Dr. Goodall, in his account of the College of Physicians, published in 1684, gives many curious details of the conflicts of the College with quacks and empirics. The College possessed magisterial power, and, on conviction, the president and censors had power to fine and imprison. For instance, in 1632 Francis Roes, _alias_ Vinter, was accused of undertaking to cure a woman of a tympany, for which he had made exorbitant charges: “Being asked what medicines he gave, at first he refused to discover them, saying he had them noted in his books; but after long expostulation he named jalap and elatorium (as he pronounced the word), and, being questioned what elatorium was made of, he said it was composed of three or four things, whereof diagridium was one. He was censured for giving elatorium (a medicine he knew not), and particularly to a woman at his own house, whom he afterwards sent home through the open streets, telling her it was a cordial. He was fined £10 and committed to prison.” Again, we find one Richard Hammond, a surgeon, fined £5 and committed to prison for undertaking to cure a child of the dropsy. It appears that he administered a clyster composed of molasses, white hellebore, and red mercury, “which wrought so violently that the boy died therewith.” John Hope, an apothecary’s apprentice, gets into trouble for giving a man two apples of coloquintida boiled in white wine, with cinnamon and nutmeg. “The medicine wrought both upwards and downwards; upward he vomited a fatty matter, and downward he voided a pottle of bloud,” and ultimately died. This case was remitted to the higher courts of justice. In 1637 an order was sent from the Star Chamber “to examine the pretended cures of one Leverett, who said that he was a seventh son, and undertook the cure of several diseases by stroaking.” The investigation of this case lasted over a month, and finally the College reported that Leverett was an impostor. “In the fourth year of King Edward VI., one Grig, a poulterer, of Surrey (taken among the people for a prophet in curing divers diseases by words and prayers, and saying he would take no money, &c.), was, by command of the Earl of Warwick and others and the Council, set on a scaffold in the town of Croidon in Surrey with a paper on his breast whereon was written his deceitful and hypocritical dealings; and after that on the 8th of September set on a pillory in Southwark, being then Our Lady Fair then kept, and the Mayor of London with his brethren the aldermen riding through the fair, the said _Grig_ asked them and all the citizens forgiveness. Of the like counterfeit physician (saith Stow) have I noted to be set on horse-back, his face to the horse-tail, the same tail in his hand for a bridle, a collar of jordans about his neck, a whetstone on his breast, and so led through the city of London, with ringing of basons, and banished.” The above are samples of dozens of similar cases; and it is interesting to note