Chapter IX: Canto IV: Grand Attack! (4)

So said the learned bishop Berekley, in a scientific treatise called _Principles of Human Knowledge_, in which his reverence makes it apparent, to those who have a clue to his metaphysical labyrinth, that there is no such thing as matter, entity, or sensation, distinct from the mind which perceives, or thinks it perceives, such ideas or substances. The bishop’s authority being so pat in point, I cannot but admire that it has not more frequently been adduced in opposition to the tractors.

[79]

THEN MAN, OF COURSE, THOSE DRUGS TO TAKE.

This CAPITAL argument, that it might make a CAPITAL figure, I have ordered my printer to put in CAPITAL letters, and I hope it will make a CAPITAL impression on your worshipful intellects. But still I have not given it half that pre-eminence which its importance claims, under existing circumstances. A great hue and cry has been raised by the Perkinites, by which some of the less penetrating part of the profession have been awed into silence, respecting the _duty_ of medical practitioners. They say that it is the duty of a medical man to employ only such means as will cure his patient in the most _safe_, _cheap_, and _expeditious_ manner. This infamous pretension takes its origin from no other person than Perkins himself. That you may individually be aware of the effrontery with which it is brought forward, I shall, in this note, copy from Perkins’s book his manner of treating the subject. Your worships will form some idea of the magnitude of this objection of our adversaries, in their own estimation, and the mischief it has already occasioned, not only in Great Britain, but abroad, when I inform you that it has been echoed in both the English and foreign journals, and in many of them treated as a complete refutation of the arguments of Dr Haygarth, and of all who object against the tractors, on account of their _curing_ diseases merely by operating on the imagination. Among other foreign publications, I observe that the 21st volume of the _Bibliothèque Britannique_, printed at Geneva, closes a long account (40 pages) of “_Perkinisme_” with this “petite histoire de Mr Perkins.”

“A gentleman came from the country to London, for the advantage of medical assistance, in a complaint of peculiar obstinacy and distress. After being under the care of an eminent physician several weeks, and paying him upwards of thirty guineas, without any relief, he was induced to try the tractors. To be short, they performed a remarkable cure; the person was perfectly restored in about ten days. The physician, calling soon after, was informed of the circumstance. He began lamenting that so sensible a person as the patient should be caught in the use of so contemptible a piece of quackery as the tractors. After assuring the patient that he had thrown away his five guineas, for that it was well established by Dr Haygarth, that a brick-bat, tobacco-pipe, goose-quill, or even the bare finger, would perform the same cures, he was interrupted by his patient: ‘And are you sincere in your belief that you could have produced, by those means, the same effects upon me, which I have experienced from the tractors?’ ‘Do I believe it? Ay, I know it; and that a thousand similar cures might be effected by means equally simple and ridiculous.’ ‘And sir,’ interrupted the gentleman again, in a more stern and serious tone, ‘why did you not cure me then, by those _simple_ means? Remember I have paid you thirty guineas, under the supposition that you were exerting your utmost endeavors to cure me, and that in the most safe, cheap, and expeditious manner. You now, in substance, acknowledge, that, although in possession of the means of restoring me to health, for the dishonorable purpose of picking my pocket, you continued me upon the bed of sickness! Who turns out to be the impostor? Let your own conscience answer.’ The justness of the retort, it will be easily believed, precluded the possibility of an exculpation.” _Perkins’s New Cases_, p. 145.

Had I been the physician, however, I would have rejoined with arguments, not dissimilar to that which is so beautifully expressed in the above stanza. I would have told him that the Author of nature most certainly would not have created either a poisonous or salubrious vegetable, without intending that it should “dose and double dose” his creature man.

Should it be objected that the tractors being also _created_ substances ought also to be used, I could ingenuously retort, they were created in America, a country whose natives are Indians, an inferior order of beings to man, as some great philosophers before me have asserted, and who, it is evident, are the _only_ order of creatures, on whom it was intended the tractors should be used.

I have no particular wish to injure Dr Jenner, or I should positively overturn him and all his adherents with my resistless arguments. If I were not willing that he should retain his popularity, I should make it appear that the small-pox was created with the intent of being universally propagated among the human race for the purpose of mortifying female vanity; and Jenner’s attempt to extirpate it, by substituting the cow-pox, which ought to have been confined to the quadrupeds, among which it originated, as the tractors ought to have been to the Indians, is the extreme of presumption, and the height of iniquity. I cannot but conceive that our bishops and clergy are very remiss in not endeavoring to dissuade from such enormous, innovating practices.

[80]

That learn’d physicians pine with hunger.

No man who possesses a _heart_, certainly none who possesses _bowels_, can view us reduced to this deplorable condition, and hear this pathetic appeal, without the sincerest commiseration. The eminent services that our profession have rendered mankind, in contributing to avert some of the greatest curses that ever befel the civilized part of the world, are too well known, and have been too frequently acknowledged to be forgotten, ungratefully, in the day of our adversity. The testimony to this effect of the judicious, the humane Addison, ought often to be brought before the public eye.

“We may lay it down as a maxim,” says that intelligent writer, “that when a nation abounds with physicians it grows thin of people. Sir William Temple is very much puzzled to find out a reason why the northern hive, as he calls it, does not send such prodigious swarms, and overrun the world with Goths and Vandals, as it did formerly: but had that excellent author observed that there were no students in physic among the subjects of Thor and Woden, and that this science very much flourishes in the north at present, he might have found a better solution for this difficulty than any of those he has made use of.” _Spectator_, No. 21.

[81]

The patient _save_, but _starve_ the doctor.

This would be abominable. Physicians, in general, are a hale hearty race of men, as, indeed, must be readily conceived from their prudent maxims in regard to the preservation of their _own_ health:--they take no physic. No; they are too well acquainted with its tendency. Now, to starve so sturdy and powerful a body, when his majesty is in want of such subjects to check the ambitious strides of restless Buonaparte, as appears from the king’s declaration of this day (May the 16th, 1803,) in preference to letting their miserable _patients_ expire, whom Providence evidently intended should die off, is, I trust, too absurd and unreasonable an idea to be admitted.

[82]

Like Perkinites, they find Mecenases.

The Perkineans have no cause to boast of the extent of their patronage, for the poor tawny reptile chimney-sweepers have of late interested the friends of humanity in their behalf quite as much. Your worships will derive from this circumstance a very pleasant source for _sneering_ at our opponents, which I am sure you will _gladly_ embrace, whenever opportunity presents.

[83]

Except by knaves retired from practice.

This, gentlemen, is a circumstance of no small moment, and which I trust you will see the necessity of looking at with some seriousness. Some of our profession have, to their eternal disgrace, since their retirement on their fortunes, deserted our cause, and are now to be found in the ranks of our enemies. These fellows have the presumption to suggest that their duty to the interests of the community supersedes that which they owe to their old brethren, the unreasonableness of which sentiment I conceive to be self-evident, and therefore shall not trouble myself to prove it. Several have even addressed to the Perkinean Institution communications in favor of the metallic tractors, for publication, three of which are already laid before the public. The first on this list is Mr Lyster, late of Dublin, who having been above twenty years senior surgeon of the Dublin hospital, retired to Bath, where he now seems even to take delight in benefitting the mean and miserable poor, to wanton injury of his own dear brethren. To show the extent of his malice, he has, in his communication to the Perkinean Society, introduced statements of remarkable cures by the tractors; among others one of total blindness of many years duration, in which all medical skill had previously failed; and, to wind up this tale of infamy, he has even ventured to censure, indirectly, my great champion, Dr Haygarth, and to hint that his proceedings were not accompanied with honorable intentions!

Next on this trio list are Mr Yatman, of Chelsea, and Dr Fuller, of Upper Brook street; the conduct of both of whom is equally, if not more reprehensible than Lyster’s. These two also call in the lame, the halt, and the blind, and, as if to spite their brethren who have drugs to sell, cure them with the tractors without fee or reward! Such conduct is so atrocious that if your worships should think proper to have them indicted, and Mr Erskine or Mr Garrow object to defend the cause of such clients, I, counsellor Caustic (remember I am LL.D.) will manage it for you, and, provided I can but get that same jury which decided that captain Macnamara was not accessory to the death of Col. Montgomery, I will procure the defendants to be sent to Botany Bay, or at least as far as Coventry.

To show the barbarity and wantonness of these two men, I will close this note by the following quotation from the letter of one of them, Dr Fuller, who, after a practice of nearly thirty years in medicine, and by which he has secured his own independence, seems now to amuse himself in undermining those of us who are still dependant. After a statement of a number of great cures by the tractors, and proving, by his own trials on infants, &c. that they do not act on imagination, which Dr Haygarth so laudably attempted to show, he proceeds:--“I derive much satisfaction in noticing among the more liberal and respectable part of my profession an increased favorable opinion of Perkinism, and a readiness to _allow_ of its use among their patients, when proposed by _others_. To expect more than this, would be to expect more than human nature in its present state will admit. It must be an _extraordinary_ exertion of virtue and humanity for a medical man, whose livelihood depends either on the sale of drugs, or on receiving a guinea for writing a prescription, which must relate to those drugs, to say to his patient, ‘You had better purchase a pair of tractors to keep in your family; they will cure you without the expense of my attendance, or the danger of the common medical practice.’ For very obvious reasons, medical men must _never_ be expected to recommend the use of Perkinism. The tractors must trust for their patronage to the enlightened and philanthropic out of the profession, or to medical men retired from practice, and who know of no other _interest_ than the luxury of relieving the distressed. And I do not despair of seeing the day, when but very few of this description as well as private families will be without them.” If Dr Fuller were obliged to live in my garret one month, he would sing a different tune.

[84]

Who make, quoth Darwin, good manure.

Besides the advantage of showing how reverently this great philosopher and philanthropist could speak of religion, I am sure I shall render an essential service to agriculturists, by adducing the following quotation. I bring it forward the more readily, as I find that the Board of Agriculture have been so negligent of the interest of that noble art, as not yet to have recommended the universal adoption of this measure.

“There should be no burial places in churches, or churchyards, _where the monuments of departed sinners shoulder God’s altar_ and pollute his holy places with dead men’s bones. But proper burial places should be consecrated out of towns, and divided into two compartments, the earth from one of which, saturated with animal decomposition, should be taken away once in ten or twenty years _for the purposes of agriculture_, and sand or clay, or less fertile soil brought into its place.” _Darwin’s Phytologia_, p. 242.

Here your worships will perceive that there is a prospect, if this advice is followed, that we may enjoy the privilege of _eating_, instead of _drinking_ our friends, which would be something of an improvement on our idea, communicated in page 58.

[85]

Would serve for stock to make mosquitoes.

Among other speculations also in the cause of humanity, bequeathed us by this _friend_ of _man_, are the following, which will prove a great consolation to those who have foolishly supposed that the bloodshed and devastation, produced by war, were circumstances which ought to be lamented.

These remarks are published by Dr Darwin, as written under his own observations in the manuscript of his book, by a “_philosophical_ friend,” whom he left in his library. It is supposed, however, that the doctor wrote them himself. At least the sentiments have his sanction.

“It consoles me to find, as I contemplate the whole of organized nature, that it is not in the power of any one personage, whether statesman or hero, to produce by his ill employed activity, so much misery as might have been supposed. Thus, if a Russian army, in these insane times, after having endured a laborious march of many hundred miles, is destroyed by a French army, in defence of their republic, what has happened? Forty thousand human creatures, dragged from their homes and connexions, cease to exist, and have _manured_ the _earth_; but the quantity of organized matter, of which they were composed, presently revives in the forms of millions of microscopic animals, vegetables, and insects, and afterwards of quadrupeds and men; _the sum of whose happiness is, perhaps, greater than that of the harrassed soldier, by whose destruction they have gained their existence_! Is not this a consoling idea to a mind of universal sympathy? I fear you will think me a misanthrope, but I assure you a contrary sensation dwells in my bosom; and though I commiserate the evils of all organized beings, “_Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto_.”” _Phytologia_, p. 558.

[86]

Are swept by pestilence and dearth.

Last words of Dr Darwin. I take no small credit to myself, for being one of the first to bring into notice the latest and the most sublime of this sublime philosopher’s sublime speculations. The fountain from which this radiant stream of illumination flows is denominated, among booksellers, THE TEMPLE OF NATURE.

To paint all the writer’s conceptions of the mansion of that old lady, and her own most singular qualifications, would be a task even beyond the abilities of a Caustic. Mr Fuseli, however, has _painted_, his _conceptions_ on the occasion, which in one of his designs, appear, so far as I can comprehend him, to be simply these:--In his frontispiece to the work, he represents one beautiful lady pointing at, or rather fumbling about, (somewhat indecently, I must confess) a _middle_ or _third_ breast of another beautiful lady, whom I suppose to be Dame Nature;

Than which there’s nothing can be apter
To fill philosophers with rapture.

This _third_ breast I take to be the painter’s emblem of the discoveries of Dr Darwin--implying that their existence is as evident as that a woman has _three_ breasts. But, not to digress; the doctor ascertains that

“Human progenies, if unrestrain’d,
By climate friended, and by food sustained
O’er seas and soils prolific hordes would spread
Ere long, and deluge their terraqueous bed.
But war and pestilence, disease and dearth
Sweep the superfluous myriads from the earth.”
_Temple of Nature_, Canto iv.

Some _un_philosophical theorists have foolishly supposed that this sweeping plan of Dr Darwin, which that philosopher appears to have introduced, lest “prolific hordes” should “deluge their terraqueous beds,” might as well be deferred till a few of the “_superfluous_” acres on the earth’s surface were reduced to a state of cultivation. I should advise to employ these supernumeraries in navigating polar ices within, the tropics, as recommended by the doctor in the _Botanic Garden_, were I not apprehensive lest I should thereby in some measure, destroy the operation of Saint Pierre’s tides. See note on page 70, Canto i.

[87]

Must “_duck_” to death his stubborn pate.

More last words of Dr Darwin.

“The brow of man erect, with thought elate,
_Ducks_ to the mandate of resistless fate.”
_Temple of Nature_, Canto iv.

I have exhibited this couplet at all the assemblages of poetizing brethren in Grub street and St Giles’s, not omitting the inhabitants of the “Wits’ corner, at the Chapter coffee-house, the _elevated_ tenants of the cider cellar in Maiden Lane, and Col. Hanger’s knights of the round table,” all of whom agree in acknowledging the elegance and correctness of the metaphor, and that its beauties are so transcendently exquisite, and beyond the ken of mortal eye, as to be perfectly incomprehensible.

[88]

That since “to die is but to sleep.”

“Long o’er the wrecks of lovely life they weep;
Then pleased reflect, to die is but to sleep.”
_Temple of Nature_, Canto ii.

I suspect that my intimate friend and correspondent Buonaparte, is a full convert to Dr Darwin’s doctrine of death and its consequences. For, when he declared to lord Whitworth his determination to invade England, although there were a hundred chances to one in _favor_ of his going to the bottom, he was undoubtedly calculating on a comfortable nap after the fatigues of government.

[89]

In bats and bed-bugs, fleas and flies.

“Thus, when a monarch or a mushroom dies,
Awhile extinct the organic matter lies;
But, as a few short hours or years revolve,
Alchymic powers the changing mass dissolve;
Born to new life unnumber’d insects pant,” &c.
_Temple of Nature_, Canto iv.

It has been a matter of curious inquiry among some of my corresponding garreters, whether this philosopher himself, in the latter stages of his existence, enjoyed much consolation from reflecting that the “organic matter” which entered into his own composition, was about to be employed for the important purpose of giving “new life” to “unnumbered insects.”

[90]

Vast “monuments of past delight.”

“Thus the tall mountains, that emboss’d the lands,
Huge isles of rock, and continents of sands,
Whose dim extent eludes the inquiring sight,
ARE MIGHTY MONUMENTS OF PAST DELIGHT.”

These “monuments of past delight,” Darwin says,

“Rose from the wrecks of animal or herb.”

Thus taught by this wondrous sage, I trust the friend to humanity will suppose it best to let the poor, infirm and decrepid die off as fast as possible, to “manure the earth,” that the quantity of organized matter of which they were composed, may revive in the forms of millions of microscopic animals, vegetables and insects, make “monuments of past delight,” &c. Therefore it is to be hoped, that the promoters of the Perkinean institution will prove as despicable in respect to numbers, as they are deficient in understanding, especially in comprehending the great and glorious truths of modern philosophy.

[91]

_They_ may have rest, _we_--elbow room.

If your worships have not read Mr Malthus’s Essay on the Principles of Population, I advise you to buy the book immediately, and set yourselves about something like an effort to comprehend its contents. You will there find, I cannot now recollect the page, that _population_ has a tendency to increase in a _geometrical ratio_, but that _subsistence_ must be limited to an _arithmetical ratio_. That the world would soon swarm with inhabitants in such a manner that in years of the greatest plenty we should be under the disagreeable necessity of turning _anthropophagi_, and, like the famous Pantagruel, eat pilgrims with our salad, were not the principle of population restrained by two _very useful predominant principles_, viz. “VICE and MISERY;” the former of which is happily exemplified in the extravagance and luxury of your worships, and the latter correctly expressed in the _poverty_ of your worships’ petitioner. You will likewise find in the same volume, _passim_, that after war, pestilence, and famine have laid waste a country, there is an immediate increase of births, in consequence of the principle of population being let loose to take its natural operation in replenishing the earth; or, in other words, because there is more _elbow room_ for the survivors. Now, this being correct reasoning, it must be wonderfully wrong to try to keep alive poor folks, who are a dead weight on population, destroy the means of subsistence, prevent early marriages, and, by keeping themselves above ground, stand in the way of their betters.

[92]

The poker take and lay them level.

Please not imagine that I would be understood to recommend this “retort courteous” in the most unqualified sense, or that it be exercised on every occasion. On the contrary, the due performance of it will require no small degree of prudence and discretion. Indeed, I would have you use the _poker_, or any other violent and _weighty_ arguments of this kind, only when your antagonist happens to be a woman, a child, or some debilitated and cowardly wretch who will submit without any chance of your meeting with unpleasant resistance.

As to the justice of this mode of response, there exists no doubt, and therefore dread no decisions _in foro conscientiæ_, because the extreme heinousness of your adversaries’ provocation will appear from the following consideration. To deprive you of an argument, for which you have sacrificed everything dear to obtain, must, confessedly be regarded as a most outrageous proceeding. Now, this is exactly the case in the present instance; for in your attempt to show that medical men believe and trust in no medicine, the _modus operandi_ of which they do not comprehend, you make a sacrifice of _truth_, _decency_, and _common sense_, the full reward of which sacrifice you ought to enjoy unmolested. That no man can explain how mercury poisons, bark cures an intermittent fever, or opium produces sleep, is confessed by every medical author; and that all these should be used in our practice, without any hesitation, I never heard any person deny, and for this proper and substantial reason; their administration is _profitable_ to the faculty. I have therefore to repeat, that when the Perkinites complain of your rejecting the use of tractors, because their _modus operandi_ cannot be entirely explained, although you adopt the use of drugs, the operation of which is equally or more inexplicable, your sacrifice in support of your ground is so great, that whoever attempts to drive you from such ground deserves to be laid low with the first weapon that comes to hand.

[93]

Will e’en _bewitch_ the _operator_.

No part of the learned doctor’s management, in the anti-Perkinistic cause, merits higher eulogy than this most _rational_ explanation of that most _irrational_ practice. So _cogently_ does an innate principle of equity control me, that I am absolutely _coerced_ to offer, at the shrine of the heroic doctor, my tributary dole of the incense of admiration, for having presented our profession such a powerful knock-me-down argument, wherewith to buffet the common enemy.

The sagacious doctor having published a scientific treatise against the tractors, demonstrating that “they act on the _patient’s_ imagination,” Perkins, came out in reply, with all the fury of an Irish rebel, and declared that the doctor deserved to be trounced for not suffering his readers to know, that the tractors pretended to cure infants and brute animals, though numerous cases to that effect had then been published; and in that reply proclaimed that Dr H. purposely endeavored to suppress such facts, that he might, with greater facility, induce the public to swallow the deductions drawn from his magical manœuvres in the Bath and Bristol hospitals. Now, admitting the doctor managed in this way, I am sure he was perfectly right in so doing. The _end_ in view, according to established principles of _modern_ morality, will ever justify the _means_ taken to accomplish that end. In this case, the end in view was most important--nothing less than the downfall of Perkinism, and the consequent aggrandizement of our profession. Should any of our opponents be so captious as to assert, that such principles and such motives of action should not be encouraged in society--that they have a pernicious tendency, and other nonsense of that sort, I must take the liberty to refer them to the first consul of the French republic, whose conduct has ever been modelled according to the principles above stated, and who is certainly the most _powerful logician_ of the age, perfectly able to confound those who shut their eyes against the light of conviction.

But to revert to the doctor’s treatise, and Perkins’s impudent replication. The man who could raise the very old gentleman himself, by the legitimate powers of necromancy, was not so easily defeated. Accordingly he returns to the charge in another edition--admits the existence of the numerous cases on infants, horses, &c. but lays them all level with the following unanswerable argument.--“The proselytes of Perkinism having been driven from every other argument, have, as a last resource, alleged that the patent metallic tractors have removed the disorders of infants and horses. Even this _flimsy_ pretence is capable of a satisfactory refutation. In these cases it is not the _patient_, but the _observer_, who is deceived by his own imagination!!!” See _Haygarth’s book_, page 40. _Mirabile dictu!_

[94]

Then quote his lady’s ECCHYMOSIS.

The celebrated story of the lady’s ecchymosis comes handed down to your worships by five successive reporters. The lady _incog._ who makes so _conspicuous_ a figure in Dr Haygarth’s narration, told another lady, who told a medical friend of Dr H. who told Dr Caustic, who tells your worships this important anecdote. Now, as “in the multitude of counsellors there is _safety_,” so in a multitude of reporters there is _certainty_. But to the story; which I shall give in the language of Dr H.’s medical friend aforesaid.

“A _lady_ informed me, that a _lady_ of her acquaintance, who had great faith in the efficacy of the tractors, on seeing a small _ecchymosis_, about the size of a _silver penny_, at the corner of the eye, desired to try on it the effect of her favorite remedy. The _lady_, who was intended to be the subject of the trial, consented, and the _other lady_ produced the instruments, and, after drawing them four or five times over the spot, declared that it changed to a paler color; and on repeating the use of them a few minutes longer, that it had almost vanished, and was scarcely visible, and departed in high triumph at her success. I was assured by the _lady_ who underwent the operation, that she looked in the glass immediately after, and that not the least visible alteration had taken place!!” (From _Haygarth’s_ book, page 40.)

I had determined to exert my influence in all the medical societies, that the above case be read at the opening of each meeting, until there should not be left of the tractors, in this island, “a wreck behind.” But a far better plan of Dr H. himself has precluded the necessity of this measure, which was to announce in all the advertisements of his book in the public papers, that “it explains why the disorders of infants and horses are said to have been cured by the tractors.” See his daily advertisements in the papers.

Indeed, I am at a loss which to admire most, the pretty fanciful relation above cited, which is all the new edition of the doctor’s treatise against the tractors contains to justify the assertion in the advertisements before mentioned, or his singular skill in constructing such a fabric on this foundation. Did I possess the talents of the doctor in the advertising department, I should announce this my pithy performance to the public, by publishing in all the papers, that the price of the tractors was, in consequence of Dr Caustic’s opposition, fallen to the price of old iron, and Perkins’s pamphlets having been proscribed by physicians, were condemned, and actually burnt by the hangman on execution-day, at the Old Bailey, in the presence of every individual of the college of physicians, and half the citizens of London.

I would beg leave to add to this incomparable Haygarthian demonstration an argument of my own, which I think is not less powerful. It is impossible that these tractors should perform any _real_ cure, as they act _solely_ on the _imagination_ either of the patient or the operator. But cures performed by the power of _imagination_ must be _imaginary_ cures, that is, no cures at all.

[95]

By Haygarth’s tale of lady Hoax.

It is not true, as some sagacious coffee-house politicians have asserted, that madame Hoax (or more correctly double Hoax) is the wife of a Chinese Mandarin, settled on the mountains of the Moon, in Abyssinia, for the purpose of ascertaining the influence of imagination in the cure of diseases. No, gentlemen, she is a baroness of true English breed, more sturdy than a Semiramis, a Penthesilea, or a Joan of Arc, and will prove, in our cause, a championess of pre-eminent prowess. Should your worships wish for further acquaintance with this lady, which in my opinion would be for your mutual advantage, you will take the trouble to inquire at my garret, No. 299, Dyot street, St Giles’s (having removed from my former place of residence, third floor, 327, Grub street, with a view of being nearer my friend, Sir Joseph, in Soho square) and her address shall be at your service.

I am now preparing a most awful tragedy for Drury lane theatre (Mr Sheridan’s approbation being already obtained) to be entitled and called, the DREADFUL DOWNFAL OF TERRIBLE TRACTORIZING CONFOUNDED CONJURATION; in which I propose to introduce a new song, that I have no doubt will be so celebrated as to be the theme of every ballad-singer in the metropolis. I cannot forbear anticipating some small share of that applause, which I have reason to suppose will be _piled_ on Dr Caustic, as soon as he is publicly known as the author of such an inimitable production, by obliging your worships with a _part_ of the chorus to the song aforesaid.

Come now let us coax
Haygarth and Dame Hoax,
Like true hearts of oaks,
To crack off their jokes,
While dreading their strokes,
Those sheep-hearted folks,
The tractoring Perkinites, quiver;

O may they with knocks,
“And shivering shocks,”
Pound their jackets and frocks,
Till dead as horse-blocks,
(O what a sad box!)
They’re thrown into the docks,
Or, just like dead cats, in the river!

This song is to be set to music by Mr Kelly in his very best style of pathos, sublimity, and crotchets, and to be delightfully demi-semi-quavered to the admiring audience by Mrs Billington. Then, if box, pit, and gallery, should not, _una voce_, Nick Bottom-like, cry, “Encore! Encore! Let her roar! Let her roar! Once more, once more! Let the squeak and the squall be swelled to a bawl, Dr Caustic will find the door! Find the door! And never go there any more”!!

[96]

Say that the devil never fails.

This stanza contains a legendary tale, which I dare say is as true, as that which commemorates a notable exploit of St. Dunstan in seizing old satan, one dark night in the tenth century, and wringing the nose of his infernal majesty with a pair of red-hot black-smith’s pincers, which made him roar and scold at such a rate, that he awakened and terrified all the good people of Glastonbury and its neighborhood.

[97]

In gulping tractors down, for med’cines.

An old lady of my acquaintance was actually advised by an _ingenious_ son of Galen, an apothecary, resident a few miles north of London, to swallow tractors for an internal complaint. If our profession were to follow this laudable example, and force their patients to swallow them for pills, and then give the public a judicious detail of the terrible consequences, ending with the death of the patients, Perkinism would sink into that contempt in the estimation of the public which it justly deserves.

[98]

In wilds where science ne’er was thought on.

That is, in the United States of America, among Indians and Yankees. You will find, gentlemen, much to the purpose relative to the state of science, where Perkinism originated, in the _Monthly Magazine_, of January, 1803, under the title of “Animadversions on the present state of literature and taste in the United States, communicated by an English gentleman lately returned from America.” This gentleman gives information that the Americans are wretchedly “_behind_-hand in science _with_ the Britains.” Indeed, those transatlantic younkers ought, in half a century, to have established universities and other seminaries of learning, at least as _old_ and respectable as those of Oxford and Cambridge, and which should have graduated as many students and produced as many great men. As to the parsimonious spirit of Americans in encouraging science (which this gentleman animadverts upon with laudable indignation) it ought truly to be exclaimed against by us Englishmen, for the weighty reason following: Great Britain, “from time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary” (as judge Blackstone says) hath starved some of her first poets; such for instance as Butler, Otway, Chatterton, Dryden, Savage, &c. &c. &c. &c. consequently (according to the same author) she ought to enjoy the _exclusive “customary privilege”_ of inflicting the horrors of starvation on the sons of the muses: but it must be granted, for the honor of British munificence, that the scientific Herschel, in the decline of life, as a reward for immortalizing his present majesty, by inscribing Georgium Sidus in the great folio of the heavens, is allowed the enormous pension of 80_l._ per annum!!

This instance of _liberality_, in rewarding merit, has caused me to suspend _my_ animadversions relative to patronage afforded men of _real science_ in Great Britain, till I can discover whether it be the absolute determination of my countrymen to starve doctor Caustic.

[99]

Say it was twinn’d with monstrous mammoth.

And must, of course, be a most terrible wild beast.--Ladies and gentlemen may form a tolerable idea of the enormity of Perkinism, by viewing the skeleton of a mammoth now exhibiting in Pall Mall, in the very place where lately were to be seen those terrible caricatures of the devil, &c. under the appellation of FUSELI’S MILTON GALLERY.

[100]

And to go near it you’d be d--d loth.

This manifesto, you will please to recollect, is the language of gentlemen physicians. Now it is well known that you possess a privilege, sanctioned by long and invariable practice, if not founded on act of parliament, to enforce your sentiments by certain _energetic_ expressions, which, in the mouths of people of less consequence, would be considered as very vulgar, and nearly allied to _profane swearing_. And since your worships ever most manfully exercise this privilege to the full extent of its limits, the present manifesto would have been extremely inapposite and unnatural, had not an _ornament_ of this kind been introduced.

[101]

The _boldest_ sons of Galen call on.

I say the _boldest_; for we cannot rely on the aid of the _whole_ Esculapian phalanx. Many white-livered dastards, who disgrace our profession, have shown a disposition to remain neuter, or fight under Perkinean banners!

[102]

Than Howard’s fulminating powder.

It is a long time since the public have had any _reports_ from the honorable Mr Howard’s fulminating powder, which, three years since, made so much _noise_, that the world had reason to expect that the _thunderiferous_ chymist would make no more of exploding to old Nick a whole army of Frenchmen, with Buonaparte at its head, than would a cockney sportsman of shooting a tame goose on the first of September.

Whether this mighty affair is all _blown up_, or what may have been the cause of the _silence_ of those who defended a thing which so _loudly_ proclaimed its own merits, it becomes Mr Howard to explain.

Of this he may be assured, if he do not stir his stumps in order to fulfil _some_ of the fair promises which he and his friends have made to the Royal Society and the public, of the astonishing achievements they were about to perform, by the demi-omnipotent power of his new invented artificial thunder, I hereby give the _alarming_ intelligence that I will apply my own superior talents to this _sonorous_ subject. Should that happen, those laurels which were designed to decorate the brow of Mr Howard will be tied in a bow-knot round my venerable temples. For, in that case, the learned chymist’s acquisitions, in the art of _intonation_, will bear no better comparison to those of Dr Caustic, than the clattering wagon-wheels of Salmoneus to the world-astounding thunderbolts of Jupiter. No person can doubt my being able to accomplish all this, who is apprized, as he may be from perusing this performance, of the vast quantity of the most _detonating_ kind of _mercury_ which exists in my composition, and which will _fulminate_ with greater effect, than the _gold_ and _silver_ that line the _magnipotent_ purse of the honorable the heir _apparent_ to the duke of Norfolk.

[103]

“Kill’d off,” at Marengo.

I have several times taken a confounded deal of trouble to _haul_ into my poem this beautiful specimen of parliamentary elocution; and, in my opinion, nothing can be better imagined, or more happily accomplished. Poetry and oratory, as the ancients inform us, were both _whelped_ at one litter; consequently the same phrase which glittered in the harangue of _my_ bull-baiting friend, William Windham, a British senator, cannot fail to cut a dash in the stanza of _his_ seraphical friend, Christopher Caustic, a British poet.

Now, as I am a great admirer of French principles, and that new and accommodating kind of morality, by Frenchmen discovered, and which I ever have and ever will eulogize, to the utmost extent of my faculties, perhaps your worships will express no small degree of wonderment why I should be the intimate friend of a gentleman, the _blaze_ of whose oratory, one would suppose, would have _blasted_ Buonaparte, and even _singed_ the whole French republic. But those who are admitted behind the political curtain will perceive that the _tendency_ of the measures which Mr Windham supports is to _promote_ those jacobinic principles, of which Dr Caustic _openly_ and _honestly_ professes himself to be the determined propagator and defender.

[104]

And never meddle with a _strumpet_.

Surely, no person will imagine that I would, for the world, allude to any _other_ lady than madam Fame herself.

[105]

And _blaze_ through either _frozen_ zone.

I have very substantial reasons for spreading glad tidings of our redoubtable chieftain among the most distant inhabitants of the globe, in preference to endeavoring to add to his great celebrity “within the periphery of his associates.” And, whereas it has been said that this gentleman’s reputation will ever stand highest where he is either not known at all, or known only by those literary productions, in which he is himself the theme of his own most “ardent praise,” mine shall be the humble task of trumpeting the doctor’s name among the distant inhabitants of this dirty planet; while the doctor shall himself “dip his pen in ethereal and indelible ink, and impress his observations in characters legible in the great volume of the heavens.”

[106]

As one would spit a _goose_ for roasting.

True it is, though “passing strange,” that a _great_ and good man, composed, as he _himself_ can attest, of the very essence of humanity, is often most vilely, most audaciously, and most atrociously bespattered by a set of saucy reviewers.

Those wicked wits, the writers in the _Monthly_ and _Critical Reviews_, especially the latter, in a critique on one of the late works of a certain doctor of self puffing memory, tells us that “the importance of a man to himself was never more conspicuous than in this publication. Dr Lettsom admits that he has been anticipated by several distinguished authors; but modestly hints that some of his particular friends will form no opinion [respecting the cow-pox] till they have ascertained _his_ sentiments.” They then have the audacity to declare, that “he merits no slight punishment for his pompous inflated language, for his fulsome flattery, and ridiculous exaggeration of every part of the subject.”

See how they speak of a late publication of the doctor on certain charitable institutions:--“Unless to connect these different institutions, to lead the different radii to a centre, while that centre is the author and the editor, who can boast, _Quæ ipse misserima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui!_ we see little advantage in this edition. We mean not to intimate the slightest disapprobation of these institutions, or of humanity in general; but when we see pomp and egotism assuming its garb, when vanity and ostentation occasionally peep from beneath the robe, we feel no little disgust from comparing the fascinating exterior with the unpleasing contents,” &c. They likewise have the impudence to assert that some of the doctor’s plans are “better suited to the superstition of a Hindoo, than to the nature of a rational christian.” And in another review they declare: “We mean not to stoop to any; but will tell Dr Lettsom his faults” [consummate assurance!!] “as well as any other author; nor will we conceal that mean mark of a little mind, over-weening vanity. We saw it in its germ, have watched its opening bud, till it is expanded into its blossom. The literary life of Dr L---- may well be styled the _progress_ of vanity: the termination is yet to come: but we have ample materials for the subject.” See _Monthly Review_, of July, and _Critical Review_, of Sept. 1802, and Feb. 1803.

[107]

They’ll fall before great doctor Lettsom.

I resolved to recommend your arranging yourselves under the banners of this Leviathan of the Galenical throng, from the moment I first heard of his noble and spirited sally against the tractors. Disdaining the wretched trammels of _why_ and _wherefore_, and without assigning those paltry trifles, called _reasons_, for his opinions, on the merits of Perkinism, our intrepid commander determined to extirpate it root and branch, with his simple _ipse dixit_. This is what we ought to expect from a hero of such prowess. See how well he manages these metallic makers of mischief! In a eulogium (a very agreeable thing to a _modest_ man during his life time) on his friend Dr Haygarth, contained in the work which those wicked reviewers above mentioned have treated so irreverently, he mentions (page 277) the “important object,” which Dr Haygarth has so “happily _effected_.” This is “arresting and _subduing_ two poisons, the most fatal to the human race (fever and small-pox) and unveiling imposture, clothed in the meretricious garb of bold quackery:” a note on the word “_imposture_,” in the margin says, “Experiments on metallic tractors.” Now, unless I can borrow the pen of the learned doctor, dipped in “ETHEREAL _and indelible ink_,” and a whole literary apparatus in proportion, I shall never be able to express how much I admire the matter above quoted, on account of the important _intelligence_ therein contained. Before Dr L. asserted it, I dare say not an individual in the kingdom knew that Dr Haygarth had “_effected_” such an “important object,” that fever and small-pox were subdued, altogether extinct, despoiled of that venom which has hitherto “brought death into the world,” and so much wo. But true it is, they are quite extirpated, and all this by Dr Haygarth!! One cannot but exclaim against the perverseness of those members of parliament, who, regardless of this _news_ from Dr L. voted a reward to Dr Jenner for his services in _subduing_ the small-pox, and to Dr Smith, for his discoveries in _subduing_ contagious fevers. In short, I am almost ready to enforce the charge of ignorance against my brethren in the profession; for I have not yet met with one possessed of sufficient penetration to see, that neither fever nor small-pox “has a local habitation and a name among us,” and that they have been both “_subdued_,” and all this “_effected_,” by Dr Haygarth!

[108]

Prepare the batteries of thy journal.

Here I can, with certainty, calculate on the most powerful co-operation. This----, what shall I call it? This official Gazette of the profession--this Medico-Chymico-_Comico_-Repository, for the effusions of self-puffers, prescribing rules and recipes,

“How best to fill his purse, and thin the town;”

this powerful instrument of offensive and defensive warfare, has ever, with becoming vigilance, guarded its post against Perkinean invaders, and suffered no occasion to pass without a squirt of the _Gallic_ acid of satire, when there was deemed a possibility of _blackening_ the common enemy.

I can never sufficiently express my approbation of the Carthagenian cunning with which this journal has been conducted. Dr B. professing great impartiality, in an early number, (see vol. ii. p. 85) invited communications on the subject of the tractors. Subsequent management evidently showed a slight omission in the doctor’s notice, and that he meant _communications on one side only_; for he has omitted no pains to procure and publish whatsoever could be suggested _against_ the tractors; but though reports of cases in their favor, and all the publications of the patentee have been before him, not a syllable of _these_ was ever noticed by that gentleman; neither has it ever appeared by his journal that such facts ever existed.

[109]

By every nostrum, save _thine own_.

I appeal to any of my brethren who have been gratified, as I often have been, with the Demosthenes-like torrent which has been so frequently poured forth, in our medical societies, by this “child and champion” of the Galenical throng, against quackery and all its appurtenances, whether it were fair to surmise, as some unconscionable rogues have done, that Dr B. has absolutely himself become the proprietor of a quack medicine. The fire of eloquence with which Perkinism, that most atrocious kind of quackery, has been so frequently, and so effectually assailed by the learned doctor at the medical society, at Guy’s, the Lyceum Medico Londinensis, &c. &c. &c. ought to have ensured Dr B. so much of the gratitude of the profession, that, although he should _himself_ choose to become one of the most arrant quacks in the kingdom, he might depend on your support of his reputation, and your exertions to uphold him. No subsequent apostacy on his part, I maintain, will justify a dereliction of him.

Recal to your recollection, gentlemen, the denunciations he has so often made against every medical practitioner who should presume, either directly or indirectly, to offer any patronage to remedies which bore even the most distant resemblance to a nostrum. How often have the walls of the medical theatres of Saint Thomas’s hospital, and Windmill street, echoed loud responses to his declamations against the varlets, who should dare to recommend means, in the profits of the consumption of which the whole profession could not participate? How often have you received his invitations to send him your effusions and declamations against quackery, to receive an efficient publication in his journal? and what number of that journal has appeared without performing his promise, by honoring those effusions with a place in its immortal pages?

Lest even these most important considerations should still find you inexorable, I trust I can show, by examining his conduct in regard to the quack medicine in question, that, if it be not praise-worthy, it is, at least, defensible.

The title of the nostrum which has had the assistance of Dr B. in being introduced to the notice of a grateful public, is “A NEW MEDICINE FOR THE GOUT.” The pretended discoverer of this specific is, for very commendable, or, which is the same thing, very _prudent_ reasons, kept behind the curtain. I wish, however, to express my utter disbelief that either Dr Brodum or Dr Solomon is the happy mortal, however similar the style of the pamphlet, announcing this new medicine, may be to their erudite writings, and the pretensions of the said medicine to “balms of Gilead” and to “nervous cordials.”

[110]

’Gainst Belgraves, Colquhouns, Wilberforces!

What business had these fellows to intrude their noses into the concerns of the Westminster infirmary? Brother B. had an undoubted right to manage, or _mis_manage, the funds of a _medical_ institution, as best suited his own convenience, without their troublesome interference.

[111]

_All_ in a chariot take an airing.

I hereby enter a protest against any one of my commentators, whether he be Vanscanderdigindich the elder, or Hansvanshognosuch, his cousin _German_ (two _Dutch_ geniuses, who have promised to furnish the next edition of this my pithy poem with a whole ass-load of annotations) or any other gentlemen critics or reviewers of equal profoundity, presuming to intimate, that I intend, by this passage, the smallest disrespect to your _pedestrian_ physicians. Far from that; I know that many good and great men (like myself for example) cannot even pay a shilling for hackney-coach hire. No, gentlemen; I have two great objects in view, to wit:

1. To encourage my brother B--to persevere in his laudable attempt to kick Perkinism back to the country whence it originated, by reminding him, that if the feat were once performed, he might, _perhaps_, soon afford the expense of a chariot to transport, in a respectable manner, _all_ that wig, without laying the entire burden on the curious sconce it now envelopes.

2. To remind brother B--, and the profession in general, how much more execution may be done by a charioteer than by a pedestrian physician.

Although great men frequently differ, I am happy to find Mr _Addison’s_ opinion and _mine_, in this particular, perfectly consentaneous.

“This body of men,” says he, speaking of physicians in our own country, “may be described like the British army in Cæsar’s time. Some slay in chariots, and some on foot. If the infantry do less execution than the charioteers, it is because they cannot be carried, so soon, into all parts of the town, and despatch so much business in so short a time.” Spectator, No. 21.

Not an individual, I will venture to assert, who knows my brother B--, but must feel the really urgent necessity of elevating him, as soon as possible, from _le pave_ and giving those talents their full _swing_. Then, indeed, soon might our charioteer justly boast--

“London, with all her passing bells, can tell,
By this right arm what mighty numbers fell.
Whilst others meanly ask’d whole months to slay,
I oft despatch’d the patient in a day.
With pen in hand, I push’d to that degree,
I scarce had left a wretch to give a fee.
Some fell by laudanum, and some by steel,
And death in ambush lay in every pill;
For save, or slay, this privilege we claim,
Though credit suffers, the reward’s the same.”

[112]

From Brodum down to _gaseous_ Thornton.

I am fully sensible that many of my brethren, of less discernment than myself, would have assigned this famous little genius a rank on the empirical list even above Dr Brodum. Making _puffing_ their criterion, they will argue that those acute half-guinea paragraphs which we occasionally see at the fag end of the _Times_ and other morning papers, respecting that “very learned physician,”--his “_great_ discoveries, and improvements in the medical application of the gases,”--his “_grand national_ and botanical work,” and fifty others of the same strain, asserting the high claims of this _airy_ writer on the gratitude of the public, are incontestable proofs of his superior merits in the _puffing_ department, which, say they, are some of the most necessary ingredients in the formation of a charlatan. All this is specious reasoning; but I trust I shall show its fallacy. Pre-eminence, in my opinion, must be founded on some intrinsic excellence, original and independent of adventitious circumstances. If we closely examine the merits of this candidate, we shall find that there can be no great claim on this score. Let any man enjoy the faculties and advantages of a general dealer in the _airs_, who must of course have _puffs_ of all descriptions at hand; and where is the merit of occasionally _letting off one_?