I have had the privilege of examining a manuscript of Cotton Mather's
relating to medicine, by the kindness of the librarian of the American
Antiquarian Society, to which society it belongs. A brief notice of this
curious document may prove not uninteresting.

It is entitled "The Angel of Bethesda: an Essay upon the Common Maladies
of Mankind, offering, first, the sentiments of Piety," etc., etc.,
and "a collection of plain but potent and Approved REMEDIES for the
Maladies." There are sixty-six "Capsula's," as he calls them, or
chapters, in his table of contents; of which, five--from the fifteenth
to the nineteenth, inclusive--are missing. This is a most unfortunate
loss, as the eighteenth capsula treated of agues, and we could have
learned from it something of their degree of frequency in this part of
New England. There is no date to the manuscript; which, however, refers
to a case observed Nov. 14, 1724.

The divine takes precedence of the physician in this extraordinary
production. He begins by preaching a sermon at his unfortunate patient.
Having thrown him into a cold sweat by his spiritual sudorific, he
attacks him with his material remedies, which are often quite as
unpalatable. The simple and cleanly practice of Sydenham, with whose
works he was acquainted, seems to have been thrown away upon him.
Everything he could find mentioned in the seventy or eighty authors he
cites, all that the old women of both sexes had ever told him of, gets
into his text, or squeezes itself into his margin.

Evolving disease out of sin, he hates it, one would say, as he hates its
cause, and would drive it out of the body with all noisome appliances.
"Sickness is in Fact Flagellum Dei pro peccatis mundi." So saying, he
encourages the young mother whose babe is wasting away upon her breast
with these reflections:

"Think; oh the grievous Effects of Sin! This wretched Infant has not
arrived unto years of sense enough, to sin after the similitude of the
transgression committed by Adam. Nevertheless the Transgression of Adam,
who had all mankind Foederally, yea, Naturally, in him, has involved
this Infant in the guilt of it. And the poison of the old serpent, which
infected Adam when he fell into his Transgression, by hearkening to the
Tempter, has corrupted all mankind, and is a seed unto such diseases as
this Infant is now laboring under. Lord, what are we, and what are our
children, but a Generation of Vipers?"

Many of his r