FALLACIES OF OBSERVATION. 543 



Many of the absurd practices which have been deemed to possess medic- 

 inal efticacy, have been indebted for their reputation to non-observance of 

 some accompanying circumstance which was the real agent in the cures 

 ascribed to them. Thus, of the sympathetic powder of Sir Kenelm Digby : 

 " Whenever any wound had been inflicted, this powder was applied to the 

 weapon that had inflicted it, which was, moreover, coyered with ointment, 

 and dressed two or three times a day. The wound itself, in the mean time, 

 was directed to be brought together, and carefully bound up with clean 

 linen rags, but, above all, to he let alone for seven days, at the end of which 

 period the bandages were removed, when the wound was generally found 

 perfectly united. The triumph of the cure was decreed to the mysterious 

 agency of the sympathetic powder which had been so assiduously applied 

 to the weapon, whereas it is hardly necessary to observe that the prompt- 

 ness of the cure depended on the total exclusion of air from the wound, 

 and upon the sanative operations of nature not having received any dis- 

 turbance from the ofticious interference of art. The result, beyond all 

 doubt, furnished the first hint which led surgeons to the improved pi'actice 

 of healing wounds by what is technically called i\\e first intention.''''^ "In 

 all records," adds Dr. Paris, of " extraordinary cures performed by mysteri- 

 ous agents, there is a great desire to conceal the remedies and other curative 

 means which were simultaneously administered with them ; thus Oribasius 

 commends in high terms a necklace of Paeony root for the cure of epilepsy; 

 but we learn that he always took care to accompany its use with copious 

 evacuations, although he assigns to them no share of credit in the cure. 

 In later times we have a good specimen of this species of deception, pre- 

 sented to us in a work on scrofula by Mr. Morley, written, as we are in- 

 formed, for the sole purpose of restoring the much-injured character and 

 use of the Vervain ; in which the author directs the root of this plant to 

 be tied with a yard of white satin ribbon around the neck, where it is to 

 remain until the patient is cured ; but mark — during this interval he calls 

 to his aid the most active medicines in the materia medica."f 



In other cases, the cures really produced by rest, regimen, and amuse- 

 ment have been ascribed to the medicinal, or occasionally to the supernatu- 

 ral, means which were put in requisition. " The celebrated John Wesley, 

 while he commemorates the triumph of sulphur and supplication over his 

 bodily infirmity, forgets to appreciate the resuscitating influence of four 

 months' repose from his apostolic labors ; and such is the disposition of 

 the human mind to place confidence in the operation of mysterious agents, 

 that we find him more disposed to attribute his cure to a brown paper 

 plaster of egg and brimstone, than to Dr. Fothergill's salutary prescription 

 of country air, rest, asses' milk, and horse exercise."J 



In the following example, the circumstance overlooked was of a some- 

 what different character. " When the yellow fever raged in America, the 

 practitioners trusted exclusively to the copious use of mercury; at first 

 this plan w\as deemed so universally efficacious, that, in the enthusiasm of the 

 moment, it was triumphantly proclaimed that death never took place after 

 the mercury had evinced its effect upon the system : all this was very true, 

 but it furnished no proof of the efficacy of that metal, since the disease in its 

 aggravated form was so rapid in its career, that it swept away its victims 

 long before the system could be brought under mercurial influence, while in 

 its milder shape it passed"bft" equally well without any assistance from art."§ 



* Pharmacohgia, pp. 23, 24. f Ibid,, p. 28. % Ibid., p. 62. § Ibid., pp. 61, 62. 



