44 FOTHERGILL'S MEDICAL PRACTICE CHAP. 



He was a good letter-writer and a sage and persuasive 

 counsellor. " Remember the motto I have so often given 

 thee," he writes to his brother, sick of chronic gout, " Ne 

 quid nimis (not too much of anything) ; write it in 

 capitals everywhere." A gouty bon-vivant of an opulent 

 family is to dine upon one dish at a time, and to choose 

 that one upon the table which he likes the least . ' ' Steady, 

 steady, is a good sea rule," he counsels another who needs 

 perseverance. Of a relative's ill-health, " Her disease 

 was labour, and the cure must be rest." " We had at 

 Bradford an inscription on a sign, Good Ale to-morrow for 

 nothing " ; if the doctor's rules are broken to-day, empty 

 is the promise of performing them to-morrow. " Quo 

 simplicius eo melius " (the simpler the better), he writes to 

 a physician who had consulted him about remedies. " Cito, 

 tute et jucunde should always be the physician's motto." 



Many distinguished persons placed themselves under 

 him for medical guidance. John Wesley was one of these, 

 and must have been a difficult patient, for he had strong 

 views on his own treatment. In 1753 he showed signs 

 of consumption cough, pain, slow fever. Fothergill 

 insisted on country air, horse-riding and rest from his 

 incessant work. So he took coach for Lewisham, and 

 that night wrote the well-known epitaph upon himself. 

 Later he " broke through the doctor's order," and fell to 

 his writing again. In the next year he took spells of 

 treatment at the Bristol Hot-well by Fothergill's advice, 

 and seems to have recovered of his lung trouble. 1 Lord 

 Clive was also a patient of Fothergill's ; he suffered from 

 gall-stones, attended with spasms of severe pain, for 

 which he was accustomed to take opium ; and the fatal 

 event at Berkeley Square in 1774 was due, according to 



cancer under the joint signatures of Hunter and Fothergill. They include 

 Tinct. Thebaic. (laudanum) with crocus, peppermint and gum arabic ; castor 

 oil with cinnamon ; hemlock extract, 28 grs. in the day ; and sarsaparilla, 

 with nutmeg and jalap. The Quaker's or Lancaster Black Drop was a strong 

 opiate syrup in popular use in the eighteenth century, invented by Edward 

 Runstall of Bishop Auckland. Acetum Opii, Pharm. Edin. & Dubl., was 

 intended as a substitute. A. C. Wootton, Chronicles of Pharmacy, ii. 145 ; 

 Fothergill, Works, iii. 146. 



1 Journal of Rev. J. Wesley, ed. 1903, ii. 294-300. 



