I think more of this little implement on account of its agency in saving the Colony at Plymouth in the year 1623.  Edward Winslow heard that Massasoit was sick and like to die.  He found him with a houseful of people about him, women rubbing his arms and legs, and friends “making such a hellish noise” as they probably thought would scare away the devil of sickness.  Winslow gave him some conserve, washed his mouth, scraped his tongue, which was in a horrid state, got down some drink, made him some broth, dosed him with an infusion of strawberry leaves and sassafras root, and had the satisfaction of seeing him rapidly recover.  Massasoit, full of gratitude, revealed the plot which had been formed to destroy the colonists, whereupon the Governor ordered Captain Miles Standish to see to them; who thereupon, as everybody remembers, stabbed Pecksuot with his own knife, broke up the plot, saved the colony, and thus rendered Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Medical Society a possibility, as they now are a fact before us.  So much for this parenthesis of the tongue-scraper, which helped to save the young colony from a much more serious scrape, and may save the Union yet, if a Presidential candidate should happen to be taken sick as Massasoit was, and his tongue wanted cleaning,—­which process would not hurt a good many politicians, with or without a typhoid fever.

Again, see how the “bilious” theory works in every-day life here and now, illustrated by a case from actual life.  A youthful practitioner, whose last molars have not been a great while cut, meets an experienced and noted physician in consultation.  This is the case.  A slender, lymphatic young woman is suckling two lusty twins, the intervals of suction being occupied on her part with palpitations, headaches, giddiness, throbbing in the head, and various nervous symptoms, her cheeks meantime getting bloodless, and her strength running away in company with her milk.  The old experienced physician, seeing the yellowish waxy look which is common in anaemic patients, considers it a “bilious” case, and is for giving a rousing emetic.  Of course, he has to be wheedled out of this, a recipe is written for beefsteaks and porter, the twins are ignominiously expelled from the anaemic bosom, and forced to take prematurely to the bottle, and this prolific mother is saved for future usefulness in the line of maternity.

The practice of making a profit on the medicine ordered has been held up to reprobation by one at least of the orators who have preceded me.  That the effect of this has been ruinous in English practice I cannot doubt, and that in this country the standard of practice was in former generations lowered through the same agency is not unlikely.  I have seen an old account-book in which the physician charged an extra price for gilding his rich patients’ pills.  If all medicine were very costly, and the expense of it always came out of the physician’s fee, it would really