introducing it
into practice in France; and, to the Queen of Charles II., we are
indebted for the introduction of that popular beverage, tea, into
England. Tobacco has suffered as many variable vicissitudes in its fame
and character. It has been successively opposed and commended by
physicians, condemned and praised by priests and kings, and proscribed
and protected by governments, until, at length, this once insignificant
production of a little island, has succeeded in propagating itself
through every climate and country. Nor is the history of the potatoe
less remarkable or less strikingly illustrative of the imperious
influence of authority. This valuable plant, for upwards of two
centuries, received an unprecedented opposition from vulgar prejudice,
which all the philosophy of the age was unable to dissipate, until Louis
XIV. wore a bunch of the flowers of the potatoe, in the midst of his
court, on a day of mirth and festivity. The people then, for the first
time, obsequiously acknowledged its utility, and began to express their
astonishment at the apathy which had so long prevailed with regard to
its general cultivation.

Another instance may be furnished of overbearing authority, in giving
celebrity to a medicine, or in depriving it of that reputation to which
its virtues entitle it, is seen in the history of the Peruvian bark.
This famed medicine was imported into Spain by the Jesuits, where it
remained seven years, before a trial was given to it. A Spanish priest
was the first to whom it was administered, in the year 1639, and even
then its use was extremely limited; and it would undoubtedly have sunk
into oblivion, but for the supreme power of the church of Rome, under
whose protecting auspices it gained a temporary triumph over the
passions and prejudices which opposed its introduction. Pope Innocent X.
at the intercession of the Cardinal de Lugo, who was formerly a Spanish
Jesuit, ordered the bark to be duly examined, and on the favourable
report, which was the result of this examination, it immediately rose
into high favour and celebrity.

The root of the male fern, a nostrum for the cure of the tape worm, was
secretly retailed by Madame Noufleur. This secret was purchased by Louis
XV. for a considerable sum of money. It was not until this event that
the physicans discovered, that the same remedy had been administered in
the same complaint by Galen. The history of popular remedies in the cure
of gout, is eq