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And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more languages at once; words derived from two languages having become so common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of rooting out peth-winds.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of sense, jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only plan for abolishing Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, most of the Irish members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise, opposed it most strongly, on the ground that in a free country no man was bound either to understand himself or to let others understand him. So the bill fell through on the first reading; and the Chancellor, being a philosopher, comforted himself with the thought that it was not the first time that a woman had hit off a grand idea and the men turned up their stupid noses thereat.
Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went in earnest, and they gave the poor professor divers and sundry medicines, as prescribed by the ancients and moderns, from Hippocrates to Feuchtersleben, as below, viz.-1. Hellebore, to wit -
Hellebore of AEta. Hellebore of Galatia. Hellebore of Sicily.
And all other Hellebores, after the method of the Helleborising Helleborists of the Helleboric era. But that would not do. Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles would not stir an inch out of his encephalo digital region.
2. Trying to find out what was the matter with him, after the method of
Hippocrates, Aretaeus, Celsus,
Coelius Aurelianus, And Galen.
But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people have since; and so had recourse to -
3. Borage. Cauteries.
Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius) “will, without doubt, do much good.” But it didn’t.
Bezoar stone. Diamargaritum. A ram’s brain boiled in spice. Oil of wormwood. Water of Nile. Capers. |
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