26

TIC DOULOUREUX.

simply because they think proper no longer to pay for his "infallible pill." It can only be accounted for by supposing the desperation of offended pride and dwindling fees. What less pricking motives could bring you to place under the category of fool and gull, so well tried and approved a soldier and statesman as Lord Anglesey?* so amiable, elegant, and accomplished a nobleman as the Marquis of T————? such an individual as Lady V, whose observations in her travels recently published, are far from bearing the stamp of credulity or gullibility? such a man as the learned and pious Dr. M- and his reverend son-in-law?

* I have so many inquiries by letter, and otherwise, about the Noble Marquis, and there are so many false reports, that I cannot resist this opportunity of gratifying the wishes of many of my readers, who, no doubt, as well as yourself, learned drug-doctor, will be delighted to learn that Lord Anglesey is daily improving in health and strength. After the first day he passed at Malvern, the formidable tic has not broken out, and he does me the honour to say "that the Water-cure has already done for him what drugs of all kinds, and in all shapes, have for the last twenty-five years totally failed in doing." The noble lord is also pleased to say, that "He wonders how any one can call the mode of treatment disagreeable; for his part, he thinks it positively agreeable, and shall be almost sorry when it is terminated."

PRACTISERS OF MUMMERY.

27

such a shrewd old soldier as General L'Estrange? &c. &c. &c., and above three hundred more of intelligence, worth, and rank, who have been or now are my patients-patients who can speak of the Water-cure as the only remedy for evils which your druggery has either begotten or fostered into intolerable growth. Gullibility! passing over the elegance of the term as uttered by a member of an honourable and gentlemanlike calling, what right have you to apply it to those I have mentioned, whom, had they fallen into the hands of a mere drug-doctor, every attempt would have been made to mystify with stale technicalities and mouthy no-meanings? Ill, very ill, does the accusation of deception come from such practisers of mummery, against myself, who tell all the world in plain English what my remedy is, and inform and show all MEDICAL MEN, who have the vove to inquire, how it is employed. But, as I said before, the desperation of curtailed fees and shorn honours is the only motive explanatory of such impudence.

Alas for me! that I should have made my resort at Malvern, at the foot of England's most pleasant hills! What avails it that there the air -the pure, invigorating mountain air-is the

28

MALVERN TOO NEAR TO WORCESTER.

best adapted for the Water-cure? It is too near to Worcester, and to the " Physician to the Worcester Infirmary." What avails it that there the water is most limpid, most sparkling, and most sweet, and therefore the best adapted to carry out the Water-cure in all its efficacy? It is too near to Worcester, wherein dwelleth the man of drugs. What avails it that summer or winterin the latter more even than in the former,-the wondrous effects of the Water-cure can be produced, and the quondam season of Malvern, which comprised three short months, is made to extend the year round, peopling what was deserted for nine months of that year? Still it is too near to Worcester-and to you.

Yes; hinc ille lachrymæ! My crime is my proximity to you. Had it pleased Heaven to rain all good things upon me, "you had been happy, so you had nothing known." Had it pleased me to slay, like another Herod, all the children of a village one hundred miles or more from Worcester, not from you would then have been a whisper about crying and a tub of water," not a breathed allusion to "coroner's inquests." But how was I, unsophisticated, unsuspecting I, to guess that in coming hither I was

66

INVETERACY OF BAD PRACTICE.

29

I

coming into the neighbourhood of so much "envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness?" fondly dreamed of a life of tranquillity and peace, and that the renowned physician of Worcester would have seized the opportunity of adding to his knowledge by taking the trouble to investigate a novel mode of medical treatment, and, if need were, to correct his antiquated system. I should have known better. I should have known how "few and far between" are the minds that can rise above prejudice, or unlearn what is palpably erroneous. I should have known how strongly the roots of prejudice and error are sunk into and twined around the brains which minister to the operations of such minds. The mistake is the more unpardonable in me as in my work on the Water-cure* I had instanced the INVETERACY of bad practice in the hospital to which the late SIR ASTLEY COOPER was attached, and against which that great man-quite as great a man as you, doctor-had for a length of time inveighed in private but in vain, until publicly and loudly he stigmatized as infamous and disgraceful, the use of that deleterious drug, MERCURY, which you administered as unnecessarily to the child whose * See page 15 of the "Water-cure."

case you have made the stalking-horse for an attack on the Water-cure, and on me, and an outlet for your injured pride and pocket.

But to return. Here am I at Malvern-not for my sins, but for the success of the Watercure. For, doctor, there is something in this mountain air that certainly aids the mountain water. PRIESNITZ himself said to me, "Man muss Gebirge haben,"-mountain air is necessary for the full development of the Water-cure. He works his cures at the foot of the Sudites, and, with your gracious permission, I purpose to go on working a few at the foot of these hills. But perhaps you despise the opinion of the Austrian peasant who superseded the use of drugs. Well; if you will look into one of the organs of the drug-doctors, "The British and Foreign Medical Quarterly,"* you will find the self-sufficient reviewer there similarly testifying to the necessity of mountain air in the Water-cure. What can I do? When water-doctors and drug-doctors agree on this point, I must be right to act upon it. So here I am at Malvern, and here I intend to remain:-though it be so near to Worcester.

As a neighbour I will take upon myself to give *For October, 1842.