Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.
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and ignorant masses. See how all the packages are arranged alphabetically, and even the alliterative titles thereon are seducing. Behold ! " JEsculapian Asthmatic Antidote, Boerhaave's Bilious Bitters, Celsus' Consumptive Cure, Dioscorides' Diarrhoea Destroyer, Eustachius' Empyema Eradicator, Fallopius' Famous Febrifuge, Galen's Genuine Germicide, Hipprocates' Hemorrhoid Healer, "And other three-worded titles, too numerous to men- tion. Gaze at the four-lettered symbols, on the other side of the room : " Nostradamus' Natural Neurotic Nervine, Orbasius' Original Ovule Obstruent, Paracelsus' Patent Persuading Pills, Quesnoy's Quick Quinsy Quieter, "And the five-worded enigmas : " Rhazes' Remarkable Rheumatic Resolvent Remedy, Sydenham's Superb Strong Scrofula Specific. " Note the whole alphabet of six-lettered emblems, as for example: " Vesalius' Very Valuable Vaunted Volatile Vermifuge—" " Stop!" cried Paulus Androcydes, in a tone of despair. " It would take a year's time to read all these strangely constructed remedial names." " Yet these things are wonderfully interesting to an Egyptian of the first dynasty, as evidences of the growth of popular intelligence, and a proof that the human mind, though sceptical in regard to religion, hath an ever increasing faith in the marvels wrought by physic,', murmured Athothis. " In my day people did not take