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PRECIOUS STONES. 63
with
what was given him) a Franciscan Friar (a very famous Preacher) of a
most dangerous Erysipelas in the arm, in one hour ; and one drop of the
latter being apply'd in his presence to the Head of an old Laundress
that had been sixteen years troubled with an intolerable Hemicrania:
Headache, (one-sided), the Woman was presently cured, and remained so
to his knowledge for divers years."
He
adds almost as strange a cure, done in one night, upon a maid of his
wife's, by anointing the part affected with four drops of that oyl. He
further tells us that the master of the Glass-house at Antwerp being
troubled, and made unwieldy with too much fat, begged some relief of
Dr. Butler. Who, having given him a small fragment of his little Stone,
with orders to lick it nimbly with the tip of his tongue once*every
morning,—"I saw," says the Dr., " within three weeks the compass of his
waist lessened by a span, without any prejudice to his health."
What
an inestimable boon this stone might have proved to Daniel Lambert, the
fat man of all time, whose epitaph in the burial ground at Stamford
Baron runs as follows :—
"
In Remembrance of that prodigy in nature, Daniel Lambert, a native of
Leicester, who was possessed of an excellent,, and convivial mind, and
in personal greatness he had no competitor. He measured three feet one
inch round the leg ; nine feet four inches round the body ; and weighed
52 stone 111b. (141b. to the stone). He departed this life on the 21st
of June, 1809, aged 39 years."
And what more striking contrast to this ponderous character can be adduced (though from fiction) than
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