Page:Recollections of My Boyhood.djvu/10

 prune. Wild grapes of good quality were plentiful; a wild vineyard of the kind called Summer Grape grew along the brow of a hill about a mile from the house and in a "ruff." The ripe berry was black, nearly as large as the domestic catawba, and as sweet and well flavored as that grape. But there was an herb growing in the woods, the root of which became so firmly fixed in my memory, that should I live to the age attained by Moses of old, I would not forget it. It was known as "Injun Fizic" (Indian physic), the technical name of the plant being epecaquane. Its usefulness as a medicine was learned from the natives. A dose of this physic brewed from the root, for a boy, was a tin cup full; it was brought to the patient at bed time steaming hot and as black as coffee; no cream, sugar or salt, or anything else was put into the liquid, lest it might modify its perfect nastiness. When the boy saw the cup, and a whiff from the odors of the contents took his breath, he was seized with a fit of trembling more or less violent, and cold sweat appeared on his forehead, hut kind hands now supported him, and encouraging words somewhat restored him, and it was considered that he was now prepared for the worst. Whereupon he was seized by the nose, and when, in gasping for breath, his mouth flew open, the physic was poured down his throat. The boy now, not being able to stand, was put to bed. I have thought that if Socrates instead of the cup of hemlock, had had to take a dose of "Injin Fizic," he would have concluded to take the advice of his friends, when they told him arrangements had been made, so that he could escape from Greece to another country where he could live in safety, and besought him to embrace this opportunity to save his life. The probabilities are that the old philosopher would have skipped, not to save his life, but to avoid the dose.

In those days nothing was accepted as medicine unless it were offensive to the taste, and disagreeable to the stomach, and the more offensive and nauseating, the greater its medicinal virtues were supposed to be, therefore there was no discount on "Injin Fizic" as a medicine. The opinion also seems to have been general that the surest way to cure a man of disease was to reduce him almost to the point of death; that the less life there was left in a man, the less disease