CAN CANCER BE CURED?

Otago Witness, Issue 1935, 26 March 1891, Page 35

CAN CANCER BE CURED?

A VISIT TO COUNT MATTEI: HIS CHALLENGE TO THE FACULTY. With Letters from Professob Huxley, Professob Tyndall, Sib Mobell Mackenzie, Pkofessob Ray LanKESTEB, AND OIHEBS. (The Eevlew of Beviewi for January.) I.— HOW I GAME TO KNOW COUNT MATTEL Can cancer be cared ? According to the doctors it is incurable. Cut it out when it first appears and 70a may have a chance. Let it alone and you will die in agony. Medicine can do nothing, but one can administer a drug to dull the pain ; the knife at the beginning and morphia at the end — these are the Alpha and Omega of medical science in dealing with this deadly disease. But Count Mattei asserts that cancer can be cured — that he has cured it, and is curing it, and he challenges the medical profession to subject his claims to the closest scientific examination. That challenge must be taken up, and in the following article, I venture to hope, the case is so stated as to render it impossible any longer to refuse the inquiry for which the Count pleads. LADY PACfET'S INTRODUCTION. Count Mattei is the Italian nobleman whom Lady Paget visited after his medioines had cured her husband, now her Majesty's Ambassador at Vienna. It was her paper in. the National Review of May, partially reprinted in these pages, that first drew general , attention to the faot> of his existence, although a short time previously Commissioner Booth-Tucker had spoken to me [ very strongly about his own personal experience of his medicines. Commissioner Tucker, when returning from India by the Brindisi route, passed the Count's castle at Riola, called upon him, was very favourably impressed with the Count's personality, and came away believing almost as much in Count Mattei as be had previously laarnt to believe in the Mattei medicines. It must have been a quaint sight the meeting between the Anglo-Indian with his Oriental turban and flowing robes and the Italian noble in the shades of the Moorish castle of La Kochetta ; and the two men, so different in many ways, made a deep impression upon each other. Commissioner Tucker was grateful for-the cure of a chronic dysentery which had baffled all the Anglo-Indian faculty for many years, but which had yielded to the mild treatment of the tasteless remedies of the lord of La Rochetta. The Connt, when he described the scene to me, was full of animation as he spoke of the Christ-like figure of the English fakir, with his long hair and bare feet, and I think the picture thus presented somewhat fascinated his imagination with the Salvation Army as a whole. It was not, however, till I read Lady Paget's article that I took any personal interest in the matter. Lady Paget would not have written as she did had she not had cause. She spoke positively of cancer having been cured by Count Mattei's remedies; she bore testimony born of personal acquaintance with the Count ; and she expressly stated that she had in her owa person and in those of her friends made actual experiment of the healing efficacy of these Mattei remedies; This impression, ' that there might be something in the mys? terious discovery of Count Mattei, deepened when Lady Paget's second article appeared. Therein she declared that "during last winter's epidemic of influenza this medicine acted like magic, patients from a condition of complete prostration being restored to such complete health in five minntes that they could hardly believe they had really been ill." This was not the testimony of a nobody. It was the published evidence of a lady whose husband has achieved the highest position in the diplomatic service — a lady, moreover, who could not possibly have any personal or interested motive in recommending the remedies to the world. There was, of course, the usual condemnation pronounced by the orthodox faculty. Without that no new discovery can be deemed worthy of notice by the outside public. Such censure, indeed, is the prma facie intimation that there may be something in it. The subject interested me on account of its relation to the vexed question of the credibility of miracles. Count Mattei claims to work no miracles in the supernatural sense. But to cure a deep-seated virulent cancer is an exploit which is almost as marvellous and unprecedented as the making the blind to see. What ought to be the attitude of an intelligent mind towards any apparently impossible feat accomplished by anyone wielding mysterious or unknown or secret powers 7 Certainly not a credulous swallowing of whatever tale which ingenuity can invent or rumour exaggerate, but as certainly not an incredulous i rejection a prior* of everything which seems to exceed our limited conceptions of the possible. Yet here was Lady Paget, a credible and disinterested witness, testifying in the market place that a certain philanthropic Italian noble, resident at La Rochetta, had discovered certain remedies which she and other credible disinterested witnesses declared to possess an almost supernatural efficacy for curing diseases, hitherto incurable by the aid of the physician, and no one of all the faculty deemed it worth while so much as to inquire whether or not these things were so. The phenomenon is familiar enough to excite no remark. But if such indifference to testimony be blameless or even commendable now, wherein lay the heinous wickedness of those Saddacees of old who disdained even to ascertain whether or not Lazarus was raised from the dead ? I

MRS BOOTH'S DEATH-BED TESTIMONY.

With these ideas simmering in my head I went down to Olacton to bid Mrs Booth farewell. We talked much of cancer and the possibility of its care. Mrs Booth told me that one of the saddest thoughts which darkened her closing hours was that the long course of experiment to which she had permitted herself to be subjected had. nob

resulted in the discovery of any sure made of j treatment that could cope with this terrible I scourge. " Willingly would I suffer all that J I have gone through over again if, by my sufferings, some means might be discovered that would heal those other 3 who have the same disease, But I have been disappointed. It was not be." " What," I said, "of the Mattei treatment ? " " His is the best," she said, emphatically. " His ' green electricity,' what would 1 have done without it ? I have constantly applied it, and it alone has given me any relief from this terrible pain." " But," I said, " his treatment did not cure you." "No,'' said she, "it did not; but that is because I did not stick to it. It is slow and tedious to be always taking these little sips, and after a time I gave it up." I was somewhat surprised at this, knowing that the opinion of the family was that the Mattei medicine bad been fully tried, and on my saying as much she said, speaking with much earnestness, " I am dying, not so much because of the cancer, but because I have neglected to use the Mattei remedies. If I had only stuck to them I might have lived many years yet. lam so confident of this that I have made those nearest and dearest to me promise that if they should be attacked by cancer — my mother died of it, and it may reappear in my children — they will give up whatever they have in hand and go at once to Count Mattei and place themselves for three months under his treatment. Then, when they have thoroughly mastered it, they can come home, placing themselves in the hands of a nurse or someone who will see to it that they are compelled to take the remedies regularly." It was evidently Mrs Booth's great consolation that although she had failed, from natural impatience, in attaining one great object for which she deemed her illness was sent to her, she had obtained sufficient insight into the secret of the cure of cancer to secure the safety of her children, and through them the relief of mankind from one of the most horrible of diseases. DB KENNEDY'S " SOLID FACT." General Booth did not and does not share his wife's belief in the sovereign efficacy of the Mattei treatment against cancer. When I left Mrs Booth's death-bed, and told him of her solemn declaration, I added that as soon as I had got possession of one solid fact in the shape of the cure of a case of indubitable cancer, I should go over to Italy and see the Count for myself, General Booth shook his head. "Be sure of your solid fact first," he said. I had not long to wait for the fact. It came to me unsought, in the simplest and most natural way in the world. In Lady Paget's article she referred to one Dr Kennedy, of 22 George street, Hanover square, who had practised with much success entirely with those medicines. I found on inquiry at George street that there were two Kennedys, father and son, partners in an extensive practice, who confirmed, andmoretban confirmed, all that was statsd by Lady Paget. Shortly after my first visit Dr Kennedy came down to Wimbledon to talk over some literary work in which he was engaged, and while there he mentioned that he had received quite unexpectedly from Scotland the report of a case of cure from malignant cancer. I asked for verification. Shortly afterwards be wrote me that everything was as stated, He had seen the certificates of operation, and had seen the woman. The patient was now perfectly well. He would bring her up to town and submit her, with a full report of the case, to Dr Hubert Snow, of the Cancer Hospital, and any committee of experts whom he might select from the medical faculty. Here at least seemed prvmaf&rte evidence of a fact solid enough to bear scrutiny, and notwith- 1 standing the extreme pressure of work necessary for the production of a double Christmas number, I made arrangements for paying a hurried visit to Count 'Mattei at Bologna. THE FACULTY AND THE CHALLENGE. My determination to go at all hazards was strengthened by the casual remark of a friend who, while visiting my wife, mentioned three cases, in her own immediate circle, of persons who had benefited materially by the use of the remedies to which they were introduced by the account given of Lady Paget's paper in the Review of Heviews. One who bad only, a week to live, being in the last stage of cancer, experienced almost complete release from pain from the application of the remedies; another, who had suffered for years from a polypus in the nose, which deprived her of taste and smell, had caused it to disappear "by Mattei"" ; while a third, whose sight was darkened by cataract, bad regained her sight. These cases were accidentally mentioned in a friendly way, as an illustration of the benefits such a magazine as this occasionally conferred upon its readers. There remained only to await the result of the challenge to Dr Snow and the cancer specialists. I had not long to wait. Dr Kennedy, writing in the National Review of November, and quoted by me that month, stated that the challenge to investigate the alleged case of cancer cure had been evaded. Dr Snow was ready to examine into the case when it had been submitted to any medical society; but all medical societies by their rules being forbidden to examine into any case where the cure is said to have been effected by any secret remedy, Dr Snow's answer was simply a smart shuffle to avoid an inquiry. The inference is obvious. To shirk an appeal to your own tribunal is to give up your case without even venturing to be heard in opposition to the other side. As I was leaving London, I heard, from one who has long been intimate with the interior of the personnel of the Propaganda at Rome, that there Count Mattei's remedies were held in great repute, and that at one time the Count had contemplated leaving the Propaganda one-half of the income derivable from the sale of his medicines. Clearly, therefore, it appeared to me that a man who was capable not only of convincing so many people that he had achieved such marvellous cures by such harmless means, but at the same time was capable of contemplating the bequest of one-half the proceeds of his discovery to the Propaganda or missionary department of the Catholic Church, was a man whom it was well worth a journey across Europe to see. So the moment I could leave the proof sheets of my November number I started for Bologna, and am now writing at Monte Carlo the result of. the observations which X made,

1 THE COUNT'S YOUTH AND HIS MENTOB. tj Galvani's great discovery was but 20 years ijold when Caesar Mattei was born. His parents belonged to one of the richest families of Bologna, owning a palace in the city and large possessions outside, including, among others, the seigniory of La Rocca de Magnavacca, on the coast of the Adriatic, to the north of Eavenna. He was educated at the seminary of Bologna, where he applied himself chiefly to the study of Latin. When he was 19 his father died, and his guardians finding themselves, as he naively says, somewhat bored by his presence, launched him upon a course of European travel, with a full purse, and no other control than his own sweet will. It was in 1828 when young Mattei, " lord of himself, that heritage of woe," began a career of extravagance and riot which lasted till 1839. He was young and rich, and surrounded by those who had ministered to the caprice and indulged the passions of their wealthy patron. From thia wild and worthless life he was reclaimed by a single word from Paola Costa, poet and philosopher. Costa, impressed by the talent shown in one of Mattei's satirical verses, sent for the author, and remonstrated very seriously with him as to the wreck he was making of his life. " Why waste you* life ia the aimless frivolities of society when you have faculties which well deserve tp be better employed ? " The reproof covering the compliment wen t home. Cassar Mattei there and then abandoned his dissipated life, and applied himself with characteristic energy to the study of philosophy and literature. For the next two years Paola Costa was his guide, philosopher, and friend ; and under his guardianship Mattei's house became the favourite rendezvous of the men of letters of the day, THE COLLIB DOG AND THB MATTEI MEDICINE. It was on the hills ia the neighbourhood that he tumbled upon the discovery with which bis name is identified. . Like all discoveries destined to be famous — like Newton's apple, for instance, which gave the hint that led to the discovery of the law of gravitation — the accident which opened the door to the secret of Matteism was but the last link in a long chain of prior research. Count Mattei in his retreat devoted much time to the study of medicine. He was not long in discovering that the healing art had in many cases degenerated into a mere parade of pathological science— of anatomy and pathology whole volumes, of therapeutics a page or two. This, surely, was an inversion of the true proportion. To depose the medicine of palliatives it was necessary to find the medicine that cures. After a long and careful study of the teachings of Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of modern homoeopathy, he adopted his leading ideas, and he has built all his remedies upon the familiar homoeopathic theory of the action of similars, which homoeopaths are fond of declariDgwas the basis of the system of Galen. Wherein homoeopathy failed, "in Count Mattei's opinion, was in seeking too exclusively to combat symptoms after, individualising them. The true policy was to combat the oause3 of disease rather than its outward manifestations. "Satisfied," says Dr Ken* nedy, "that for every evil there exists somewhere in Nature a cure,' he turned to Nature to seek at her hands a new Materia Medica. The brute creation seek out herbs to cure them, and all inorganic substances required by animal economy are supplied in the vegetable world with a skill which mortal chemists can never hope to approaoh. Hence Mattei concluded it is in the vegetable creation that God has placed medicine." Having arrived at this conclusion by a process of reasoning, circumstance' was not long in supplying confirmation.. The rdle of Galvani's frog was filled by a sheep dog belonging to a neighbouring farmer. This dog, which was afflicted with a peculiarly loathsome species of mange, used to relieve itself by hunting out and eating a herb that grew on the spnrs of the Apennines. Count Mattei followed the dog, noted the herb which he selected, gathered some leaves, distilled their essence, and then tried the product on a human patient suffering from scrofula. Such excellent results were obtained that the Count -went on experiment" ing with herbs, until by degrees he succeeded in compounding some eight or ten medicines and five electricities, with which he treats all manner of diseases. "WHAT IS HIS BECBET? It is about 30 years since that shepherd dog laid the foundation of the Matteist pharmacopoeia. The dog has long since been gathered to the shades where abode the dog of the Seven Sleepers and the Woft "Bitch, foster mother of the founders of old Rome. Not even its skin remains?- nor has any sculptor commemorated in marble or in everduring bronze the faithful beast which led the way to the "new medical science." Count Mattei, however, does not pretend that his concoctions of mountain herbs would in themselves cure diseases. His herbs are good, no doubt ; but the grand secret is the fixing in the remedy of a mysterious something which he calls the electrical principle. This, he asserts, is the .vital principle of the universe, and, as far as I could make out, is cousin german to the astral fluid of the occulists, or the strange etheric force of Keeley. Count Mattei, however, knows nothing of the astral force, or of Keeley 's motor. He simply maintains that he knows how to make herbal decoctions instinct with a potent, vital, electrical force which enables them to work wonders. That they do work wonders in many cases seems to be beyond all doubt. How they do it no one explains but the Count. His explanation is that their power is derived from this fixing of the electrical principle, and if that leave 3us as much in the dark as ever it is at least as good as the Jesuit's suggestion that their efficacy is due to the potent influence of the Black Art 1 EARLY EFFOKTS. Whether from electricity or from the devil or from the herbs of the field, Count Mattei satisfied himself thai he had discovered a secret which was capable of alleviating enormously the sufferings of mankind. His old ! friend, Pins the Ninth, placed at his diSposal part of the hospital of St. Teresa in Rome, where, 20 years ago, he ia said to have achieved some marvellous cures of cancer in an incredibly short space of time. In those days Count Mattei did not sell his medicine He manufactured, it and gave it away to all

who asked for it. He opened a dispensary at Bologna, where, from 1865 to 1867, be claims to have cured an immense number of patients. Of these things I cannot speak of my own knowledge. What seems certain is that the Count was much aggrieved by the hostility shown to his remedies by the regular Faculty. He was and is as full of enthusiasm about his medicine as a boy who has just discovered the secret of the bow and arrow. His first instinct, after repeated verifying of the efficacy of his remedies, was to appeal to the church to add the healing of bodies to the healing of souls, and to arm every parish priest with the cheap and efficacious remedies which his discovery placed within their reach. He issued a circular to this effect to ministers of all religions, but, as might have been anticipated, it met with no response.

THE BUILDING OF LA BOOHETTA.

About this time the virulence of the attacks made upon him by the orthodox Faculty, together with some threats of personal violence, led him to retire to his present castellated stronghold of La Rocbetta. Here on the summit of one of the bills irising from the bed of the Reno, at the base of the Bolognese Apennines, he constructed a veritable fortress, in the heart of which he stored such apparatus as is necessaryi for compounding his remedies. There he has lived for years, and there he is living to [this day. In a donjon keep, approached by a steel drawbridge at the top of a lofty tower, with a trusty Andrea Ferrara by his bedside, and a tiny toy revolver ready to hand,; the Count remains on guard against the assassination which he believes was once at least seriously planned by his enemies. Now be admits his enemies have changed their tactics. They no longer plot his destruction with sword and pistol. They wage against his remedies the deadlier warfare of suppression. Under the law of Italy, Count Mattei, being the holder of no medical diploma, is forbidden to hold consultations or to -preBcribe medicines. By a new law, which came into force on January 1, no medibine or remedy, the nature of which is not officially stated, will be allowed to be sold in all Italy. Against these new 'weapons steel drawbridges and Andrea Ferraras are of no avail, and Count Mattei can only lament: the unhappy prejudice which leads mankind to offer the most stubborn opposition to those who seek to do it good.

TOT HE KEEPS HIS SECRET.

Of late years Count Mattei was led to abandon his earlier practice of giving away his medicines. He found that by giving them away wholesale he did not secure their widest possible distribution. Count Mattei is a zealous propagandist of Matteism .' If he had his way he would administer one of his phials of remedies every year to every individual in this planet, and it is his honest opinion, which he expresses with a child-like frankness, that the human race would; be immensely benefited by such an administration. When he gave his medicines away he had no control over their dissemination. (The chemists who applied for them often affixed prohibitive prices, while imitators sprang up in scores on every side. Against thesfe he had no remedy. It was of course possible for him to have disclosed his secret, ana so to have enabled everyone to endeavour to compound the remedies which he believejd to be so N efficacious for the healing of -the diseases of the whole world, But against this course there was the weighty objection that, although he could disclose his sedret, he could not be sure that those to whom it was imparted would manufacture the compound with the care and exactitude ujpon which its effect depended, Every obeijaist would attempt to manufacture his own electricities and remedies. A breakneck competition would lead to a depravation of [the quality of the medicine, and the whole Matteist " science " would be hopelessly 'discredited before it had established for itself a right to a place, and a leading place; in the pharmacopoeias of the world. Again, if the secret were common property it would be no one's special interest to push the distribution of the remedies. Count Mattei therefore decided to keep his secret, preserve the manufacture in his own hands) to issue the remedies at the lowest possible price that would admit of a profit to the distributor, and to provide funds for the prqpagandism of the new doctrine, and for jthe punishment of all who palm off upon 'the public fraudulent imitations of the genuine remedies. These general reasons have been enforced within the last few years by private personal reasons of a somewhat painful nature. Oount Mattei is not married. His heir, to whom he had bequeathed his secret and all his wealth, was a nephew whom; he trusted absolutely, giving him a power; of attorney to ast in his name and to deal with his property. This nephew showed his appreciation of his uncle's confidence by using his power of attorney to possess himself of the patrimonial inheritance. He squandered in a few years between three and four millions of francs, and was still plunging bravely when the creditors foreclosed. It was a great blow to the old Count when bis ancestral estates were sent to the hammer, and La Rochetta itself narrowly escaped the universal destruction. He disinherited the scapegrace, and has adopted in his stead a blameless young man, Signor Venturoli Mattei, who has now sole charge of the Count's affairs. Thanks to his business aptitude, and the growing demand for the Mattei medicines in all parts of the world, the Count has been able to retrieve his fortunes, and although he is now nearly 82 years of age, he hopes to see himself once more re-established in possession of his ancestral domains.

THE HEADQUABTEBS IN BOLOGNA.

It was Signor Venturoli Mattei whom I met at Florence at the spacious palace in Bologna, whence remedies are despatched every post to the uttermost ends of the world. He is a quiet, reserved young man of 32, who feels the grave responsibility of his -position. The Count does no business. He lives at Riola among the mountains. All the practical work of carrying on the distribution of the remedies, the publication of the monthly and fortnightly bulletins or monitors of the electro-homoeopathic system, is done in the Rue Mazzini. Signor Venturoli Mattei took me through room after room, showed me the great carboys full of the medicaments, the cases ready packed to be sent off to the world's end, the files of letters from patients of high and low degree, and

the volumes of the publications devoted to the "new medical science." He' told me that they sent out about a million phials of the little granules every year, and about as many bottles of the electricities and boxes of ointment. Germany and Russia were their best customers. In France, I understood, the Mattei remedies had mcc with considerable difficulties of late years owing to the opposition of various psuedo-Matteists who had sprung up, each vaunting his own specific and discrediting the original discovery. But even in France, notwithstanding these schemes, the progress of Matteism was sufficiently rapid to have united into one all the existing homoeopaths in what may be described as an anti-Mattei Union. There was a signal absence of any attempt to impress the imagination in the building. All was quiet, almost too quiet, for the headquarters of a system which has branches in almost every country under the sun. THE OOUNT AT HOME. In the hall, where a bright wood fire was burning, Count Mattei received us. He is a man about the middle height, and apparently not more than 60, although, according to the almanac, he will be 82 in January. His hair is black, his step is vigorous, and although I would not like to match him in a trial of strength against the phenomenal Old Man of Hawarden, he is as full of buoyant vigour as Mr Gladstone himself. We were soon seated round the fire, and full of pleasant chat about the country side, in which the Count spends his days, and the castle, in the building of which he finds the relaxation of hi 3 life. Conspicuous over the fireplace was an immense vase in Corinthian bronze, the gift of Mr T. M. Elliott, who, having been attacked by cancer in the face, had travelled from Valparaiso to Riola, and bad remained there until cured. With the vase was his card, expressing his grateful acknowledgment of the benefit he had received from the Count. The hall opened into a dining room, which in turn communicated with the kitchen. From the other end a flight of stairs led up to the white marble bedroom*, reserved for guests. Old armour, Moorish inscriptions, a Chinese banneret with Chinese characters, hung round the walls. The daily and weekly papers, including a Parisian comic paper, lay on the settee. The hermit, it was evident, although out of the world, was still of it, and full of aotive interest in all its affairs.

He talked of his remedies with an almost childish eagerness. No one could spend an hour with him and not feel that he implicitly believed that he had made a discovery which nothing but the perversity of human nature, and the professional jealousy of the doctors, could account for its not coming at once into universal use.

THE COUNT'S GOLDEN BOOK.

The Count's " Golden Book " contains a most valuable collection of autographs. Letters were there heaped together from half the courts of Eurjpe. Here, for instance, is a letter of the lectrice of the Empress of Austria, dated January 11, 1881 : — ,

The medicaments which we have received by the Duke Louis, brother of her Majesty,* and which have been employed with great success by her Majesty the Empress and his Majesty the Emperor, encourages me to follow your method, &c. ,

Here is another, of quite recent date, from another royal personage, written by Baron de Bruck, aide-de-camp, and dated Munich, May 27, 1890 :—

His Royal Highness Ludwig of Bavaria, has charged me to ask you to oblige him by Bending< a box of medicaments named in the accompanying list. His Highness will be much obliged to you, for be has the most unshakable faith in these remedies (ayant une f oi immuable dans oes remedeß), which have already done him much good.

On another occasion the Dnke of Meck-lenburg-Schwerin telegraphed urgently for medicines to save the life of his infant child. They were sent, and were apparently successful, for another telegram soon followed, saying, " thanks to God and to your remedies," the child had recovered. There were several letters from ambassadors and ambassadors' wives. One was , f rom the German Embassy at Rome, saying ; —

I have used your remedies lately with a suocess as instantaneous as complete, and I shall oartainly not fail to make a very aotive propaganda for electro- homoeopathy.

aBNBBAL IGNATIEFF.

Of letters from Roumanian generals and princes and statesmen the*re seemed to be no end. Orleanist princes also proposed to call npon him, and besought him to send them his remedies. Among those who made the pilgrimage to Riola was none other than the famous General Ignatieff, who, accompanied by the Countess and the Princess Galitsrfn, arrived at La Bochetta one day in anything but a good humour at the wretched shandrydan of a one-horse car which conveyed them from the station to the castle. " What do you mean," asked the irate Russian, "by sending such a trap as that to meet us T "

" Why," said Count Mattei, " if you wanted to Come in state you had better have brought a landau and pair over from Bologna."

Count Ignatieffs trouble was an inflammation of the eyelids, and, judging from the following letter from the Countess, he received considerable relief from the Count's remedies — the one- horse car notwithstanding. The letter, dated July 1879, was evidently written just before Count Ignatieff began his brief but brilliant career as Governor of NijniNovgorod. It ran thus : —

My husband, having been obligred to leave St. Petersburg in order to fill a post in the administration of the interior, has charged me to thank you for your letter, and to say that he continues to follow your advice with the greatest success. It haß made a cure almost miraculous, the details of which he will give you himself. - *

Then followed orders for various phials to be forwarded, and the letter closed with the characteristic remark that the Count awaited their arrival with impatience.

SOME OF HIS PATIENTS

M. Hamburger, another Russian diplomatist, wrote for medicines with which he hopes to restore the health of his wife, "as they have already restored mine." The Russians," high and low, were profuse in their expressions of gratitude. The Princess Worontzoff, of the Russian Court, is described in one letter as "one of the greatest of your admirers," and the tobacco-pouch — a curiously ornamented affair — was her gift. His gold watch was the gift of another Russian

lady at the court. Among others, I was delighted to come across a letter in which Madame Helbig — the Admirable Crichton of modern women — was described as " one of your great admirers," who had just achieved the cure of a favourite dog by the wonderworking globules. Gregorieff, the St. Petersburg banker, wrote declaring that he owed his life to the Count, and that he regards him as one of the greatest men of our epoch. Of English letters there were not so many, but there was no lack of gossip about eminent Englishmen and Anglo-Indians who had received great benefit from his treatment. The Duchess of Argyll wrote in 1884, declaring that, after having suffered for many years from an asthma so violent as to make life insupportable, she had derived so much benefit from his treatment that she was now in hopes'" of complete recovery. Lady Heron wrote acknowledging the complete cure of an obstinate .liver complaint.

OABDINAL LAVIGEKIB.

The Count spoke freely as to the use which was made of his medicines by the missionaries in various parts of the world. There is a hospital, he said, at Hankow, in China, where 1000 native patients are treated entirely by the French Sisters of Mercy with the medicines. The Jesuits, although somewhat inclined to look askance in some places at the medicines as owing their efficacy to unholy science, have made good use of them in India. It is a Jesuit father at the dispensary at Mangalore who claims to have wrought several marvellous cures of leprosy at a cost which does not amount to a pound a head. Incredible though this testimony may appear, it is confirmed by a Mr D'Acosta in Calcutta, who has written to the Indian Daily News, giving particulars concerning the cure of unmistakable leprous sores by the same simple remedies. One of the letters in the Golden Book which interested me much was from Cardinal Lavigerie. It was a long letter, which began by stating that he had heard from many serious and, trustworthy authorities of the marvellous results which had been achieved by the Count's remedies, in > the hands of the Fren<jh sisters of Bon Secours in Tunis, and also in the cities of Italy. The good Cardinal wrote pointing out what an immense advantage it would be if all the Catholic missionaries in Northern Africa could be furnished with these remedies, so simple and so costless, with which they could heal the bodies of those- whose souls they sought to save. But, added he with practical good sense, " could you not devise some means by which it would not be necessary to be for ever taking sips of your medicine ? In the heart of the desert, in the midst of savage tribes, it is difficult to take the regulation dose with the regulation persistency." I asked Count Mattei what he had replied. " Oh," he said, " they can take the granule dry. It costs more, no doubt, and it is not so efficacious. Every sip of the solution gives a kind of electrical fillip to the system, but the curative element is in the granules whichever way you take them."

A OTJKB FOB SEA SICKNESS,

The Americans do not take so kindly to the infinitesimal doses as the Europeans and the Asiatics. Some Americans, however, with a shrewd eye to the main chance, offered him £200,000 for his secret, but the offer was rejected. A n American minister in Italy .wrote, saying he always used the remedies with very great benefit, but hitherto Dr Puscbaek, the American representative of the Oount in Chicago, has not done much more than keep the system in evidence before the American public.

It was curious to hear the Oount talk of cancer cures as if they were among the ordinary everyday incidents of life. He said that two Germans from the court had come to Biola to ask him to go to prescribe for the Emperor Frederick. He had refused, as he always refuses, to attempt anything after an operation. Medicines were sent to San Bemo, but he knew nothing as to whether they had been used. Of a much more universal malady, although fortunately by no means so fatal, he maintained he had achieved a complete mastery, Sea sickness, he said, would soon be a thing of the past. A few grains of one of his decoctions, taken Atj or sipped in solution, enable the worst sailors to contemplate with composure the Channel passage. My fellow traveller confirmed this. Himself but a different sailor, he had, with the aid of the magic globules, made the journey from Harwich to Antwerp and back in a lumpy sea without experiencing even a momentary qualm. Mrs BoothTucker also found some relief on her journey to India. Of cpnrse with some travellers it fails, but if even it was efficacious in 50 per cent, what a\boon it would be to the unfortunate victims of mcil de mer !

do be continued.)