"An illustrious prince,"
Belort says, "by wearing such an amulet, escaped the small-pox."
Clognini, an Italian physician, ordered two or three drachms of crude
mercury to be worn as a defensive against the jaundice; and also as a
preservative against the noxious vapours of inclement seasons: "It
breaks," he observes, "and conquers the different figured seeds of
pestilential distempers floating in the air; or else, mixing with the
air, kills them where hatched." By others, the power of mercury, in
these cases, has been ascribed to an elective faculty given out by the
warmth of the body, which draws out the contagious particles. For,
according to this entertained notion, all bodies are continually
emitting effluvia, more or less, around them, and some whether they are
internal or external. The Bath waters, for instance, change the colour
of silver in the pocket of those who use them. Mercury produces the same
effect; Tartar emetic, rubbed on the pit of the stomach, produces
vomiting. Yawning and laughing are infectious; so are fear and shame.
The sight of sour things, or even the idea of them, will set the teeth
on edge.
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