Hermippus Redivivus by Sabine Baring-Gould

"Man," said the learned Prioli, "is composed of soul, body, and goods. In his pilgrimage through life these component parts are constantly exposed to three mortal enemies: the devils, who are ever seeking the destruction of his soul; the doctors, who are intent on ruining his constitution; and the lawyers, who seek to rob him of his goods."

We will put the devils aside for a moment, the lawyers, too, with the tongs, and devote our attention to the doctors. We have already examined the medical treatise entitled _Flagellum Salutis_, wherein was exposed the excellence of the whip for the cure of every disorder to which mortality is heir. We propose considering another equally startling tractate in this paper, one more modern by a few years than that of Dr. Paullini, but its superior in absurdity. The title of the work is "Hermippus Redivivus, or a curious physico-medical examination of the extraordinary manner in which he extended his life to 115 years by inhaling the breath of little girls; taken from a Roman memorial, but now supported on medical grounds, as also illustrated and elucidated by a wondrous discovery of philosophical chemistry, by Johan Heinrich Cohausen, M. D. " 8vo, 1743.[2] This extraordinary book is adorned with an illustration, representing a pedagogue with a big nose, of Brobdingnagian proportions, keeping a mixed school of solemn little girls in jackets and aprons, and little prigs of boys in stocks, knee-breeches, coats, and wigs. One little boy, whose body is the size of the master's hand, sits reading a book on his right knee. On the ground at his left is a little maiden, just reaching to the top of the master's gaiters. A tiny dog is sitting up begging in the midst of a class in the middle distance; and in the background, behind a row of urchins who are not looking at their books, is a cat as big as any one of them, attacking a cage containing a singing bird. The whole of this strange work is built on a Roman inscription, said to have been found in the seventeenth century, and figured by Thomas Reinsius in his _Syntagma Inscriptionum Antiquarum_, and afterwards by Johann Keyser in his _Parnassus Clivensis_. This inscription, which is almost certainly not genuine, runs as follows: --