A Wonderful Cure

DOCTOR HILL, a notorious wit, physician, and man of letters, having

quarrelled with the members of the Royal Society, who had refused to

admit him as an associate, resolved to avenge himself. At the time that

Bishop Berkeley had issued his work on the marvellous virtues of

tar-water, Hill addressed to their secretary a letter purporting to be

from a country-surgeon, and reciting the particulars of a cure which he

had e fected. A sailor, he wrote, broke his leg, and applied to me

for help. I bound together the broken portions, and washed them with

the celebrated tar-water. Almost immediately the sailor felt the

beneficial effects of this remedy, and it was not long before his leg

was completely healed! The letter was read, and discussed at the

meetings of the Royal Society, and caused considerable difference of

opinion. Papers were written for and against the tar-water and the

restored leg, when a second letter arrived from the (pretended) country

practitioner:--In my last I omitted to mention that the broken limb of

the sailor was a wooden leg!