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Nostrum   Listen
noun
Nostrum  n.  (pl. nostrums)  
1.
A medicine, the ingredients of which are kept secret for the purpose of restricting the profits of sale to the inventor or proprietor; a quack medicine.
2.
Any scheme or device proposed by a quack. "The incentives of agitators, the arts of impostors and the nostrums of quacks."
3.
Any scheme asserted to solve a problem, but with no objective basis for belief in its effectiveness; esp., in politics, a scheme or proposal likely to prove popular with voters.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nostrum" Quotes from Famous Books



... or spirits in a small caldron on Mrs. Todd's kitchen stove. They were dispensed to suffering neighbors, who usually came at night as if by stealth, bringing their own ancient-looking vials to be filled. One nostrum was called the Indian remedy, and its price was but fifteen cents; the whispered directions could be heard as customers passed the windows. With most remedies the purchaser was allowed to depart unadmonished from the kitchen, Mrs. Todd being a wise ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... Piles of yellow letters, files of dusty accounts, multitudes of receipts, more than one old will had to be conned it was possible to be certain they were not the nostrum. In the utter solitude, even this occupation would have been valuable, but with the little girls about her, and her own and their property, she had alternative employments enough to make it an effort ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... pedites et missilia spargunt, plura singuli, atque in immensum vibrant, nudi aut sagulo leves. Nulla cultus jactatio; scuta tantum lectissimis coloribus distinguunt: paucis loricae: vix uni alterive cassis aut galea. Equi non forma, non velocitate conspicui: sed nec variare gyros in morem nostrum docentur. In rectum, aut uno flexu dextros agunt ita conjuncto orbe, ut nemo posterior sit. In universum aestimanti, plus penes peditem roboris: eoque mixti proeliantur, apta et congruente ad equestrem ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... bed of state, uncertain groups of watchers whispered noisily. The five physicians, who had tried first one remedy and then another; the rustic physician whose nostrum had kept life within the king for some unexpected days; the ladies who had waited upon the relatives of the king; some of the relatives themselves; Villeroy, guardian of the young king soon to be; the bastard, and the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... encountered the fresh sensation of being in want of her dinner. Her father died, leaving, after all, very little money; he had spent his modest fortune upon the blacks. Selah Tarrant and his companion had strange adventures; she found herself completely enrolled in the great irregular army of nostrum-mongers, domiciled in humanitary Bohemia. It absorbed her like a social swamp; she sank into it a little more every day, without measuring the inches of her descent. Now she stood there up to her chin; it may probably be said of her that she had touched bottom. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... charity. Many of them specialized, and these would devote much energy to opposing the work of other charitable specialists. Lady So-and-so, who advocated this panacea, found herself bitterly opposed by Sir So-and-so, who wanted all sufferers to be made to take his nostrum in his special way. Then sometimes poor Lady So-and-so would throw up her panacea in a huff, and concentrate her energies upon the work of some society for converting Jews, who did not want to be converted, or for supplying red flannel petticoats for South Sea Island girls, who infinitely preferred ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... need: to know that the end of all its mechanisms and ministries is to impart life, and that nothing which obscures or loses sight of the eternal source of life can regenerate or quicken;—to teach men to cry out, with St. Augustine, "Fecisti nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te": Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is unquiet until its rests in Thee,—this however, as any one may be tempted to fence and juggle with the fact, is the truth on which all ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... Nothing will ever make a seat in this House not an object of desire to numbers by any means or at any charge, but the depriving it of all power and all dignity. This would do it. This is the true and only nostrum for that purpose. But an House of Commons without power and without dignity, either in itself or in its members, is no House of Commons for the purposes ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... triumphing if one agreed to look for it in the Imitation only. But even the Imitation is full of passages like these: "Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est";—"Omni die renovare debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodie perfecte incipiamus, quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus";—"Secundum propositum nostrum est cursus profectus nostri";—"Raro etiam unum vitium perfecte vincimus, et ad quotidianum profectum non accendimur"; "Semper ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... likely that this unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness for this single sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that daily languish under this terrible disorder? Would he not have made use of this invaluable nostrum for his own emolument; or at least, by some means of publication or other, have found a method of making it public for the good of mankind? In short, this woman (as it appears to me), having set up for a cancer-doctress, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... been, may now be forever wiped frum our Escutchuns. Baldinsville this night rejoises over the gerlorious event which sementz 2 grate nashuns onto one anuther by means of a elecktric wire under the roarin billers of the Nasty Deep. QUOSQUE TANTRUM, A BUTTER, CATERLINY, PATENT NOSTRUM!" Squire Smith's house was lited up regardlis of expense. His little sun William Henry stood upon the roof firin orf crackers. The old 'Squire hisself was dressed up in soljer clothes and stood on his door-step, pintin his sword sollumly to a American flag ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... lady should be offended with the lecturer's daring to take such liberties with her sex, by {57}way of atonement for that part of my behaviour which may appear culpable, I humbly beg leave to offer a nostrum, or recipe, to preserve the ladies' faces in perpetual bloom, and defend beauty from all assaults of time; and I dare venture to affirm, not all the paints, pomatums, or washes, can be of so much service to make the ladies look lovely as the application of ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens

... touched by his Majesty at his church. They were ready to cry out miracle at first (the doctors and quack-salvers being constantly in attendance on the child, and experimenting on his poor little body with every conceivable nostrum)—but though there seemed from some reason a notable amelioration in the infant's health after his Majesty touched him, in a few weeks afterward the poor thing died—causing the lampooners of the Court to say, that ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... towards its declension, it sets with a glow which reminds her old acquaintance of the splendour of its noon-day power. It is yet a sharply contested point whether the ice of this house be preferable to that of Tortoni: a point, too intricate and momentous for my solution. "Non nostrum ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... polyglot tongue, for he never knew any language well except his own. Naturally irritable, his quick temper was inflamed by intestinal disease, which racked him with a suffering that was aggravated by a nostrum, in the use of which he indulged freely. Indeed, it was said by his friends that his death was accelerated by his devotion to medical quackery, from a belief in which ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... greek professour in Oxfoord, a man bothe of great learning and judgement, utter his opinion to this sense, and (excep my memorie fael me) in these wordes: kyriake: ut basilike: suppresso substantivo oikia domus domini est. Unde nostrum derivatur, quod Scoti et Angli boreales recte, pronunciant a kyrk, nos corrupte ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume

... "don't suppose I think the worse of you for your profession; they are only prejudiced fools and coxcombs that do so. You remember what old Tully says in his oration, pro Archia poeta, concerning one of your confraternityquis nostrum tam anino agresti ac duro fuitututI forget the Latinthe meaning is, which of us was so rude and barbarous as to remain unmoved at the death of the great Roscius, whose advanced age was so far from preparing us for his death, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... Impossibilities, on all occasions, With kings, are rank abominations. This king, from every species,— For each abounds in every sort,— Call'd to his aid the leeches. They came in throngs to court, From doctors of the highest fee To nostrum-quacks without degree,— Advised, prescribed, talk'd learnedly; But with the rest Came not Sir Cunning Fox, M.D. Sir Wolf the royal couch attended, And his suspicions there express'd. Forthwith his majesty, offended, Resolved Sir Cunning Fox should come, And sent to smoke him from his home. He ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... Non nostrum est tantas componere lites! But Florence is certainly no longer Firenze la Gentile as she so eminently was in the days when I knew her ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... Nempe, qui aliis iter rectum ostendere solebamus, nunc (quod exitio proximum est) coeci coecis ducibus per abrupta rapimur; alienoque circumvolvimur exemplo; quid velimus, nescii. Nam (ut coeptum exequar) totum hoc malum, seu nostrum proprium seu potius omnium gentium commune, IGNORATIO FINIS facit. Nesciunt inconsulti homines quid agant: ideo quicquid agunt, mox ut coeperint, vergit in nauseam. Hinc ille discursus sine termino; hinc, medio calle, discordiae; ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... along with William Dicey and Robert Raikes, were named in the 1726 patent as "the Persons concerned with the said Inventor," Benjamin Okell, who, with him, should "enjoy the sole Benefit of the said Medicine." It was this partnership which was to find the field of nostrum promotion especially congenial and which was to play an important transatlantic role. Soon after securing their patent, the proprietors undertook to inform their countrymen about the remedy by issuing A short treatise of the virtues of ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen

... scenes; pass over the sweet embrace of father and child, returning through the starlit streets and along the deserted Chiaja in the Cardinal's carriage; never pause now to note the tears and ejaculations of the good, simple-hearted mother,—see them returned; see the well-known room, venimus ad larem nostrum (We come to our own house.); see old Gionetta bustling at the supper; and hear Pisani, as he rouses the barbiton from its case, communicating all that has happened to the intelligent Familiar; hark to the mother's merry, low, English laugh. Why, Viola, strange child, sittest thou apart, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... self-contradictory. out of one's power, beyond one's power, beyond one's depth, beyond one's reach, beyond one's grasp; too much for; ultra crepidam[Lat]. Phr. the grapes are sour; non possumus[Lat]; non nostrum tantas componere lites [Lat][Vergil]; look for a needle in a haystack, chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin [obs3][Fr.]; il a le mer ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... exception rides out—no dodging is permitted—and the moment the malicious fiend of an orderly officer gets clear of the barracks he gives the word "Trot!" Six miles of it without a break is the set allowance; and it beats vinegar, pickles, tea smoked in a tobacco-pipe, or any other nostrum, as an effectual generator of sobriety. Six miles at the full trot without stirrups on a rough horse I can conscientiously recommend to the inebriated gentleman who fears to encounter a justly irate wife at two in the morning. I wont answer for the integrity of his cuticle when it ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... in India, by which a man can secure his own interest, in the salutation of a friendly shake by the hand; and I don't doubt that you, who have lived in that country, are master of the secret. To be sure, if you were inclined to communicate such a nostrum, there are abundance of people who would purchase it at a very ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Oliver was my great-great-grandfather, graduated in 1680, and died in 1703. This was, no doubt, one of his nostrums; for nostrum, as is well known, means nothing more than our own or my own particular medicine, or other possession or secret, and physicians in old times used to keep their choice recipes to themselves a good deal, as we ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... A noted modern nostrum belauds the virtues of the Barberry as specific against bile, heartburn, and the black jaundice, this being a remedy which was "discovered after infinite pains by one who had studied for thirty years ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... was degraded from an art to a poor sort of science, in the practical application of which thousands were seen prospering; for the immense output of our press represented the industry of hundreds and thousands. A book was concocted, according to a patent recipe, advertised, and sold like any other nostrum, and perhaps the time was already here when it was no longer more creditable to be known as the author of a popular novel than as the author of a popular medicine, a Pain-killer, a Soothing Syrup, a Vegetable Compound, a Horse Liniment, or ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... sea par excellence, "the great sea" of the Hebrews, "the sea" of the Greeks, the "mare nostrum" of the Romans, bordered by orange-trees, aloes, cacti, and sea-pines; embalmed with the perfume of the myrtle, surrounded by rude mountains, saturated with pure and transparent air, but incessantly worked by underground fires; a perfect battlefield in which Neptune ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... very long time, and that the patients ought to do so likewise. Pliny imagined that diamonds must be found in company with gold, because these are the most perfect substances in the world, and like should draw to like. Aurum potabile, or drinkable gold, was a favourite medical nostrum of the Middle Ages, because gold, being perfect, should produce perfect health. Among savages the belief that like is caused by like is exemplified in very many practices. The New Caledonians, when they wish their yam plots to be fertile, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... to medicated wines; and it is most probable that the wormwood wine Pepys gave his friends had only a slight infusion of the bitter principle; for we can hardly conceive that such "pottle draughts" as two quarts could be taken as a treat, of such a nostrum as the Absinthites, or wormwood wine, mentioned by Stuckius, or that prescribed by the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various

... sounded, and the mighty organ thundered forth a welcome, while cardinals and priests lifted their voices, and the clergy sang the "Salvum fac imperatorum nostrum." ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... one passage that can be held to afford the slightest evidence for a later date, Med. 163 'qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil' seems to be an echo of Ep. v. 7 'sed ut huius quoque diei lucellum tecum communicem, apud Hecatonem nostrum inveni ... "desines", inquit, "timere, si sperare desieris".' This aphorism is quoted as newly found. The letters were written 62-5 A.D. This passage would therefore suggest a very late date for the Medea. But Seneca had probably been long familiar with the works of Hecato, and the epigram ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... the bell, with cries of "Shame! shame!" "Down with the heretic!"] Hi omnes etiamsi non spectent ad Ecclesiae corpus, spectant tamen ad ejus animam, et de muneribus Redemptionis aliquatenus participant. Hi omnes in amore quo erga Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum feruntur, atque in illis positivis veritatibus quas ex fidei naufragio salvarunt, totidem gratiae divinae momenta possident, quibus misericordia Dei utetur, ut eos ad priscam fidem et Ecclesiam reducat, nisi nos exaggerationibus ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... intellect and distinction. The secret of the sympathetic powder became known to Dr. Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (at one time the chief physician of James I), who is said to have derived considerable profit from the sale of this once famous nostrum.[146:1] ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... co-operative movement find themselves in this dilemma: either they hold that nothing in the way of material improvement could affect the demand for Home Rule, or else they are really afraid lest "better farming, better business, and better living," should weaken the attractions of their own political nostrum. In the former case, they are left without a shadow of justification for their attitude towards the I.A.O.S.; in the latter, they tacitly admit that the interests of the farming classes must suffer in order that the cause of Home ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... onitentem creatorum ejus anicum, Dominum nostrum qui sum sops, virgini Mariae, crixus fixus, Ponchi Pilati audubitiers, morti {614} by sonday, father a fernes, scelerest un judicarum, finis a mortibus. Creezum spirituum sanctum, ecli Catholi, remissurum, peccaturum, communiorum ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various

... purposes. But at one time it was clearly regarded as pertaining to the cathedral, for the Dean and Chapter, on the festival of St. Faith, presented to it a pair of wax candles. Brantyngham, in 1381, mentions the "fructus et proventus cantariae infra Palatium nostrum Exonie, pro animabus predecessorum nostorum ipsius fundatorum." The old entrance was under the great archway, and battlements, by gracious permission of royalty, surrounded the whole. In the great hall ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw

... medicine, cure, antidote, corrective, specific, restorative, panacea, alterant, carminative, medicament, arcanum, prescription, nostrum, elixir, balm; reparation, cure, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... wishes to cheat the people, must needs found his operations upon some prejudice or belief that already exists. Thus the philosophic pretenders who told fortunes by the stars cured all diseases by one nostrum, and preserved from evil by charms and amulets, ran with the current of popular belief. Errors that were consecrated by time and long familiarity, they heightened and embellished, and succeeded to their hearts' content; but the preacher of truth had a foundation to make as well as ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... nuper subditi nostri nonnulli Tripoli in Barbaria et Argellae ab eius loci incolis voluntatem vestram forte nescientibus male habiti fuerint, et immaniter diuexati, Caesaream vestram Maiestatem beneuole rogamus, vt per Legatum nostrum eorum causam cognoscas, et postremo earum prouinciarum proregibus ac praefectis imperes, vt nostri libere in illis locis, sine vi aut iniuria deinceps versari, et ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... in your pocket at the same time! The prescription of a regular physician, of twenty-five years' practice, set aside for a quack nostrum, recommended by a bar-keeper! A fine compliment to common sense and the profession, truly! My friend, if I must speak out plainly, you deserve to die—and I shouldn't much wonder if you got ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... Preces, Supplex Libellus, Supplicatio, vel ut jam loquimur Petitio viro Principi exhibita, ni fallor ab AS. Bene, unde nostrum Boon additis particulis Fr. G. A la. Ch. Fab. Mercatoris fol. 30. p. ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... Out of sheer weariness she had given herself up to all kinds of charlatans, who at that period were well received by people of rank. On one occasion she brought from Italy a sort of astrologer, who as nearly as possible poisoned her with a horrible nostrum, and was sent back to his own country in a hurry, thanking his stars for having escaped so cheaply. This procured Madame de Saint-Geran a severe reprimand from her confessor; and, as time went on, she gradually accustomed herself to the painful ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Speusippus, hic Xenocrates, hic eius auditor Polemo; cuius ipsa illa sessio fuit, quam videmus. Equidem etiam curiam nostram, Hostiliam dico, non hanc novam, quae mihi minor esse videtur postquam est maior, solebam intuens, Scipionem, Catonem, Laelium, nostrum vero in primis avum cogitare. Tanta vis admonitionis est in locis; ut non sine causa ex his ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al

... jaceo, lapidem ne sperne, viator, Qui tali impositus stat super ossa cani. Larga mi natura manu dedit omnia, nostrum Quaecunque exornant nobilitantque genus: Robur erat validum, formae concinna venustas, Ingenui mores, intemerata fides. Nec pudet invisi nomen gessisse tyranni, Si tam dissimili viximus ingenio. Naufragus ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... he had held the high office of Justice of the Peace, and given such eminent satisfaction in the administration of justice, that his name became famous all over the state. As to the doctor, whose name was Killsly, the major described him as as arrant a rascal as ever compounded nostrum or thrust pill down the throat of unwilling patient. "You may have thought my conduct toward that man unusual, considering the habitual courtesy of my profession," said the major, addressing the captain, "but I hold it right, that a man of honor should ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... credulity—a drowning man catching at a straw! But instead of making gold of base materials, Cagliostro's brass soon relieved his blind adherent of all his sterling metal. As many needy persons enlisted under the banners of this nostrum speculator, it is not to be wondered at that the infamous name of the Comtesse de Lamotte, and others of the same stamp, should have thus fallen into an association of the Prince-Cardinal or that her libellous stories of the Queen of France should have found eager promulgators, where ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... some to democracy, or Governo Largo; some to an eclectic compound of the other forms, or Governo Misto. More consummate masterpieces of constructive ingenuity can hardly be imagined. What is omitted in all, is just what no doctrinaire, no nostrum can communicate—the breath of life, the principle of organic growth. Things had come, indeed, to a melancholy pass for Florence when her tyrant, in order to confirm his hold upon her, had to devise these springs and irons to support her ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... least this seems implied in the following passage written by one who resided for some time at the court of the notorious Zulu tyrant Chaka, in the early part of the nineteenth century: "The extraordinary violence of the king's rage with me was mainly occasioned by that absurd nostrum, the hair oil, with the notion of which Mr. Farewell had impressed him as being a specific for removing all indications of age. From the first moment of his having heard that such a preparation was attainable, he evinced a solicitude ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... special. lib. 2, 6, page 518 et 519. Paratur autem illud ex raspatiis et vinaceis, una cum uvis musto immissis. Raspatia itaque sunt, qu Varroni et Columell scopi, scopiones, si bene legitur; unde nostrum Raste. Ducange, ed. 1845. Raspecia ...Sed ex relato longiori contextu palam est, Raspeciam nihil aliud esse quam vinum mixtis acinis aliisve modis renovatum, nostris vulgo Rp; hujuscemodi ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at his option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a discord in Nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... enforced in another country, when it violates some moral duty or the policy of that country, or is not consistent with a positive right secured to a third person or party by the laws of that country in which it is sought to be enforced. In such a case we are told, 'magis jus nostrum, quam jus alienum servemus.'" (Huberus, tom. 2, lib. 1, tit. 3; 2 Fontblanque, p. 444.) "That third party in this instance is the Commonwealth of Virginia, and her policy and interests are also to be attended to. These turn the scale against the lex ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... much that was of spiritual advantage when a child in the Sunday-school. The Rector, as has already been intimated, had been an excellent and kindly man, who desired to stand well with everybody, and who was always taking up one nostrum after another as a panacea for every spiritual ill. And at the time when Matabel was under instruction the nostrum was the physical geography of the Holy Land. The only thing the parson did not teach was a definite Christian belief, because he had entered into a compromise with a couple ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... recommend itself. The right proportion of Prussic Acid had much to say on its own behalf. It was cheap, clean, certain, and the taste of ratafia was far from unpleasant. But he had a lingering favourable impression of the Warroo medicine-man, whose faith in the efficacy and painlessness of his nostrum was evident, however much was uncertain in ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... the staid tenement which housed it expanded and drew to itself neighboring buildings, until it eventually gave way to the largest, finest, and most up-to-date office edifice in the city. None too large, fine, or modern was this last word in architecture for the triumphant nostrum and the minor medical enterprises allied to it. For though Certina alone bore the name and spread the fame and features of its inventor abroad in the land, many lesser experiments had bloomed into success under the fertilizing ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... be expected from a nation of camel-breeders actual cautery which can cause only counter-irritation, is a favourite nostrum; and the Hadis or prophetic saying is "Akhir al-dawa (or al-tibb) al-Kayy" cautery is the end of medicine- cure; and "Fire and sickness cannot cohabit." Most of the Badawi bear upon their bodies ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... of strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his blood, relying of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, 'For the blood is the life.' Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has vulgarized the truism to the very point of contempt. Isn't ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... 1512, to Christian Pederson, Canon of Lund, whom he compliments as a lover of letters, antiquary, and patriot, and urges to edit and publish "tam divinum latinae eruditionis culmen et splendorem Saxonem nostrum". Nearly two years afterwards Christian Pederson sent Lave Urne a copy of the first edition, now all printed, with an account of its history. "I do not think that any mortal was more inclined and ready ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... 1236-1239. The letter Non ex odio of Frederick II. (1239) gives the same idea: Revera papa iste quemdam religiosum et timoratum fratrem Helyam, ministrum ordinis fratrum minorum ab ipso beato Francisco patre ordinis migrationis suae tempore constitutum ... in odium nostrum ... deposuit. Huillard-Breholles: Hist. dipl. Fred. II., t. v., ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... qui si denkunt ut dicisti, Ego kickerem illos, validê, per sanguine de Christi! In nostro monasterio si habemus nostrum rentum Contra infallibilità non curamus ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland

... meos, qui habitas in coelis. Sicut oculi servorum intenti sunt ad manum dominorum suorum, sicut oculi ancillae ad manum dominae suae; ita oculi nostri ad Deum nostrum, donec ...
— Some Remains (hitherto unpublished) of Joseph Butler, LL.D. • Joseph Butler

... be some here who will ask, scornfully enough, And do you talk of nostrums? and then, after confessing that the masses are hungering for the bread of life, offer them nothing but your own nostrum, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... complained of for wasting time in discussion, and for not having, after a four months' session, arrived at any definite plan of settlement. There has been, perhaps, a little eagerness on the part of honorable members to associate their names with the particular nostrum that is to build up our national system again. In a country where, unhappily, any man may be President, it is natural that a means of advertising so efficacious as this should not be neglected. But really, we do not see how Congress can be blamed for not being ready with a ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... to 'differentiation'—as we call it in modern phraseology—the social pulverisation, the lowering and narrowing of the individual's sphere of action and feeling to the pettiest details, depends upon processes underlying all political changes. It cannot, therefore, be cured by any nostrum of constitution-mongers, or by the negative remedy of removing old barriers. It requires to be met by profounder moral and religious teaching. Men must be taught what is the really valuable part of their natures, and what is the purest happiness to be extracted ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... distance the common currants of our gardens but are more yellow. this fish is sometimes red along the sides and belley near the gills particularly the male. The red Charr are reather broader in proportion to their length than the common salmon, the skales are also imbricated but reather large. the nostrum exceeds the lower jaw more and the teeth are neither as large nor so numerous as those of the salmon. some of them are almost entirely red on the belley and sides; others are much more white than the salmon and none of them are variagated with the dark ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... me, to keep them mad or vain. Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, Imputes to me and my damned works the cause: Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope. Friend to my life! (which did not you prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song) What drop or nostrum can this plague remove? Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love? A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped, If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead. Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I! Who can't be silent, and who will not lie. To laugh, were want of goodness ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... of deceit and spurious medicines, The Ladies' Home Journal fired the first gun. Neither the public nor the patent-medicine people paid much attention to the first attacks. But as they grew, and the evidence multiplied, the public began to comment and the nostrum makers ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... I have seen since my return in the very heart of a Christian country. And what are your remedies? After months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specific, the never-failing nostrum of all state physicians, from the days of Draco to the present time. After feeling the pulse and shaking the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course of warm water and bleeding, the warm water of your mawkish ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... have been very peculiar, if we can trust Henri Misson, who was in England in the latter end of the seventeenth century. Says he: "Every Family against Christmass makes a famous Pye, which they call Christmass Pye: It is a great Nostrum the composition of this Pasty; it is a most learned Mixture of Neats-tongues, Chicken, Eggs, Sugar, Raisins, Lemon and Orange Peel, various kinds of Spicery, etc." Can this be the pie of ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... appearance has changed. It was the drug, our own secret nostrum, administered at request of the honoured mother of Okumura. Though sorrow was felt, unexpected the good luck in killing the honoured wife. Henceforth come out openly. Who would not drain the sake cups with ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... never advocated Tariff Reform as a nostrum or as a panacea. I have never pretended that it is by itself alone sufficient to cure all the evils inherent in our social system, or alone sufficient as a bond of Empire. What I contend is that ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner

... SUGARING.—The great nostrum for capturing moths is—"Sugar!" A legend tells that many years ago someone discovered (or imagined) that moths came to an empty sugar cask, situate somewhere in a now-unknown land; and acting as the Chinaman is said to have done, in re the roast pork—thought perhaps ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... addant: "Christus, inquiunt,[89] descendit ad inferos, id est, mortuus gehennam gustavit, nihilo minus quam animae damnatorum, nisi quod sibi restituendus erat.—Quandoquidem enim morte corporea nobis nihil profuisset;[90] anima quoque luctari cum morte debuit aeterna, atque hoc modo nostrum scelus suppliciumque dependere." Ac ne quis forte suspicetur, istud Calvino per incuriam obrepsisse, idem Calvinus:[91] "Omnes vos, si qui doctrinam istam solatii plenam exagitastis, perditos" appellat "nebulones." Tempora, tempora, cuiusmodi monstrum ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... had certainly some most wonderful antidote to the poison of a snake's fangs. In his exhibitions he would allow a cobra to bite a dog or a rabbit, and, in a short time after he had applied his nostrum the animal would thoroughly revive; he advertised his desire to perform upon humanity, but, of course, he could find no one would be fool enough to ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... nostri, te quaesumus Domine, tuisque donis, quae de tua benignitate percepturi sumus, benedicito. Per Jesum Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen." ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... spread toward our sea—for the Libyans are less warlike than the Getulians—Magis hi, qui ad nostrum mare processerant; quia Libyes quam Gaetuli minus bellicosi. The Persians and Getulians (under the name of Numidians), and their colonists, who were more toward the Mediterranean, and were more warlike than the Libyans (who were united with the Medes and Armenians) took from ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... affection for the Charing Cross Road, and for the bookseller, drew him to the shop dedicated to the efforts of revolutionary idealists, whom he thought on the whole mistaken. He desired not revolution but the restoration of the health of humanity, and like so many others, he had his nostrum—the drama. However, the air was so full of theories, social and political, that he did not expect any ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... accompanying transcendentalism which is not uncommon with men, and which, comprised with the appetite, makes the love of the great lovers, whether they are represented by Dante or by Donne, by Shakespeare or by Shelley. Whether this be truth or libel non nostrum est. But it is certain that Helisenne, as she represents herself, does not make the smallest attempt to spiritualise (even in the lowest sense) or inspirit the animality of her affection. She wants her lover as she might want a pork chop instead ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... Then, sir, as the greatest favour I can confer upon you, I'll give you a short sketch of the stages of my bowing,—as an excitement, and a landmark for you to bow be—and as an infallible nostrum to ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin

... rail downright at spoilers of countries, and yet in [407]office to be a most grievous poller himself. This argues weakness, and is an evident sign of such parties' indiscretion. [408]Peccat uter nostrum cruce dignius? "Who is the fool now?" Or else peradventure in some places we are all mad for company, and so 'tis not seen, Satietas erroris et dementiae, pariter absurditatem et admirationem tollit. 'Tis with ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... hujusmodi nuptiis agatum inquirendum esse prius an Maria fuerit filia nostra legitima; constat enim 'inquit,' quod exdomina Catherina fratris sui vidua cujusmodi nuptiae jure divino interdictae sunt suscepta est." Quae oratio quanto metu ac horrore animum nostrum turbaverit quia res ipsa aeternae tam animi quam corporis salutis periculum in se continet, et quam perplexis cogitationibus conscientiam occupat, vos quibus et capitis aut fortunae ac multo magis animarum jactura immineret, remedium nisi adhibere velitis, ignorare non ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... was to appoint the assessor judges, of whom the consular instructions insisted on there being four. This weighty matter seemed to require the cooperation of the vice consul, Mr. Beaver, a highly respected quack doctor, whose principal nostrum was faith cure plus hot water. After arguing away your existence, which he always could do with extraordinary fluency, he would plunge you into a boiling bath till your imaginary skin turned a deep imaginary ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... scilicet Maximus, quod est episcopus episcoporum, edicit: Ego et moechiae et fornicationis delicta poenitentia functis dimitto."—Tertullian, De Pudicitia, c. 1. "Neque enim quisquam nostrum episcopum se esse episcoporum ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... makes of the name of Euphormio is any thing but happy. He was not a "trencher chaplain" but the slave of a rich debauchee, Callion, sent in company with another slave, Percas, to carry some all-potent nostrum to Fibullius, a friend of Callion, who was suffering from an attack of stone. Euphormio cures Fibullius, not by the drug with which he was armed, but by a herb, which he sought for and found on a mountain. Fibullius, to reward his benefactor, offers ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various

... ad quos prsentes litter peruenerint salutem. Sciatis qud assignauimus & deputauimus dilectos & fideles nostros Radulphum de Ewrie cheualier senescallum nostr[u] Dunelmi, Williamum Chanceler cancellarium, infra comitatum & libertatem Dunelmi, ac Williamum Claxton vicecomitem nostrum Dunelmi coniunctim & diuisim, ad plenam & pacificam seisinam, de duabus partibus medietatis cuiusdam pontis vocati Tinebridge, in villa nostra de Gatesheued, infra comitatum & libertatem Dunelmi existentis. Qu quidem du partes medietatis prdict, ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed

... become a kind of prophet in a coterie of learned ladies. The views he had propounded in "Queen Mab", his passionate belief in the perfectibility of man, his vegetarian doctrines, and his readiness to adopt any new nostrum for the amelioration of his race, endeared him to all manners of strange people; nor was he deterred by aristocratic prejudices from frequenting society which proved extremely uncongenial to Hogg, and of which we have accordingly some caustic ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... feet off of it; but they are not hypocrites, look you. Folks have their religion in some handy mental lock-up, as it were—a valuable medicine, to be taken in ill health; and a man administers his nostrum to his neighbour, and recommends his private cure for the other's complaint. "My dear madam, you have spasms? You will find these drops infallible!" "You have been taking too much wine, my good sir? By this pill you may defy any evil consequences from too much wine, and take your bottle of port ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Latinitate mea putes, dicas; facias ut opossum illum nostrum volantem vel (ut tu malis) quendam Piscem errabundum, a me salvum et pulcherrimum esse jubeas. Valeant uxor tua cum Hartleiio nostro. Soror mea salva est et ego: vos et ipsa salvere jubet. Ulterius progrediri [? progredi] non liquet: ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... dulcia: nostrum est Quod vivis: cinis, et manes, et fabula fies. Vive memor lethi: fugit hora: hoc quod ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... inserted into a couple of their upper teeth, in order that wherever and whenever they may die, the gold may be present to purify them. [645] A similar idea was prevalent in Europe. Aurum potabile [646] or drinkable gold was a favourite nostrum of the Middle Ages, because gold being perfect should produce perfect health; and patients when in extremis were commonly given water in which gold had been washed. And the belief is ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... fair sir, With paint and brush to blazon on these rocks The merits of my master's nostrum—so: (Paints rapidly.) ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... 'MusĀ¾um Septalianum, Manfredi SeptalĀ¾, Patricii Mediolanensis, industrioso labore constructum' (Tortona, 1664, p. 44), "Labant philosophorum mentes sub horum lapidum ponderibus; ni dicire velimus, lunan terram alteram, sine mundum esse, ex cujus montibus divisa frustra in inferiorem nostrum hunc orben dela bantur." Without any previous knowledge of this conjecture, Olbers was led, in the year 1795 (after the celebrated fall at Siena on the 16th of June, 1794), into an investigation of the amount of the initial tangential force that would be requisite to bring to the Earth masses ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... proper was the manipulation of two blackboards, swung at the sides of the wagon during our street lecture and concert. These boards were alternately embellished with colored drawings illustrative of the manifold virtues of the nostrum vended. Sometimes I assisted the musical olio with dialect recitations and character sketches from the back step of the wagon. These selections in the main originated from incidents and experiences along the route, and were composed on dull ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... A nostrum famous in old Popish times For purifying souls that stunk of crimes: A sort of apostolic salt, Which Popish parsons for its powers exalt, For keeping souls of sinners sweet, Just as our kitchen salt ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... plain that his remaining days were few. I told the household what to expect. There was a good deal of kind feeling expressed among the boarders, in various modes, according to their characters and style of sympathy. The landlady was urgent that he should try a certain nostrum which had saved somebody's life in jest sech a case. The Poor Relation wanted me to carry, as from her, a copy of "Allein's Alarm," etc. I objected to the title, reminding her that it offended people of old, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... which terrifies an enemy, propitiates a god, paralyses a wild beast, or gains a wife, is a matter of utility, not of aesthetic luxury, so long as it happens to be efficacious, or so long as its efficacy is believed in. Indeed, the gold coach and liveried trumpeters of the nostrum vendor of bygone days, like their less enlivening equivalents in many more modern professions, are of the nature of trade tools, although the things they fashion are only the foolish ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... Cologne delayed some time before using the nostrum. Not until the hoarseness increased alarmingly did he in his need take the leech's prescription, and Benevenuto Bosco, whom he had admitted to his confidence, and who also felt a certain rawness in his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... summus Pontifex, ea inter nomina illustria Tillemontii, Bollandistarum, Bosoueti Ep. Meld., et illud recensuerit L. A. Muratorii, his ad Auctorem nostrum delatis, quam maxime indoluit, veritus ne in tanta operum copia ab se editorum, aliquid Fidei aut Religioni ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... variations and developments of the same tragic theme, the "wrath of the gods against Rome," the deum ira in rem Romanam of the Annals; whilst in the Histories the theory of retribution appears in the reflection, non esse curae deis securitatem nostrum, esse ultionem, with which he closes his preliminary survey of the havoc and civil fury of the times of Galba—"Not our preservation, but their own vengeance, do the gods desire." It is as if, transported ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb



Words linked to "Nostrum" :   panacea, mare nostrum, catholicon, therapeutic, cure



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