fessed to diagnose and
eradicate the virus of consumption. With many patients an inflammation
followed its application, which (according to the quack) discovered the
presence of disease, and which, after a plentiful crop of guineas had
been extracted, nature was allowed to heal: the patient was then
pronounced out of danger. With some persons the liniment was perfectly
innocuous, and when this was the case the patient was informed that no
disease need be feared. The secret of course lay in the fact that the
quack used two liniments, apparently identical, one of which only
contained the irritating medium. Many actually consumptive persons of
course consulted him; but when this was the case he refused his
assistance, on the ground that it had been invoked too late.

He carried the imposition, as might have been anticipated, once too far,
and, in the case of the beautiful and unfortunate Miss Cushin (a lady of
highly nervous temperament), maintained the inflammation for so long a
time that nature for once refused to assist him, and when Sir Benjamin
Brodie was summoned, mortification had already set in. The trial
resulted in a verdict of guilty, but the judge (Baron Parke), who summed
up scandalously in his favour, instead of sending the fellow to hard
labour, imposed a fine of L250, which was immediately paid.

Seymour alludes to this event in a pictorial satire, in which he shows
us St. John Long, with a vulture's head and beak, kneeling on the floor
of a dungeon with a bottle by his side labelled "lotion," and (beneath)
the words,--"Lost, L12,000 per annum, _medical practice_. Whoever will
restore the same to Mr. St. J. L--g, shall receive the benefit of his
advice."

Miss Cushin's death was quickly followed by another fatal case, that of
Mrs. Colin Campbell Lloyd, who also died from the effects of the
corrosive lotion, and St. John Long the following year was again put on
his trial for manslaughter; in this case the fellow was acquitted.
Seymour's prediction was not destined to be verified. The _soi-disant_
St. John Long, _alias_ O'Driscoll, in spite of these "mistakes," which
in our day would receive a harsher term, retained his large "practice"
to the last, and died--still a young man--of the very disease to which
he professed to be superior, thus conclusively proving better than
anything else could have done the utter impotency of his preparation.

Anstey (son of the once celebrated author of the "New Bath Guide"