Note 107 — CANTO IV. GRAND ATTACK!

They’ll fall before great doctor Lettsom.

I resolved to recommend your arranging yourselves under the banners of this Leviathan of the Galenical throng, from the moment I first heard of his noble and spirited sally against the tractors. Disdaining the wretched trammels of why and wherefore, and without assigning those paltry trifles, called reasons, for his opinions, on the merits of Perkinism, our intrepid commander determined to extirpate it root and branch, with his simple ipse dixit. This is what we ought to expect from a hero of such prowess. See how well he manages these metallic makers of mischief! In a eulogium (a very agreeable thing to a modest man during his life time) on his friend Dr Haygarth, contained in the work which those wicked reviewers above mentioned have treated so irreverently, he mentions (page 277) the “important object,” which Dr Haygarth has so “happily effected.” This is “arresting and subduing two poisons, the most fatal to the human race (fever and small-pox) and unveiling imposture, clothed in the meretricious garb of bold quackery:” a note on the word “imposture,” in the margin says, “Experiments on metallic tractors.” Now, unless I can borrow the pen of the learned doctor, dipped in “ETHEREAL and indelible ink,” and a whole literary apparatus in proportion, I shall never be able to express how much I admire the matter above quoted, on account of the important intelligence therein contained. Before Dr L. asserted it, I dare say not an individual in the kingdom knew that Dr Haygarth had “effected” such an “important object,” that fever and small-pox were subdued, altogether extinct, despoiled of that venom which has hitherto “brought death into the world,” and so much wo. But true it is, they are quite extirpated, and all this by Dr Haygarth!! One cannot but exclaim against the perverseness of those members of parliament, who, regardless of this news from Dr L. voted a reward to Dr Jenner for his services in subduing the small-pox, and to Dr Smith, for his discoveries in subduing contagious fevers. In short, I am almost ready to enforce the charge of ignorance against my brethren in the profession; for I have not yet met with one possessed of sufficient penetration to see, that neither fever nor small-pox “has a local habitation and a name among us,” and that they have been both “subdued,” and all this “effected,” by Dr Haygarth!