The third story told by Mr. Bushell is the most curious of the three. He was apprenticed near Covent Garden two or three years after Mr. Want had published his discovery, and frequently went to Mr. Grimley, a herbalist, in the Garden, to buy medicinal herbs. Mr. Grimley, he said, told him that Want had “discovered” the colchicum secret in this wise:--His wife’s father having a bad attack of gout, a nursemaid in Mrs. Want’s service told them that she once lived with a little French gentleman who made a famous medicine for gout called “Eau Medicinale.” He kept his materials very secret, but this promising young detective had managed to secure a piece of the principal ingredient used, which she then gave to Want. Want took it to Grimley, and between them they made out what it was. Grimley further said that he had been in the habit of selling quantities of colchicum to a little Frenchman who used to come in a hackney coach and take with him 1 to 1½ cwt. at a time. Want’s tincture was made from 1 part of the fresh bulb of the colchicum autumnale and 2 parts of alcohol 36°; dose 5 or 6 drops in a tablespoonful of water. Sir Everard Home, who studied colchicum preparations with much care, preferred a wine made from the corms; and he believed that he had succeeded in removing the deleterious constituents of the medicine by filtering out a deposit which formed after a few days of maceration. Williams and Haden advocated the employment of the seeds. Copland, Bushell, and Frost advised the flowers. Drying the corms was found to reduce considerably their medicinal and poisonous effects. Prosper Alpin states that the Egyptian women of his time were in the habit of taking as many as ten bulbs of some hermodactyl after roasting them like chestnuts at bedtime. They believed they produced the embonpoint which was regarded as a female attraction. JAMES’S POWDER. The antimonial preparation which attained the most permanent popularity was Dr. James’s Fever Powders. The inventor, Dr. Robert James, was a life-long friend of Dr. Johnson. The two went to school together at Lichfield, in which town James at one time practised. He was also in practice in Sheffield and Birmingham before he came to London. He first settled in Southampton Street, Covent Garden, but removed later to Craven Street, Strand. He was a man of considerable attainments, and is described as cordial, impetuous, improvident, but thoroughly loved by his associates. He was the author of a massive Dictionary of Medicine, and Dr. Johnson said of him: “No man brought more mind to his profession.” Dr. Munk, in his “Roll of the College of Physicians,” adds to this, however: “But he tarnished the fair fame he might otherwise have attained by patenting his powder and falsifying the specification.” Dr. James died in 1776 at the age of 73. [Illustration: DR. JAMES.]