of James the First's time, in which a
goldsmith sold a hundred pounds' worth of what he called bezoar, which
was proved to be false, and the purchaser got a verdict against him.
Governor Endicott also sends Winthrop a unicorn's horn, which was the
property of a certain Mrs. Beggarly, who, in spite of her name, seems to
have been rich in medical knowledge and possessions. The famous Thomas
Bartholinus wrote a treatise on the virtues of this fabulous-sounding
remedy, which was published in 1641, and republished in 1678.

The "antimonial cup," a drinking vessel made of that metal, which, like
our quassia-wood cups, might be filled and emptied in saecula saeculorum
without exhausting its virtues, is mentioned by Matthew Cradock, in a
letter to the elder Winthrop, but in a doubtful way, as it was thought,
he says, to have shortened the days of Sir Nathaniel Riche; and Winthrop
himself, as I think, refers to its use, calling it simply "the cup." An
antimonial cup is included in the inventory of Samuel Seabury, who died
1680, and is valued at five shillings. There is a treatise entitled "The
Universall Remedy, or the Vertues of the Antimoniall Cup, By John Evans,
Minister and Preacher of God's Word, London, 1634," in our own Society's
library.

One other special remedy deserves notice, because of native growth. I do
not know when Culver's root, Leptandra Virginica of our National
Pharmacopoeia, became noted, but Cotton Mather, writing in 1716 to John
Winthrop of New London, speaks of it as famous for the cure of
consumptions, and wishes to get some of it, through his mediation, for
Katharine, his eldest daughter. He gets it, and gives it to the "poor
damsel," who is languishing, as he says, and who dies the next
month,--all the sooner, I have little doubt, for this uncertain and
violent drug, with which the meddlesome pedant tormented her in that
spirit of well-meant but restless quackery, which could touch nothing
without making mischief, not even a quotation, and yet proved at length
the means of bringing a great blessing to our community, as we shall see
by and by; so does Providence use our very vanities and infirmities for
its wise purposes.

Externally, I find the practitioners on whom I have chiefly relied used
the plasters of Paracelsus, of melilot, diachylon, and probably
diaphoenicon, all well known to the old pharmacopoeias, and some of them
to the modern ones,--to say nothing of "my yellow salve," of Governor
J