Besides the usual simples,
elder, parsley, fennel, saffron, snake-root, wormwood, I find the Elixir
Proprietatis, with other elixire and cordials, as if he rather fancied
warming medicines; but he called in the aid of some of the more energetic
remedies, including iron, and probably mercury, as he bought two pounds
of it at one time.
The most interesting item is his bill against the estate of Samuel Pason
of Roxbury, for services during his last illness. He attended this
gentleman,--for such he must have been, by the amount of physic which he
took, and which his heirs paid for,--from June 4th, 1696, to September 3d
of the same year, three months. I observe he charges for visits as well
as for medicines, which is not the case in most of his bills. He opens
the attack with a carminative appeal to the visceral conscience, and
follows it up with good hard-hitting remedies for dropsy,--as I suppose
the disease would have been called,--and finishes off with a rallying
dose of hartshorn and iron.
It is a source of honest pride to his descendant that his bill, which was
honestly paid, as it seems to have been honorably earned, amounted to the
handsome total of seven pounds and two shillings. Let me add that he
repeatedly prescribes plaster, one of which was very probably the "Dr.
Oliver" that soothed my infant griefs, and for which I blush to say that
my venerated ancestor received from Goodman Hancock the painfully
exiguous sum of no pounds, no shillings, and sixpence.
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