LETTER IV. 41 



Beckfold talks of a whole pack of hounds belonging to 

 a friend of his being bitten, and not one going mad 

 which had been dosed with large quantities of Turbith 

 mineral, also of a man who was cured by Sir George 

 Cob's medicine. A learned writer, in the reign of King 

 James the First, thus speaks of madness : — '* In hounds 

 and dogs which fall mad the cause is that black choler 

 hath the mas try in his body, which choler once roasted 

 in them through vehement heat, it overcometh the body, 

 and maketh him to run mad, for the black choler, which 

 is so strong, infecteth his brain, and so from thence goeth 

 to all the other members, and maketh him venomous." 

 He afterwards gives a list of medicines, which if not in- 

 structive, may be amusing to the reader, and I will leave 

 him to determine which is likely to prove most efficacious. 

 Here it follows : — "Also calamint, the seed of wild tares, 

 sea onions, water-cresses, herbgrace, salt, aristolochia, 

 nuts with rue, the roots of asperage, and the seed bal- 

 samum, vinegar, and the milk of an ass, child's urine, 

 the stones of a hedgehog, the stones of a stag or an ass 

 dried and drank ; also castorium, garlic, gentian, mint, 

 dittany," 



From this dish of delicacies I leave our learned medical 

 practitioners of the present day to make choice. Much 

 has been written on this subject by other learned doctors 

 from time to time, and Dr. Mead professes, that ** in the 

 space of thirty years he had an opportunity of giving his 

 plan a trial no less than one thousand times with uniform 

 success." Pity it is that all these wonderful remedies 

 have either been lost to the present unenlightened gene- 

 ration, or not duly appreciated. In the Medical Journal 

 many cases are mentioned as having been successfully 



