as a skilful physician," says
Mr. Sewall, in his funeral sermon; "and generously gave, not only his
advice, but also his Medicines, for the healing of the Sick, which, by
the Blessing of God, were made successful for the recovery of many."
"His son John, a member of the Royal Society, speaks of himself as 'Dr.
Winthrop,' and mentions one of his own prescriptions in a letter to
Cotton Mather." Our President tells me that there was an heirloom of the
ancient skill in his family, within his own remembrance, in the form of
a certain precious eye-water, to which the late President John Quincy
Adams ascribed rare virtue, and which he used to obtain from the
possessor of the ancient recipe.

These inherited prescriptions are often treasured in families, I do
not doubt, for many generations. When I was yet of trivial age, and
suffering occasionally, as many children do, from what one of my
Cambridgeport schoolmates used to call the "ager,"--meaning thereby
toothache or face-ache,--I used to get relief from a certain plaster
which never went by any other name in the family than "Dr. Oliver."

Dr. James Oliver was my great-great-grandfather, graduated in 1680, and
died in 1703. This was, no doubt, one of his nostrums; for nostrum,
as is well known, means nothing more than our own or my own particular
medicine, or other possession or secret, and physicians in old times
used to keep their choice recipes to themselves a good deal, as we have
had occasion to see.

Some years ago I found among my old books a small manuscript marked
"James Oliver. This Book Begun Aug. 12, 1685." It is a rough sort of
account-book, containing among other things prescriptions for patients,
and charges for the same, with counter-charges for the purchase of
medicines and other matters. Dr. Oliver practised in Cambridge, where
may be seen his tomb with inscriptions, and with sculptured figures that
look more like Diana of the Ephesians, as given in Calmet's Dictionary,
than like any angels admitted into good society here or elsewhere.

I do not find any particular record of what his patients suffered from,
but I have carefully copied out the remedies he mentions, and find
that they form a very respectable catalogue. Besides the usual simples,
elder, parsley, fennel, saffron, snake-root, wormwood, I find the Elixir
Proprietatis, with other elixire and cordials, as if he rather fancied
warming medicines; but he called in the aid of some of the more
energe