Note 202 — [STEELE.
Reading edition
The name of this quack was Kirleus. He pretended to extraordinary endowments, on the score of his having been introduced into the world by means of the Cesarean operation. In the Examiner, vol. i. No. 49, original edition in folio, there is among the advertisements subjoined, July 5, 1711, notice given that some of his nostrums, which had been tested for fifty years, were to be had of "Mary Kirleus, widow of John Kirleus, son of Dr. Tho. Kirleus, a sworn physician in ordinary to K. Charles II." Nichols says that there were two male and two female quacks of the name of Kirleus; Thomas the father, and his son John, Susannah the widow of Thomas, and Mary the relict of John; but it does not appear that any of them all were rich. The women, after the decease of their husbands, engaged in a paper war, which was carried on about this time in polemical advertisements. Dr. Kirleus and Dr. Case (see No. 20) are said to have been sent for to prescribe to Partridge in his last illness. Garth ("Dispensary," canto iii.) wrote:
"Whole troops of quacks shall join us on the place, From great Kirleus down to Doctor Case."
"In Grays-Inn-lane in Plow-yard, the third door, lives Dr. Thomas Kirleus, a Collegiate Physician and sworn Physician in Ordinary to King Charles the Second until his death; who with a drink and pill (hindring no business) undertakes to cure any ulcers," &c. &c. "Take heed whom you trust in physick, for it's become a common cheat to profess it. He gives his opinion to all that writes or comes for nothing" (Athenian Mercury, February 13, 1694). See also Tatler, Nos. 41, 226, 240.