History of medicine in Massachusetts : a centennial address delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society at Cambridge, June 7, 1881.

  • Samuel Abbott Green
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of medicine in Massachusetts : a centennial address delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society at Cambridge, June 7, 1881. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    Dr. George Emeiy, a Salem physician of unsa- vory reputation, in Kovember, 1G57, was fined forty shillings for changing a bottle of water of Goody Laskin, & respitted untill next Court & to be remitted if he sliall acknowledge he did euill in it. or not well iu soe doing & ffees Court 30V—(Essex County Records, Salem Court.) John Josselyn, an Englishman, came to this country in the summer of 1663, and afterward wrote a book, which was entitled ^^New Englands EARITIES Discovered : m Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Serpents, and Plants of that Country. Together with the The Physical and Ghyrurgical Reme- dies wherewith the Natims constantly use to Cure their Distempers, Wolt]st)S, and Sores. It was pubHshed at London in the year 1672, and con- tains a large number of homely remedies to be found in the fau7ia and. flora of the country. The foUowins; morsels of medical wisdom are taken from diflerent parts of it :— Picking the gums with the bill of an osprey is good for the tooth-ache; Bear's grease is good for aches and cold swellings; Beaver's cods are much used for wind in the stomach and belly, particularly of pregnant women; Moose horns are much better for physick, than the horns of other deer; A stone found in the head of the cod-fish, when pulverized, stops fluxes of blood, and one found in their bellies is a remedy for the stone in the blad- der ; Scarifying the gums with a thorn from the dog-fish's back cures tooth-ache; The heart of a rattle-snake is an antidote to its bite ; Burning spuuck, an excresence growing out of black birch, in two or three places on the thigh of a patient, helps sci- atica; Watermelon is often given to those sick of fevers, and other hot diseases, with good success. Much dependence used to be placed, as I have already said, on the use of roots and herbs ; and the various kinds thought to possess healing prop-
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