A lecture on quack medicines / [Thomas G. Wright].

  • Thomas Giordani Wright
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on quack medicines / [Thomas G. Wright]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    charm, also to be worn round the neck, which I here ex¬ hibit — the Abracadabra, and which I shall be happy to present to any one suffering from that disease, as a much more agreeable mode of cure than taking physic.* Paracelsus, of whom some of you may have heard as a celebrated physician of the 16th century, was as arrant a charlatan as any of the St. John Longs or Morisons of our own days. He was a Swiss by birth, and travelled over France, Italy and Germany, glorying in the lofty title of Philippus Aureolas Theophrastus Paracelsus Bom- bastus de Hohenheim ; practised all manner of absurdities along with a daring and reckless treatment of disease; effected some remarkable cures, which were blazoned forth with a halo of falsehood and exaggeration, well imitated in many of our modem advertisements ; and thus gained for himself a vast repute for skill and wisdom. He pretended to have discovered the Elixir Vitae, a universal medicine for the preservation of health, the perpetuation of youth and the indefinite prolongation of life, which, along with * This very amulet, and several others of like import, were employed, we are told, by the despairing victims of the Great Plague in London in 1664^6.
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