In Dover’s day and time, the apothecaries were in the ascendancy, being the medical practitioners, whilst the physicians were chiefly called in to attend in childbirth and protracted illness. Indeed, it is naïvely stated that the apothecary surgeons rode in their chaises, while the doctors _walked_, and that the former were generally first consulted when the choice of a family physician was to be made. Mercury had at this time an unrestrained use—perhaps _abuse_ would be a better word,—and much severe public stricture was made upon the fact. Crude quicksilver was administered, and Dover was a warm advocate of its use—in fact, he was called the _quicksilver doctor_. One Captain Henry Coit, a patient of Dover’s, took an ounce and a quarter of crude mercury daily, until he had used more than two pounds weight! Dover professed to believe that mercury freed the patient from all vermicular diseases, opened all obstructions, and made a pure balsam of the blood. The doctors and apothecaries were at loggerheads. Dover said the best way to affront the latter was to order too little physic—each patient being deemed to be worth a certain sum to the dispenser. In 1708 Dover joined the company of a group of Bristol merchants in a scheme to fit out two vessels for privateering in the South Seas. Dover, it seems, went as captain, and the voyage was eminently successful in booty. They took in various reprisals from the Spaniards—the hoards of treasure and gold which they in turn had obtained from the native Indians—the principle of _might_ applied to _right_. The expedition returned to Britain enriched with spoil, the treasure amounting to £170,000 sterling. It was during this memorable voyage that Dover, landing with some of his crew on the island of Juan Fernandez, discovered the existence of Alexander Selkirk—Robinson Crusoe—in his dreary solitude on this desert shore. CHAPTER XIV. AMULETS, TALISMANS AND CHARMS. From very remote times a somewhat curious link has existed between the art of healing and religion, and those who proposed the cure of the body or the soul have ever sought to work upon that uncanny chord we call superstition, which pervades more or less all classes of mankind. The influence of superstition manifested itself in many ways, and among others the belief in amulets, talismans and charms survives even to-day. Two thousand years ago they were dispensed by the priests, and afterwards by those who practised medicine, alchemy, and astrology, during the middle ages, when medical practice was mainly composed of a mixture of white magic, witchcraft, and religion.