550 
PHARMACY  IN  PIEDMONT. 
fallen  low  from  its  high  estate,  the  brick  or  flagstone  floor,  ill- 
shaped  bottles  filled  with  mysterious  liquids,  and  labelled  with 
the  vilest  caligraphy,  and  about  his  shelves  a  beggarly  account 
of  empty  boxes,  green  earthen  pots,  and,  lastly,  the  pale, 
mysterious-looking  proprietor,  wearing  a  low- crowned  Turkish- 
looking  hat,  eternally  smoking  in  his  little  back  room,  often 
unmoved  by  the  spasmodic  ringing  and  knocking  of  him  who 
may  require  his  aid,  a  passive  creature  of  the  present,  forgetting 
the  future  while  he  indulges  in  his  dolce  far  niente — a  curse 
that  enervates  the  whole  Italian  family.    The  resources  are 
limited,  medicine  is  not  d  la  mode,  life  is  less  artificial  in  the 
interior,  retaining  even  primitive  simplicity,  medicinal  plants 
everywhere  flourish,  and  which  instinct  or  custom  has  led  a  great 
part  of  the  population  to  employ.    The  pulp  of  tamarinds  and 
cassia  are  the  popular  remedies — the  panacea  for  all  the  ills 
that  44  flesh  is  heir  to."  Their  belief  in  medicine  rarely  reaches 
to  Epsom  salts,  while  rhubarb  and  magnesia  are  looked  upon  as 
contemptible  drugs  ;  thus  in  the  provinces  the  pharmacien  is 
reduced  to  the  necessity  of  retaining  for  sale  a  host  of  articles 
not  less  numerous  than  the  miscellaneous  horrors  of  a  marine 
store.     Even  in  Alessandria,  a  town  of  fifty  thousand  inhabit- 
ants and  a  strong  garrison,  the  principal  chemist  of  the  place, 
who  resides  in  the  Piazza  Largha,  would  fail  to  obtain  a  living 
were  it  not  for  the  accessories  of  an  Italian  warehouse — tea, 
coffee,  sugar,  &c. ;  and  we  know  a  chemist  in  a  not  far  distant 
town  who  exercises  the  functions  of  altisonant  town  crier,  while 
another  is  a  renovator  of  faded  habiliments.    During  the  short 
days  of  last  year's  invasion  the  unfortunate  chemist  was  gene- 
rally the  first  victim  of  Austrian  exaction ;  the  secret  of  his 
varied  resources  was  found  out,  for  his  shop  contained  a  little  of 
everything;    as  the  rapacious  Yagers  expressed  themselves, 
44  Diese  apotbecker,  haben  em  wenig  von  allem      and  although 
his  shop  contained  few  drugs,  which  were  invariably  respected, 
butter,  cheese,  and  dubious-looking  anchovies  were  'in  abun- 
dance.   Well  do  I  remember  at  the  battle  of  Palestro,  in  com- 
pany with  a  surgeon  of  the  3rd  Zouave  Regiment,  pushing  our 
way  into  the  village  through  hundreds  of  dead  and  dying  in 
search  of  a  little  ammonia  to  apply  to  a  poor  sergeant  who  had 
fainted  from  loss  of  blood  resulting  from  a  flesh  wound  in  the 
