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
John, the second, for the composition of which we must apply to his
respected descendant.

The authors I find quoted are Barbette's Surgery, Camerarius on Gout,
and Wecherus, of all whom notices may be found in the pages of Haller
and Vanderlinden; also, Reed's Surgery, and Nicholas Culpeper's
Practice of Physic and Anatomy, the last as belonging to Samuel Seabury,
chirurgeon, before mentioned. Nicholas Culpeper was a shrewd charlatan,
and as impudent a varlet as ever prescribed for a colic; but knew very
well what he was about, and badgers the College with great vigor. A copy
of Spigelius's famous Anatomy, in the Boston Athenaeum, has the names
of Increase and Samuel Mather written in it, and was doubtless early
overhauled by the youthful Cotton, who refers to the great anatomist's
singular death, among his curious stories in the "Magnalia," and quotes
him among nearly a hundred authors whom he cites in his manuscript
"The Angel of Bethesda." Dr. John Clark's "books and instruments,
with several chirurgery materials in the closet," a were valued in his
inventory at sixty pounds; Dr. Matthew Fuller, who died in 1678, left a
library valued at ten pounds; and a surgeon's chest and drugs valued at
sixteen pounds.'

Here we leave the first century and all attempts at any further detailed
accounts of medicine and its practitioners. It is necessary to show in a
brief glance what had been going on in Europe during the latter part of
that century, the first quarter of which had been made illustrious in
the history of medical science by the discovery of the circulation.

Charles Barbeyrac, a Protestant in his religion, was a practitioner
and t