the senate, certain
physicians should attend it the three first days of their sitting, and at
the close of each day's debate feel the pulses of every senator; after
which, having maturely considered and consulted upon the nature of the
several maladies, and the methods of cure, they should on the fourth day
return to the senate house, attended by their apothecaries stored with
proper medicines; and before the members sat, administer to each of them
lenitives, aperitives, abstersives, corrosives, restringents,
palliatives, laxatives, cephalalgics, icterics, apophlegmatics,
acoustics, as their several cases required; and, according as these
medicines should operate, repeat, alter, or omit them, at the next
meeting."

This project could not be of any great expense to the public; and might
in my poor opinion, be of much use for the despatch of business, in those
countries where senates have any share in the legislative power; beget
unanimity, shorten debates, open a few mouths which are now closed, and
close many more which are now open; curb the petulancy of the young, and
correct the positiveness of the old; rouse the stupid, and damp the pert.

Again: because it is a general complaint, that the favourites of princes
are troubled with short and weak memories; the same doctor proposed,
"that whoever attended a first minister, after having told his business,
with the utmost brevity and in the plainest words, should, at his
departure, give the said minister a tweak by the nose, or a kick in the
belly, or tread on his corns, or lug him thrice by both ears, or run a
pin into his breech; or pinch his arm black and blue, to prevent
forgetfulness; and at every levee day, repeat the same operation, till
the business were done, or absolutely refused."

He likewise directed, "that every senator in the great council of a
nation, after he had delivered his opinion, and argued in the defence of
it, should be obliged to give his vote directly contrary; because if that
were done, the result would infallibly terminate in the good of the
public."

When parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful contrivance
to reconcile them. The method is this: You take a hundred leaders of
each party; you dispose them into couples of such whose heads are nearest
of a size; then let two nice operators saw off the occiput of each couple
at the same time, in such a manner that the brain may be equally divided.
Let the occiputs, thus cut off