Dioscorides , whether the seat of it is in the brain or liver;—because this would lead me on, to an examination of the two very opposite manners, in which patients have been treated⸺the one, of Aætius , who always begun with a cooling clyster of hempseed and bruised cucumbers;—and followed on with thin potations of water-lillies and purslane—to which he added a pinch of snuff of the herb Hanea ;—and where Aætius durst venture it,—his topaz-ring.
⸺The other, that of Gordonius , who (in his cap. 15 de Amore ) directs they should be thrashed, “ ad putorem usque ,”⸺till they stink again.
These are disquisitions, which my father, who had laid in a great stock of knowledge of this kind, will be very busy with in the progress of my uncle Toby’s affairs: I must anticipate thus much, That from his theories of love, (with which, by the way, he contrived to crucify my uncle Toby’s mind, almost as much as his amours themselves)—he took a single step into practice;—and by means of a camphorated cerecloth, which he found means to impose upon the tailor for buckram, whilst he was making my uncle Toby a new pair of breeches, he produced Gordonius’s effect upon my uncle Toby without the disgrace.
What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that is needful to be added to the anecdote, is this⸺That whatever effect it had upon my uncle Toby ,⸺it had a vile effect upon the house;⸺and if my uncle Toby had not smoaked it down as he did, it might have had a vile effect upon my father too.