TO
THE CHYMISTS AND DRUGGISTS.
It will create no surprise that you bring up the rear of this medical exhibition, when it is remembered that the most opulent, eminent, or respectable, generally close every public procession.—You are to the faculty, what the hammerman is to the forge; you are in fact the arterial reservoir, from whose source flow the rich streams, that feed the venal divisions in every branch of the profession, whether in town or country. To the fertility of your genius, to the extent of your commerce, to the enterprising spirit of your pecuniary embarkations, the faculty are indebted for the great variety and striking novelties, that render them so much the subjects of admiration.
You happily derive your affluence from dealing innocently around you the various instruments of death, with an indifference that sufficiently exculpates you from the suspicion of murder, even as accessaries before the fact.—Your constant, and extensive inventions (for the promotion of private emolument and public good) rank you high in general estimation, and you prudently recommend yourselves to the attention of the most learned, by your very frequent and extraordinary discoveries.—Your advertisements (with which almost every literary vehicle teems) are alike calculated to excite wonder and approbation; they seem to indicate proofs, that you alone exceed the limits of human penetration, and display a hope of perpetual existence, by setting mortality at defiance; like a groupe of desperate hazard players, you are “at all in the ring,” and with a degree of emulative opposition to each other, produce from your alembics—bolt heads, and balneum arenæs, antidotes to every ill: the only ray of consolation to the less learned is, that death (often an unexpected visitor) opens the eyes of the world to the arts of your deception, and you slide into the grave with the calm and unobserved obscurity of your neighbours. The wonderful extent of your fertile abilities are constantly conveyed to public attention, through the pompous medium of “Letters Patent” and “Royal Authority,” that are at length become (from the higher arts) the fashionable introduction to a breeches ball; a tincture for the tooth ach; a blacking cake, or a gamboge horse ball.
While I lament this degradation, this prostitution of patronage, to such trifling, such contemptible efforts of sterility, I cannot but consider how gratefully, how extensively, you are bound to a credulous and indulgent public, who implicitly sanction with their patronage, every production of genius or dullness, whether in a philosophic taper, a concentrated acid of vinegar, or a salt of lemons; they are undoubtedly discoveries of immense magnitude to the public at large; and experience has sufficiently proved, that so much patriotic virtue should meet its own reward.
Notwithstanding the superiority and extent of your knowledge, so visibly displayed in the sublimity of your frequent experiments, that have raised you to such a great degree of professional eminence, there may yet be some profitable principles of practice, inculcated by a long and studious observer, that will evidently add to your emoluments, if not to the encrease of your reputations.
Your peculiar modesty may have prevented your attaining the utmost perfection of your art, and left you strangers to the very great and undiscovered advantages, that the privileges of your profession so singularly entitle you to; for though you may hitherto have reconciled yourselves to a paltry mechanical profit of thirty-five or forty per cent. what law forbids you making the “most of your market,” and enhancing those profits to such state, as may best accord with your idea and gratification of city eminence—rural ease—external appearance, and domestic hospitality? To insure these comforts to a certainty, accept such instructions, (as closely adhered to) will inevitably produce the purposes for which they are introduced.
Hitherto, a stranger to the happy effects of necessary adulteration, it may not be inapplicable to say a few words upon its numerous advantages; first, at your embarkation, you should adopt it as the ultimatum of all your professional views, and render it as subservient to your wishes, as the lover’s invariable observance of “persevere and conquer,” is to his. Adulteration has many pleasing advantages annexed to its practice; by the applicable introduction of an harmless ingredient, you may reduce the dangerous property of a drastic purgative, and render a powerful poison less destructive; by such acts you will enjoy the inexpressible consolation of hourly contributing to the safety of your fellow-creatures, in exertions of humanity, that will do you the greatest honour.
The prelude to the Pharmacopœia, sufficiently informs you, the College of Wigs are empowered by royal sanction to invent, or constitute forms, and the cabinet to enforce them; but your superior knowledge sets such arbitrary dictation at defiance, and your practical arts will ever supersede their theoretical penetration. Let them happily enjoy the power to alter names, and improve forms of all the compositions in that laughable farrago, their new dispensatory; they have the province to direct, and you have the pleasure to evade; obeying their injunctions no farther than is strictly consistent with your own interest and convenience. To assist the aptitude of your fertility, let me introduce to your attention (as specimens of what may be done) some few of the advantageous alterations that may be made in medicinal composition, to promote your certain emolument, without arraigning your integrity.
In that expensive preparation confectio cardiaca (newly named by college sagacity confectio aromatica) opportunity offers to display a part of your privilege in substituting the use of saffron paper, which will impart to the composition the rich colour of the original crocus; for those other high priced articles cardamoms, cinnamon, nutmegs, and cloves, applicable and proportional quantities of those cheaper (and equally efficacious) cordials and carminatives, ginger, grains of paradise, or any of the inferior spices may be added. In large preparations of the electarium lenitivum, an introduction of the pulp of prunes for the pulp of cassia, will save much additional expence and trouble.—In the syrupus e spina cervina, treacle is certainly preferable to the finest lump sugar, with this advantage, that the predominant nausea will prevent the discovery.
Experience will convince you that spiritus c. c. (per se) obtained by distillation from the accumulated stale urine of a parish workhouse, or the bones of animals, will be by far preferable to that drawn from the purest cornu cervi; as are the rasura c. c. from the shank bones of horses, or cows, preferable to all other.—Sp. terebinthinæ (carefully and proportionally incorporated) becomes an admirable associate with the ol. juniperi.—Ol. amygdalinum (and many other articles blended secundum artem) form an excellent combination with, and increase the stock of ol. anisi verum.—Genuine gum guaiacum—galbanum—storax, and bals. tolutanum, may undergo the process of purification much better, if impregnated with the occasional assistance of either the resina nigra, or flava.—The various unguents will derive advantage from the salutary introduction of auxungiæ porcincæ, as a substitute for those more expensive and unnecessary articles cera flava and ol. olivarum.
Pulv. anisi verum will be much more easily reduced from the cakes, after the seed has been expressed, the oil obtained, and their medical virtue entirely extracted; it is an article only in use for horses and cows; whether they are killed or cured, is an object not worthy your consideration. Liquorice, fenugreek, diapente, turmeric, and elecampane, are to receive their basis from horse beans ground (at the medical mills) exceedingly fine, and to be impregnated properly with the different articles from which they derive their names, so as to retain each their predominant effluvia; and as these are articles in use for cattle only, you will give proof of your humanity, by drenching them with food instead of physic. The species hiera will be much more certain in its effects, if prepared with the Barbadoes, instead of the Succotrine aloes; and the true Dutch biscuit powder, will form no unprofitable union with the powder of Salop. In fact, innumerable instances of professional skill and œconomy might be introduced, extending instructions to a much greater length than originally intended; protracting the explanatory parts beyond the limits of utility, an accusation it has been my principal care to avoid.
It may perhaps be almost unnecessary to remind you, how absolutely needful it will be, to reduce to impalpable pulverization and complicated forms, all inferior and damaged drugs of every denomination; in powders, tinctures, electuaries, and other preparations, their defects will not be perceptible, and it will prove matter of no small gratification to you, that many practitioners are very inferior judges of the compositions they constantly prescribe; to these may be added the still greater number, that never condescend to undergo the task of inspection, forming together a major part of the very numerous and respectable body I have undertaken to instruct.—If you are a dispenser of chemicals and galenicals by retail, one additional observation will prove worthy your attention—never let your shop, or dispensary, get into disrepute by too much modesty, in saying you are without the most obsolete or ridiculous article that can be enquired for; if oil of swallows, oil of bricks, lobsters’ blood, or milk of lilies, should be the objects in request, let the fertility of your invention instantly furnish a substitute for either; of these, such a great variety are always to be found, the least enumeration becomes unnecessary.
The series of instructions advanced for the promotion of professional interest, have been promulgated without a fear of offence, or hope of reward; amidst the very great number of different practitioners, into whose hands these admonitions must inevitably fall, happy he who can exultingly exclaim,
“Let the gall’d jade wince, our withers are unwrung.”
From the physician, who lingers out a life of studious suspense, and derives a scanty subsistence from the alternate labour of morning visits and evening lectures—from that dignified “member of the corporation,” whole mercurial abilities are thrust into the hand of every dirty passenger, in the more dirty avenues of the metropolis—from that industrious accoucher, whose incessant nocturnal labour renders him, in common life, little superior to the nightman, and that equal drudge the metropolitan pharmacopolist, I can have little to expect but universal denunciation of vengeance, and threats of malevolence: to the effect of these, I oppose the stability of truth, that will render me invulnerable to all their attacks.
A steady observance of the iniquity of medical practice has long since powerfully convinced me of the absolute necessity of professional reformation, and should I (by arming the public with a weapon of self-defence) succeed in producing a change in the systematic imposition of one, and preventing perpetual depredation upon the other, every idea of personal ambition will be fully gratified, for
But this obscurity in the present instance is much more anxiously to be hoped than expected, for there cannot be the least doubt entertained but some one of his Majesty’s ministers (who are ever anxious for the public good and increase of revenue) will, through the medium of the publisher, discover the joint secret of name and residence, that by placing the author in the TREASURY, CUSTOMS, or some office equally lucrative, they may avail themselves of his INTEGRITY, not hesitating a moment to believe, that so just an investigator of professional impositions upon individuals, must unavoidably render the STATE adequate service, in the discovery of official depredations upon the PUBLIC.
FINIS.