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First, These desperate Medicines which are usually taken for such Purposes, what are they, and of what Kind? Have they an effect only upon that particular Part which they are pointed at? Are they able to confine the Operation of the Physick to the very mathematical Point of Situation? And shall the Poisons extend no farther? Are they sure they shall affect no Part but the Conception? Shall the Physick, like a Messenger sent upon a particular Business, knock at no Doors in his Journey going or coming? Shall it affect no other Part? Shall the murthering Dart kill just the Part, strike a mortal Wound just there, and no where else, and innocently passing by every other Place, do no more than just the Errand 'tis sent about.
What if you should mistake, and the Application being misplaced, the Arrow should miss the Child, and kill the Mother? I have heard of a certain Quack in this Town, and knew him too, who profess'd to prescribe in this very Case; the Villain, for he must be no other, had his Preparations of the several following particular Kinds, are for the several following Operations, and accordingly, gave the Directions to his Patients, as follows:
'No. 1. If the Party or Woman be young with Child, not above three Months gone, and would miscarry without Noise, and without Danger, take the Bolus herewith sent in the Evening an Hour before she goes to Bed, and thirty drops of the Tincture in the Bottle, just when she goes to Bed, repeating the Drops in the Morning before she eats; take the Drops in Rhenish Wine, right Moselle.
'No. 2.
