diversity of the Fruit out of which it is extracted as being mature or immature and according to the manner of preparation and alteration induced by Art acquires another and different quality and efficacy in alteration As for example Oleum ovorum Oil of Egs yolks though it be not perfectly mixed yet by losing some humidity by its preparation it is more hot and dry and is a Medicine most usefull in smoothing the skin and curing an impetiginous itching and other affectious of the skin as also some fistulous and malign ulcers The same quality happens to all expressed by the force of the fire from which they perpetually retain their acquired heat Olei amygdalini facultas And when Oil of Almonds is thus extracted it is onely extrinsecally applyed when without fire it is sucked up like a gratefull Lohoch to ease the asperity of the rough artery and coct and move Spittle so that it is oft given with a little Sugar to Children that are troubled with coughing or that have any distillation from the brain to the lungs without any purging Medicaments especially without anodynal Medicaments That Oils may be extracted the Fruits and Seeds should first be purged and the Apothecaries do ill that extract Oil out of Almonds before decortication The Seeds cleansed are brayed with a pestel Olea exprimendi modus after contusion they are put into a pan and set upon the fire and stirred pretty long that they may calefy then are they involved in a rough cloth and subjected to a wooden press till by valid compression the Oils be expressed Those that we would educe without the help of fire or heat must after they be bruised very small be presently put into the press that the Oil may exude by drops Petreol which is educed out of Salt-petre from whence it hath its denomination takes place amongst simple Oils But our purpose is to treat of such as are made by Art Liquidambor and Balsam also are simple Oils which distill by drops out of the incisions of forreign Trees But more of this in our Shop Some simple Oils also are distilled sometimes as well by ascent as by descent as out of Juniper Guaiacum Cloves and such like Olea educta per ascensum descensum both wood and dry Fruits which being put into a pot Oil ascends into the vessel above by virtue of the fire set under or descends into the vessel set under by virtue of the fire above Yet are not all Oils extracted by descent nor alwayes by the help of the fire for Oil may easily exude out of Tartarum and Myrrhe included in a bag and suspended in a moyst place as in a Wine-cellar Of all which manners of educing Oils more elsewhere But compound Oils wherewith the Apothecary should be especially furnished are such in which the matter of stocks fruits flowers and of any simple is infused and macerated After which the whole is insolated till the strength of the matter remain in the Oil which is afterwards expressed and reposed After this manner are made the Oil of Violets Roses St. Johns wort Water-lillies and many more which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Unguenta and especially those which may be inspissated by the admistion of gums and odoriferous things whence they are called Myropolitans or Unguentarians who sold such Oils and Unguents as were suaveolent with whom any fragrant Oil was taken for an Unguent as Unguents for Oils We scarce approve of their opinion which call onely them simple Oils which are made of Flowers Fruits or other Simples infused macerated and insolated in Oil of Olives and those compound Oils which are cocted on a slow fire with wine water infusion or convenient decoction till almost all the admixed humour be assumed for those seem no less but rather more compound than these because not onely the total power of the things infused but a good portion of the substance in which it inheres remains with the Oil after expression in the former Hence that Oil which partakes of no excess but is temperate is such perpetually from the condition of the thing infused which if cold then is the Oil cold if hot hot if it have the power to exsiccate then will the Oil exsiccate Such Oils as are educed by expression onely Quibus vasis olea servanda or by maceration and expression together may be most safely kept if reposed in vessels of glass or clay perfectly before hardned with the valid heat of a fornace But such as are educed by distillation whether by ascent or descent which are commonly called Chymists essences must alwayes be kept in solid glass vessels with strait orifices close covered left their substance and quality being dissipable soon expire CHAP. II. Of Vnguents UNguents as Galen testifies cap. ult lib. 7. simpl med were called by the Antients Oily Medicaments confected of suaveolent spices and according to Actuarius cap. 1. lib. 5. meth are onely externally applyed and being onely spread along are thought to benefit but such parts as cannot endure other remedies such parts as Oribasius cap. 27. lib. collect saith are grieved with Cataplasms and hurt with fluent madefactions Now Unguents are of a grosser consistency than Oils and a mean betwixt Oils and Plaisters as Liniments betwix Oils and Unguents for a more liquid Unguent is called very often a Liniment Unguenta cur dicta inventa of the confection and use whereof we shall treat more at large in the fifth Chapter And because the consistency of Unguents Liniments and Sear-cloaths do not much differ they are used sometimes indistinctly for that is called a Liniment wherewith the parts to be helped are liniated that an Unguent wherewith they are anointed and that a Sear-cloth which made of Wax and Oil is applyed The Arabians under the name of Unguents oft comprehend Sear-cloaths and Plaisters and many thick Oils and the antient Greeks all well smelled Ointments so Dioscorides lib. 1. calls many sweet Oils Unguents and Hippocrates lib. 1. de medic affirms that Physicians should not onely get fame and glory of the Vulgar by the good constitutions of their bodies and decent Ornaments but by sweet Unguents that is by aromatical and suaveolent things Yet for clearer explications sake they are distinguished from one another and an Unguent properly is an Oily Medicament Unguentum quid of a middle consistency betwixt Oils and Plaisters which yet doth not still remain alike for when heat is more vehement the unctious and fat matter melts more and the Unguents become more liquid and soft and when the heat is weaker more solid and therefore Unguentarians use to put less Oil in Summer and more in Winter to their Unguents for cold inspissates a fluent Unguent as Oil it self which Galen observes cap. 1. lib. 8. comp med gener in the composition of his stomachical Sear-cloth Now that proportion of Oil must be observed in the confection of Unguents
helps all frigid distempers The lesser must be taken for the better CHAP. V. Of Acorus or Water-flag ACorus is an odorate Plant geniculated like our Orris but its leaves are longer and narrower its caul more tenuious and longer and its roots also more slender which obliquely prostrate themselves along the superficies of the earth which are whitish within and without and of an acroamare sapour They erre shamefully who say that Acorus The errour of many both the sorts of Galangal and Ginger differ not at all And they are not excusable who usurp * * * Calamus Aromaticus sweet Cane and Acorus indistinctly for they differ very much as appears by their several descriptions Moreover Europe brings forth Acorus onely seldome or never any sweet Cane India produces sweet Cane never Acorus Acorus according to Galen is hot and dry in the third degree CHAP. VI. Of Calamus Aromaticus or the Aromatical Reed CAlamus Aromaticus is an Indian arundinaceous Plant whose caul is hollow like a quil easily frangible into splinters It differs much from Acorus and is not enumerated amongst the Roots but ligneous Plants which are concave and geniculated It is white within like a reed flave without its odour is most fragrant its sapour acrimoniously bitter and it is glutinous in chewing It is brought from India onely instead of whose root another aromatical one is sold in many Shops Myrepsicuâ— which Hippocrates calls Myrepsicum that is unguentary from its suavity Some call it Babylonian Cyperus which by the more perite Herbalists is named Shop-Cane which Johannes Robinus the Kings Herbalist hath by his industry and labour transplanted in the Physicians Garden at Paris But this is not the Antients Calamus Aromaticus for this is hotter and more acrimonious having more strict and junceous leaves which are triangular the vulgar Calamus hath broader leaves But since they are similar both in form and faculty our vulgar Calamuâ— may be rightly substituted for the rare and exotical It is hot and dry in the second degree Vires it astringes gently hath a little acrimony by the tenuity of its parts opens the passages moves flowers recreates the spirits and helps the native colour CHAP. VII Of Costus COstus is a peregrine Plant celebrated by the Antients but not accurately noted and described so that its true dignotion is not apparent to the recent All indeed say it is a root but none yet indubitably asserted of what plant or whether of one or more Yet if we believe the Antients Species as of necessity we must in such things whereof they have had perfect knowledge and which they have often used and approved there are three sorts of Costus the Arabian Indian and Syrian The Arabian is white Amarus dulcis light and suaveolent above the rest while it is fresh and new it is abundantly full and dense not carious The Indian is indeed light but black and amare the Syrian is flave tuberous to the gust acrimonious to the olfact fragrant The Arabians constitute onely two sorts thereof the amare and the sweet And Clusius thinks there is but one kinde of Costus and that it is onely called sweet in reference to the more amare and acrimonious Such a difference as this in sapour we daily experience in Plants which while fresh and new are more sweet and suave when inveterate croded with worms and corrupted more amare acrimonious and insuave The Costus now in use amongst Physicians Costus vulgaris is a root almost like Ginger within white smooth light without palely flave somewhat amare very fragrant and often so suaveolent while new that it importunately affects the head It grows in many places in India as in Guzarat and about Amadabar the most famous City of that Countrey The Greeks and Latins retain the Arabian nomenclature all calling it Cost or Gostus In Pharmacopolies some usurp a root of a certain vulgar aromatical Plant instead of Costus The errour of some Apothecaries which seems to be desumed from the sorts of Seseleon it hath some affinity with that which Matthiolus calls Ethiopicum in root leaves caul magnitude form and faculties which by some is called Pseudo-costus by others Belgian Costus and by others Shop-Costus If any one fear to substitute this for the true Costus Sueâ—idanium let him take Angelica root in its stead Costus being subamare is somewhat astrictive being acrimonious is exceedingly calefactive and being suaveolent is refective and exhilarative CHAP. VIII Of both Beens BEn or Been Rhas par 135. de nomin Arab. is an Arabick word denoting a certain tree growing in Ethiopia like our Tamarisk whose fruit is called Abelban out of which emanates an Oil they call Muscelline which name they also give to the Plant it self as Rhasis hath it but neither he nor Avicenna do further dilucidate the Plant onely Avicenna saith The opinion of Avicen it is a ligneous lump or root which by exsiccation hath contracted wrinkles and lineations whereof there are two sorts the one white the other red both hot and dry in the second degree Elsewhere he saith that both the Beens are dry in the first degree and the red hotter than the white but we see the contrary in those two roots we celebrate in the Shops for Been for the white is sensibly calid the red more languid and ignave Serapio is no whit clearer in describing both the Plants Serapio's opinion There be saith he two sorts of Ben both about the magnitude of the root of the lesser Pastinaca and tortuous they are brought from Armenia their odour is good and both are viscid calid and humid Since then the Antients agree onely about the name of this their indigenous Plant no wonder if our Writers be silent or else enunciate few and most probable of its properties There is no Pharmacopolist but he knows the white and red roots that are celebrated for Beens but that dignotion is onely superficial and none yet have learned their true effigies The Arabians say that Ben corroborates impinguates the body Vires augments seed conduces to the palsey and performs many more commodities which we finde not in our white root and therefore Sylvius substitutes in its stead the root of Eringium I preferr ours Succidanium or the Spanish Angelica before it as more cordial Some think that Polemony is white Ben and Bistort red but that conjecture is not worth the improbation CHAP. IX Of Scecachul SCecachul I finde diversly called by the Arabians as Lochachium Lichimum and Alithimum whose seed or rather grain they call Culcul its leaf is like Albena or Julben which words Serapio confounds and uses them both for Scecachul which is a Plant by their description short stalked of a veinous and nodous root out of each of whose genicles emerge leaves like them of Balsam It emits violaceous flowers at the beginning of the Spring out of its
which we call Gold CHAP. 1. Of Gold Gold the King of Metals is of that kinde most perfect and compact which bearing the tincture of the Sun in its countenance exercises solar Dominion over all Mortals for all obey Gold Aurum lex sequitur auro venalia rura Diphil. For nothing is more potent then pure Gold to him men give adoration for him men undergo great labour and whoso wants it may either like a Leper sejoyn himself from consort or like a dead carcase walk amongst men But seeing it is adiaphorous and either good or bad according to the intent of the user if it be ill used it is the worst of evils for it is the ring-leading Captain of Contention the plague of life and the ruine of the Commonweal Hence Raptures hence Manslaughters and hence Battels ensue but if it be well used it is thought to be not onely the Subsidy of life but the guarder of family if introsumed But I do not mean Chymical potable or rather esculent Gold which refects the recipient onely with a lye and vain expectations for grant we that the Alchymists can by their delusive Art extract a flave liquor emulous of melted Gold yet this is so far from curing Leprosie inveterate Dropsies and other deplorable diseases or from retarding old age and conserving youth florid and vegetive as they boast that it is plainly of no noted use in Medicine seeing the nature of Gold is so dissident from our nature that it cannot be to us restorative as Scaliger well observes Exercit. 272. and there being many things more agreeable to our nature they must needs be more conservative of it and what is more absurd then to say that Gold nourishes repairs our substance and yet changes not into our nature for thus he that eats Gold will be a golden Fool like Midas Medicks therefore do not labour to dissolve Gold for that is all one as if they should destroy its native bonity and induce an alien quality either useless or noxious but they do better by working it into thin leaf dust or atomes that it may more easily insinuate into the parts of the body Gold thus prepared doth usefully ingrede Electuarium de Gemmis Galens laetificative powder and roborative Medicaments I was wont successfully to prescribe to rich Wenches of ill colours the filings of Gold in stead of prepared Steel with other fit Medicaments sometimes in form of Pills sometimes of Tabels The Medicinal faculties of Gold are indeed many Vires yet neither so great nor so many as Alchymists predicate it is chiefly commended for exhilarating such as are melanchollical or preternaturally sad CHAP. 2. Of Silver SIlver also is as very Soul and Blood to Mortals for after Gold it is the most noble of Metals which age neither corrupts nor hurts but alwayes remains nitid splendid and sincere easily ducible and liquescible it is made in the bowels of the earth of clean and candid Quicksilver and pure clear firm and white Sulphur equally contempered and so it evades candid and fulgent Furthermore the heat of well-claensed Sulphur dealbates and makes it more subtile and so exsiccates it that it becomes tinalous hard and sonore This alone of Metals seems to emit a translucid splendor for its light in the Myne doth in a manner represent the rudiments of stars in a dark place But when it is more pure and purged seven times in the fire as the Psalmist sings Psal 11. then it is farre more splendent The Alchymists compare it to the Moon whose name they give it but its qualities are not answerable It is judged colder then Gold Vires whose vertues and dignity it in some degree participates of being next to it in perfection and punity By its natural complexion it is temperately cold and moist whence they say it auxiliates the spiritual members it stayes the palpitation of the heart for it roborates it and helps sanguification making the blood more laudable The Alchymists extract an oylout of it which they commend to many diseases in the Brain but dogmatical and true Medicks onely use its powder or leaves in Medicaments and they that do otherwise work deceitfully CHAP. 3. Of Tinne TInne is another kinde of Metal found in the Myne with Silver which Pliny calls White-Lead to distinguish it from Black-Lead which is as it were the purgation of Silver and Tinne left in the Furnace Such as devote Tinne holy to Jupiter say it is generated of pure and clear Quicksilver and crass and immund Sulphur There are many things common betwixt Lead and Tinne for neither of them contract rust but rather some squalour or filth whereunto Lead is more addicted then Tinne neither of them are sonore nor very hard onely Tinne is a little more sonore and hard then Lead Tinne is either simple pure and defaecated or impure and compounded of other Metals so made either by Nature or Art whereof there are many differences according to the nature of the ingredients and proportion of the same whose faculties respond to the mixion of those things whereof it consists Tinne is of much use to man Usus which though it be seldome used in Medicine yet it affords vessels for their repose and preservation The Alchymists make an Oyl out of Tinne for the cure of Wounds and Ulcers but I think such Medicaments as are easilier made cheaper and more efficacious are better CHAP. 4. Of Lead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Lead is according to Alchymists both dedicated to Saturn and called Saturn and in their opinion it is generated of impure and crass Quicksilver and a little impure Sulphur and it is thought that not onely under the earth but in the open air also it augments and therefore Cardanus thinks it labefactates houses by its weight who make four differences thereof the vulgar white which many call Tinne Bisemutum yet unknown and that which is made of Stibium Pliny acknowledges onely two sorts the vulgar or black and the white who gives a twofold original to the black for saith he it is either generated in its own vein which produces nought else or it is conflated in many veins mixt with Silver The first liquor which flows in furnaces is called White-Lead or Tinne the second Silver and that which remains the Latines call Plumbago out of which Lead is elicited It is extracted also out of a certain Plumbary effoded out of Mynes which stone they call Molybdoides and the Lead thus secerned and melted is poured into water while hot till it leave its dross Morters and Pestels for Medicinal uses are made of Lead as also round Pipes or Canes for deep and internal Ulcers which are as good as golden Pipes There is also a Powder made of Lead for the exsiccation of â—lcers whereof we have elswhere made mention Galen saith Vires that Lead is refrigerative and is either solarly or mixed with other Medicament conducible to malignant cankerous and putrid Ulcers
of which we intend to discourse particularly There is in Aliments an inexplicable quality Neither do we acknowledge this inexplicable property to consist solely in Medicaments and Poysons whereby the one cures and the other kils and sometimes expels diseases but also in Aliments which repair the loss of strength by that continual Effluvium for many abhor many meats which others take with a greedy appetite which though at first they are unlike yet after many concoctions become like and proper to our bodyes whence ariseth a great similitude betwixt the thing nourishing and that which is nourished which scarce can be defined and why this man is more delighted with this meat and that with another The eating of fish and flesh is familiar to our whole Nation yet have we known many faith Amatus Lucianus who altogether abstained from eating of flesh and others Historia notatâ— dign to whom not onely the eating but also the very smell of Cheese was as poyson Another have we known a Spaniard by Nation who never tasted of Fish but when he was invited by his Friend once to a Supper and had eaten Eggs with which the ashes of dryed Fish was cunningly mixed he fell into such a pain and anguish by vomiting that he was almost killed thereby The same famous Author also saw another a Venetian Monk in whom the smell of Roses would cause Madness which also I have observed in a Noble Lady And Julius Scaliger in a learned Cardinal as he affirms in his Exercises against Cardan viz. Exercit 153. part 10. where he commemorates a certain woman of excellent virtue and beauty named Francis who could by no means be perswaded before she was fourteen years of age to eat Flesh He affirms also that one of his Children as much abhorred Cabbages as himself did the Cressons As also a maid in the City Mediolim dyed with a draught of Cassia fistula for every mans peculiar appetite is proper to himself and many eschew Wint as Poyson others adore it as their God Moreover this inexplicable occult faculty is observed in the food of other Animals For who by reason can declare why the Ostrich delights in Iron why the Hart desires Serpents the Bear Ants the Ass Ferula Some Animals live onely by fishing others by hunting others by Corn others by the natural increase of Plants The Mallet devours the bird Hirron the Beaver little Fishes the Hawk the Eagle and Fox are nourished and fed upon little Birds the Hen the Partridge and the Horse on Corn the Oxe Deer and Hart on little Plants or their tender parts And why these do delight and grow fat rather with that Aliment than this and those rather with this than that cannot easily be explained by reason For the Vulture will sooner perish with Faraine than touch Wheat the Pheasant rather dye than eat by stealth CHAP. IX Of the faculty of purging Medicaments whence it proceeds and how it operates THE disquisition of the faculty of purging Medicaments hath been the exercise of many ingenious men and yet nevertheless as many men as have endeavoured after its knowledge so many several opinions have they left to us their Posterity The Alcumists not without some pains endeavour to demonstrate that it proceeds from the saltness of the Compounds for they lay down this for a general Axiom that all Salts are purgative Others maintain that this faculty is altogether occult not apparently explicable by reason There are others who judge that it arises from the special temperament of the mixture or compound Others look upon it as a fifth quality Mesue would have its original in Heaven and calls it a Heavenly Faculty A purgative Medicine saith he is not such from its temperament not as a Contrary acting upon its Contrary not as a Simile attracting its Simile nor as a heavy matter driving the humour downwards nor as a light substance driving it upwards but it hath this faculty alotted from above acting by a Divine power This Celestial Faculty is also by some Medicks Fernel and Philosophers Scaliger called an Occult Faculty sometimes also the property of the matter alone sometimes the internal principle of every thing The divers denominations of this quality sometimes an unknown cause a super-elementary virtue a property of the whole substance and by some a fifth quality so that one and the same thing hath divers denominations But because that this purgative virtue according to Philosophers of best note must needs be deduced from the Stars Mesue calls it most properly Celestial but he aims amiss in judging that it draws out humours not as a simile attracting its simile contrary to the Antients opinions reason and experience For Hippocrates declares lib. de nat human that purgative Medicaments have a certain congruity with the humours A Medicine sayes he when it is assumed into the body first attracts whatsoever is consonant and most like to its nature in the body and afterwards draws down and purges away the rest Which he proves clearly by this elegant comparison As seeds and plants sown and eradicated in the ground attract to themselves whatever in the earth is congruent to their nature whether sharp or pleasant bitter or salt or whatsoever else they primarily or chiefly allure as having propinquity with their essence Galen demonstrates this more clearly illustrating it with many evidences lib. 1. de nat facult cap. 23. lib. 3. de simplic lib. de Ther. writing in express words that the operations are effected and perfected by the property of the qualities which are in the substances therefore some purgative Medicaments if perchance they be frustrated of their acquired purgation do not hurt the body as some foolishly have imagined but become nutrimental others are turned into corruption and poyson yet a poysonous virtue is not alwayes mixed with them Wherefore they do not alwayes hurt when they do not purge but they concoct and produce such humous as they should have educed which never happens to stronger Medicaments Therefore purgative Medicaments by a certain similitude and congruity to the substance attract and educe humours and by the same principle that the Loadstone attracts Iron and Amber Straw not Iron the Loadstone or Straw Amber for although there be a great similitude betwixt the Loadstone and the Iron yet every simile is not the same neither is the Loadstone Iron nor the Iron a Loadstone yet the thing attracting should be more potent than the thing attracted and therefore the Iron as weaker is drawn and draweth not Since Traction comes by the similitude of the substance Objectio why doth not one Loadstone attract another and one piece of Iron another I answer One and the same thing doth not draw the same Responsio but such things as have an affinity and similitude with them so Agarick draws flegm Rhabarb choler Senna melancholy because there is betwixt them a certain conjugal quality or rather a convenience or similitude which conformity is
comes from Agaria a region of Samatia whence it derives its denomination Now we have very good from Delphinatus a Province of France and many parts of Italy where procerous Larix trees grow copiously on whose trunks Agarick grows which is no root as Dioscorides and Galen conjectured It is hot in the first degree dry in the second it purges flegm liberates obstructions attenuates deterges dissipates flatuosity and eases us of all diseases proceeding from viscid crass and frigid humours CHAP. IX Of Polypody POlypody is so tearmed because many knots and tubercles like the Fishes called Polypi grow on its roots It is also called Dentropteris or tree fern because it grows on trees and sometimes on umbrous stones mossy walls and such humid places It is an herb without stalk flower and seed consisting onely of a root and leaves like masculine fern but lesser and maculated on the under side with yellow spots It s root is hirsute and long about the crassitude of a little finger extending it self obliquely and exasperated with many lumps within it is porraceous and virid like a Pastick nut its sapour is very sweet subamare austere and somewhat aromatical but it doth not much affect the tongue It doth not calefy in the third degree as Mesue thought but it 's probable that it exsiccates in the second it deterges digests and ficcates crass and viscid humours educes melancholick and viscid flegm and that even from the articles if it be copiously assumed It sustains much coction and is seldome given alone but mixed with other purgatives which may adauge its imbecil purgative faculty The broth of an old Cock the decoction of Bete or Mallows much augment its purgative faculty It helps also some affections when it is externally applyed Diosc c. 188. l. 4. CHAP. X. Of Carthamus Bastard or Spanish Saffron AS the nomenclature of Cartham denotes this herb to be purgative so doth Enicus shew it spinous For Cartham is a Plant which as to its faculty is subductive and to its cognation of the sorts of Carduus It assurges on a stalk two cubits high and more which is strait hard ligneous and towards the top ramous Its leaves are long broad from the middle to the stalk acuminated towards the top and aculeated in their ambient The extremities of the branches produce some round heads about the magnitude of Olives obduced with many spinous skins which emit Saffron-colour'd flowers so like them of Crocus that most perspicacious eyes may be deceived in them hence the Vulgar call it the wild Crocus To these succeed long smooth white angulous and splendent seeds effigiated like them of Heliotrope whose cortex is hard and medulla or pith white fat and sweet Cartham is by the Seplasiaries called wild Crocus by the Medicks Cnicum whereof there are two sorts the one sative or vulgar the other wild whereof Theophrastus makes two sorts also the one with a strait caul which women use for distaffs which according to Ruellius c. 155. l. 3. is a kinde of thistle and wild Cartham the other lower grosser and more hirsute which they call Carduus Benedictus of which elsewhere Carthamus seed is purgative Vires for its very pith solely assumed is flegmagogous and mixed with other Medicaments expurges lent and frigid humours but that it calefies not in the third degree sense demonstrates contrary to Galen's opinion CHAP. XI Of Wallwort or Dwarf-Elder WAllwort and Elder are so similar Ebulus that they seem to differ solely in magnitude whence Dioscorides calls them both Elders the one the Arboreous Elder the other the Dwarf-Elder Elder grows into a tall tree sometimes whose boughs and bole are hollow medullous and round like reeds first green then cineritious ligneous and hard Sambucus its leaves are like them of a Wallnut tree but graveolent and in their ambient frequently incided Its flowers are many small white and elegantly composed into heads whose consequents are turgent berries of a sanguineous colour The Elder germinates first of wild trees and is last denudated of its leaves But Wall-wort or Dwarf-Elder is more herbaceous and low whose stalk is neither ligneous nor perpetual but annually tabefying and dying It grows best in moyst and fat soyls especially if they be incultivated Its leaves are ample and incided about Its flowers composed into heads are numerous white odorate not fetid Its fruits like Elders are small round black and pregnant with juice and seed Its roots are crass long and carnous out of its fruits in Autumn they get small seeds which they keep in their Pharmacopolies Both its roots and seeds are hydragogous and very apertive and therefore usefull in hydroptical and watry diseases CHAP. XII Of Esula or Devils milk THere are seven sorts of Tithymals enumerated amongst the lacteous Plants whereunto Esulae are congenerate Esula for they are all lacteous and purge flegm with griping and molestation yet Esula is by the Rusticks taken for Rhabarb and so frequently used to the valitude of many and the death of more It is called Esula or Caula by the Arabians Alsebran by Diascorides Peplus by the Shopmen Esula rotunda because its small leaves are orbiculated It grows in vineyards hedge sides and many incultivated places Another Plant which Dioscorides calls Peplion and Peplis and some water Plantain hath much cognation and the same virtues with this Esula The round and lesser Esula is better than the greater which hath leaves like Tithymal Esula is hot Vires sharp and ulcerative violently educing flegm its substance being tenuious is igneous sharp incisive tenuative fusive apertive and siccative Besides flegm it draws also choler from the junctures It s ferity is castigated by infusion in vinegar as we have shewed in Officina 〈◊〉 8. l. 2. or by admistion of some cordials or roberatives CHAP. XIII Of Hermodactyls HErmodactyls Hermodactylus and Colchian Ephemora are bulbeâ— Plants similar in form in faculties dissimilar for * * * Quick-fading flower Ephemerâ—â—â— is strangulative in one day suffocating the assumer and no way subducing the belly in purging whereas Hermodactyls are no way perilous and yet expurge orderly flegm from the junctures There is also indigenous Ephemerum which some call wild Loâ—ks or meadow Cracus whose leaves are but three or four long broad smooth The difference between Hermodactyls and Ephemerum and fat ones whose flowers are in colour and form like them of Crocus issuing out at the same time to wit in Autumn Iâ— root is like an Onion it grows in meadows and moyst places 〈◊〉 is by some erroneously usurped for Hermodactyle for this being exsiccated is flaccid feeble and not at all purgative nor yet pernicious as the Colchian Ephemerum which is strangulative whereas Hermodactyle is exotical and not flaccid as this but hard compact and easily pulverable which educes humours from the remote parts and junctures of the assumer Now one sort of Ephemerum is lethal and strangulative to
from the Alpes where it growes abundantly and spontaneously which is called the Alpian Feverfew which responds to the former in odour and form but is lesse alwayes bearing simple flowers congested on umbells It is hot in the third degree dry in the second it opens Vires incides expurges and potently educes flowers seconds and young ones though dead CHAP. LVII Of Hypericum or St. Johns wort HYpericum commonly called Millefore is a surculous Plant of a cubits altitude with myrtle Leafs but that they are thinner softer more flave and perforated with innumerable pores its flowers are luteous consisting of five leafs shining with a golden nitour after which small long Cods erupt gravidated with small seeds which rubbed smell of Rosin It s root is hard sulcated with many fibres and capillaments its flowers and leafs bruifed emit a certain sanguine humour its flowers macerated in oyl give it a sanguineous tincture It moves urine and flowers cures wounds and Sciatica conduces against the affections of the nerves calefies siccates toborates the nerves and is a good ingredient to vulneraries Many say that Ascyrum Androsaemum and Hypericum are one but they are different plants and of divers forms CHAP. LVIII Of Androsaemum or Peters-wort ANdrosaeme is so called because its succe resembles mans blood it is a fructiferous and ramous plant its surcles are many slender and red its leafs broad and mucronated like Ivy but more tenuious and florid which bruised emit red succe like red wine it hath many wings expanded on both fides of its summity about which there are small luteous flowers its seed is contained in small cups like Poppy seed its hair contrited emits a resinous odour It growes spontaneously in many Woods of Northmany and other incultivated places whose leafs women collect and successefully adhibite to pustuls and almost all cutaneous affections for they have experienced that if it benefit not it will not hurt any part whereunto it is admoved It calefies Vires siccates agglutinates stayes blood cures burnings helps against the Sciatica cohibits wounds adimpleats Ulcers with flesh and cures them two dragms of its seed brayed and taken deduces the chollerick excrements of the belly by stools CHAP. LIX Of Gith or Nigella THere is no small difference betwixt Melanteria and Melanthium for Melanteria is a mineral like Mysius but Melanthium or Gith is a Plant which they call Nigella which assurges like a shrub with slender boughs leafs minutely incided like Coriander leafs and candid flowers on the tops of its branches many hairy tufts and stalks being interposed like green hair whereunto quadrangular heads succeed armed with prominent and reflected cornicles distinguished with membranous covers and gravidated with black angulous acrimonious and odorate seed There is another sort of sative Gith which from the colour of its seed is called Orenge-coloured Gith it is in all things like the former but in its seed There are as many sorts of wild Gith which grow amongst segetives very like the satives and another which is called Pseudo-Melanthium and is enumerated amongst the caereals The first sort of Gith the Shopmen call Nigella Romana though it be scarce at Rome but plentiful in Germany It calefies and siccates potently kills Worms moves flowers helps the orthopnoical dissipates flatuosity and benefits such as are affected with diseases in their Uterus CHAP. LX. Of Hyssope HYssop well known to all is a fruticous plant of a foots length with leafs like Thyme but longer and broader caeruleous flowers whose branches are vested like Spike with a long and lignous root And it is of two sorts one montanous which fruticates spontaneously in dry places the other sative which is for culinary uses nourished in Gardens for it is grateful and affects broth with a delectable sapour and sweet odour Both sorts are hot and dry in the third degree but the domestick especially that which bears white flowers is lesse hot and dry Their faculties according to Dioscorides Galen and Mesue are perstrictive yet all confesse that they much help in diuturnal Coughs and distillations and benefit the suspirious and orthopnoical CHAP. LXI Of Cranes-Bill DIoscorides makes but two sorts of Cranes-bill Species Matthiolus three borrowing the third from Pliny Fuchsius six Dodonaeus eight besides other two described by Fuchsius which he doth but just mention The first emits very lanuginous surcles red from the root leafs like Anemone cut with many and long incisures red flowers after whose occase little heads emerge out of the summities of its branches of the longitude of a needle well representing the bill of a Stork or Crane whence later Writers one while call it Cranes bill another while Storks bill and another while Shephards Needle The second hath small and pilous surcles of half a foot 's longitude with leafs like Mallowes but whiter purpureous flowers on its summities and with heads like Cranes bills they mistake that call it Anemone The third hath pedal geniculated hoary hispid and graveolent surcles with leafs like Chervil red flowers and capitls rostrated like Storks The whole plant is red whence it was of old called Rubel now Rubertian sometimes Robertian or herb Robert The fourth hath lacinated red leafs purpureous flowers and heads rostrated as the former The fifth is called Ranunculus because it bears leafs like frogs its flowers are patulous and subcaeruleous its heads like the former it is twofold the one greater whose flowers are caeruleous the other lesser whose flowers are red The sixth expands slender lanuginous branches small and laciniated leafs purpureous flowers to which the Stork bills succeed There is also a tuberous Storks bill so called from its crasse nodose and tuberous root it luxuriates with many round surcles leafs like Anemone much lacinia red red patulous fair flowers on the tops of its caulicles like little Roses Besides these others are by some enumerated as the montanous Storks bill the Ladies Comb the Doves foot and another which for its suaveolence is called sweet Storks bill which growes copiously in many places in Normandy especially in maritimous tracts some call it the herb Camphorata but they erre for Camphorata is of the family of Ground-pines but I find Southernwood called Camphorata by many for it smells like Camphire For defect of Camphorata suaveolent Storks bill may be substituted in the confection of the unguent Martiatum if both be wanting the first sort of Storks bill may be desumed All of them are indued with the same faculty Vires the Moscative is calefactive nerval and discussive the Rupertian detersive and accommodate to Ulcers CHAP. LXII Of Doronicum or Leopards Bane THat which Mesue calls Doronici Actuarius Carnabadium and it is likely that which Paulus calls Memirem and Matthiolus falsly Aconitum Padalianche we call vulgar Roman Doronicum whereof that Matthiolus might give his opinion he experienced his upon a dogg which by that means dyed I besides the authority of grave men can oppose
they are it who thereupon felt no pain when they were bitt by those cruell Serpents which the judge admired and seeking the cause found that each of them had eaten a Citron the next day he commanded a Citron to be given to one of them and not to the other they were againe lead to their punnishment he that had eaten the Citron felt no molestation the other being all over livid with biteings dyed CHAP. IIII. Of Orenges AUrenges or aureous Apples so called from their colour grow upon a Tree very like the Limmon-Tree in effigies for their colours odours flowers and leafes are the same only they differ a little in that part next the peduncle which in the Orenge is as it were pinnated and double they are dilutely green odorate and concolorate with the Limmon-Trees fruits the Tree whereon they grow is tall ramous perpetually virid and daily pomiferous some growing other falling and others ripening it beares flowers al the year which are white elegant suaveolent and more fragrant in Summer then other times some whereof adhaere to a nodose pedicle and are faecund others are enodous and sterile Aqua Naphae so much celebrated for its suavity and fragrance is distilled from these which Matrons and delicate Courtiers wash their faces hair and hands with Great plenty of Orenges are carried from Spain Italy and France into other regions some whereof are sweet and ingratefull or at least not pleasant to the gust others acid jucund cordiall and gratefull to the palate all round nitent of a Golden colour or very flave whence they are often called Golden Apples The sweet ones are temperate the acid ones refrigerate arceate putretude resist Poysons and corroborate Vires their pills are acrimonious amare and hot which for their gracious odour are used in sawces condited in Sugar it emends the breath of ones mouth CHAP. V. Of Pomegranates THis Tree commonly called Granate and its fruit Pomegranate derives its denomination either from the multitude of graines wherewith it is referted or else from the region of Granata where it fruticates copiously it delights in hot aire and dry ground its leafes are like myrtle leafes which fall off annually its flower is red oblonâ— jucund of aspect and resembles a cup in effigies the vulgar call it Balaustium though that name in Dioscorides his opinion may rather be deduced to the wild ones There are two sorts of Pomegranate-Trees the one wild which is florigerous but withall infrugiferous the other domesticall whereof there are three differences one beares acid Pomegranates another sweet ones and the third dulco-acid ones all of them are angulous and crasse referted with many graines demerged in much juice It s cortex is called Malicore and by some Sedion it is viridly flave like vitriol whereof according to Alcumists it participates its flower is oblong purpureous and fait which Pliny calls Balaustians The whole Pomegranate is astrictive and refrigerative but its succe is indued with the best facultyes which recreates the heart allayes the heat of the stomack and cures the Cholerick passion sweet Pomegranates molest the stomack CHAP. VI. Of Quinces QUinces grow upon a Tree which they call Cotonea or Catonea from M. Cato but the Graecians long agoe called it Cydonea from Cydon a Town in Crete where it was first found but I should rather believe that its name Colonea was given to it because of its tomentitious cortex resembling Cotten for these Apples are vested with a certain dawen like Cotten dawen The Tree from which they are excerped is commonly low assurgeing like a shrub vested with a sharp and gapeing Barke produceing things like scales its boughs are many short tortuous and cineritious its leafes subrotund mucronated green above white beneath soft and lanuginous its flowers albid somwhat purpureous and quinquefolious its fruits crasse very flave tomentitious and odorate emitting an odour jucund to some ingratefull to others its sapour is alike to all flesh luteous succe austere its seed as in other Apples is included in membranes and reconded as it were in Caskets The Quince-Tree is fruitfull in every place but most in hot regions cultivated places and Garden sides for then its fruits will be more and aureous some whereof are rounder shorter lesser and nearer the figure of vulgar Apples which are called Quinces absolutely others greater crasser longer turbinated and more like Peares vulgarly called Coignacea which are not so good as the former Some also are more candid others strutheous all more luteous and almost aureous whence they are called Chrysomels or Golden Apples such as are more lanuginous and by their fragrancy affect the heads of some men make very many eustomachicall medicaments as conserves waters and syrups of Quinces whereof there is much use both in health and sicknesse Quinces can searce be eaten crude when cocted they are more gratefull to the palate Vires they roborate the ventricle allay vomiting represse the flowers of the belly conduce to the dysenteriack and collicall as also to such as either spit blood or are infested with an immoderate flux of flowers or haemorrhoids CHAP. VII Of Medlers A Medler is a certain round Apple at first green and somwhat hispid afterwards it is yellow and soft some call it Tigranum and Galen calls it Tricoccum because it containes three lapideous or osseous graines instead of seeds yet somtimes four and somtimes five are found in it according to the number of its unguicles issuing out of its patulous bosse or head this fruit is so acerb before maturity that one cannot tast of it but when mature it is gratefull and wholesome for the last course The Tree from which it is decerped is of two sorts one wild and spinous growing spontaneously in Woods and Hedges which beares small oblong Apples very acerb before maturity and not very gratefull after the other domesticall so made by culture and insition whose Apples are more crasse and full though a little compressed round and gapeing on one side both are tortuous and rigid but this is lesse spinous Dioscorides calls it Setania Theophrastus Satanea It assurges to the magnitude of a vulgar Apple-Tree with boughs that are hairy and circumgyred promisse and not broad leafes white and quinquefolious nowers whereunto Apples succeed called Medlers which are of a moderate magnitude with late heads discreted with five unguicles or leafes its substance is white and sapour austere till maturity and then it is yellow and sweet Immature Medlers are acerb and astrictive yet their Powder according to Aâ—t Musa breakes and excludes stones in the Reins Vires to which effect their officles or seeds brayed and assumed are thought most conducible they are commended for cohibiting belly flux and roborating its parts CHAP. VIII Of Sorbe Apples SOrbes are small Apples in quality like Medlers in formes and magnitude very dissimilar for both at first are green hard acerb unfit to eat by maturity yellow soft grateful to
slenderer and lower then the other whose leafes are like Rue and virgults aculeated out of which a succe is educed which retaines the name of its Arbuscle Acacia because of whose rarity we substitute the succe of the wild Plum-Tree out of which laudable Gum flowes forth at first pellucid as glasse sincere and contracted into the species of a vermicle afterwards white sordid resinous and uselesse It is efficacious in spissating and refrigerating Vires it is commodiously mixed with ocular and arteriall medicaments it obstructs the pores of the skin is represses prociduous eyes that it may be more easily pulverated it must be verberated in a hot mortar with a hot Pestell CHAP. IIII. Of Gumme Tragacanth GUm-Tragacanth is pellucid white sweet light and sincere which flowes from the vulnerated root of a certain Plant of the same name this root adhaeres to the surface of the Earth and emitts low and rigid surcles whereon are many and slender leafes which cover white straight and firm spines this arbuscle which the Greeks call Tragacantha and the Latines Spina herci growes in Crete and many places in Asia which emitts its succe spontaneously and without incisure as Theophrastus asserts contrary to Dioscorides who saith that this Plant hath no need of vulneration which though it be exoticall and seldome seen by our herbalists yet I saw it cicurated and florid in the Garden of Jo. Gonnerius that perite Physitian yet it s coagulated succe which the Gentiles call Tragacanthum and the Apothecaryes Dragaganthum is sufficiently known to all it cannot be easily laevigated unlesse the Morter and pestle be hot It s use is commended to ocular medicaments in a liniment with Honey or Sugar Vires it emends the roughnesse of the artery coughs retusenesse of voice and other defluxions CHAP. V. Of Gum Ammoniacum THis Gum is called Ammoniack because it distills upon the Sands neare Jupiter Ammons Oracle but from what Plant is uncertain Pliny saith it flowes from a Tree they call Metopion Dioscorides sayes it emanates both from a shrub they call Agasyllis and from a ferulaceous Plant but the ferulaceous Plants can scarce be called fruticall Galen asserts that it is the Tears of Ferula from which is collected both a sincere dense Gumme conspurcated with no sordidity and coacted into small glebes as also an impure and inquinated one which Dioscorides call Phyrama who calls the other Thrausma That is good which is inquinated with no sandy terrene nor extraneous matter effigiated like masculine frankincense graveolent and amare the Apothecaryes call it corruptly Gum Armoniack it may be dissolved in Water Vinegar or White-Wine It is so efficacious a mollitive that it dissolves the stoney disease of the Junctures and discusses other tubercles it cures indurated Milts Vires and in drink liberates from obstructions it moves urine and flowers and extrudes stones CHAP. VI. Of Lacca and Cancamum WHat Lacca and what Cancamum are whether they be both one or distinct and what each of them is doeth not appeare by the writings of Authours Serapio Paulus and Matthiolus believe that Lacca is that which Dioscorides calls Cancamum Brasâ—volus Garcias ab horto and Clusius think it is a distinct thing who being desirous to find out the truth have lustrated various tracts of the world and think that Lacca is not only distinct from Cancamum but also unknown for seeing it is only used for perfumes and we have many more fragrant and suaveolent Thymiamata it hath not been so diligently sought after moreover being exoticall the Tree from which it delabes growing as it is thought in Arabia our Merchants have not deigned it worth the search and portage however it is a kind of Gum of a virous sapour sweet odour and rare use Now Lacca is destitute of both these qualityes frequently invented neither the Arabian Chermes nor the succe of Sorbe-Tree nor Medlar-Tree nor yet like Myrrhe as Avicenna writes who it may be knew it not but if Garcias de horto may be credited it is a kind of Favago and concreted liquor on the boughs of a vast Tree coacted by the sucking and help of winged Ants. And this Tree growes not in Arabia but in India especially in the province of Pegu where Lacca is called Trec as also in Bengala and Malavar where it is called Loc and Lac. Garcias indeavours to establish and confirme this opinion by reason and much History striving also to prove out of Amatus Lusitanus that Cancamum is an Aroma otherwise called Anyme whereof he constitutes two varietyes the one white which also according to Brissotus a Physician of Paris is Dioscorides his Cancamum and the other somwhat black which myrrhe or rather Mynea or Amynea Thus the obscurity of the thing Vires drives us to the affinity of names there to investigate the truth but if I may speak freely I think that Anyme or Amynea as some will have it Myrrhe and Cancamum are three distinct things and that that which the shopmen call Lacca is that same which the ancients called Cancanum who being ignorant of some words depromed from the Barberians believed such things as they heard though never so slackly and so by calling Cancamum Lacca left this liberty of discussing to the ensuing posterity Some maintaine this opinion saying that there are three sorts of Lacca one is Dioscorides his Cancamum which scarce any ever saw the second common Lacca the third factitious which Dyers use whereof there are more differences which for brevitys sake I omit The vulgar Lacca is hard pellucid and yellow like Myrrhe circularly involving the surcles of an exoticall Tree which is not I think elicited elaborated and cohibited to the boughs of that Tree by the sucking and labour of Indian Ants as Garcias affirmes but exudes and concretes spontaneously like other Gummes and Teares for these animalls labouring for victualls in Summer against Winter do not expose their panifice to the injuryes of the aire and Heavens on boughs but recond it in Caves and Holes and few I hope will believe that Indian Ants will labour in vain for Lacca and not congest and coact it for meat but desert it That which is brought to us circumvests the sticks of the Tree is hard and pellucid easily dissolvable in water and this ingredes the trochisckes of Carabe and Dialacca and not the factitious Lacca as some perperously imagine It is not so much celebrated for medicinall as other mechanicall uses Vires as to the makeing of sealing Wax and infecting such tinctures as are put upon ligneous vessells and adorning other colours for it makes them shine elegantly CHAP. VII Of Dragons-Blood THe pervestigation of Dragons-Blood hath exercised many wits for some following the erroneous opinion of Pliny think that it is the Blood of a Dragon animate smitten by an Elephant which errour Solinus doth not only embrace but holds that Cinnabaris is that same which Apothecaryes call Dragons-Blood Serapio
writes that it is the succe of a certaine Plant which he calls Sydrichis and Egilos which our Herbalists think is the fourth species of Wall-sage some ignorant Apothecaryes are imposed upon by circulators and buy a kind of businesse tincted with red Earth and the juice of Madder and such things convolved into lumps for Dragons-Blood Brassavolus foolishly constitutes three sorts of Dragons-Blood the first factitious of pseudobole the second the lacrymae of a certaine Tree the third Gumme But as the adulterate is no species of Dragons-Blood so neither can there be two sorts the one a Lacryma the other a Gumme of the same Tree for all Gumms lacrymously distilling from any Tree are called generally lacrymae Aloysius Cadamustus a noble Venetian expresses its Originall better There is saith he in an Island called Pontus Sanctus which is one of the Canaryes Dragons-Blood which is the Lachryma of a certaine Tree which at a certaine season the incolists fauclate out of which incisions the next yeare Gumme will emanate which they coct in kettles and defaecate making thereof Dragons-Blood That Tree beares fruits like Cherryes in March which 〈◊〉 an eximious sapour and Venetian colour â— Monardus seems to assent to this opinion and asserts that Dragons-Blood is the lachryma of some Tree and not the Goare of any animall for saith he a few dayes agoe a Carthaginian Bishop brought hither from the continent of the new World 〈…〉 the fruit of that Tree which emitts that Lacryma we call Dragons-Blood The fruit is very admirable for the skin wherewith it is covered being taken away a little Dragon appeares of such artificiall 〈…〉 fabricature that the most perite artist cannot better 〈◊〉 it in Marble it is conspicuous with an oblong neck a â—â—…ing mouth an aculeated back-bone a long tayle and feet From this fruit both the Tree and its Lacryma derived their 〈◊〉 that is best which is brought from Carthage The Tree is tall with a thin barke and easily vulnerable 〈◊〉 name being unknown to the ancients they wrote no certainty of the nature and originall of its Lacryma Clusius saw the Tree and described it accurately Dragons-Blood then is the name both of an exoticall Tree and the hard purpureous Gumme concreted on its boughs It is collective and agglutinatory and therefore fitt to conjoyn wounds and astringe and roborate laxe parts Vires it may easily be dissolved in water CHAP. VIII Of Asa foetida Many following the opinion of the ancients constitute two sorts of Asa one sweet and odorate and the other Faetid and stinking the later they say is the Arabian Altit the former the Aâ—â—…â—â—…yes Belzoni and both come out of Laser or Laserpitium but what sweet Asa is cannot yet be determined Nay I think it â—â—ore ignore to this latter age then Asa faetida was to the ancients of which they never make mention that I know of but 〈…〉 is so frequent in Pharmacopolyes that it offends every youngsters nose in growes on a ferulaceous Plant as Belzoin doth of a â—â—ll one which I never find called Asa But as the sapour odour and Originall of each of them is different so is their nomenclature Now Asafaetida is the excrement Asa quid or Gumme of Laser or Laserpitium which Dioscorides calls Stilphion Avicenna Altit or Antit the Indians Aâ—jâ—den and the Apothecaryes Assa but more properly â—sa as if they should say Lasor for Laser is a Lacryma Laserpitium a Plant out of which this Laser or Asa is cliched not Assa which â—ccording to Rhasis is an hearb that some call Hyssope others Thyme Now Laserpitium is a serulaceous Plant with an annuall Caule which they â—all Maspetâ—m leafes like Apium but flave broad and foliaceous feed and a black crasse long and cubitall root Garcias indeed doth boldly pronounce Asa â— Lacryma of Laserpitium but exhibites a â—â—june description thereof speaking only a little of its leafes which he saith are like Hasse leafes This Plant doth peculiarly avoid albâ—â—â—â—tivated places and therefore by culture absolutely deviates and degenerates as naturally â—â—â—ing culture according to Theophrastus to whom ferocity is â—â—â—â—cular 〈…〉 of this Plant designed by a 〈…〉 â—â—ture 〈…〉 Magudaris it 〈…〉 least 〈…〉 its lead 〈◊〉 for saith 〈…〉 folium 〈…〉 Magydaris differs from 〈…〉 whether 〈…〉 a part of the same Plant or 〈…〉 hereunto it matters not for Asa is the Laâ—rymâ— or Gummâ— oâ— â—â—serpitium which is â—â—â—hâ—r taken from its root or from its cauâ—â— â—â—phâ—astus calls that of the root Radicarium and the other 〈…〉 It gâ—oâ—es in Armenia Media Lybia and Syris whâ—â—◠〈◊〉 somtimes called the Lybian somtimes the Medium and Syâ—â—â— succe They called it of old the Cyrenian succe because it gâ—ew copiously and well in the Cyrenian feilds but that name is 〈◊〉 almost abrogated for the Barbarians out of some hatred conceived against the Cyrenians eradicated and extirpated all their â—â—serpitium as Strabo denotes The Syrian Laser is best after the Cyrenian and the Median after the Syrian There are two sorts of Asa the one pure sincere and transparent the other turbid and impure wherewith bran or Sagapenâ— is mixed whole halite and stinking odour it well resembles Hence the Germans call it the Devills dung both of theâ—â—â—veny â—dorâ—te but â—â—â—veelent so that I cannot easily assent 〈…〉 opinion who think that one sort of Asa is sweet for neither â—â—â—dour of the one nor of the other can be tolerated without loâ—â—â— somnesse whence I admite that Garcius should say that no â—â—â—ple â—e dicament in all India should be more in use then Asa â—â—tidaâ— both in medicines and also in meaâ—â— The Indians are wont to mix it with the in Pot-hearbs in their pottage having first â—â—â—bed their kettlâ—s there with useing no other â—â—â—â—â—ment to any meaâ— but 〈◊〉 to recall their appetite when they nause any thing If this be not a fable Asa must either not stink in India 〈◊〉 the Indians must have brâ—seh throats as the Proverb goes this Asa is so ingratefull to us both in odour and sapour that we can easily pardon Matthaeus Sylvaticus who reposed it amongst Poysons yet Dioscorides commends it for meat Who enumerated so many and so great faculties Vires wherewith it is indued that he was able to most loath somnesse The more recent hold it very efficacious but only to a few affections who never use it save against the ascent and aberration of the uterus and some other diseases appertaining to women CHAP. IX Of Sagapene or Serapine Sagapene by Apothecaryes Serapinum is a concrete liquour 〈◊〉 â—ing out of the sauciated root of a ferulaccous Plant in Meâ—â—â— whose description Dioscorides omitted because perhaps he 〈◊〉 not so much knowledge of the Plant as of the succe which 〈◊〉 I neither yet saw nor read designed by any authour for beâ—â—â—â—â—â—ticall it is either not cicurable or if cicurated sterile 〈…〉 sucee and marcid It s concrete succe therefore is only
burn and not be extinguished till all its oleous and fat substance be absumed All Sulphur is not alike in colour for some is green some more luteous some cineritious and some pallid or lucid Whence we may gather That it is of more sorts then two Pliny also enumerates four some whereof are harder others fatter and others more inflammal That Sulphur whereof Alchymists tell many vain and ridiculous stories is not common Sulphur yet it is mixed though they assert that it is a principle of mixture But no more of that in this place There is a certain fat liquor very efficacious Oleum Sulphuris educed out of Sulphur yet such as may not be used imperitely lest it do more harm then good There is a powder also made of Sulphur against the vices of the Lungs whose event demonstrates its excellency That Medicament which Mesue calls Diasulphur is hence denominated Sulphur califies cocts resolves cures Coughs Vires and difficulty of breathing taken in an Egge or burned and its smoke catched moves spittle mixed with butter or swines-grease it mitigates and kills the itch erupting on the whole body and mixed with Turpentine it cures Tetters rough nails and scabs CHAP. 10. Of Amber-grise AMber-grise which was unknown to the Ancients is neither the seed of Balena nor excrement of any other Whale nor yet the dung of any Birds educated in the Isle Maldina with odoriferous herbs which dung is by the sea wash'd of those Rocks as some somniate nor yet any kinde of maritimous Mushrome eradicated by the Sea as many have asserted nor yet any thing made of Ladanum Aloes wood Storax and Civer as Fuschius credited but a certain kinde of Bitumen by storms driven from the Fountains and Chanels of the Sea to the shore where exposed to the air it speedily condenses as many things do which while they are in the water are soft and tender but eructed become dry and hard as Amber Perhaps as it is storied a great quantity of Amber-grise hath been found in a Whales belly but whilest she was alive she had got it and ingested it in the Sea for it is absurd to think that Amber should be the Whales excrement when the best Amber devoured by a Whale loses its bonity and suavity Which Simeon Sethi smelled well enough who asserting that Amber is a kinde of Bitumen flowing out of some Fountains saith That that which is devoured by fishes is the worst that can be Garcias ab Horto seems to assert That it is a kinde of odorate earth seeing there was not onely a fragment of three thousand pounds weight of Amber found in the earth but whole Islands of pure Amber and he proves the probability hereof from the infinite varieties of earth in colour and qualities and seeing in this general acception Bitumen may be called a kinde of Earth I do nor impugn the verisimilitude of his assertion especially finding it called Precious Earth Thus have I briefly related the whole history of Amber for I will neither undertake neither will my short annotations bear the discussion of such opinions as have been published about Amber That Amber which is most odorate devoid of filth perforated with a needle emits much fat succe that which is cineritious and not black is good that which is black or very candid is not good It calefies Vires resolves recreates the heart brain and principal parts refreshes the spirits cureth swoundings erects the strength exhilarates the mind and cures palpitation CHAP. 11. Of yellow Amber or Electrum ORange-coloured Amber is variously denominated the Greeks call it Electrum the Persians and Mauritanians Charabe that is catch-straw the Germans Glesum that is Glasse because it is splendent the Romans Succinum because it is the product of succe or Sea-bitumen concreted but not the succe of Pine or black Poplar as many have asserted for it is found in the deeps and upon Sea-shores concreted of the fat juyce of the Sea and Earth This matter whilest lent viscid and fat before it be obdurated and dryed catches and detains many Flies Gnats Ants and such like Insects which dye dry and odorate together with the Amber This Amber is either white or flave the white which is more odorate and lighter is good so also is the flave if pellucid and such as may be made by attrition to smell like Rosemary and attract chaff or straw It s Powder given in convenient liquor cohibits the flux of blood roborates the bowels and is good against the white fluor of the womb one dragm thereof taken in a soft Egge will stay the flux of Sperm and will help such as are tabid infested with hardness of intestines difficulty of breathing and long Coughs CHAP. 12. Of Coral COral is from its effigies hardness and native soyl frequently and not improperly called Lithodendron as if it were a Stone-tree and sometimes a Sea-shrub for Macer saith it seems to be the bough of some arbuscle for it grows in the Tyrrhenian and Sicilian Seas assurging and emitting branches like a little Tree Hence some repose it amongst shrubs others amongst stones and others amongst Bitumens but it is really none of all these but something of each It is threefold one sort is red another white and another black the first as it is of a more jucund aspect so more medicinal and more apt for Bracelets and other Ornaments The white as it is more spongious so more light and refrigerative the black is most rarely seen lesse medicinal and expetible red is the best which is alwayes understood when Coral is prescribed absolutely There is another sort of Coral of a mixed colour which is not so good the red that is best should be of a florid colour odorate like Alga ramous like a shrub very frangible not rough nor hollow or chanelled All Coral refrigerates dryes and bindes Vires it cohibits the immoderate flux of fluors and blood it cures the Dysentery represses the flux of mans sperm and the white fluors of a womans Uterus It helps such as are anhelant infested with the Epilepsie Spleenatick and heart-dolours for it roborates the brain diminishes the spleen and exhilarates the heart Alchymists extract a red oyl out of Coral which is very useful in staying blood and roborating the members of which elswhere CHAP. 13. Of Auripigmentum AUripigment Arrhenick or Arsenick Sandaracha and Risagalum differ not save in name onely All are effoded out of the same pit all are septical and acrimonious with extreme calour dissolving destroying and preying upon the principles of life Some of the later Writers call three things Arsenick for they denominate Auripigment Yellow Arsenick Sandarax Red Arsenick and Risagalum VVhite Arsenick Auripigment and Sandarax are of the same Metals and seem onely to differ in more or less coction and therefore they are both often mixed in the same glebe There are two sorts of Auripigment one of a golden colour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which
Galen calls Crustosum which may be clefted into scales mixed with no matter The other pale effigiated like an acorn which is affine to Sandaracha Sandaracha hath not onely affinity with Arsenick from its native soyl but nature also for it is onely Arsenick well cocted for that by ustion will become Sandaracha as Ceruse will Sandyx which they call Painters-red Pliny makes mention of another sort of Sandaracha which he refers to ceraginous honey They erre shamefully that deceived through the affinity of the words take the Arabians Sandarax which is Junipers Gumme for Sandaracha which is a Mineral for Sandarax and Sandaracha differ much in nature faculties and original for the one is pale light and grateful to nature the other red heavy and deletery Few things are spoken and that but by few concerning Risagalum insomuch that we can scarce from their dignments know what it is Bern Dessennius calls it factitious white and crystalline Arsenick But perhaps the ancients did more wisely in its disquisition not to detect such mortal lethal poyson Sylvius saith it is found in the same pits with Arsenick which some call Auripigment All Arsenick is erosive Vires malign an enemy to all internal parts and to the radical moisture and innate heat and therefore it is ill advice of Nic. Alexand. to describe it for an ingredient in the great Athanasia for by permixion with other Medicaments it doth not depose its ferity It is indeed sometimes mixed with extraneous Medicaments but in very small quantity and onely then when some superfluous flesh is to be eroded For the spirit of Arsenick which consists in salt as the Alchymists speak is very bad and cannot either by its fixation or extraction be so deleated as to be securely introsumed into the body CHAP. 14. Of Cinnabaris or Vermillion DIoscorides his Cinnabaris which is the succe of a certain tree growing in Africa which is usurped for Dragons-blood differs much from the Cinnabaris so called by later writers which is a Mineral whereof there are two sorts the one native the other artificial The native is also twofold the one whereof is effoded out of certain silver Mynes as those in Hydria which seems to be a purpureous glebe referted with Quicksilver out of which it frequently issues spontaneously the other is found in the Veins of silver Mynes and is the Minium secundum of which hereafter There is also an artificial Cinnabaris made of Sulphur and Quicksilver coacted by the fire which Brasavolus calls Cynaprium to distinguish it from the native Cinnabaris which with Dioscorides he holds to be the lacryma of an Aphrican-tree But indeed Cinnabaris Cynaprium and Vermillion or Red-Lead are all one especially with the later writers who adducing them all to the test of reason found them not to differ and those that pertinaciously contend for their difference exhibiting an accurate description of each do at last conclude them one for the variety of names do often so obscure the thing that he may be excused who thinks Cinnabaris Cynaprium Milton and Vermillion to discrepate Cinnabaris then is of four sorts the first is Dioscorides his Cinnabaris which is the succe of an Aphrican-tree called Dragon the second is a Mineral shining with much rubour and not very ponderous which is found in silver Mynes the third is factitious of fulphur and quicksilver ponderous and intermixed with red and argenteous lines the fourth is found in silver Mynes and kept in shops in form of a powder very nitently red which some call Cinnabaris some Milton some Minium the shop-men Vermillion and some Sandix Now Sandix is burnt Ceruss which for its eximious redness Serapio calls Vermillion from which opinion the later writers dissent not But that purpureous powder which Apothecaries keep for Vermilsion is by Fliny called the second Minium which is found in silver Mynes acquiring that fair rubetude by artificial and reiterated washing so that according to Pliny one Minium is differenced from another onely by washing and art yet the first Minium or Mineral Cinnabaris which emits much quicksilver by the fire needs no such washing the second or vulgar which is called Red-lead is red in the fire but eructates little or no quicksilver and is seldom used in Medicine Cinnabaris being referted with much Mercury participates of the same saculties which being notorious to the very Barbers and pore-blinde is often by Circulators usurped to the cure of the French disease who make such foolish attempts thereof as they bring many into the Palsey more to death CHAP. 15. Of Quicksilver MErcury or Quicksilver is the prime idol of the Alchymists which they pronounce the principle of things and sperm of Metals and indeed so true each that nothing is more false for if Metals have any sperm it is within themselves not elsewhere to be sought nor will ever mixed bodies naturally resolve themselves into Salt Sulphur and Mercury though these Chymical Vulcans do Hammer them out as Dom. Riolanus hath learnedly proved against them This Mercury or quicksilver is as it were the Monster of Nature which will not be subdued under Natures Laws it is whiter then any silver more fluxile then water more permeable then Vinegar yet it never madefies often refrigerates often califies sometimes curing onely frigid affections sometimes onely calid ones when it seems frigid then it induces calid effects when calid frigid ones it sometimes hurts in small quantity alwayes in great it easily loses its proper form and easily resumes it and in this it is Miraculous that it often profits being introsumed by the mouth and often causes Palsey trembling and other prave effects when extrinsecally applied Falop. Cap. 27 76. Lib. de lue Vener Trajan saw some who being anointed with a liniment made of Quicksilver before their deaths in the junctures of whose armes he sound much Quicksilver when he dissected their dead bodies He saw another who being onely thrice anointed with Quicksilver vomited many humours wherewith much Quicksilver was confounded It is also storyed of one Antonius Gallus that he being oft besmeared with Medicaments of quicksilver and not voiding any by spittle that much was mixed with his urine wherewith gold might be so dealbated that they would take it for silver Yet Brasavolus would have it assumed at the mouth to kill Maw-wormes and Fracastorius avers that certain women assumed each of them a pound of quicksilver to kill their young which yet received no harm they being frustrated in their design and the young excluded duely and alive Yet the same Author having afterwards approved and disapproved of its use confesses ingenuously that he is ignorant of its qualities but boldly asserts that it will cure the French disease One Jacobus Carpensis was the first that prescribed quicksilver to the cure of this disease whose use was so successful that he presently became very rich thereby the Neotericks following him mix it both with internal and external remedies for its use
in dignity Divers Authors have written variously of this Animal some making it tall others low some wild and sylvestrian others not onely cicurated by art but tamed by the sight of a Girle sometimes lying to sleep beside her as being delighted with her love and odour some make its horn black others yellow and others white Yet they who have lustrated the New-found world say that an Unicorn is lower and slenderer then an Elephant equalizing in magnitude an ordinary Horse of a musteline or yellowish colour and some say subcineritous with a Harts head no long neck a short Mane rare and hanging on one side a rough beard but short bifideous hoofes not thick legs and a tail like a Boar. Solin Plin. Aelian It bears its horn which is straight crass intorted four or five foot long according to its age solid hard squamous yet not clefted yellowish without eburneous within but not undulated with any lines and obvallated with a kinde of crass skin dirempted in circular line from other parts which Merchants ineptly call its Lard Seeing then that an Unicorn is an Animal both rare and wilde not cicurable unless it be caught while very young and its horns do not fall off annually as Harts-horns do it is no wonder if its horn be so rare and precious yet there is one exceeding a mans procerity kept as a rich treasure in St. Dionysius his Temple beside Paris and many little pieces in every Parisian Pharmacopoly that such may be helped as require its exhibition It is much commended against poyson Vires and to exhilarate and roborate the Noble parts and therefore it is given to the pestilent and such as are infected with contagious and venenate diseases yet all patients being not equally rich it is onely exhibited to the richer to others I prescribe Rhinoceros and Harts-horn with no less success CHAP. 22. Of the Bezaar-stone THe Bezaar-stone is either so called from an oriential Animal out of which it is had which the Persians call Pasan and sometimes Bazar and the Indians Bezar or else from is Bezardical that is alexiterial faculty wherein it is eximious against poyson and upon that account a certain Metalline alexiterian stone is by some Arabians called Bezardical because they say the Bezaar-stone will expugne all poysons But this Bezaar-stone now in frequent use is not effoded out of Mynes but taken out of the belly and internals of a certain Animal most frequent in Persia Coraso and the promontory of Comorim near Chyma which such as have have seen it call a Goat the incolists call it a Mountain-Goat for in form and magnitude it resembles an European Goat but its hair is shorter it is taller equalizing a Hart in procerity and it seems to be rightly denominated Hart-Goat because it partly bears the nature of a Hart partly of a Goat It is a most agile swift and fierce Animal easily leaping from rock to rock and sometime turning upon the Indian hunters and killing them it hath bifidous ungles like a Goat slender legs a prominent and short tail a rough body Goat-like but shorter hair cineriously yellow like a Hart a Goats head armed with two horns crooked backwards and ending in an obtuse point very black and hollow in their crasser part obsited with many tubercles I saw two at Cowbertum in the Castle of Dom. de Virty The aforesaid stone is generated in this Animals belly whose magnitude form and colour are various according to the nature and age of the Beast for there are greater stones in the greater and elder beast lesser in the lesser and younger all are of an oval figure but some rounder then others and others more quadrate Their colour is obscure and blackish or yellow and more pallid according to the Animals temperature whereof such as generate greater and crasser stones are less agile and less apt to run or leap which live more sadly and are at the first sight known by hunters Perhaps these stones are offensive and preternatural to these Animals as the stone is to man They are generated corticatery from a small rudiment of coagmentated sand which is by the apposition of some new humour agglutinated assimilated and wrought into certain crass plates like onyons according to the magnitude of the dust and apposition of the appellent humour This sand or dust in the centre of the stone is of more efficacy then any other part of the stone all whereof whether internal or external are smooth polite and splendent which are not so in adulterate stones wherein there is no dust or sand The Persians are the best of Bezaar-stones next the oriental but especially those that are taken out of Animals living in the Persian Mountains for those that live in plains and valleys feed not upon so salutary plants as those that inhabit excelse plants and therefore their stones are not so efficacious All of them are much commended against the bitings of venenate beasts Vires for their powder assumed or adhibited cures wounds inflicted by Scorpions Vipers or other Serpents and insperged on the same Animals makes them torpid and innocuous It is storyed that the King of Corduba was freed from a very pernicious poyson by the use of this stone and therefore some think Bezaar is rightly deduced from Bel in Hebrew which signifies Lord and Zâ—ar poyson calling it the Lord of Poysons It conduces upon the same account to all venenate and contagious diseases as the Pestilences Morbils small-Pox and the like it cures also swoundings long sorrows hysterical passions and many other malign affections of which see N. Monard Christoph a Costa and Clusius CHAP. 23. Of Margarites and Unions MArgarites are taken out of certain Shell-fishes living in the Indian sea very like Oysters which if they be small they keep the name Margarites if greater they are called Unions for they are found severally in several Shell-fishes whence the Poet Unde dictus ob hoc quod ab uno nascitur unus Nec duo vel pluris unquam simul inveniantur Yet Aelianus contradicts this opinion teaching from experience that many Unions are generated and found in one Shell-fish according to the abundance of the fishes excrementitious matter which is pure and lucid they are not therefore called Unions because one onely is found in one Shell-fish but because two are never found conjoyned in the same Those that are white round ponderous and smooth such as Queens weare about their necks are best Many Shell-fishes generate Margarites but the best are exotical which are found in the Persian Sea in the East whence they are called Oriental Pearls and in the tracts of Chyna and many parts of India where the Incolists call these Margaritiferous Shell-fishes Berbert and some Barbarians Cheripe others Chanquo which is the Mother of Pearl This great Shell-fish is spiss moderately hollow like a comb but not toothed on both sides but onely on one not striated without but plain and something flave smooth splendent and
argenteous within it is generated in its flesh as lumps in hogs flesh stones in the bladder or other places for I saw a man who avoided many stones by stool each one whereof in magnitude equalized a Chesnut or Acorn Fernelius found three stones in the Liver of the dissected carcase of a Noble-man who in his life-time spitted up some like Margaâ—ites But to my purpose these Shell-fishes exposed to the air or assayed with a knife open and the Margarites are found together with their flesh which indeed are neither bones nor part of the piscicle but something excrementitious splendent and concrete like the shells wherewith they are tected which are outwardly scabre and impolite but within smooth and fair so that the true Mother of Pearls is never naturally but alwayes artificially polished Those Margarites are greater which are taken from the greater Conchae and in the deeper sea They are so much sought after by women that no one though of mean fortune thinks she is sufficiently adorned till she carry Pearls about her neck But their use is chiefly Medicinal for all both Ancients and latter writers aver That Margarites are very cordial and exhilarate the heart Alchymists dissolve them and get thence liquor of Pearls whereof they predicate many but ridiculous things I knew a very crafty Empyrical Chirurgeon in Paris who required six Peices for the adhibition of two Swallows to his Patient Vires and when all admired he should ask so unreasonably I should saith he have demanded much more because I fed these Animals a whole Month with the liquor of Pearls You may read at large of Margarites and the Fishes wherein they are generated their nature dignity duration and vertues in Rondeletius Lib. 1. de testaceis Cap. 51. CHAP. 24. De Umbilicis Marinis Of the Sea-Navel THe Sea-Navel is either a whole piscicle whereof Rondeletius makes mention or a part bone or regument of some greater fish the former is a turbinated and small Shell-fish so like a Navel that none that see it can chuse but so name it The other Umbilike is all osseous which is either a shell or the bone of another fish for many fishes have certain bones given them by Nature either for the insertion of their fins whereby they defend their lives or for the confirmation and motion of their bodies Thus Sepia is founded upon its bone thus the Slaits back is armed with many pricks which by light cocture may be easily sojoyned from its body whose officles if you take away their prickles do well represent the Sea-Navel We therefore suspect with Berv. Dessennius that Sea-Umbilikes are desumed from Sea-Animals and cast on the shore with other stones and yet they are not of the same kinde with stones Some call them Sea-Gems but their faculties are not so eximious as that they should be reposed among Gems Their form is well known their colour is in some white in some red they are frequently sold in France CHAP. 25. Of the Dental THe Dental is a certain small Shell-fish oblong white sharp without very smooth within hollow like a little tube and acuminated on one side like a Dogs tooth whence it is called a Dental for it is a shell like a tooth wherein a vernicle is procreated which is oblong and slender answerable to the cavity of the shell which goes out of its domicil sometimes to draw water and seek victuals Both it and its tube grow as a restaceous Cane upon a Rock or an old shell It is indued with the same vertue with the Seas Umbilike and other testaceous piscicles and may as well ingrede the composition of the Citrian Unguent as the former CHAP. 26. Of the Antal THere is another Sea Shell-fish called an Antal whose use in Medicine is very frequent if we make the Citrian unguent It is a testaceous tube bred in the Sea of a little fingers length striated without smooth and hollow within out of whose cavity a small piscicle is educed This seems to be the fish which Athenaeus calls Solen for that is of the kinde of long Shell-fishes with a double shell smooth slender and hollow like a reed and open at both ends Pliny calls it a Dactyl or a Digit because it equalizes a finger in longitude or as some say resembles a mans nail However the Antal we use is very well known and vulgar neither should we lose any precious Medicament if it were absent for we can substitute in its stead any shell that is white and striated which strangers bring from the Sea near that famous Mount which is sacred to St. Michael for all of them are of an equal vertue as to the confecture of the said ungâ—ent whereunto also another accedes not easily known by name some call it Amentum others Amiantus for it is yet doubted whether Amentum be that stone Amiantus which is of a whitish green and by many called Scissile-Alome from which it differs much For Scissile-Alome is manifestly astrictive and being injected upon coals burns but plumeous Alome is acrimonious safe from flame and well termed Amiantus or Amentum or Amiantum which the Citrian Unguent admits of but I dare not assert this for certain seeing Amentum is a barbarous word well understood by none as it appears by the opinions of such Authors as have written of it for Theophrastus will have it the name of a tree Matthaeus Sylvaticus burnt glass Manlius burnt lime some Suet or the fat of glass others Talkum or the specular glass which is indeed very convenient for this Unguent as also plumbeous Alome which Apothecaries by good reason use for Amentum or Amiantus There is also much mention in shops of Bizantian Blatta which is a cover very like that wherewith the Purple-fish is tected yet this similitude is onely as to their substance and faculties and not as to their forms for the tegument of the Purple-worm is round according to Rondeletius and this Blatta long and strict found in nardiferous lakes and thence suaveolent for these worms eat Spikenard and this Blatta is called the odorate Nayl for it smells somewhat like a Beaver But I will not longer insist upon its description because it ingredes no Medicament in our Shop CHAP. 27. Of Tortoises TOrtoises are either aquatical living in the Sea or sweet-watel or amphibious living partly on the land and partly on the water whence Pliny comprehending them all in a quaternal number calls them either Marine or Fluvial Terrestrial or Palustrian A Tortoise is a candated Animal with four feet squamous ingrateful to the sight whose shell is of an oval form long broad hollow within and without extuberant like a Buckler under which it sometimes hides its head tail feet and all and sometimes it puts them out even at pleasure This alone of squamous Animals according to Aristotle hath Reins and a Bladder it layes Egges with hard shells of two colours which it reconds in a Ditch excavated like a hogshead and
cibaries to their Cells and reconding them for the insuing year They hunt not after smaller animalls like Cobs but degust them when dead congest grains and bear their burthens in their mouthes Ants are either winged whose infusion yeilds the said oyle or wingless which are frequently found in dry and incultivated places sick Bears seek sanity from them There is in some regions in India where Gold is effoded a kinde of Ants equalizing Foxes in magnitude I finde also some equitant ones and others that fly the light but the Apothecary never uses such CHAP. 36. Of the Silk-worm THat glory is now given to Silk which was given to fine linen wherewith the Ancient Kings were invested and as we read in Luke 10. A certain rich man arrayed This flax was a kinde of tenuious line next in dignity to Asbestinum whereof most subtile vestments were made with which women were most delighted which according to Pliny grew neer Elis in Achaia according to Pollux in India and Aegypt and Pausanias in Greece on a tree not unlike our Poplar with willowish leaves but whether its plant be a tree or an herb it is altogether unknown to us It bears not onely leaves but line also which the People of Seres Scytia and Asiatica perite in spining draw out into small threads and make it into vestments for rich men and that which the Serians work is called Silk Asbestus is either a certain stone of a ferreous colour in the Mountains of Arcadia which being once accended can never be extinguished or else flax whereof Napkins are made that will take flame and not burn away like plumbeous Lead But we have no such by ssigerous plant nor vestments made of their Down but onely Bombycina which as Byssina of old is now called Silk which is as good for dignity in the same uses and besides accommodated to Medicinal exhibitions for Apothecaries following the Arabians dictate have an opinion of Silk Vires that it will purge blood roborate the vital faculties recreate the heart illustrate the spirits refresh all faculties and help all the spirits These are the eximious Encomia wherewith the Barbarians nobilitate the excrement of their virulent Insect But seeing any one may Philosophize and propose his opinion in the matter in hand I profess I think Silk is of small use in Medicine for it is the dry inodorate exuicous recrement of an imperfect Animal affine to Cob-webs but inept and ineffectual in mans cure It may be that that Byssinum which the latter writers call fine flax is indued with eximious faculties but no such being now fonnd nor brought to us our Pharmacopolists cannot speak of it unless they speak in their dreams And I wonder upon what reason they give crude Silk to the sick when it is tincted with Scarlet it is indeed vertuous but it borrows that faculty from its infection and therefore I had rather prescribe the dying grains alone then frustraneously spend their succe in dying Silk But let perite Medicks who have onely reason for their Law be Judges in the case These Silk-worms are little Animals excluded from small round and blackish seeds called by some egges cherished with a moderate calour animated and at first formed into Minute-worms which educated on the leaves and boughs of the Mulberry-tree after a while spin their slender webs or Silken threads whereof precious cloth is abundantly woven When they are more adult they make of themselves hoods and domicils for themselves and there in a short time they transmute themselves into white Butterflies which produce seeds or small eggs whereof other worms of the same kinde are generated But these being known to Women and Children need no further description Some Medicks use the Galls of many Animals the Liver and intestines of Wolves the brains of Sparrows the testicles of Cocks and Asells which are found under water-vessels but these not ingreding the compositions in our Shop belong not to us Thus I have in three Books by Gods auxiliation briefly and clearly composed all Medicinal matter to whom be Honour Glory and Praise now and Ever Finis Libri Tertii THE Pharmaceutrical Shop Divided into TWO PARTS The first whereof Treats Of INTERNAL and the second of EXTERNAL MEDICAMENTS By the AUTHOR JOANNES RENODAEVS Physician in PARIS ENGLISHED By RICHARD TOMLINSON APOTHECARY LONDON Printed by J. Streater and J. Cottrel 1657. To his Honoured Learned and Vertuous FRIEND WILLIAM WITHEINGS Esq Worthy Sir THe manifold Testimonies of your reall favours calls for a perpetual Commemoration and what requital can be returned but a bare demonstration where ability cannot correspond or aspire to the dignity of that Desert couched within the verge of that manifestation of affection so amply discovered And to lie dormant under so much Courtesie were to invelop my self within the Rounds of Ingratitude and in stead of Coronating your deserved Worth already bedubbed with the true Sparklings of never-fading Glory I should Adumbrate the Lustre thereof which otherwise would necessarily dispel the thickest clouds by the Satyrical Screen of Fame-defacing-Oblivion To enumerate the many discoveries and dawnings of your Vertues were to comprehend a Catalogue of the Universal Genus of Atomes within the narrow bounds of a Nutshel Neither can the weak blandishments of a Quill emblazon the least shadow of those Trophies whose Glory is founded in the true Abyss of your merited Renown Pardon this boldness SIR in presuming to lodge this Book within your Gates and in making use of your Name without your consent Let not a sinister construction obstruct a gentle remission nor a rigid apprehension hinder the thought of a venial transgression Doubtless SIR the Subject will not dishonour your Person in Patronizing it from suffering shipwrack in the tumultuous gulfs of Contradiction and Detraction but rather conclude That the rayes of your Learning being 〈…〉 the Imperfections necessarily accruing in the Alteration of the Garb will put a period to what may be objected by those whose Medulla Scientiae is nothing else but the true pourtraicture of that Livid Viper Envy whose virulency is Malevolent Censure Let such endeavor its Overture whilest your finger supports it by the Chin till it arrives with the fresh gales of your Countenance to its desired Haven with its Top-gallant streaming out the true Characters of your Honour maugre the carpings of Zoilus What need it to fear the trivial Objections of certain Augurs when its Patron is both strongly fenced with the Principles of Theory and garnished with the Robes of Integrity SIR you are not one whom infant Effeminacy youthful Delicacy or voluptuous Liberty could ever yet allure your intellect and knowledge from diving into Divine and Moral Arcana's Altius surgentes Innocentes licet comitatur suspicio Tacit. What greater Symbole of true Gentility then Goodness It is not the gawdy lustre of the Purple but the inward vertue of the Person that proclaims Greatness having alwayes observed you to entrain Humility and Integrity
consumed Metheaglen casting away the spume as it rises and when it begins to grow cold put it into a convenient vessel in which hang a nodule of Leaven â„¥ iij. adding Cinamon Grains Pepper Ginger Cloves bruised of eachÊ’ j. set it in a place where the sun may * * * For 40 days come then preserve it in a Wine-Cellar for future use This kind of potion is most pleasent it will often keep two years in sapour and faculties it responds to Malmsey SECT IV. Of Succes dulcorated with Honey PHarmacopolies preserve some Honeys made of the infusions of Plants or of their succes compounded with Honey which from their confistence and Honey some call Syrupes of Honey but we rather from their succes which ingrede their confecture and Honey call them Melleous succes for whether the extracted succes of Plants be adjoyned to Honey or the Plants themselves be macerated in Honey their succes are alwayes mixed with Honey whence the whole mixture is rightly called A Melleous succe CHAP. 1. Mel Rosatum Lat. Rhodomeli Graec. Geleniabin Arab. or Honey of Roses â„ž Red Roses a little dryed in the shade lb ij Honey neither too old nor too new lb vj. mingle them and boyl them upon a gentle fire in a Pipkin to a good consistence and so preserve it for future use The COMMENTARY All do not prepare honey of Roses alike but many despising the descriptions of Mesue and Nic. Praepositus one while make it with fire onely another while by insolation another while by both and sometimes by none of them but onely by maceration some inject the whole Roses into the honey others bray them first some use onely the succe others both the succe and other Roses the most usual preparation is after the manner we have tradited wherein the Roses a little dryed must be macerated in honey then elixated a little afterwards exposed to the Sun and moved every third day that they may be hot on every side Whilest they are thus made and not strained they are called Honey of Rose-leaves if they be calified and strained as they are usually before they be used they are then called Honey of strained Roses and especially that that results from brayed Roses and Honey That which is made of two parts of the succe of exungated Roses and one of Honey cocted together to the absumption of the fourth part whose spume must be diligently extracted in boyling is called The liquid distrained Honey of Roses Honey of Roses cohibits hot fluxes Vires whether assumed or applied it helps deterges and roborates the stomack CHAP. 2. Mel Violatum or Honey of Violets â„ž of the fresh flowers of Violets lb j. the best Honey lb iij. mingle them in a convenient vessel with a narrow orifice insolate it and keep it for use The COMMENTARY Some to the confection of this honey bray the Violets others mix them whole being small flowers with hot honey in an carthen glazened pot then they expose the pot to the Sun for fifteen dayes each other day agitating the mixture with a rudicle then they repose it and when use calls for it mix it with a little water elixate it a little strain it and thus they get special honey of Violets others do otherwise and in Mesue's opinion it may be made like honey of Roses well but the Violets should be a little dryed or at least deprived of all acquisititious humidity and the honey should be used neither too new nor too old Honey of Violets is commended to pectoral affections it mitigates absterges refrigerates and roborates and therefore it is usefully mixed with many Glysters and Gargarisms and adhibited to deterge Ulcers CHAP. 3. Mel Anthosatum or Honey of Rosemary â„ž of the flowers of Rosemary lb j. Honey well despumed lb iij. mingle them in a Jarre-glass and set it in the Sun which after a convenient insolation preserve for future use The COMMENTARY This of Rosemary is made like them of Violets and Roses Some commend the oldest honey but I like the honey of a middle age because it is neither too dilute nor too crass This is called Mel Anthosatum because the flowers of Rosemary are for their dignity and praecellence called Anthos or flowers And seeing Rosemary flourishes twice in a year once in the Spring and once in Autumn honey of Rosemary-flowers may also be confected twice annually at the aforesaid times when its flower is fresh and fragrant for when it is dry it is almost inodorate and useless It is cephalical and nerval Vires it is a special ingredient in Glysters prescribed to the Lethargie Apoplexy and affections of the head it corrects the parts distempered by cold with its calour and dissipates flatuosity CHAP. 4. Mel Mercuriale or Honey of Mercury â„ž of the Juyce of Mercury lb iij. the best honey lb iiij mingle them and after elixation despume them and so preserve them for use The COMMENTARY They measure not honey all in the same quantity some adding more of the succe and less of honey others on the contrary and many a like weight of both We judge the honey to be more praepotent when it is made of the succe and of leaves or flowers macerated though its quantity exceed the succes It is sometimes made onely of the decoction of the leaves but this way I cannot approve of It may be equally confected of the succe of the Male as the Female Mercury for both have affine faculties and convenient for this confection To the male Mercury they referre Dogs Colewort but this honey may not be confected thereof it should be made betwixt the middle of the Spring and end of Summer for then Plants are more succulent and their qualities more efficacious Honey of Mercury serves scarce to any other use Vires save to ingrede Glysters to make them more absterfive and purgative CHAP. 5. Mel Passulatum or Honey of Raisins â„ž of Raisins purged from the stones lb ij infuse them 24 hours in lb. vj. of hot water either fountain or pluvial afterwards boyl them till half be consumed strain it with a strong expression and to lb iij. of the aforesaid Colature adde lb ij of the best honey which boyl up to a liquid Syrupe The COMMENTARY Some have described two Receipts the one with the other without honey for it may admit of honey though its Inventor Matthaeus describes it without the intervent of honey Whether way soever it be made it is very grateful to the palate and bechical and therefore justly ingredes the composition of some Eclegms There are other Medicinal honeys as the honey of Myrtle of Squills of Anacardium and that of Myrobolambs but they being of rare or no use in Medicine are seldome made We have omitted the honey of Anacardium for many causes First because the fruits whereof it is confected are exotical and very seldome brought to us Secondly because they are indued with a deletery faculty