Treatment of incontinence

It may not have worked, but nineteenth century medicine often sounds rather fun. This from An Epitome of Braithwaite’s Retrospect of practical medicine and surgery (1860):

M. Lallemand, of Montpellier, has great confidence in aromatic bitters, to which a small portion of brandy has been added, followed by active friction of the loins… As internal medicines the Spanish fly and the nux vomica have been unquestionably the most efficacious.

I’ve been sourcing all this stuff for some weird Flemish translation, but now I’ve started I’ll also bang off a version of the chapter in Baroja’s 1901 Dickens-skew novel The adventures, inventions and mystifications of Silvester Paradox (Aventuras, inventos y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox) where Silvester takes up with an English conman, quack and amateur pugilist called Macbeth. Twill be here shortly or longly.

Trevor @ 13 June 2006 7:14 PM

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Related posts

• More churchy coppers
• Silvester Paradox: hoaxer or mystificator?
• More mystifications
• Old Congolese joke
• Schild en vriend

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