DR JAMES’S POWER

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 114, 10 April 1930, Page 11

DR JAMES’S POWER

THE REMEDY THAT KILLED GOLDSMITH. A curious and interesting leaflet df four quarto pages has recently come into the possession of Messrs P. J. and A. E. Dobell, the London booksellers (writes a correspondent of the London Times). This is what may be the only surviving copy of the prospectus of n famous 18th century patent medicine, Dr. James’s Powder for Fevers, a specific which has its place in literary as well as in medical history. Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” is full of referenced to Dr. Robert James (1705-1776), his works and medicines. For example, it is suggested (perhaps a little doubtfully) that, it was he whom Johnson cited as an instance of the fact that habitual drunkards are unaware of their condition :

I knew a physician who for 20 years was not sober; yet in a pamphlet which he wrote upon fevers, he appealed to Garrick and me for his vindication from a charge of drunkenness. But however that may be, Johnson at one time had a high regard for the abilities of James,. who had been his schoolfellow at Lichfield, and from whom, ho tells us, he acquired his own knowledge of medicine. Moreover, he helped James with his “Medical Dictionary” and wrote the dedication for it. Ho coupled James, too, with Garrick, when ho spoke of one friend who hnd lengthened life and one who had gladdened it. After this it is somewhat strange to find that in the last year of his life Johnson seems to have given' a different opinion, for he wrote to Dr. Brocklesby:— I never thought well of Dr. James’s compounded medicines; his ingredients appeared to me sometimes inefficacious and trifling, and sometimes heterogeneous and destructive of each other. . . . We will, if you please, let this medicine alone.

It would have been well if - Oliver Goldsmith, another literary admirer of James,- had left his medicine - , and particularly his powder, alone. When Goldsmith was seized with his last illness he called in to attend him William Hawes (1736-1808), an admirable medical man practising in the Strand, and still remembored as one of . the founders of the Royal Humane Society. Hawes found Goldsmith very unwell arid convinced that the proper treatment of his illness was by James’ Powder. Hawes disagreed strongly, and argued with. Goldsmith that his complaint was “more a nervous affection tban-a febrile disease,” and that therefore James’s Powder was unsuitable* To this and other arguments Goldsmith (who, being more or less of a medical man himself, must 'have been a trying patient) agreed that “I like your mode of reasoning well” —but still demanded James’s Powder. Another doctor, Fordyce, was also called in, and ho shared Hawes’s view. But Goldsmith insisted on having James’s Powder, which was duly sent him. It disagreed with him so obviously that he seems to have said, pettishly, that he had been given the wrong powder—but all the evidence is against this. James’s Powder, on his own demand, he was certainly given on March 25, 1774, and on April 4 poor Oliver Goldsmith died. One of the interesting literary connections of this medicine is that the agent for its sale was Newbery, the publisher for whom Goldsmith did so much work. Possibly it. was this com nection which disposed him -so violently arid disastrously in its favour. The prospectus, which is now in Messrs Dobell’s hands, is very particular that the powder should only be bought from “Frances Newbery, junior (only son of the late Mr John Newbery . . .), at No. 65, the Bible and Sun, on the side of St. Paul’s' Churchyard, where only Foot Passengers pass,” pointing out that there was another Francis Newbery in -St. Paul’s Churchyard, who was not the right person at all. There Were also, of course, country agents-from whom the powder could be obtained. Long instructions are given for the correct use of .the powder “in acute continual -fevers, the . small-pox, measles, acute rheumatisms, colds, headach, and all inflammatory diseases,” beginning with the advice that “If the Patient is of a strong Constitution, Young and full of Blood, it. is prudent to take away ten ■or twelve ounces”—which seems a violence which few of us would care to suffer to-day for the cure of a mere “headach.” Moreover, As this Powder has been lately ordered to be used on- board His Majesty’s Navy, Dr. James has thought it very necessary to add the following Instructions, for the better Guidance of the Naval Surgeons An occasional “I” drops into the prose of this prospectus, so that presumably Dr. James must himself . be given the credit for its composition. Yet one cannot help toying with the idea that perhaps he may have had the assistance of his friend Dr. Johnson, with here and there a point of style. Or might, possibly. Dr. Goldsmith himself, at the bidding perhaps of Mr Newbery, have lent his pen to the composition? If so, it was one of Fate’s best strokes of irony.