Garth: "This case seems to me to be plainly hysterical; the old woman is whimsical; it is a common thing for your old women to be so; I'll pawn my life, blisters, with the steel diet, will recover her." Others suggested strong purging, and letting of blood, because she was plethoric. Some went so far as to say the old woman was mad, and nothing would be better than a little corporal correction. Ratcliff: "Gentlemen, you are mistaken in this case; it is plainly an acute distemper, and she cannot hold out three days, unless she is supported with strong cordials." I came into the room with a good deal of concern, and asked them, what they thought of my mother? "In no manner of danger, I vow to Gad," quoth Garth, "the old woman is hysterical, fanciful, sir, I vow to Gad." "I tell you, sir," says Ratcliff, "she cannot live three days to an end, unless there is some very effectual course taken with her; she has a malignant fever." Then fool, puppy, and blockhead, were the best words they gave. I could hardly restrain them from throwing the inkbottles at one another's heads. I forgot to tell you, that one party of the physicians desired, I would take my sister Peg into the house to nurse her, but the old gentlewoman would not hear of that. At last, one physician asked, if the lady had ever been used to take laudanum? Her maid answered, not that she knew; but indeed there was a High-German liveryman of hers, one Yan Ptschirnsooker[1], that gave her a sort of quack powder. The physician desired to see it: "Nay," says he, "there is opium in this, I am sure."
- ↑ Yan Ptschirnsooker, a bishop at that time, a great dealer in politicks and physick.
