The Evolutioii of Medical Science. 139 



lieves cough, etc. . . . Human fat, when properly rubbed 

 into the skin, restores weak limbs. Water distilled from 

 human hair, and mixed with honey, promotes the growth 

 of hair," etc. The druggists at this time kept in stock, for 

 the compounding of physicians' prescriptions, the excreta 

 of human beings and animals, spirit of human skull, spirit 

 of human bones, human fat, "poor sinner's fat," wolf-liver^ 

 fox-lung, deer-spine, pike's-jaw, rabbit-hair, gallstones, scor- 

 pion and centipede ashes,* 



"With more of horrible and awful, 

 That even to name would be unlawful." 



To this day, a branch of the Homeopathic school prescribes 

 just such remedies, and they can be purchased at the head- 

 quarters of the high potency homeopathic specifics, No. 13 

 W. 38th St., New York City. I give the address, lest some 

 skeptical person should doubt the reliability of the state- 

 ment.f Originally, however, they were given in large 

 doses, but now in infinitessimal ones. 



At the time these remedies were so popular, the Jesuit 

 priests introduced from South America the bark of the 

 Cinchona tree, for the cure of malarial diseases. Protestant 

 Europe rose up in arms against it, and stigmatized it as 

 "Jesuit Bark." Blood-curdling stories of its poisonous 

 and destructive effects were told, and these, in modified 

 form, have been handed down from sire to son until the 

 present day. Scarcely a month ago, a patient of mine 

 refused to take quinine, because it was the poisonous ex- 

 tract of Jesuit bark. Ever since charms and prayers Avere 

 replaced by therapeutic measures, men have striven to dis- 

 cover specifics for diseases. The majority of laymen to-day 

 think that doctors have such specifics. In "Jesuit Bark" 

 and its alkaloid, quinine, we have about the nearest ap- 

 proach ever reached to such a thing as a specific in medicine, 

 and yet theological bigotry in disguised form causes hun- 

 dreds of sufferers to refuse to use it. Doctors are compelled, 

 in such cases, to hide the name under some foreign synonym, 

 so that their patients shall not know that they are swallowing, 

 in not only harmless but really useful doses, this drug. 

 Our fathers condemned it, and lied about it, merely because 

 Catholic Priests first brought it to notice ; but they did not 



Ibid. 



t Druggist's Circular, June, 1888, p. 124; Medical Advance, March, 1889, 

 Advertisement. 



