LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 147 



to false applications. For instance must not wrong 

 notions of disease necessarily occasion the exhi- 

 bition of wrong remedies ? They have done so ; 

 and hence it is that our excellent progenitors 

 conceived the beautiful idea of strengthening the 

 stomach ; and forthwith that most unhappy organ 

 (which is to the rest of our organs what the coster- 

 monger's ass is to the rest of the animal creation 

 the focus, as it were, towards which every species 

 of abuse and cruelty is directed) was smothered, 

 and deluged and drowned, in all sorts of villainous 

 infusions and decoctions and solutions the bitterer 

 and beastlier, the better ; and bark and wine, bark 

 and milk (precious compound!), chamomile-tea, the 

 filings swept from the floor of a blacksmith's shop, 

 and, in short, almost every thing in the animal, ve- 

 getable, and mineral creation provided always that 

 it was very nauseous was, in its turn, esteemed 

 "the sovereignest thing on earth "for a weak sto- 

 mach. But conceive my meaning rightly. I do 

 not deny the utility of these drugs in certain dis- 

 eases : bark, for instance, cures the ague, but not 

 by strengthening the stomach : and my object, in 

 these Letters, is to give you a right notion of 

 things, and not a wrong one ; which I should cer- 

 tainly do, if I were to allow you to suppose that the 

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