come after, has carried with him into Spain. And 'tis for this reason
you may see why men in such cases require a mind prepared for the thing
that is to be done. Why do the physicians possess, before hand, their
patients' credulity with so many false promises of cure, if not to the
end, that the effect of imagination may supply the imposture of their
decoctions? They know very well, that a great master of their trade has
given it under his hand, that he has known some with whom the very sight
of physic would work. All which conceits come now into my head, by the
remembrance of a story was told me by a domestic apothecary of my
father's, a blunt Swiss, a nation not much addicted to vanity and lying,
of a merchant he had long known at Toulouse, who being a valetudinary,
and much afflicted with the stone, had often occasion to take clysters,
of which he caused several sorts to be prescribed him by the physicians,
acccording to the accidents of his disease; which, being brought him, and
none of the usual forms, as feeling if it were not too hot, and the like,
being omitted, he lay down, the syringe advanced, and all ceremonies
performed, injection alone excepted; after which, the apothecary being
gone, and the patient accommodated as if he had really received a
clyster, he found the same operation and effect that those do who have
taken one indeed; and if at any time the physician did not find the
operation sufficient, he would usually give him two or three more doses,
after the same manner. And the fellow swore, that to save charges (for
he paid as if he had really taken them) this sick man's wife, having
sometimes made trial of warm water only, the effect discovered the cheat,
and finding these would do no good, was fain to return to the old way.

A woman fancying she had swallowed a pin in a piece of bread, cried and
lamented as though she had an intolerable pain in her throat, where she
thought she felt it stick; but an ingenious fellow that was brought to
her, seeing no outward tumour nor alteration, supposing it to be only a