FALLACIES OF OBSERVATION. 397 



written, as we are informed, 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 ribband 

 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 medical*'' 



In other cases the cures really produced by rest, 

 regimen, and amusement, have been ascribed to the 

 medicinal, or occasionally to the supernatural, means 

 which were put in requisition. " The celebrated John 

 Wesley, while he commemorates the triumph of 

 sulphur and supplication over his bodily infirmity, for- 

 gets to appreciate the resuscitating influence of four 

 months repose from his apostolic labours; and such 

 is the disposition of the human mind to place confi- 

 dence in the operation of mysterious agents, that we 

 find him more disposed to attribute his cure to a 

 brown paper plaister of egg and brimstone, than to 

 Dr. FothergiU's salutary prescription of country air, 

 rest, asses' milk, and horse exercisef." 



In the following example, the circumstance over- 

 looked was of a somewhat different character. ' ' When 

 the yellow fever raged in America, the practitioners 

 trusted exclusively to the copious use of mercury; at 

 first this plan was deemed so universally efficacious, 

 that, in the enthusiasm of the moment, it was trium- 

 phantly 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 aggra- 

 vated form was so rapid in its career, that it swept 



Pharmacologia, p. 28. t Ibid., p. 62. 



