286 SYSTEM OF KENNEL AND 



His list of curatives follows, showing the excursive 

 imagination of this most learned of doctors : — 



" Also calamint, seed of wild tares, sea-onions, 

 watercresses, herbgrace, salt, aristolochia, nuts with 

 rue, the roots of asperage, and the seed, balsanum, 

 vinegar^ and the milk of an ass, and other U7i- 

 mentionables '' — no doubt equally efficacious, and 

 making more of the ingredients thrown into their 

 cauldron by the witches in Macbeth, the enumeration 

 of which would not prove palatable to tastes polite. 

 In later times we have heard of the Ormskirk 

 medicine — supposed to be infallible — Dr. Mead's 

 remedy, and the remedies of other learned Thebans, 

 which have proved equally fallacious. Cauterizing 

 the part bitten has also been recommended, and 

 this, in our opinion, if immediately adopted, is the 

 only remedy likely to be of the slightest service, 

 since we believe when once the virus has had 

 sufficient time to enter the system, no medicine with 

 which we are at present acquainted has power to 

 check its progress. 



Oliver Goldsmith makes some very sensible re- 

 marks on the subject, to which we fully subscribe_, 

 and transcribe for the benefit of the timid : — 



"A dread of mad dogs is the epidemic terror 

 which now prevails, and the whole nation is at 

 present actually groaning under the malignity of its 

 influence. The people sally from their houses with 

 that circumspection which is prudent in such as 

 expect a mad dog at every turning. The physician 

 publishes his prescription, the beadle prepares his 

 mallet, and a few of unusual bravery arm them- 



