Free thoughts on quacks and their medicines, occasioned by the death of Dr. Goldsmith and Mr. Scawen; or, a candid ... inquiry into the merits and dangers imputed to advertised remedies ... To which is added some remarks on the nature, cause and remedy of the scurvy and gout. Also a plan of the dispensary for the poor, instituted in 1773 / [Francis Spilsbury].

  • Spilsbury, Francis, 1733?-1793.
Date:
1777
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Free thoughts on quacks and their medicines, occasioned by the death of Dr. Goldsmith and Mr. Scawen; or, a candid ... inquiry into the merits and dangers imputed to advertised remedies ... To which is added some remarks on the nature, cause and remedy of the scurvy and gout. Also a plan of the dispensary for the poor, instituted in 1773 / [Francis Spilsbury]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    medicine, by muttering up cuftomers on falfe and delulive aflertions, and at the expence, of courfe, of my veracity, my honour and my good name, I have always made it a point, when afked the quettion, whether or not I made ufe of * Mercury or Antimony in the compofition of my medicine, candidly to an- fwer in the affirmative, and to own that even both thefe ingredients had conjointly their {hare in it. And, now, I will go frill farther; for, I publicly proteft that, was I to be forbidden ever to employ them, or were they to be prohibited in this kingdom as once (to the everlafting credit -f of our antient faga- cioufnefs / * Mared ant’s drops, chiefly compofed of mercury ; Dr, Norris’s drops, antimonial; each of them are al¬ lowed to be good medicines. This laft, efpecially, feems to be very much like one of Bajil Valentine, which he de- fcribes in his Triumphant Chariot of Antimony* But, let it be whatever it will, Doftor Norris’s is, Imuft do it that juftice, a very fine, fafe, and pleafant medicine, made with fuperlatively rectified fpirit of wine : and, if luccefs- ful, which I doubt not, in fevers, it certainly has, in point of fafety, when adminiftered, the advantage of James's Powders, which are io often prefcribed by the faculty. f The credit of our wifdom and fagacioufnefs would, I am afraid, buffer a little from rantacking old records : fince we find that, no farther back than 1428, an aft of parliament was made againit the Hop, forbidding the ufe it in malt liquQrs, as a wicked weed; and that it never was 1