Pharmacologia. 361 
because disease awakens fear. Hence it is that the wrath of 
heaven, the resentment of demons, and the malignant aspect 
of the stars, have been resorted to as the sources of disease ; 
and hence the introduction of remedies intended rather as expi- 
ations at the shrines of offended spirits, than as natural medi- 
cinal agents: thus precious stones, at first used as amulets, 
were afterwards powdered and swallowed. Sennertus speaks 
of a dry tench as an amulet for the cure of jaundice ; afterwards, 
tench broth got into fashion for the same disorder. 
A propensity to attribute natural effects to unnatural causes, 
is also one of the striking peculiarities of medical superstition. 
Soranus, instead of referring the use of honey in the cure of the 
thrush in children, to its bland medical qualities, attributes it to 
the bees having hived near the tomb of Hippocrates ; and herbs 
were imagined to acquire distinct virtues according to the 
planet under whose ascendency they were collected. The cha- 
racter ]x, which physicians at this day place at the head of their 
prescriptions with the meaning of Reczpe, is a corruption of the 
astronomical symbol of Jupiter. Aperients were administered 
at particular stages of the moon, or at certain planetary con- 
junctions ; and the practice of bleeding ‘“ at spring and fall,” so 
long observed in this country, owed its existence to the same 
belief. 
It is curious that medical superstition has never been confined 
to the prejudiced and vulgar, but has extended its influence over 
the best informed and instructed minds; Cicero and Aurelius, 
Bacon and Boyle, were equally open to its delusions; and in 
our own times the patients of Miss Prescott, the advocates of 
the metallic tractors, and the admirers of Mr. Whitlaw, may be 
adduced as analogous specimens. 
To superstition and credulity we must add scepticism as a 
third enemy to the progress of rational medicine, and one, 
which naturally enough, has acquired great sway ; it haschiefly 
arisen from the exorbitant and encomiastic praises which have 
been heaped upon different remedies at different times, and 
which having disappointed expectation, have wholly, but unde- 
servedly, fallen into entire discredit. ‘ The inflated eulogiums,” 
says Dr. Paris, “‘ bestowed upon the operation of digitalis in 
pulmonary diseases, excited, for some time, a very unfair im- 
pression against its use ; and the injudicious manner in which 
the antisiphylitic powers of nitric acid have been aggrandized, 
had very nearly exploded a valuable auxiliary from modern 
practice.” Hemlock, too, lies open to the same remark. When’ 
its use was revived by Dr. Stoerck, of Vienna, it was announced 
as a cure for all manner of incurable diseases and discordant 
maladies, and when its virtues were found inadequate to these 
expectations, it was rejected as inert and useless. Cubebs and 
