Eighteenth Century Waifs

‘The knowledge of these secrets I gathered in my travels abroad (where I have spent my time ever since I was fifteen years old to this, my nine and twentieth year) in France and Italy. Those that have travelled in Italy will tell you what a miracle of art does there assist nature in the preservation of beauty: how women of forty bear the same countenance with them of fifteen: ages are no way distinguished by faces; whereas, here in England, look a horse in the mouth and a woman in the face, you presently know both their ages to a year. I will, therefore, give you such remedies that, without destroying your complexion (as most of your paints and daubings do) shall render them perfectly fair; clearing and preserving them from all spots, freckles, heats, pimples, and marks of the small-pox, or any other accidental ones, so that the face be not seamed or scarred.

‘I will also cleanse and preserve your teeth white and round as pearls, fastening them that are loose: your gums shall be kept entire, as red as coral; your lips of the same colour, and soft as you could wish your lawful kisses.

‘I will likewise administer that which shall cure the worst of breaths, provided the lungs be not totally perished and imposthumated; as also certain and infallible remedies for those whose breaths are yet untainted; so that nothing but either a very long sickness, or old age itself, shall ever be able to spoil them.

‘I will, besides, (if it be desired) take away from their fatness who have over much, and add flesh to those that want it, without the least detriment to their constitutions.’

By his plausible manners and good address, he soon gathered round him a large clientèle of servants, etc., for he told fortunes as well as cured diseases. These told their mistresses, and they too came to consult the wise man. Even the Court ladies came incognito to see him, and la belle Jennings, sister to the famous Sarah, first Duchess of Marlborough, went, with the beautiful Miss Price, to have their fortunes told, disguised as orange-wenches, and in all probability their visit would never have been heard of, had they not met with a disagreeable adventure with a somewhat dissolute gentleman named Brounker, who was gentleman of the chamber to the Duke of York, and brother to Viscount Brounker, President of the Royal Society.

John Cotgrave[87 - ‘The English Treasury of Wit and Language,’ etc., ed. 1655, pp. 223, 224.] thus describes the quack of his time:

‘My name is Pulse-feel, a poor Doctor of Physick,
That does wear three pile Velvet in his Hat,
Has paid a quarter’s Rent of his house before-hand,
And (simple as he stands here) was made Doctor beyond sea.
I vow, as I am Right worshipful, the taking
Of my Degree cost me twelve French Crowns, and
Thirty-five pounds of Butter in upper Germany.
I can make your beauty and preserve it,
Rectifie your body and maintaine it,
Clarifie your blood, surfle[88 - Or surfel – to wash the cheeks with mercurial or sulphur water.] your cheeks, perfume
Your skin, tinct your hair, enliven your eye,
Heighten your Appetite; and, as for Jellies,
Dentifrizes, Dyets, Minerals, Fucusses,[89 - Face-washes and ointments.]
Pomatums, Fumes, Italia Masks to sleep in,
Either to moisten or dry the superficies, Paugh, Galen
Was a Goose, and Paracelsus a patch
To Doctor Pulse-feel.’

Then there was that arch quack and empiric, Sir Kenelm Digby, with his ‘sympathetic powder,’ etc., and Dr. Saffold, originally a weaver, who distributed his handbills broadcast, advertising his ability to cure every disease under the sun.

Also in this century is a poem called ‘The Dispensary,’[90 - Edition 1699, p. 19. The poem had reference to the College of Physicians, establishing a dispensary of their own, owing to the excessive charges of the apothecaries. The institution did not last very long.] by Sir Samuel Garth, who lived in Queen Anne’s time, which gives the following account of a quack and his surroundings:

‘So truly Horoscope its Virtues knows,
To this bright Idol[91 - Gold.] ’tis, alone, he bows;
And fancies that a Thousand Pound supplies
The want of twenty Thousand Qualities.
Long has he been of that amphibious Fry,
Bold to prescribe, and busie to apply.
His Shop the gazing Vulgar’s Eyes employs
With foreign Trinkets, and domestick Toys.
Here Mummies lay, most reverently stale,
And there, the Tortois hung her Coat o’ Mail;
Not far from some huge Shark’s devouring Head,
The flying Fish their finny Pinions spread.
Aloft in rows large Poppy Heads were strung,
And near, a scaly Alligator hung.
In this place, Drugs in Musty heaps decay’d,
In that, dry’d Bladders, and drawn Teeth were laid.
An inner Room receives the numerous Shoals
Of such as pay to be reputed Fools.
Globes stand by Globes, Volumns on Volumns lie,
And Planitary Schemes amuse the eye
The Sage, in Velvet Chair, here lolls at ease,
To promise future Health for present Fees.
Then, as from Tripod, solemn shams reveals,
And what the Stars know nothing of, reveals.’

Medicine in the last century was very crude. Bleeding and purging were matters of course; but some of the remedies in the pharmacopœia were very curious. Happy the patient who knew not the composition of his dose. Take the following:[92 - ‘The Female Physician, &c.,’ by John Ball, M.D. – London, 1770, pp. 76, 77.]

‘Or sometimes a quarter of a pint of the following decoction may be drank alone four times a day:

‘Take a fresh viper, freed from the head, skin, and intestines, cut in pieces; candied eryngo root, sliced, two ounces. Boil them gently in three pints of water, to a pint and three-quarters, and to the strained liquor add simple and spiritous cinnamon waters, of each two ounces. Mix them together, to be taken as above directed.

‘The following viper broth (taken from the London Dispensatory) is a very nutritious and proper restorative food in this case, and seems to be one of the best preparations of the viper: for all the benefit that can be expected from that animal is by this means obtained:

‘Take a middle-sized viper, freed from head, skin, and intestines; and two pints of water. Boil them to a pint and a half; then remove the vessel from the fire; and when the liquor is grown cold, let the fat, which congeals upon the surface, if the viper was fresh, be taken off. Into this broth, whilst warm, put a pullet of a moderate size, drawn and freed from the skin, and all the fat, but with the flesh intire. Set the vessel on the fire again, that the liquor may boil; then remove it from the fire, take out the chicken, and immediately chop its flesh into little pieces: put these into the liquor again, set it over the fire, and as soon as it boils up, pour out the broth, first carefully taking off the scum.

‘Of this broth let the patient take half a pint every morning, at two of the clock in the afternoon, and at supper-time.’

In the same book, also (p. 97), we find the following remedy for cancer:

‘Dr. Heister, professor of physic and surgery in the university of Helmstadt in Germany, with many others, greatly extols the virtue of millepedes, or wood-lice, in this case; and, perhaps, the best way of administering them is as follows:

‘Take of live wood-lice, one ounce; fine sugar, two drams; a little powder of nutmeg; and half a pint of alexeterial water. Let the wood-lice and sugar, with the nutmeg, be ground together in a marble mortar, then gradually add the water, which being well mixed, strain it with hard pressing. Two ounces of this expression are to be taken twice a day, shaking the vessel, so that no part of it may be lost.’

And it also seems that much virtue was attached to the great number of component parts in a medicine, as may be seen in the recipe for Arquebusade Water[93 - This water, as its name implies, was supposed to be a sovereign remedy for gunshot wounds. It was also called aqua vulneraria, aqua sclopetaria, and aqua catapultarum.] (from the same book, p. 101).

‘Take of comfrey leaves and root, sage, mugwort, bugloss, each four handfulls; betony, sanicle, ox-eye daisy, common daisy, greater figwort, plantane, agrimony, vervain, wormwood, fennel, each two handfulls; St. John’s wort, long birthwort, orpine, veronica, lesser centaury, milfoil, tobacco, mouse-ear, mint, hyssop, each one handfull; wine twenty-four pounds. Having cut and bruised the herbs, pour on them the wine, and let them stand together, in digestion, in horse dung, or any other equivalent heat, for three days: afterwards distill in an alembic with a moderate fire.

‘This celebrated water has for some time been held in great esteem, in contusions, for resolving coagulated blood, discussing the tumors that arise on fractures and dislocations, for preventing the progress of gangrenes, and cleansing and healing ulcers and wounds, particularly gunshot wounds…’

Amongst the empyrical medicines, the following is much cried up by many people, as an infallible remedy:

‘Take two ounces of the worts that grow dangling to the hinder heels of a stone horse,[94 - Now called an entire horse, or stallion.] wash them in common water, then infuse them in white wine all night, and afterwards let them be dried, and reduced to powder. The dose is half a dram twice a day, in any proper vehicle. A dram of Venice soap given twice a day, either in pills, or dissolved in some proper liquor, is likewise said to cure a Cancer.’

In the early part of the eighteenth century, the regular physicians were very ignorant. Ward[95 - ‘The London Spy,’ ed. 1703, p. 124.] thus describes them, and, although his language was coarse, he was a keen observer.

‘They rail mightily in their Writings against the ignorance of Quacks and Mountebanks, yet, for the sake of Lucre, they Licence all the Cozening Pretenders about Town, or they could not Practise; which shows it is by their Toleration that the People are Cheated out of their Lives and Money; and yet they think themselves so Honest, as to be no ways answerable for this Publick Injury; as if they could not kill People fast enough themselves, but must depute all the Knaves in the Town to be Death’s Journeymen. Thus do they License what they ought carefully to Suppress; and Practise themselves what they Blame and Condemn in others; And that the Town may not be deceived by Apothecaries, they have made themselves Medicine-Mongers,[96 - An allusion to the dispensary which the College of Physicians set up in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and which was the subject of Sir S. Garth’s satirical poem, called ‘The Dispensary.’] under a pretence of serving the Publick with more faithful preparations; in order to perswade the World to a belief of which, they have publish’d Bills, where, in the true Quack’s Dialect, they tell you the Poor shall be supply’d for nothing; but whoever is so Needy as to make a Challenge of their promise empty-handed, will find, according to the Mountebank’s saying, No Money, No Cure. The disposal of their Medicines they leave to a Boy’s management, who scarce knows Mercurius Dulcis from White Sugar, or Mint Water from Aqua Fortis: So that People are likely to be well serv’d, or Prescriptions truly observed by such an Agent.’

If this was a faithful portrait of a physician in the commencement of the century, what must a charlatan have been? They sowed their hand-bills broadcast. Gay, in his ‘Trivia,’ book ii., says,

‘If the pale Walker pants with weak’ning Ills,
His sickly Hand is stor’d with Friendly Bills:
From hence he learns the seventh born[97 - A seventh son of a seventh son is supposed to be endowed with extraordinary faculties of healing, and many of these quacks pretended to such a descent.] Doctor’s Fame,
From hence he learns the cheapest Tailor’s name.’

So universal was this practice of advertising that, to quote Ward[98 - ‘The London Spy,’ ed. 1703, p. 64.] once more, when talking of the Royal Exchange, he says,