ON THE VAGARIES OF MEDICINE. 227 



Brown, a man of great learning, sustained for several years tlie Brun- 

 onian System, wherein medicines were to act according to their degrees 

 of stimulating or exciting. T6 this followed the Italian system of 

 stimulants and their opposite — depletants or stimulants and counter 

 stimulants. 



Brosseau reduced all diseases to inflammation of the stomach and how- 

 els, or Gastro-enterite, and adopted to a great extent this theory of 

 treatment. 



Dickson proved, to his own satisfaction, that all changes are periodic, 

 or as Shakespeare makes his victims of the Pontine Marshes say, — 

 " they're all alike the ague." 



And Muller, to this day, denies any variation from the normal, to 

 other than chemical causes. A few wonderful means of cure may not 

 be without interest. Cholera received the name of St. Vitus' Dance 

 from the habit of its victims resorting to the Chapel of St. Vitus, in 

 Germany, and dancing away the complaint — it was necessary to keep 

 up the dance 'till the disease gave way or the patient fell from exhaus- 

 tion. One woman danced for a month ! " And frequently it was re- 

 quired to hire musicians to play in rotation, as well as various strong 

 sturdy companions to dance with the patients till they could stir neither 

 hand nor foot." So efficacious was flagellation for certain ailments, 

 that it has been suggested as the origin of the physicians cane. We 

 read that " this process was employed to cure Octavius Augustus of 

 Sciatica." Another believes " it has the same effect as Colocynth ad- 

 ministered internally." Galen recommended it as a general restora- 

 tive ; others for nervous irritability. One of Queen Elizabeth's physi- 

 cians found great success in herbs ; he says, " with daisy-tea I did re- 

 cover one Belliser, not only from a spice of Palsie, but also from a 

 quartan ague" — and to show " man's inhumanity to man," he adds, 

 "and afterwards this same Belliser, more unnatural than a viper, sought 

 divers ways to have murdered me, taking part against me with my 

 mortal enemies, accompanied with bloody ruffians for that bloody 

 purpose." 



Success did not always attend merit. Sir I. Brown, one of the first 

 physicians who received the honor of knighthood says, "when he com- 

 menced his career, he had twenty remedies for one disease, but at the 

 close he had twenty diseases for one remedy." 



Scarpa, a distinguished surgeon, says he destroyed a hat full of eyes 

 before he was successful in the operation for cataract ; and Dr. Lett- 



