INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. ^Q, 



common than to exhibit the mofl harfh and 

 rugged things that can be devifed, agreeable to 

 the common maxim, that a defperate difeafe 

 muft have a defperate remedy : and with this 

 view fome give inwardly from four to eight 

 ounces of lapis caliminaris, and fome have 

 further added two ounces of tutty, in fine pow- 

 der," &c. &c. page 223. — " Others go yet fur- 

 ther, as with an intention to kill or cure, by 

 adminiflering drinks made with green vitriol, 

 or copperas, rock allum, Roman vitriol, and 

 oil of vitriol boiled in chamber-lye; with 

 hemp -feed, hen's dung, hemlock, and common 

 fait. This medley has often been tried in 

 many defperate cafes, though I cannot fay I 

 ever heard its fuccefs much boafted of," &c. 

 page 224. 



I have already engaged to ftate fimply the 

 matter of facl, in the above quotations; indeed 

 any comments of mine would be totallv unne- 

 cefTary, they muft infallibly have been antici- 

 pated by the leaft difcerning reader. 



As we are on the fubject. of purges, this may 

 be as proper a place as any, to introduce a 

 few curfory obfervations on thole prefcribed 

 by Mr. Taplin. I have before obferved, that 

 in Mr. Taplin's compilation, the prefcriptions 

 are generally felecled from the original writers. 

 The reader will find this to be the cafe in a 

 mod remarkable manner with refpecl to the 

 forms of purges; on which Mr. Taplin has 



rung 



