The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.Crabtre, Addison Darre
History
The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.
Crabtre, Addison Darre
Medicine -- Anecdotes; Quacks and quackery
If this great fire originated at the instigation of Lilly, in order to
demonstrate his claims as a foreteller of events, as is believed to be the
case by nearly all who were not themselves believers in the occult
science, what punishment could be meted out to such a villain commensurate
to his heinous crime? Curran says, "There are two kinds of prophets, those
who are inspired, and those who prophesy events which they themselves
intend to bring about. Upon this occasion, Lilly had the ill luck to be
deemed of the latter class." Elihu Rich says in his biography of Lilly,
"It is certain that he was a man of no character. He was a double-dealer
and a liar, by his own showing, ... and perhaps as decent a man as a
_trading_ prophet could well be, under the circumstances." Lilly was cited
before a committee of the House of Commons, not, as was supposed by many,
"that he might discover by the same planetary signs _who_ were the authors
of the great fire," but because of the suspicion that he was already
acquainted with them, and privy to the supposed machinations which brought
about the catastrophe. At one time, 1648-9, Parliament gave him one
hundred pounds a year, and he was courted by royalty and nobility, at home
and abroad, from whom he received an immense revenue. He died a natural
death, in 1681, "leaving some works of interest in the history of
astrology," which, in connection with the important personages with whom
he was associated, and the remarkable events above recorded, have
immortalized his name.
Respecting the prediction of the plague, I presume that if any prominent
personage should, at any time, predict a great calamity to a great
metropolis, to take place "_within ten years, more or less_," there
necessarily would be something during that time, of a calamitous nature,
that might seem to verify their prediction. Besides, we should take into
consideration how many predictions are never verified. Dr. Lamb, Dee,
Bell, and others prophesied earthquakes to shake up London at various
times in 1203, 1598, 1760, etc., which never occurred, to any great
extent.
Supposing a great tidal wave should devastate our coast, within ten years
even, would not Professor Agassiz be immortalized thereby, although he
never predicted it, except in the imaginative and mulish brains of certain
individuals, who will have it that he did so predict?
A RAID ON FORTUNE-TELLERS.
In London, at the present day, it is estimated that nearly two thousand
persons, male and female, gain a livelihood under the guise of
fortune-telling. Some of them are "seers," or "astrologers," "seventh
sons," clairvoyants, etc.
From the London Telegraph of the year 1871 we gather the following
description of a few of the most prominent of these, with their arrest and
trial, as fortune-telling is there, as elsewhere, proscribed by law:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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