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176 a physician's memoranda.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
« When Lord Chief Justice Holt Was A You...
when he was on circuit in 1709 , as one of the judges of the Court of King ' s Benchan old woman was charged "before him with
witchcraftand she - , was stated to use a certain powerful spell in the erform , ance of her rites . Chief Justice Holt asked for this charm
which p proved to be a dirty ball , made up of rags and containing * the , identical iece of parchment with which he had cured the girl of
ague , many p years previously . It is scarcely necessary to add , that his lordship confessed his youthful escapade , and gave such evidence
as fully exculpated the poor woman of all transactions with the world of spirits . useful reflections demono
This anecdote might suggest many on - logy , the march of civilization , electro-biology , and what not . I havehoweveronly culled it from an interesting book on allied
, , subjects * ' in order to introduce a few words on ague , or intermittent feverin the first instanceand thus to lead on to another point
which , more directly interests , all of us at the present time . Now the ague , which Chief Justice Holt cured so marvellously ,
was in his time much more prevalent throughout England , and in the metropolis as well , than it is at the present day . Months have
sometimes elapsed without a single case coming under the physician ' s noticethough hundreds of patients may have passed under his eye .
, I may , however , state by the way , that from whatever cause , during the last two years I have seen more cases in the west-end of London ,
than almost during my whole previous practice . But who hears of whole districts prostrated by intermittent fever , as we still see in
India and other parts of the world ? It has certainly not been the universal employment of amulets or charms to which we owe our
present comparative immunity from intermittents . We no longer fear that the Head of the State may succumb to ague caught in
London , as did James I . and Oliver Cromwell , because we know by the experience of the last fifty years , that ague is expelled by
improved drainage and cultivation of the land . As it is in our power to get rid of this great and insidious enemy , so , conversely ,
our apathy and neglect of sanitary laws may enable him to take possession of large tracts of country and drive out man from his
heritage . The Pontine Marshes or the Marenime are a perpetual warning- to usthat fertile fields and prolific meadows may be
converted into , pestiferous hotbeds of malaria by neglecting the divine ordinance that man is to subdue the earth .
Nothing serves to impress laws or doctrines more forcibly upon the memory , than illustrative facts ; but although we have on all
sides signs and proofs that by attendance to sanitary laws we are able , if not to annihilate disease , still to diminish its ravages and
increase the value of life to an extent much greater than has already been achieved , the majority of even our educated classes
Medicine * Petti . " grew ' _g " Superstitions connected with the History and Practice of
176 A Physician's Memoranda.
176 a physician ' s memoranda .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1862, page 176, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051862/page/32/
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