.s.senting to the opinion of another, lest he should be deemed his subaltern. Hence the monumental inscription, over the poor fellow, who was destroyed in this way--KILLED BY A MOB OF DOCTORS!

Who has not seen a fire rekindle, _sua sponte_, after the officious bellows have, apparently, extinguished the last spark? So, now and then, the vital spark, stimulated by the _vis medicatrix naturae_ will rekindle into life and action, after having been well nigh smothered, by all sorts of complicated efforts to restore it.

This is the _punctum instans_, the very nick of time, for the charlatan: in he comes, looking insufferably wise, and brim full of sympathetic indignation. All has been done wrong, of course. While he affects to be doing everything, he does exactly nothing--stirs up an invisible, impalpable, infinitessimal, incomprehensible particle, in a little water, which the patient can neither see, feel, taste, nor smell. Down it goes.

The patient's faith, as to the size of it, rather resembles a cocoanut than a grain of mustard seed. His confidence in the _new_ doctor is as gigantic, and as blind, as Polyphemus, after he had been _gouged_, by him of Ithaca. He plants his galvanic grasp, upon the wrist of the little doctor, much in the manner of a drowning man, clutching at a full grown straw. He is absolutely better already. The wife and the little ones look upon the mountebank, as their preserver from widowhood and orphanage.

"_Dere ish noting_," he says, "_like de leetil doshes_;" and he takes his leave, regretting, as he closes the door, that his sleeve is not large enough, to hold the sum total of his laughter. Yet some of these quacks become _honest men_; and, however surprised at the result, they are finally unable, to resist the force of the popular outcry, in their own favor. They almost forget their days of duplicity, and small things--they arrive, somehow or other, at the conclusion, that, however unexpectedly, they are great men, and their wild tactics a system. They use longer words, move into larger houses, and talk of first principles: and all the practice of a neighborhood finally falls into the hands of Dr. Ninkempaup or Dr. Pauketpeeker.

Francis Joseph Borri died, in prison, in 1695. Sorbiere in his _Voiage en Angleterre_, page 158, describes him thus--"He is a cunning blade; a l.u.s.ty, dark-complexioned, good-looking fellow, well dressed, and lives at considerable expense, though not at such a rate, as some suppose; for eight or ten thousand livres will go a great way at Amsterdam. But a house, worth 15,000 crowns, in a fine location, five or six footmen, a French suit of clothes, a treat or two to the ladies, the occasional refusal of fees, five or six rix dollars distributed, at the proper time and place among the poor, a spice of insolence in discourse, and sundry other artifices have made some credulous persons say, that he gave away handfulls of diamonds, that he had discovered the philosophers stone, and the universal medicine." When he was in Amsterdam, he appeared in a splendid equipage, was accosted, by the t.i.tle of "_your excellence_," and they talked of marrying him to one of the greatest fortunes.

I have no taste for unsocial pleasures. Will the reader go with me to Franklin Place--let us take our station near No. 2, and turn our eyes to the opposite side--let us put back the hand of the world's timekeeper, some thirty years. A showy chariot, very peculiar, very yellow, and abundantly supplied with gla.s.s, with two tall bay horses, gaudily harnessed, is driven to the door of the mansion, by a coachman, in livery; and there it stands; till, after the expiration of an hour, perhaps, the house door is flung open, and there appears, upon the steps, a tall, dark visaged, portly personage, in black, who, looking slowly up and down the avenue, proceeds, with great deliberation, to draw on his yellow, buckskin gloves. Rings glitter upon his fingers; seals, keys, and safety chain, upon his person. His beaver, of an unusual form, is exquisitely glossy, surpa.s.sed, by nothing but the polish of his tall suwarrows, surmounted with black, silk ta.s.sels.

He descends to the vehicle--the door is opened, with a bow of profound reverence, which is scarcely acknowledged, and in he gets, the very fac simile of a Spanish grandee. The chariot moves off, so very slowly, that we can easily follow it, on foot--on it goes, up Franklin, and down Was.h.i.+ngton, up Court, into Tremont, down School, into Was.h.i.+ngton, along Was.h.i.+ngton, up Winter, and through Park to Beacon Street, where it halts, before the mansion of some respectable citizen. The occupant alights, and, leaving his chariot there, proceeds, through obscure and winding ways, to visit his patients, on foot, in the purlieus of _La Montagne_.

This was no other than the celebrated patentee of the famous bug liquid; who was forever putting the community on its guard, by admonis.h.i.+ng the pill-taking public, that they _could not be too particular_, for _none were genuine, unless signed W. T. Conway_.

No. CXIV.

Charity began at home--I speak of Charity Shaw, the famous root and herb doctress, who was a great blessing to all undertakers, in this city, for many years--her practice was, at first, purely domestic--she began at home, in her own household; and, had she ended there, it had fared better, doubtless, with many, who have received the final attentions of our craft.

The mischief of quackery is negative, as well as positive. Charity could not be fairly cla.s.sed with those reckless empirics, who, rather than lose the sale of a nostrum, will send you directly to the devil, for a dollar: Charity was kind, though she vaunted herself a little in the newspapers.

She was, now and then, rather severely handled, but she bore all things, and endured all things, and hoped all things; for, to do her justice, she was desirous, that her patients should recover: and, if she believed not all things, her patients did; and therein consisted the negative mischief--in that stupid credulity, which led them to follow this poor, ignorant, old woman, and thus prevented them, from applying for relief, where, if anywhere, in this uncertain world, it may be found--at the fountains of knowledge and experience. In Charity's day, there were several root and herb pract.i.tioners; but the greatest of these was Charity.

Herb doctors have, for some two thousand years, attempted to turn back the tables, upon the faculty--they are a species of _garde mobile_, who have an old grudge against the _corps regulier_: for they have not forgotten, that, some two thousand years ago, herb doctors had all things pretty much in their own way. Two entire books, the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of Pliny's Natural History, are devoted to a consideration of the medicinal properties of herbs--the twentieth treats of the medicinal properties of vegetables--the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of the medicinal properties of roots and barks. Thus, we see, of what importance these simples were accounted, in the healing art, in that early age. Herbs, barks, and roots were, and, for ages, had been, the princ.i.p.al _materia medica_, and were employed, by the different sects--by the Rationalists, of whom Pliny, lib.

xxvi. cap. 6, considers Herophilus the head, though this honor is ascribed, by Galen, to Hippocrates--the Empirics, or experimentalists--and the Methodics, who avoided all actions, for _mala praxis_, by adhering to the rules. Pliny manifestly inclined to herb doctoring. In the chapter, just now referred to, after alluding to the _verba, garrulitatemque_ of certain lecturers, he intimates, that they and their pupils had an easy time of it--_sedere namque his in scholis auditioni operatos gratius erat, quam ire in solitudines, et quoerere herbas alias aliis diebus anni_--for it was pleasanter to sit, listening in the lecture-rooms, than to run about in the fields and woods, culling certain simples, on certain days in the year.

Herb doctors were destined to be overthrown; and the account, given by Pliny, in chapters 7, 8 and 9, book xxvi. of the sudden and complete revolution, in the practice of the healing art, is curious and interesting.

Asclepiades, of Prusa, in Bythinia, came to Rome, in the time of Pompey the Great, about one hundred years before Christ, to teach rhetoric; and, like an impudent hussy, who came to this city, as a cook, from Vermont, some years ago, and, not succeeding, in that capacity, but hearing, that wet nurses obtained high wages here, prepared herself, for that lucrative occupation--so Asclepiades, not succeeding, as a rhetorician, prepared himself for a doctor. He was ignorant of the whole matter; but a man of genius; and, as he knew nothing of root and herb practice, he determined to cut up the whole system root and branch, and subst.i.tute one of his own--_torrenti ac meditata quotidie oratione blandiens omnia abdicavit: totamque medicinam ad causam revocando, conjecturae fecit_. By the power of his forcible and preconcerted orations, p.r.o.nounced from day to day, in a smooth and persuasive manner, he overthrew the whole; and, bringing back the science of medicine to cause and effect, he constructed a system of inference or conjecture. Pliny is not disposed to be altogether pleased with Asclepiades, though he recounts his merits fairly. He says of him--_Id solum possumus indignari, unum hominem, e levissima gente, sine ullis opibus orsum, vectigalis sua causa, repente leges salutis humano genere dedisse, quas tamen postea abrogavere multi_--at least, we may feel rather indignant, that one, born among a people, remarkable for their levity, born also in poverty, toiling for his daily support, should thus suddenly lay down, for the human race, the laws of health, which, nevertheless, many rejected afterwards.

Now it seems to me, that Asclepiades was a very clever fellow; and I think, upon Pliny's own showing, there was more reason, for indignation, against a people, who had so long tolerated the marvellous absurdities of the herb system, such as it then was, than against a man, who had the good sense to perceive, and the courage and perseverance to explode, them. What there was in the poverty of Asclepiades, or in the character of his countrymen, to rouse Pliny's indignation, I cannot conceive. Pliny says, lib. xxvi. cap. 9, after naming several things, which promoted this great change, in the practice of Physic--_Super omnia adjuvere eum magicae vanitates, in tantum erectae, ut abrogare herbis fidem cunctis possent_. He was especially a.s.sisted in his efforts, by the excesses, to which the magical absurdities had been carried, in respect to herbs, so that they alone were enough to destroy all confidence, in such things.

Pliny proceeds to narrate some of these magical absurdities--the plant aethiops, thrown into lakes and rivers, would dry them up--the touch of it would open everything, that was shut. The Achaemenis, cast among the enemy, would cause immediate flight. The Latace would ensure plenty. Josephus also, De Bell, Ind. lib. vii. cap. 25--speaks of an excellent root for driving out devils.

Pliny says, Asclepiades laid down five important particulars--_abstinentiam cibi_, _alias vini_, _fricationem corporis_, _ambulationem_, _gestationes_--abstinence from meat, and, at other times, from wine, friction of the body, walking, and various kinds of gestation, on horseback, and otherwise. There were some things, in the old practice, _nimis anxia et rudia_, too troublesome and coa.r.s.e, whose rejection favored the new doctor greatly, _obruendi agros veste sudoresque omni modo ciendi; nunc corpora ad ignes torrendi_, etc.--smothering the sick in blankets, and exciting perspiration, by all possible means--roasting them before fires, &c. Like every other ingenious physician, he had something pleasant, of his own contriving, to propose--_tum primum pensili balinearum usu ad infinitum blandientem_--then first came up the employment of hanging baths, to the infinite delight of the public. These hanging baths, which Pliny says, lib. ix. 79, were really the invention of Sergius Orata, were rather supported than suspended--fires were kindled below--there were different _ahena_, or caldrons, the _caldarium_, and _frigidarium_. The _corrivatio_ was simply the running together of the cold and hot water. Annexed was the _laconic.u.m_, or sweating room. The curious reader may compare the Roman baths with those at Constantinople, described by Miss Pardoe.

_Alia quoque blandimenta_, says Pliny, _excogitabat, jam suspendendo lectulos, quorum jactatu aut morbos extenuaret, aut somnos alliceret_. He excogitated other delights, such as suspended beds, whose motion soothed the patient, or put him to sleep. The principle here seems pretty universal, lying at the bottom of all those simple contrivances, rocking-chairs, cribs, and cradles, swings, hammocks, &c. This is truly Indian practice--

Rock-a-bye baby upon the tree top, And, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock.

_Praeterea in quibusdam morbis medendi cruciatus detraxit, ut in anginis quas curabant in fauces organo demisso. d.a.m.navit merito et vomitiones, tunc supra modum frequentes._ He also greatly diminished the severity of former practice, in certain diseases, in quinsies for example, which they used to cure, with an instrument, introduced into the fauces. He very properly condemned those vomitings, then frequent, beyond all account.

This refers to the Roman usage, which is almost incomprehensible by us.