318 Sympathies hefxveen the Liver and the Mind* [Nov. 1« 
“ iMy opposite neighbour,lie ob¬ 
serves,* “ being at his window, looked 
afflicted; Tasked him what ailed him ? 
lie told me that a young man, his reia- 
fioR, in a part of tlie same building he 
inhabited, was struck with the plague. 
•Anoint him with oil,^ said I, * and he 
will do weli.^ He had no opinion of the 
oil, and did notliing. The nest day I 
tjuestioned him, ‘ Weil, how is your re¬ 
lation? Have you anointed hiinr^—■ 
•No: he is better!’ It was false; the 
man was worse. The third day in the 
evening 1 saw him ag;iin; he was crying; 
—‘ What is the matter with you ; is your 
relation neadr^ ‘ No, but he is very ill; 
he is dying !* ‘ Anoint him with oil,’ I 
said to him again : ‘ what do you risk?* 
•Oil is heating,’ he replied.—‘Healing 
or cooling,’ I said, ‘ would you have the 
man die? try it.’ And he left me, and 
went and saw that liis relation was 
anointed: and the next day the man was 
fre« from pain; with a good appetite, 
and'a large tumor in his groin, but per¬ 
fectly easy. 1 ordered him to humect 
frequently the tumor with oil, and in 
eight days it came to suppuration, and 
soon afterwards the man was walking in 
the streets. This being promulgated 
among the neighbours, another infected 
person tried it, and was cured; and then 
another, and another, to tlie number of 
seven, whose names 1 possess, and whose 
blessings I enjoy.” 
As a proof of the efficacy of oil in ex- 
aaciiiig venom from a wound, I will take 
the liberty of making another quotation 
from this gentleman’s work.f 
“ I have triei it,” says he, “ on five 
rats, slung one by one by a scorpion. 
The first swelled to a great size, and 
appeared to be near dead. I poured 
some pure oil upon him, and he reco¬ 
vered, and in a few' minutes ran away. 
But he might have recovered without the 
oil, as people say. 
“ I put a secuiid to the scorpion, and 
the rat was stung, and I left him to him¬ 
self, and he dijd very soon; then I pre¬ 
sumed that the former had been cured 
by tl)e oil. 
“ 1 tried another, and cured him; and 
anotlier, and he died. And another, 
and he was cured. 
“ There was that virtue, therefore, in 
the oil, or tliat predilection in the ma- 
iignant humour which the sting infused 
Political Recollections relative to 
(page 157.) 
t Page 140. % 
for the oil, as to draw it from the body 
and avert the poison.” 
The communication of a correspondent 
in your Number for June, (p. 529’) 
greatly tends to substantiate this fact, and 
to prove that oil, administered as a re¬ 
medy, may be made subservient to many 
valuable purposes. 
13, 1812. I. E. Y. 
To the Editor of the Monthly yiagazine, 
SIR, 
N addition to my observations on the 
prevalence of the opinion among tlie 
ancients, concerning the sympathies be¬ 
tween the liver and the mind, which you 
have inserted in the two last Numbers of 
the Monthly Magazine; I take the liberty 
to submit the following, w hich you will, 
perhaps, have the goodness to print in 
your next. 
In pursuing this subject, it becomes 
more and more interesting; for it ap¬ 
pears that the knowledge of this fact 
was not only prevalent among the Greeks 
and Romans, and their descendants, 
but among various Oriental natioiis, and 
may be traced back as early as Jeremiah, 
who s.ays, “ Mine eyes do fail with tears, 
my bowels are troubled, my liver is 
poured upon tlie earth; for the destruc¬ 
tion of tiie daughter of my people.” 
Lament, ii. 11. 
Solomon was evidently acquainted 
with such sympathy as I have alluded to, 
as appears by the following ijietaphoncai 
allusion to it. “ He goeth after her 
straitway, as an ox goeth to the slaugh¬ 
ter ; or as a fool to the correction of the 
stocks; till a dart strike through liis 
liver.” Proverb, vil. 22. 
The whole story ot nfOf*r,B[v; 
which is believed to be very ancient and 
of Egyptian origin, is considered by Dar¬ 
win as intended to convey a physical 
truth, though wrapped up in symbolical 
language, according to tlie custom of the 
ancients, who were wont to convey in¬ 
struction in the form of fables and 
poems. Several critics with whom I 
have lately conversed on this subject, 
have expressed themselves of the same 
opinion. By the fire which Prometheus 
stole, was meant spirituous and hot 
liquors, which are known to bring on 
tedious and distressing hepatic disor¬ 
ders,* which, though they do not kill the 
patient 
~ “ ■ — - - " . 
* There cao be no doubt that the absurd 
enthusiasm, dejection of spirits, and affec¬ 
tation of martyrdom of many of the mo¬ 
dern msthedists, jumpers, Sweedenburgers, 
Sti. 
