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A48701
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A journey to Paris in the year 1698 by Dr. Martin Lister.
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Lister, Martin, 1638?-1712.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing L2525; ESTC R14927
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102,964
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264
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for all that Marshal cut are alive and very well whereas the other lost one or two of his number besides those that lived were not so soon cur'd no not by a month or six weeks Thus far Mr. Probie Pox. The Pox here is the great Business of the Town a Disease which in some measure hath contributed to the ruine of Physick here as in London This Secret Service hath introduced little Contemptible Animals of all sorts into Business and hath given them occasion to insult Families after they had once the knowledge of these Misfortunes And it is for this reason the Quacks here as with us do thrive vastly into great Riches beyond any of the Physicians by treating privately these Calamities It was a pleasant Diversion to me to read upon the Walls every where about the Town but more particularly in the Fauxbourgh of St. Germain the Quacks Bills Printed in great Uncial Letters As De par l'ordre du Roy. Remede infallible commode pour la gerison des maladies secretes sans garder la chambre Another Par permission de Roy. Manniere tres aisee tres sure pour guerir sans incommodite sans que persone en appercoive les maladies veneriennes c. Another Par privilege du Roy. L'Antivenerien de medicin Indien pour toutes les maladies veneriennes telles quelles quissent estre sans aucun retour sans guarder la chambre Il est tres commode le plus agreable de monde Another Remede assure de Sieur de la Brune privilege du Roy c. sans qu'on soit contraint de garder la chambre c. By these Bills it is evident there is yet a certain Modesty and Decorum left in the Concealing this Disease even amongst the French They would be Cured secretly and as though nothing were doing which those Wretches highly promise But this is that Handle which gives those mean People an occasion to insult their Reputation and injure them in their Health for ever Every body here puts their helping Hand and meddles with the Cure of this Disease as Apothecaries Barbers Women and Monks yet I did not find by all the inquiry I could make that they had other Remedies than we Nay there is something practised in the Cure of this Distemper in England which they at Paris know nothing of but this old Verse forbids me to say any thing further Artem pudere proloqui quam factites Apothecaries Shops The Apothecaries Shops are neat enough if they were but as well stored with Medicines and some are very finely adorned and have an Air of greatness as that of Monsieur Geofferie who has been Provost des Merchands in the Rue Burtebur where the Entry to the Basse Cour is a Port-cochier with Vasa's of Copper in the Niches of the Windows within are Rooms adorned with huge Vasa's and Mortors of Brass as well for sight as for use The Drugs and Compositions are kept in Cabinets disposed round the Room Also Laboratories backwards in great perfection and neatness I must needs commend this Gentleman for his Civility towards me and for his Care in Educating his Son who came over with Count Tallard a most Hopeful and Learned Young Man whom our Society at Gresham-Colledge at my Request honoured with admitting him Fellow according to his Deserts Physicians I had the opportunity of Conversing with many of the Physicians in this City who all agree in the low Condition and Disesteem it was in from the boundless Confidence and intruding of Quacks Women and Monks Monsieur d'Achin the late chief Physician has been ill thought on for taking Money and giving protection to these sort of Cattle but the chief Physician now Monsieur Fagon is a Man of great Honour and Learning and very desirous to promote the Art It is here as with us some practise out of meer vanity others to make a Penny any way to get Bread The cause of all this is I think the great Confidence People have of their own Skill an arrogance without thinking To pass a Judgment upon Cures and the good and evil practice of Physick without doubt is one of the nicest things even to Men of the Faculty but a Jury that is the very ordinary Men in England are suffered now to undertake the Question when I may truly say that I have ever found no disparagement to them the most Learned Men of the Nation the most mistaken in these Matters and can it be otherwise in so Conjectural an Art when we our selves scarce know when we have done ill or well Another cause of the low Esteem of Physick here are the sorry Fees that are given to Physicians which makes that Science not worth the Application and Study The King indeed is very liberal as in all things else in his Pensions to his chief Physician and gives his Children good Preferments Also Mr. Burdelot who is also well Pensioned and lodged at Versailles Physician to the Dutchess of Burgundy a Learned Man he is perfectly well Skill'd in the History of Physick and we may shortly as he told me expect from him another Supplement to Vauder Linden of many thousand Volumes which have escaped that Catalogue and are not accounted for Monsieur and the Dauphin and all the Princes of the Blood have their Domestick Physicians some of whom I knew as Monsieur Arlot Monsieur Minot to the Prince of Conty of my acquaintance formerly at Montpelier The Two Morins very Learned Men also Monsieur Grimodel c. Others have the practice of Nunneries and Convents which gives them Bread others have Parishes and some such Shifts they make but all is wrong with them and very little incouragement given to the Faculty April 14. the Prince of Conty sent his Gentleman and Coach at mid-night to fetch me to his Son and to bring with me the late King Charles's Drops to give him This was a very hasty call I told the Messenger I was the Prince's very humble Servant but for any Drops or other Medicines I had brought nothing at all with me and had used only such as I found in their Shops for all the occasions I had had to use any I desired he would tell him that I was ready to Consult with his Physicians upon his Sons Sickness if he pleased to command me but for coming upon any other Account I desired to be excused but I heard no more of the Matter and the young Prince died By this it is evident there is as false a Notion of Physick in this Country as with us and that it is here also thought a Knack more than a Science or Method and little Chimical Toys the Bijous of Quacks are mightily in request This Heresie hath possessed the most thinking as well as the ignorant part of Mankind and for this we are beholden to the late vain Expositors of Nature who have mightily inveighed against and undervalued the ancient Greek Physicians in whose Works only this Art is
after all the French delight in nothing so much as Mushroomes of which they have daily of which they have daily and all the Winter long store of fresh and new gathered in the Markets This surprised me nor could I guess where they had them till I found they raised them on hot Beds in their Gardens Of Forc't Mushroomes they have many Crops in a year but for the Months of August September October when they naturally grow in the Fields they prepare no Artificial Beds They make in the Fields and Gardens out of the Bar of Vaugerard which I saw long narrow Trenches and fill those Trenches with Horse Dung 2 or 3 foot thick on which they throw up the common Earth of the place and cover the Dung with it like the ridge of a House high pitched and over all they put long Straw or long Horse Litter Champignons Out of this Earth springs the Champignons after Rain and if Rain comes not they Water the Beds every day even in Winter They are 6 days after their springing or first appearance before they pull them up for the Market On some Beds they have plenty on others but few which demonstrate they come of Seed in the Ground for all the Beds are alike A Gardner told me he had the other year near an Acre of Ground ordered in this manner but he lost a 100 Crowns by it but mostly they turn to as good profit as any thing they can plant They destroy their old Beds in Summer and dung their Grounds with them They prepare their new Beds the latter end of August and have plentiful Crops of Mushrooms towards Christmas and all the Spring till after March Moriglio's I saw in the Markets the beginning of April fresh gathered Moriglio's the first of that Kind of Mushroom that I remember ever to have seen though formerly I had been very curious and inquisitive about this Kind of Plant and had distinguisht and described 30 Species of them growing in England yet I do not remember ever to have found this Species with us it is blackish and becomes much blacker when boiled whence probably it had its Name but there are some few of them that are yellow They are always of a round Pyramidal Figure upon a short thick Foot-stalk The Foot-stalk is smooth but the outside of the Mushroom is all deeply pleated and wrinkled like the inside of a Beasts Maw The Moriglio split in two from top to bottom is all hollow and smooth Foot stalk and all In this hollowness is sometimes contained dangerous Insects The taste raw is not ungrateful and very tender This Mushroom seems to me to be produced of the Tree Kind This sort of Mushroom is much esteemed in France and is mostly gathered in Woods at the foot of the Oaks There were some of them as big as Turky Eggs. They are found in great quantities in the Woods in Champagne about Reims and Nostre Dame de Liesse They string them and dry them and they seem to me to have a far better relish than the Champignons The French say there are no bad Moriglio's but there are bad Mushrooms At first I was very shie of eating them but by degrees and that there was scarce any Ragouts without them I became pleased with them and found them very innocent I am persuaded the harm that comes from eating them is from the noxious Insects and Vermin that feed upon them and creep into them I have often found them full of such Animals Possibly the Garden or forc't Mushrooms being that is done in Winter and in the Spring may be much freer of this mischief at what time Insects are dead or not much stirring than the wild Mushrooms of August Fish This City is well served with Carp of which there is an incredible quantity spent in the Lent They are not large and I think are the better for it but they are very clean of Mud and well tasted They have a particular way of bringing fresh Oysters to Town which I never saw with us To put them up in Straw Baskets of a Pecke suppose cut from the Shell and without the Liquor They are thus very good for Stewing and all other manner of Dressing There is such plenty of Macreuse a sort of Sea Ducks in the Markets all Lent that I admire where they got so many but these are reckoned and esteemed as Fish and therefore they take them with great Industry They have a rank fishy taste yet for want of other Flesh were very welcome I remember we had at our Treat at the King's Charge at Versailles a Macreuse Pye near two foot diameter for it was in Lent which being high Seasoned did go down very well with rare Burgundy There is a better Argument in Leewenhoeke for Birds participating something of the nature of Fish though their Blood is hot than any the Council of Trent could think of and that is that the Globuli of the Blood of Birds are Oval as those of Fishes are but this will take in all the Bird Kind which also in time those Gentlemen may think fit to grant Flesh As for their Flesh Mutton and Beef if they are good in their Kind they come little short of ours I cannot say they exceed them But their Veal is not to be compared with ours being red and course and I believe no Countrey in Europe understands the Management of that sort of Food like the English This was once proper to Essex but now it is well known that nothing contributes more to the whiteness and tenderness of the Flesh of Calves than often Bleeding them and giving them much Food of Milk and Meal besides sucking the Dam. By much Bleeding the red Cake of the Blood is exhausted and becomes all White Serum or Chyle The same effect Cramming hath upon Poultry so as the Blood is well near all Chyle and the Livers of Geese so fed by force will become for the same reason vastly great and white and delicious I cannot but take notice here of a great Prejudice the French lie under in relation to our Flesh 'T is generally said amongst them that our Meat in England will not make so strong Broth as the French by a third part If they say not so salt and savoury and strong tasted I agree with them and yet the French Meat is never the better For first their Meat is mostly leaner and more dry and which is all in all in this matter of Soupes is long kept before it be spent which gives it a higher and salter taste for as Meat rots it becomes more urinous and salt Now our People by custom covet the freshest Meat and cannot indure the least tendency to putrefaction and we have good reason to do so because our Air is twice as moist as theirs which does often cause in the keeping of Meat a Mustiness which is intolerable to all Mankind whereas the Air of France being so much drier keeping of