John Locke, 1632-1704, physician and philosopher : a medical biography / with an edition of the medical notes in his journals.

  • Kenneth Dewhurst
Date:
1963
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: John Locke, 1632-1704, physician and philosopher : a medical biography / with an edition of the medical notes in his journals. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    117/374 page 89
    Wed. Oct. 14. Take three spoonfulls of best vinegar, xo grs. white pepper and 2 drachms of manna. Mix, cook and reduce by half. Let some drops of this liquor be poured into the rotten and acheing tooth and let it be repeated every hour up to three times. It removes the pain which never returns. Mr. Scawen. Q. Whether giving suck only 3 times a day as the Peruvians did, and making the nurse drinke only water, or feeding the child only with panada [boiled bread flavoured with sugar, etc.] will not cure the epilepsies J.L. Frid. Nov. 5. 1 Madnesse seemes to be noething but a disorder in the imagination, and not in the discursive faculty; for one shall find amongst the distract, those who phansy them selves kings, &c., who discourse and reason right enough upon the suppositions and wrong phansys they have taken. And any sober man may finde it in himself in twenty occasions, viz.—in a towne where he has not been long resident, let him come into a street that he is pretty well acquainted with at the contrary end to what he imagind, he will find all his reasonings about it soe out of order and so inconsistent with the truth, that should he enter into debate upon the situation of the houses, the turning on the right or left hand, &c., with one who knew the place perfectly, and had the right Ideas which way he was going, he would seem little better than frantique. This, I believe, most people may have observed to have happened to them selves, especially when they have been carried up and down in coaches, and perhaps may have found it some times difficult to set their thoughts right, and reforme the mistakes of their imagination. And I have known some who, upon the wrong impressions which were at first made upon their imaginations, could never tell which was north or south in Smithfield, though they were noe very ill geographers: and when by the sun and time of the day they were convinced of the position of that place, yet they could not tell how to reconcile it with other parts of the towne that were adjoining to it, but out of sight; and were very apt to relaps again, as soon as either the sun disappeard, or they were out of sight of the place, into the mistakes and confusion of their old Ideas. From whence one may see of what moment it is to take care that the first impressions we setle upon our minds be comformable to the truth and to the nature of things, or else all our meditations and discourse there upon will be noe thing but perfect raveing. 1 An entry dated 8 October shows that Locke had met François Bernier (1620-88) physician, traveller, and philosopher. He took his M.D. in Montpellier and then spent thirteen years travelling in the East. In 1670/1 Bernier published his Histoire de la Dernière Révolution des Etats du Grand-Mogol, which Locke read and made notes from during his stay in Montpellier. In 1678 he published his Abrégé de la Philosophie de Gassendi, which Locke also read with great interest (see Locke's Travels , ed. Lough, p. 177, and L. V. S. Reddy, Ann. Med. Hist. (1940), 3rd series, 2, 225-33. Dentium dolor p. 298 (Latin) Epilepsia p. 298 Madnesse pp.317-18
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