Only fancy a farmer dosing a sheep with mutton broth, and adding, for its stomach's sake, a little wine! I suspect the prescriber was, in this instance, putting himself, in point of intellect, far below the level of his patient. Thanks to him, however, for the benefit he has thus unwittingly conferred, by holding ignorance up to the derision it so richly merits; no means being so powerful as broadly-drawn caricatures in exposing the extent of such delusions. Though faith has long since ceased to be reposed in the medicinal virtues of mutton broth, a variety of nostrums have from time to time appeared, the composition and application of which are invaluable for the amount of _negative_ information they are calculated to convey. Further notice of these trashy recipes it is not my intention to take, as a list of them alone would make a volume;--they are in the hands of every one. (120.) _Cautions in prescribing._ Great reliance is in general placed upon prescriptions, which profess to suit diseases in every stage and circumstance.--Than this, however, scarcely any thing can be more absurd. It is an opinion engendered not so much by ignorance as by laziness, a determination not to be put about by thinking of a remedy for the evils which surround us, but, while we contrive to soothe ourselves by doing _something_, to leave every thing to the hit-or-miss practice of charlatans.[24] There are many, who on being informed of the presence of disease in a neighbour's flock, confidently advise the employment of a favourite nostrum, on the empirical supposition that because it cured, or was thought to cure, one flock, it will cure another. Nothing is taken into account saving that, in both cases, the affected animals are sheep; and it is at once concluded, that what benefited one will benefit another. The many niceties in prescribing are never thought of: oh no, that would be of no use! of course it can be of no importance to give a moment's attention to age and sex, pasture and situation, or to leanness or fatness, or to the presence of pregnancy! These are of trifling moment, and only to be despised by a person armed with a recipe, which some one has shown to be capable of walking like a constable through the body, and bearing off the intruder! But enough of this; sufficient has, I think, been said to prove the utter folly of confiding in things of the above nature or intention, and to show that such confidence can lead to nothing but a waste of life and capital. Even though the remedy is a harmless one, it ought (unless calculated from _known_ powers to arrest the disease) to be viewed with distrust, as incurring a loss of time, during which other and better measures might have been resorted to. [24] Whenever we hear a person recommending a medicine of universal virtues, we may safely set him down either for a fool or an impostor. Things which are good for every thing are good for nothing.