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This has always been the means of opposing the progress of reason—the advancement of natural truths—and the prosecution of new discoveries; whilst, with effects no less baneful, has it perpetuated many of the stupendous errors which have been already enumerated, as well as others no less weighty, and which are reserved for future discussion.

To give general currency to an hypothetical opinion, or medicinal reputation to an inert substance, requires only the talismanic aid of a few great names; when once established upon such a basis, ingenuity, argument, and even experiment, may open their ineffectual batteries. The laconic sentiment of the Roman Satirist is ever opposed to our remonstrance—“Marcus dixit?—ita est.”

“Did Marcus say ’twas fact? then fact it is,

No proof so valid as a word of his.”

A physician cannot err, in the opinion of the public, if he implicitly obeys the dogmas of authority; in the most barbarous ages of ancient Egypt, he was punished or rewarded according to the extent of his success, but to escape the former, it was only necessary to shew that an orthodox plan of cure had been followed, such as was prescribed in the acknowledged writings of Hermes. It is an instinct in our nature to follow the track pointed out by a few leaders; we are gregarious animals, in a moral as well as a physical sense, and we are addicted to routine, because it is always easier to follow the opinions of others than to reason and judge for ourselves. “The mass of mankind,” as Dr. Paley observes, “act more from habit than reflection.” What, but such a temper could have upheld the preposterous system of Galen for more than thirteen centuries; and have enabled it to give universal laws in medicine to Europe—Africa—and part of Asia?^[53] What, but authority, could have inspired a general belief, that the sooty washings of rosin^[54] would act as an universal remedy? What, but a blind devotion to authority, or an insuperable attachment to established custom and routine, could have so long preserved from oblivion the absurd medicines which abound in our earlier dispensatories? for example, the “Decoctum ad Ictericos,” of the Edinburgh College, which never had any other foundation than the doctrine of signatures, in favour of the Curcuma and Chelidonium Majus;^[55] and it is only within a few years, that the Theriaca Andromachi, in its ancient absurd form, has been dismissed from the British Pharmocopœia.^[56] The Codex-Medicamentarius of Paris, recently edited, still cherishes this many-headed^[57] monster of pharmacy, in all its pristine deformity, under the appropriate title of “Electuarium Opiatum Polupharmacum.”

It is, however, evidently indebted for this unexpected rescue from oblivion to a cause very remote from that which may be at first imagined; not from any belief in its powers or reliance upon its efficacy, but from a disinclination to oppose the torrent of popular prejudice, and to reject what has been established by authority and sanctioned by time. For the same reason, and in violation of their better judgment, the editors have retained the absurd formula of Diest for the preparation of an extract of opium; which, after directing various successive operations, concludes by ordering the decoction to be boiled incessantly for six months, supplying the waste of water at intervals! Many of the compound formulæ in this new Codex, it is frankly allowed, possess an unnecessary and unmeaning, if not an injurious complexity; and yet, such force has habit, and so paramount are the verba magistri, that the editors are satisfied in distinguishing the more important ingredients by printing them in Italics, leaving the rest to be supplied at the whim and caprice of the dispenser, and thus are the grand objects and use of a national Pharmacopœia defeated, which should above all things insure uniformity in the strength and composition of its officinal preparations.

The same devotion to authority which induces us to retain an accustomed remedy for pertinacity, will always oppose the introduction of a novel practice with asperity, unless indeed it be supported by authority of still greater weight and consideration. The history of various articles of diet and medicine will prove in a striking manner, how greatly their reputation and fate have depended upon authority. It was not until many years after Ipecacuan had been imported into Europe, that Helvetius, under the patronage of Louis XIV. succeeded in introducing it into practice: and to the eulogy of Katharine, queen of Charles II. we are indebted for the general introduction of Tea into England.^[58]

That most extraordinary plant,^[59] Tobacco, notwithstanding its powers of fascination, has suffered romantic vicissitudes in its fame and character; it has been successively opposed, and commended by physicians—condemned, and eulogised by priests and kings—and proscribed, and protected by governments; whilst at length this once insignificant production of a little island, or an obscure district, has succeeded in diffusing itself through every climate, and in subjecting the inhabitants of every country to its dominion. The Arab cultivates it in the burning desert—The Laplander and Esquimaux risk their lives to procure a refreshment so delicious in their wintry solitude—the Seaman, grant him but this luxury, and he will endure with cheerfulness every other privation, and defy the fury of the raging elements; and in the higher walks of civilized society, at the shrine of fashion, in the palace, and in the cottage, the fascinating influence of this singular plant commands an equal tribute of devotion and attachment. The history of the Potatoe is perhaps not less extraordinary, and is strikingly illustrative of the omnipotent influence of authority; the introduction of this valuable plant received, for more than two centuries, an unexampled opposition from vulgar prejudice, which all the philosophy of the age was unable to dissipate, until Louis the XVth wore a bunch of the flowers of the potatoe in the midst of his court, on a day of festivity; the people then for the first time obsequiously acknowledged its utility, and ventured to express their astonishment at the apathy which had so long prevailed with regard to its general cultivation; that which authority thus established, time and experience have fully ratified, and scientific research has extended the numerous resources which this plant is so wonderfully calculated to furnish; thus, its stalk, considered as a textile plant, produces in Austria a cottony flax—in Sweden, sugar is extracted from its root—by combustion its different parts yield a very considerable quantity of potass,—its apples, when ripe, ferment and yield vinegar by exposure, or spirit by distillation—its tubercles made into a pulp, are a substitute for soap in bleaching,—cooked by steam, the potatoe is the most wholesome and nutritious, and, at the same time, the most economical of all vegetable aliments.^[60]—by different manipulations it furnishes two kinds of flour, a gruel, and a parenchyma, which in times of scarcity may be made into bread, or applied to increase the bulk of bread made from grain,—to the invalid it furnishes both aliment and medicine; its starch is not in the least inferior to the Indian arrow root, and Dr. Latham has lately shown that an extract may be prepared from its leaves and flowers, which possesses valuable properties as an anodyne remedy.^[61]

The history of the warm bath^[62] presents us with another curious instance of the vicissitudes to which the reputation of our valuable resources are so universally exposed; that which for so many ages was esteemed the greatest luxury in health,^[63] and the most efficacious remedy in disease, fell into total disrepute in the reign of Augustus, for no other reason than because Antonius Musa had cured the Emperor of a dangerous malady by the use of the cold bath. The most frigid water that could be procured was, in consequence, recommended on every occasion: thus Horace, in his epistle to Vala, exclaims—

“——Caput ac stomachum supponere fontibus audent.

Clusinis, gabiosque petunt, et frigida rura.”—Epist. xv. Lib. 1.

This practice, however, was doomed but to an ephemeral popularity, for although it had restored the Emperor to health, it shortly afterwards killed his nephew and son in law, Marcellus; an event which at once deprived the remedy of its credit, and the physician of his popularity.

The history of the Peruvian Bark would furnish a very curious illustration of the overbearing influence of authority in giving celebrity to a medicine, or in depriving it of that reputation to which its virtues entitle it. This heroic remedy was first brought to Spain in the year 1632, and we learn from Villerobel that it remained for seven years in that country before any trial was made of its powers, a certain ecclesiastic of Alcala being the first person in Spain to whom it was administered in the year 1639; but even at this period its use was limited, and it would have sunk into oblivion but for the supreme power of the Roman church, by whose auspices it was enabled to gain a temporary triumph over the passions and prejudices which opposed its introduction; Innocent the Tenth, at the intercession of Cardinal de Lugo, who was formerly a Spanish Jesuit, ordered that the nature and effects of it should be duly examined, and upon being reported as both innocent and salutary, it immediately rose into public notice;^[64] its career, however, was suddenly stopped by its having unfortunately failed in the autumn of 1652 to cure Leopold, Archduke of Austria, of a Quartan Intermittent; this disappointment kindled the resentment of the prince’s principal physician, Chifletius, who published a violent philippic against the virtues of Peruvian Bark, which so fomented the prejudices against its use, that it had nearly fallen into total neglect and disrepute.

Thus there exists a fashion in medicine, as in the other affairs of life, regulated by the caprice and supported by the authority of a few leading practitioners, which has been frequently the occasion of dismissing from practice valuable medicines, and of substituting others less certain in their effects and more questionable in their nature. As years and fashions revolve, so have these neglected remedies, each in its turn, risen again into favour and notice, whilst old receipts, like old almanacks, are abandoned until the period may arrive, that will once more adapt them to the spirit and fashion of the times. Thus it happens that most of our “New Discoveries” in the Materia Medica have turned out to be no more than the revival and adaptation of ancient practices. In the last century, the root of the Aspidium Filix, the Male Fern, was retailed as a secret nostrum by Madame Nouffleur, a French empiric, for the cure of tape worm; the secret was purchased for a considerable sum of money by Louis XV. and the physicians then discovered that the same remedy had been administered in that complaint by Galen.^[65]

The history of popular medicines for the cure of Gout, will also furnish us with ample matter for the illustration of this subject. The celebrated Duke of Portland’s Powder was no other than the Diacentaureon of Cælius Aurelianus, or the Antidotos ex duobus Centaureæ generibus of Ætius,^[66] the receipt for which a friend of his Grace brought from Switzerland; into which country it had been probably introduced by the early medical writers, who had transcribed its virtues from the Greek volumes soon after their arrival into the western parts of Europe. The active ingredient of a no less celebrated remedy for the same disease, the Eau Medicinale,^[67] has been discovered to be the Colchicum Autumnale or Meadow Saffron; upon investigating the properties of this medicine, it was observed that similar effects in the cure of the gout were ascribed to a certain plant, called Hermodactyllus^[68] by Oribasius and Ætius, but more particularly by Alexander of Tralles,^[69] a physician of Asia Minor in the fourth century; an inquiry was accordingly instituted after this unknown plant, and upon procuring a specimen of it from Constantinople, it was actually found to be a species of Colchicum.

The use of Prussic acid in the cure of Phthisis, which has been lately proposed by Dr. Majendie, and introduced into the Codex Medicamentarius of Paris, is little else than the revival of the Dutch practice in this complaint; for Linnæus informs us, in the fourth volume of his “Amænitates Academicæ,” that distilled Laurel water was frequently used in Holland for the cure of pulmonary consumption.

The celebrated fever powder of Dr. James was evidently not his original composition, but an Italian nostrum invented by a person of the name of Lisle, a receipt for the preparation of which is to be found at length in Colborne’s Complete English Dispensatory for the year 1756.

The various secret preparations of Opium, which have been extolled as the invention of modern times, may be recognized in the works of ancient authors; for instance, Wedelius in his Opiologia describes an acetic solution; and the Magisterium of Ludovicus, as noticed by Etmuller, was a preparation made by dissolving Opium in vinegar, and precipitating with Salt of Tartar;^[70] Van Helmont recommends a preparation, similar to the black drop, under the title of Laudanum Cydoniatum: then again we have Langelott’s Laudanum, and Le Mort’s “Extract out of Rain water,” preparations which owe their mildness to the abstraction of the resinous element of opium.

The works of Glauber contain accounts of many discoveries that have been claimed by the chemists of our own day; he recommends the use of muriatic acid in sea scurvy, and describes an apparatus for its preparation exactly similar to that which has been extolled as the invention of Wolff; he also notices the production of Pyro-acetic Acid, under the title of “Vinegar of Wood,” so that the fact of the identity of this acid and Vinegar, so lately announced by Vauquelin as a New Discovery, was evidently known to Glauber nearly two centuries ago.

We have within the last few years heard much of the efficacy of Henbane fumigations in the tooth-ache, an application which may be easily shewn to be the revival only of a very ancient practice.^[71]

But while we might thus proceed to annul many other claims for originality, we ought not to close our eyes to the fallacies to which such investigations are peculiarly exposed. Nothing is more easy than to invest the doubtful sentence of an obscure author with an interpretation best adapted for the support of a favourite theory, and instances might be adduced where the medical antiquarian^[72] has by violence and distortion forced the most contradictory passages into his service; treating, in short, the oracles of Physic just as Lord Peter treated his father’s will in the Tale of a Tub,—determined to discover the word “Shoulder Knots,” he picks it out, letter by letter, and is even at last obliged to substitute C for K in the orthography.

Nor has Fashion confined her baneful interference to the selection of remedies; she has ventured even to decide upon the nature of Diseases, and to change and modify their appellations according to the whim and caprice by which she is governed. The Princess, afterwards Queen Anne, was subject to Hypochondriacal attacks, which her Physicians pronounced to be Spleen, Vapours, or Hyp, and recommended Rawleigh’s Confection, and Pearl Cordial, for its cure: this circumstance was sufficient to render both the Disease and Remedy fashionable; no other complaint was ever heard of in the precincts of the court but that of the Vapours, nor any medicine esteemed but that of Rawleigh. Some years afterwards, in consequence of Dr. Whytt’s publication on “Nervous diseases,” a lady of Fashion was pronounced to be Nervous—the term became general, and the disease fashionable; and Spleen, Vapours, and Hyp were consigned to oblivion: the reign of Nervous Diseases, however, did not long continue, for a popular work appeared on Biliary Concretions, and all the world became bilious. We have not patience to pursue the history of these follies; a transient glance at the ephemeral productions of the last twenty years would furnish a sad display of the versatility of medical opinions, and of the instability of the practice which has been founded upon them: and they will no doubt furnish the future historian with strong and forcible illustrations.