carries a cane, but a hat never. It is indeed very remarkable, that this extraordinary personage should never wear a hat, but so it is, he never wears a hat. He is usually drawn at the top of his own bills, sitting in his arm-chair, holding a little bottle between his finger and thumb, and surrounded with rotten teeth, nippers, pills, packets, and gally-pots. No man can promise fairer nor better than he; for, as he observes, "Be your disorder never so far gone, be under no uneasiness, make yourself quite easy; I can cure you.”

The next in fame, though by some reckoned of equal pretensions, is Doctor Timothy Franks, F. O. G. H., living in a place called the Old Bailey. As Rock is remarkably squab, his great rival Franks is remarkably tall. He was born in the year of the christian era 1692, and is, while I now write, exactly sixty-eight years, three months, and four days old. Age, however, has no way impaired his usual health and vivacity: I am told, he generally walks with his breast This gentleman, who is of a mixed reputation, is particularly remarkable for a becoming assurance, which carries him gently through life; for, except Doctor Rock, none are more blest with the advantages of face than Doctor Franks.

open.

:

And yet the great have their foibles as well as the little. I am almost ashamed to mention it let the foibles of the great rest in peace. Yet I must impart the whole to my friend. These two great men are actually now at variance : yes, my dear Fum Hoam, by the head of our grandfather, they are now at variance like mere men, mere common mortals. The champion Rock advises the world to beware of bog-trotting quacks, while Franks retorts the wit and the sarcasm (for they have both a world of wit) by fixing on his rival the odious appellation of Dumplin Dick.(1) He calls

(1) [The contentions of these irregulars in medicine for employment occasionally furnished the public with amusement; and first, probably, drew

Head of Con

What a pity,

the serious Doctor Rock, Dumplin Dick! fucius, what profanation! Dumplin Dick ! ye powers, that the learned, who were born mutually to assist in enlightening the world, should thus differ among themselves, and make even the profession ridiculous! Sure the world is wide enough, at least, for two great personages to figure in: men of science should leave controversy to the little world below them; and then we might see Rock and Franks walking together hand-in-hand, smiling onward to immortality.

Not

Next to these is Doctor Walker, preparator of his own medicines. This gentleman is remarkable for an aversion to quacks; frequently cautioning the public to be careful into what hands they commit their safety; by which he would insinuate, that if they do not employ him alone, they must be undone. His public spirit is equal to his success. for himself, but his country, is the gally-pot prepared, and the drops sealed up with proper directions, for any part of the town or country. All this is for his country's good: so that he is now grown old in the practice of physic and virtue; and, to use his own elegance of expression, "There is not such another medicine as his in the world again."

This, my friend, is a formidable triumvirate; and yet, formidable as they are, I am resolved to defend the honour of Chinese physic against them all. I have made a vow to summon Doctor Rock to a solemn disputation in all the mysteries of the profession, before the face of every philo

the attention of Goldsmith as subjects for an essay. In the journals of the time Franks advertised in bills against Rock: "Be not Rocked into eternity by that vain and impudent pretender Dumpling Dick, who still lives at the gate of the inn where he was once porter." To which Rock rejoined: "If you would avoid destruction, avoid the Old Bailey; for there lives an old soldier discharged by the beat of drum, who has killed his thousands, but not in battle; his pills are much more fatal than were his bullets."]

math, student in astrology, and member of the learned societies. I adhere to, and venerate the doctrines of old Wang-shu-ho. In the very teeth of opposition I will maintain, "That the heart is the son of the liver, which has the kidneys for its mother, and the stomach for its wife. (1) I have, therefore, drawn up a disputation challenge, which is to be sent speedily, to this effect :

"I, Lien Chi Altangi, D. N. R. H. native of Honan in China, to Richard Rock, F. U. N., native of Garbagealley, in Wapping, defiance. Though, Sir, I am perfectly sensible of your importance, though no stranger to your studies in the path of nature, yet there may be many things in the art of physic with which you are yet unacquainted. I know full well a doctor thou art, great Rock, and so am I. Wherefore, I challenge, and do hereby invite you to a trial of learning upon hard problems, and knotty physical points. In this debate, we will calmly investigate the whole theory and practice of medicine, botany, and chemistry; and I invite all the philomaths, with many of the lecturers in medicine, to be present at the dispute: which, I hope, will be carried on with due decorum, with proper gravity, and as befits men of erudition and science, among each other. But before we meet face to face, I would thus publicly, and in the face of the whole world, desire you to answer me one

(1) See Du Halde, vol. ii. p. 185.—[“ A physician,” says Mr. Davis," whom Dr. Abel saw at Canton, was entirely destitute of anatomical knowledge. He appeared to be aware that there were such viscera as the heart, lungs, and liver, but had no notion of their real situation, or, like the Mock Doctor in Molière, placed them on the wrong sides of the body. The Chinese do not even know the distinction between arteries and veins, and not a syllable of the function of the lungs in oxygenizing the blood, and getting rid of its superfluous carbon. Of the existence of certain sympathies between the different viscera, and of derangement being communicated to one by the disorders of another, they might seem to have some glimmering, and to express it strangely by calling the heart the husband,' and the lungs the wife,' &c."- Chinese, vol. ii. p. 284.]

6

question; I ask it with the same earnestness with which you have often solicited the public; answer me, I say, at once, without having recourse to your physical dictionary, which of those three disorders, incident to the human body, is the most fatal, the syncope, parenthesis, or apoplexy? I beg your reply may be as public as this my demand."(1) I am, as hereafter may be, your admirer, or your rival. Adieu.

LETTER LXIX.

THE FEAR OF MAD DOGS RIDICULED. (2)

To the Same.

Indulgent nature seems to have exempted this island from many of those epidemic evils which are so fatal in other parts of the world. A want of rain but for a few days beyond the expected season in China, spreads famine, desolation, and terror, over the whole country: the winds that blow from the brown bosom of the western desert are impregnated with death in every gale; but, in this fortunate land of Britain, the inhabitant courts health in every breeze, and the husbandman ever sows in joyful expectation.

But though the nation be exempt from real evils, think not, my friend, that it is more happy on this account than others. They are afflicted, it is true, with neither famine nor pestilence, but then there is a disorder peculiar to the country, which every season makes strange ravages among them; it spreads with pestilential rapidity, and infects almost every rank of people; what is still more strange, the natives have no name for this peculiar malady, though

(1) The day after this was published the editor received an answer, in which the Doctor seems to be of opinion, that the apoplexy is most fatal. (2) [Reprinted in the Essays, 1765.]

well known to foreign physicians by the appellation of epidemic terror.

A season is never known to pass in which the people are not visited by this cruel calamity in one shape or another, seemingly different though ever the same: one year it issues from a baker's shop in the shape of a sixpenny loaf; the next, it takes the appearance of a comet with a fiery tail; a third, it threatens like a flat-bottomed boat; and a fourth, it carries consternation at the bite of a mad dog. The people, when once infected, lose their relish for happiness, saunter about with looks of despondence, ask after the calamities of the day, and receive no comfort but in heightening each other's distress. It is insignificant how remote or near, how weak or powerful the object of terror may be, when once they resolve to fright and be frighted; the merest trifles sow consternation and dismay; each proportions his fears, not to the object, but to the dread he discovers in the countenance of others; for when once the fermentation is begun, it goes on of itself, though the original cause be discontinued which first set it in motion.

A dread of mad dogs is the epidemic terror which now prevails; and the whole nation is at present actually groaning under the malignity of its influence. The people sally from their houses with that circumspection which is prudent in such as expect a mad dog at every turning. The physician publishes his prescription, the beadle prepares his halter, and a few of unusual bravery arm themselves with boots and buff gloves, in order to face the enemy if he should offer to attack them. In short, the whole people stand bravely upon their defence, and seem, by their present spirit, to shew a resolution of not being tamely bit by mad dogs any longer.

Their manner of knowing whether a dog be mad or no, somewhat resembles the ancient European custom of trying