ployed, the native elasticity of constitution readily restored the system to its normal condition. Consequently, tonics were of less importance in the remedial curriculum. The more composite state of older society, and the attendant mixture of constitutions, was, scientifically speaking, a prominent cause of the ultimate abandonment of the old practice.[1]
About the year 1820, a violent epidemic, known as the "throat distemper," sadly afflicted the people of this town. Mostly, or wholly, it attacked the children and youth of the locality, seventy-two of whom are said to have died by its stroke. This distemper, contrary to a conception sometimes indulged, was pathologically distinct from diphtheria, though it might have been somewhat similar in its manifestations. The physician treating this malady with the best success was Dr. Michael Tubbs, of Deering, who had nineteen patients in this town and saved them all, but one, whom he pronounced beyond help when called to the bedside. The principal remedy used by Dr. Tubbs was balsam of fir, employing at the same time a cervical bandage made of black sheep's wool saturated with vinegar.
SUPERSTITIOUS.
Superstition is the legitimate off- spring of ignorance, which both creates fantastic ideals and magnifies mole-hills into mountains. In all societies where genuine intellectual culture holds but an insignificant sway, the imagination of the marvelously susceptible carries them to the extreme of absurdity in their conceptions of the mysterious. The part that superstition bore in the general history of New England, in the earlier times, is too well known to the reading public to need description here. It was only a natural consequence that the people of this town were, in a measure at least, involved in the general apprehension and mystified conception of occult and distressing influences.
In New England, in the days when Hopkinton was reclaimed from the wilderness, the popular definition of all that was socially occult and dangerous was embraced in the term witchcraft. Subject of Satan, indeed, the witch might be, but the accessory was more feared than the principal. Witchcraft was recognized in this vicinity in at least four forms. There were the occult influence exercised over the beasts of the field, the hidden danger that lurked about the path of the unwary traveller, the specter that haunted the sleeper by night, and the ghost that hung around its favorite stamping ground. Some details of the several forms and methods employed in these several departments of dreaded mystery will be interesting.
The live-stock of the husbandman was beset by witchcraft that either affected the disposition of the animal or the product of its economy. A beast would become ill-tempered or stubborn through the obsession of the witch. Cows, particularly, failed at times to yield their milk, or the lacteal product soured in an incredibly short space of time, or the cream in the churn refused, after prolonged agitation, to come into butter. Instances of this class occured quite frequently, and were of quite recent experience. Only a few years ago, a respectable lady, now living, related to us a case under personal observation, in which the milk of a cow, fresh from the pasture, turned to bonny clapper before it could be conveyed from the animal to the pantry.
The mysterious annoyance of the traveller by day was more likely to directly affect the beast than the driver. Persons in going abroad were sometimes troubled by a sudden refusal of a beast to continue tranquilly on its accustomed way. Balking and witchcraft became to an extent closely related phenomena. A mysterious case in kind occurred within the memory of the pre-
- ↑ *We once conversed with an aged physician of the heroic school, who, speaking of the change in modern practice, said in substance: "During my earlier practice, we had remedies for various diseases, and they were successful; but in later times the old applications failed. There must have been some modification of the constitutions of people."
