The following speech appeared in a comic 18th-century booklet called The Harangues or Speeches of Several Famous Mountebanks in Town or Country, which makes fun of high-profile medical salesmen by attributing to them wild claims about their remedies. Later editions (under the title The Harangues, or Speeches, of Several Celebrated Quack Doctors in Town and Country) included extra content such as Dr Rock’s speech, some satirical recipes for common ailments, and quack-related songs.

Henry Morley’s Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair (1859) refers to this ‘little undated book‘ as having appeared in around 1690. The earliest edition on ECCO is stated to be 1725, though the digitised title page has the date 1746 handwritten on it. Whatever the original date, it was popular enough to be reprinted several times during the first half of the 18^th century, and for components of it to be published separately as broadsides.

The speech could have some basis in fact – it is always possible someone took notes when Mr Jones was speaking at York – but it’s unlikely they would have been able to get it verbatim in the midst of an entertained audience, and even less likely that it wouldn’t get embellished for the purposes of humour. In January 1859, however, The Lancet took it literally, quoting a large proportion of the speech (as printed in Morley’s book) to show the similarities between the mountebanks of old and the spiritualists and homeopaths of their own day.

In contrast to the ‘quasi-scientific jargon‘ of modern quackery, ‘It gives a mental refreshment to turn to the laughable orations of the more honest mountebanks of bygone days.‘ Unfortunately, The Lancet missed out on a laugh – Morley had left out the bit about ‘bum-peeping.’

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The Harangue, or Quack Speech of T. JONES, at York.

 

Gentlemen and Ladies,

YOU that have a Mind to preserve your own and your Families Health, may here, at the Expence of a Two-penny Piece, furnish yourselves with a Packet, which contains several Things of great Use, and wonderful Operation in human Bodies against all Distempers whatsoever.

Gentlemen, Because I present myself among you, I would not have you to think, I am any Upstart Glister-pipe Bum-peeping Apothecary; no, Gentlemen, I am no such person: I am a regular Physician, and have travelled most Kingdoms in the World, purely to do my Country good. I am not a Person, that takes Delight, as a great many do, to fill your Ears with hard Words, in telling you the Nature of Turpet Mineral,Mercurii Dulcis, Balsamum Capiviet, Astringents, Laxations, Harboundations, Circulations, Vibrations, Salivations, Excoriations, Scaldations, or Urinations. These Quacks may fitly be called Solimites, because they prescribe only one Sort of Physick for all Distempers, that is, a Vomit.

If a Man has bruized his Elbow, Take a Vomit, says the Doctor. If he has any Corns; Take a Vomit. If he has torn his Coat; Take a Vomit. For the Jaundice, Fevers, Flax, Gripes, Gout, Stone, Pox, nay, even the Distempers, that only my Friend, the famous Dr. Tuff, whom you all know, as the Hocognicles, Marthambles, the Moon-Paul, and the Strong-Fives, A Vomit tantum. Gentlemen, these Impostors value killing a Man, no more than I value drawing an old Stump of a Tooth, which has long troubled any of you; so that, I say, they are a Pack of Tag-Rag, Asifœtida, Glister-Pipe Doctors. Now, Gentlemen, having given you a short Account of this spurious Race, I shall present you with my Cordial Pills, being the Tincture of the Sun, having Dominion from the same Light, giving Relief and Comfort to all Mankind: They cause all Complexions to laugh or smile, in the very taking them; they presently cure all Dizziness, Swimming, Dulness in the Head, and Scurvy.

In the next Place, I recommend to you my incomparable Balsam, which heals all Sores, Cuts, Ulcers, new and old. ‘Tis good for Burns, Scalds, Swellings, Bruizes, Strains, Aches, Weakness in the Joints and Limbs, &c. it cures the King’s-Evil, sore Breasts, and scald Heads; and it is taken inwardly for a Cough, Consumption, short Breath, Weakness of the Back, or any inward Hurt.

The next unparalell’d Medicine contain’d in this my Packet, is an admirable Electuary, celebrated throughout all England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick upon Tweed. It cures all curable Diseases, by very easy and gentle purging; it causes an Appetite, helps all Distempers in the Eyes, Face, swell’d Lips; and opens the Stoppage of the Liver and Spleen, &c.

The next I present you with, is my Specifick, which certainly cures all Agues in a Minute.

The next is my red Plaister, which radically cures the most inveterate Rheumatism and Gout in a few Days Time.

The last, and most useful Medicine prepared throughout the whole World, is this, my Pulvis Catharticus: Its Virtues are such, it will, equally with the Unicorn’s Horn, expel the rankest Poison; ’tis a perfect, safe, and speedy Cure, for all Venereal Maladies, of what Degree soever, and fortifies the Heart against all Fainting.

I do assure you, Country Folk, these Medicines are as good as any Physician can make, or Patient take; their Virtues are too well known, to say any more; so I shall leave you to experience them. And so I wish you Health and Happiness.

You may come to my Lodgings, at the Barber’s Pole and Stone Gate, at Home, from Seven to Eleven.

The following is from a spoof quack handbill published in 1676 as part of a pamphlet called The Character of a quack doctor, or, The Abusive practices of impudent illiterate pretenders to physick exposed. Spelling and punctuation are as originally printed.

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EXIMIO PRAEDICO;
OR
A Thousand Infallible Cures

At the Golden Ball in Fop-Ally next dore to the flying Hedghog in New-Alsasia, Lives the Paraselsus of this age, by name Seignior Doloso Effrontero, Native of Arabia Deserta, natural Son of the wonder-working Chimest Doctor lately deceased at the Devils Arse a Peak in Silesia, and famous throughout Europe, Asia, Afrique and America, from the oriental exaltation of Titan, to his occidental Declination.

Who in pitty to his own dear self and Languishing mortals, has by the earnest prayers and solicitations of divers Princes, Lords, and other honourable Personages, been prevaild with to oblige the World with this notice, that all persons Young or Old, or Deaf or Lame, or Blind or Dumb, may know whither to repair for present Cure, in all Cephalalgia’s, Paralytical Paroxismes, Odontalgia’s, Apoplexia’s, Peripneumonia’s, Empyema’s, Palpitations of the Pericardium, Syncope’s, Nanseitie’s arising either from a Plethory or a Cacochymy, Disenteria’s, Iliacal passions, the Scurvies, Exanthemata; the Hog-Pox, the Hen-Pox, the Small-Pox, the Whores Pox, or the Devils-Pox, the Ascites, Tympanites, or Anasarca, Ichorical effusions, Rhumatismes, Phlegmons, Erysepalus’s Herpes, Impetigo’s, Tentigo’s, Scabs, Scaldheads, Warts, Corns, and all other Diseases, Griefs, Wounds, Fractures, Dislocations, Confusions, Dolors, Aches, Defects, Pains, Distempers and Discrasies of Nature, whether external or Internal, acute or Chronick, Curable or Incurable.

His Medicines are the Quintessence of Pharmapeutical Energy, and the Cures he has done, are above the Art of the whole World.

Imprimis, he has a wonderful, Universal unheard of, never-failing Hypnotical, Cordiacal, Cephalical, Hepatical, Anodynous, Odoriferous, Carminative, Renovative, Styptical, and Coroborating Balsome of Balsomes, (made of Dead mens fat, Rosin and Goose grease,) that infallibly restores lost Maidenheads, raises demolisht Noses, and by its abstersive Cosmetick quality, preserves super-animated Bawds from Wrinkles; he has the true Catharmaphora of Hermes Tresmegistus, an Incomparable spagyrical tincture of the Moons Hornes, the most soveraign  Alexipharmacum in the world against the contagion of Cuckoldry; he has the Pantimagogon of the Triple Kingdome that works seaven several ways, and is seaven years a preparing, being at last exactly compleated, secundum Artem, by Fermentation, Putrifaction, Distillation; Rectification, Cohobation, Circulation, Calimation, sublimation, solution, Precipitation, Coagulation, Filtration, and Quidlibetification, both in Balneo Mariae, the Crusible, and the Fixatory, the Athanor, the Cucurbita, and the Reverberatory, this is Natures Palladium, Healths Magazine, A dram of it is worth a Bushel of March Dust, if any person happen to have his Brains beat out, or his Head Chopt off, two drops seasonably applyed shall recall the Fleeting Spirits, re-inthrone the deposed Archeus, cement the discontinuity of the parts, and in six minutes restore the Lifeless Trunk to its pristin vigour, in all its functions, vital, natural and Animal; he has an excellent Antipudengragrian specifick, (the choicest jewel amongst Venus’s Regalia, which perfectly cures the French Pox with all its noble train of Bubo’s, Gonorrhaea’s and shankers, with as much pleasure as the same can be contracted, so that it would tempt any man of sence to get that modish Disease (if it may be procured for Love or Mony, once a Fortnight, to enjoy the repeated delight of so divertising a Remedy.

Having formerly Published an Advertisement of an Excellent Remedy, Called Aqua Antitorminalis, which has been Experienced to be an Infallible Cure for that Reigning Distemper, called The Griping of the Guts, which several Persons have made use of, with great Success at this Season, wherein it Appears by the London Bills of Mortality, that this Disease does extreamly Rage, we thought good again to Recommend it to the Publick, as the most Useful and Necessary Physick that they can keep by them at all times, especially for prevention, if taken in time. It is prepared by a Person who has Administered the same these Twenty Years with great Success. The Use thereof is Safe, the Cure Certain, and the Directions Easie. It my be Administered to Infants within the Moneth by five Drops at a time in a little Ale or Beer: And to those of three or four Years, by three Spoonfuls in Beer or Ale: And grown Persons may securely take four Spoonfuls alone without mixture. And one Bottle thereof will most Effectually Cure the said Distemper in both Sexes, and all Ages, if timely taken: as also all Shiverings and Feverish Symptoms, which generally attend the Griping of the Guts: It likewise certainly Cureth the Wind Cholick. And is to be Sold at 1s. 6d. a Bottle, By Mr. Ben. Harris, at the Statiiners Arms under the Piazza in Cornhill, with Printed Bills of Directions.

Source: Domestick Intelligence or News both from City and Country 12 Sept 1679

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In the late 1990s, a person who shall remain nameless described to me their stomach bug symptoms thus:

There’s shit coming out my arse like it was Niagara Falls.

So it was for the unfortunates who needed the above medicine. ‘Griping of the guts’ sounds a rather colourful way of describing a simple tummy-ache, but advertiser Benjamin Harris’s assertion that it ‘does extreamly Rage’ was no exaggeration – the condition could be deadly.

In the year of this advert, griping in the guts appeared in London’s Bills of Mortality as the cause of 2996 deaths. Most of those would have been infants. The diagnosis covered a variety of gastrointestinal diseases, but bacterial infections – particularly E. coli – are the main suspects.

The Bills list dysentery separately as ‘Bloody flux, scowring and flux’ (61 deaths) but there was no doubt some overlap between the categories. Yet more digestive problems appear as ‘vomiting’ (27) and ‘worms’ (38), while the term ‘convulsion’ – responsible for no fewer than 2837 deaths – probably encompassed cases of infant diarrhoea.

Griping in the guts was therefore a good bet for advertisers of proprietary medicines in the late 17th century. Worried parents were the ideal market, and there was the added bonus that many adult sufferers would recover naturally from a bout of the shits, thus making the remedies seem effective.

Should one find oneself ‘troubled with a looseness’, however, there were plenty of alternatives to buying an advertised medicine.

M. Flament, in The art of preserving and restoring health (1697), advised a pleasant-enough draught of almond oil, rose-water and sugar, followed two hours later by some broth and a new-laid egg. Less appealingly, these should be accompanied by bloodletting and a daily clyster of barley, bran, two raw egg yolks and sugar.

Robert Boyle recommended the following, which sounds like a brilliant snack whether or not you were ill:

Into a quarter of a pint of brandy, put a toast of bread whilst very hot ; and as soon as it is thoroughly drenched, let the patient take it out, and eat it hot: and this may be repeated, if there be need, two or three times a day.

Dutch physician Paul Barbette, meanwhile, gave a long list of remedies, the most unusual being:

Burn live Crafishes in an earthen Pipkin well-closed, until they be so burnt as to be reduced to powder; of which give to the Patient mornings and evenings a Thimble-full or two in a convenient Liquor.

And:

Take of Mummy, a little Mastick, Bol-Armeniack, Sanguis Draconia, mix them together, and make a powder of them, and take of it in a convenient Liquor, the weight of a dram, once or twice a day.

‘Mummy’ meant… well, mummy. Not as in the person who gave birth to you, but as in ‘The Curse of...’

Powdered mummy was in use in European medicine from the 12th century, resulting in the destruction of thousands of ancient Egyptian corpses. The practice was not without its critics – in the 16th century, Michel de Montaigne and Ambroise Paré (and probably lots of less illustrious people) expressed their disapproval. Pare’s objections were on the grounds that mummy medicine didn’t work, rather than that it was creepy.

There was, of course, a finite supply, and by Barbette’s time there were no guarantees that what you were getting was from a genuine mummy. At the seedier end of the business, counterfeiters used whatever corpses they could get hold of.

Mummy was more often used to treat bruising than for stomach bugs, so let us return to the alimentary canal and finish with a 1703 case described by William Salmon. In Collectanea medica, the country physician: or, a choice collection of physick: fitted for vulgar use, he detailed various cases of dysentery that he cured in different ways, including this particularly satisfied patient:

One who had a Bloody Flux, with a pain in his Belly, had used many things, but all in vain: At length he sat over the fumes of a decoction of Beans, and took it in by straining, and thrusting forth his Fundament: He found nothing which did him more good.

It’s time for a round-up of the latest blog posts on early modern history, and I’m pleased to be hosting the 60th edition of Carnivalesque. If you’re interested in hosting a future history carnival, please visit the site and get in touch with Sharon or Julie.

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Let’s dive in and begin with witchcraft, political machinations and the ‘Scottish play’. Lee Durbin at Marginalia looks at the tempestuous life of Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell, who allegedly asked witches to predict when his cousin, James VI of Scotland, would die.

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If you’re having trouble with the occult, you might need to try an exorcism, but make sure everyone knows what they’re doing. Roy Booth at Early Modern Whale reports on fake exorcisms in 16th-century Lancashire, where a priest’s attempts to fool an audience were thwarted by his clumsy accomplice.

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A more practical side to superstition appears in Emily Brand’s discussion of early modern midwifery, which shows how the folklore and rituals surrounding childbirth could give the mother and her relatives a sense of control. Mary Toft, the famous rabbit-woman of Godalming, features too.

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At the scientific end of the midwifery spectrum were the great anatomists William Hunter and William Smellie, but less well-known is illustrator Jan van Rymsdyk, who did the astonishing anatomical drawings that accompanied their work. Medical photographer Øystein Horgmo at The Sterile Eye tells us about this rather mysterious character.

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Some earlier anatomical art appears in the form of ‘fugitive sheets’, a 16th-century method of layering drawings so that the viewer could lift the flaps and discover the wonders of the human body. The Wellcome Library Blog highlights an early printed reference to these materials.

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While we’re on an anatomical theme, if I may be so bold, I’ll plug my latest podcast here at The Quack Doctor. It gives a tour of Benjamin Rackstrow’s Museum of Anatomy and Curiosities, a macabre collection that occupied 197 Fleet Street during the second half of the 18th Century.

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But this edition of Carnivalesque is not all gruesome stuff! Dainty Ballerina talks about some popular sports of the 17th century – including whole-village football matches and ‘running upon the ice in Scrick-Shooes.’

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Then we have an artistic interlude, with Carlyn Beccia giving a detailed biography of Renaissance portrait-painter Sofonisba Anguissola over at Raucous Royals.

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Lucy Inglis at Georgian London has done a series of podcasts looking at the symbolism in Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress. The link leads to the first one, but be sure to download the whole series of six. Rumour has it we can look forward to The Rake’s Progress soon too.

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Also commenting on the issues of his day was one of the earliest news illustrators, Frans Hogenberg, whose broadsides depicted the major political and military events of the 16th century. Rag Linen shows some examples of his striking work.

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There’s plenty more journalism to be had at Mercurius Politicus, where Nick Poyntz describes the newsbooks of the 1640s, their editors – including ‘Beelzebubbs Ban-dogge’ Henry Walker – and contemporary definitions of news.

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The Gentleman Administrator reviews Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel Marvel 1602, a re-imagining of Marvel superheroes in a 17th-century setting. But there’s someone missing, and who better than The Gentleman Admin himself to introduce Wolverine to the early modern milieu? (Don’t miss part 2 either).

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Sarah Redmond at LOL Manuscripts! features some advice for dutiful wives, and reminds us that the long ‘s’ is the minuscule letter that just keeps on giving.

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And finally… We might be blogging about history, but the spectres of some historical figures have lately joined the blogosphere too. Sir Joshua Reynolds says exactly what he thinks about Tracey Emin, and D C Read reveals how posterity has treated him with CHILLINGe NEGLECKT.

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Thank you to those who sent in nominations. The next Carnivalesque is an ancient/medieval one, venue to be confirmed, so keep an eye on www.earlymodernweb.org.uk/carnivalesque for details.