And now once more, in humble station, Behold! great Haygarth and his corps2 23 And tollutate o'er turnpike path. They rode, but authors having not 24 HUDIBRAS, Canto ii. 24 Behold! great Haygarth and his corps. I here wish to give a concise sketch of the doctor's neeromantick process, so well calculated to give the tractors the kick out of Bath and Bristol, where they were rapidly making the most sacrilegious encroachments on the unpolluted shrine of our profession. I would recommend similar proceedings to every member of the college, and every worthy brother who is truly anxious to preserve the dignity and honour of the professional character. But would premise, that, when the like experiments are made, which, I trust, will be very generally by the whole profession, I would particularly recommend that the doctor's prudence, in not admitting any of the friends of the tractors at the scene of action, should be strictly imitated; and also his discretion in choosing, as subjects for the experiment, the ignorant and miserable paupers of an infirmary, whose credulity will assist very much in operations of this sort. I also enjoin them to bear in mind his hint, "That if any Enter the drear abodes of pain, Like death of old and horrid train! person would repeat the experiment with wooden tractors, it should be done with due solemnity; during the process, the wonderful cures said to be performed by the tractors, should be particularly related. Without these indispensa ble aids, other trials will not prove so successful as those which are here reported." Haygarth's book, page 4. It can scarcely be necessary for me to hint to my discreet brethren, in addition, that should they try the real tractors afterwards (which, however, I rather advise them not to do at all) the whole of these aids of the mind are to be as strictly avoided. I had like to have forgotten to say, that the means used in the instance which follows, to increase the solemnity of the scene, were a capital display of wigs, canes, stop-watches; and a still more solemn and terrifick spectacle, about a score of the brethren. The very commencement serves to show how "necessary" was all this display to ensure the success of these wooden tractors. "It was often necessary to play the part of a necromancer, to describe circles, squares, triangles, and half the figures in geometry, on the parts affected, with the small end of the (wooden) tractors. During all this time we conversed upon the discoveries of Franklin and Galvani, laying great stress on the power of metallick points attracting lightning, and conveying it to the earth harmless. To a more cu rious farce I was never witness. We were almost afraid to look each other in the face, lest an involuntary smile should remove the mask from our countenances, and dispel the charm." Haygarth's book, page 16. A very ingenious friend of Dr. H. and the glorious cause in which he is engaged, has conceived an improvement on this process. While the above operation is going He comes! he comes! good heaven defend us! With magick rites, and things tremendous ! on, surely, the adroit necromancer would handle his virgula divinitoria with far greater effect, and himself appear much more in character, by using a suitable incantation. The following has therefore been proposed for the general use of the profession. Hocus pocus! up and down! Draw the white right from the crown! Draw the brazen rod across! Hocus! pocus! down and up! Draw them both from foot to top! Lest you should not have sufficient ingenuity to comprehend the object of Dr. Haygarth, in producing these operations on the minds of those paupers, by the aid of such means as he employed, I must try to explain it. It was to induce an inference on the part of the publick, that if, by any means whatsoever, effects can be produced on the mind of a poor bedridden patient, whether such effect be favourable or unfavourable (as the latter was often the case in Haygarth's experiments) ergo, Perkins's tractors cure diseases by acting on the mind also, whether on a human or brute subject. Should any person be so uncivil and unreasonable as to start the objection to this logick, that with the same propriety all medicines might also be supposed to produce their effects by an action on the mind, I particularly advise (provided such person be a noted coward) that you challenge him or her to a duel: but if, on the contrary, he or she be a terrible Mac Namara-like fellow, modestly reply that it was all a joke, and you hope there was no offence. With such as serv'd the witch of Endor Now draws full many a magick circle; Now tells each trembling bed-rid zany How Franklin kept, to make folks wonder, Thus Shakspeare's Macbeth's wicked witches And now our tragi-comick actors Since doctor Haygarth, as we've stated, X Our college ought to canonize him; And there's a certain doctor Caldwell What right could he have to berate his O man of mineral putrefaction, 25 25 O man of mineral putrefaction. In the famous address to which we have before referred, we find a most remarkable discovery of the hero of our tale, relative to the origin of "stench,” which alone would entitle our doctor to be numbered amongst the most profound of all philosophers, and which we shall give the world in his own words. "It is too obvious to escape notice, that the stench arising from the hold of a ship proceeds from the putrefaction of substances which belong to all the three kingdoms of nature, vegetable, animal, and mineral!!" |