kill men and have a reward for it;" upon the force of which precept the good old Leicestershire vicar proceeds to discuss simples, and we follow him into the garden, and listen to his wise prattle.

Of what he says of those infallible remedies, a dead man's skull reduced to powder, the corns in a horse's legs, and a wolf's liver, we will say nothing; but his list of garden plants and their several virtues is much more to our purpose. Thus, by the theoretical physicians of the age, aniseed, colt's-foot, betony, calamint, eyebright, lavender, bays, roses, rue, sage, marjoram, peony, &c., were considered good for the head; for the lungs, calamint, liquorice, enula campana, hyssop, horehound, water germander; for the heart, borage, bugloss, saffron, balm, basil, rosemary, violet, roses, &c.; for the stomach, wormwood, mint, betony, bawm, centaury, sorrel, and parsley; for the liver, darthspine, germander, agrimony, fennel, endive, hiccory, liverwort, and barberries; for the spleen, maiden-hair, finger fern, dodder of thyme, hops, the rind of ash and betony; for the kidneys, grounsell, parsley, saxifrage, plantain, and mallow; for the womb, ringwort, pennyroyal, feverfew, and savine; for the joints, camomile, St. John's wort, rue, cowslips, centaury, the watercress, &c.

In these simple times the doctor gathered his drugs in

HERBS FOR MELANCHOLY.

287

the hedges, where all antidotes and balmy anodynes grew and flourished.

Among the chief herbs that expel melancholy and exhilarate, Burton enumerates borage and bugloss; they were used in broths, in wine, in conserves and syrups; rue, in the opinion of many, the very best: balm steeped in a man's ordinary drink was also found to purge all melancholy vapours from the spirits: scorzonera was an antidote to poison, and cured the falling sickness; and betony and marigold were equally celebrated; hop purged choler, and purified the blood; and not less potent were wormwood, centaury, pennyroyal, endive, succory, dandelion, fumitory, scolopendria, ringwort, liverwort, ash, tamarisk, broom, and maiden-hair, all of which were supposed to have much efficacy in easing the spleen.

To drive away the "dumps," the Elizabethan Dr. Canise also employed roses, violets, capers, feverfew, scordium, rosemary, rosa solis, saffron, sweet apples, wine, tobacco, and cider.

Cold and moist constitutions used ambergris, nutmegs, amber, and spices.

Pomander or sweet bags were used as remedies for diseases, but still more as preservatives. Burton classes them as little bags of herbs, flowers, seeds, or roots, applied to the head, heart, and stomach, and useful as

odoraments, balls, perfumes, and posies, as specifics against melancholy.

Amongst the strong vomits of the period were found, as arabecca, whose leaves were pounded in posset drink, with liquorice or aniseed, laurel berries and purslane, or endive juice, squills mixed with white wine, white hellebore, or sneezing powder, antimony, and tobacco: --"divine, rare, super-excellent tobacco," says Burton, " is a virtuous herb when medicinally used; but as taken in smoke, hellish, devilish, and damned."

The common purgatives were polipody and epithyme, myrabolanes, aloes, fumitory, dodder herb, mercury, caper roots, broom, pennyroyal, half-boiled cabbage, feverfew, ammoniac, salt, saltpetre, dragon's root, centaury, and ditany, of the gentler medicines.

Senna was taken in powder, and an infusion with ginger, and cordial flowers as a corrective. Sometimes sodden in chicken broth or whey, or steeped in wine, lapis armenis, lapis lazuli, and black hellebore were also used.

Among the compound medicines a wine made of hellebore, squills, and senna, was used in madness, either as a purgative or a fomentation. Electuaries were made of hyssop, origen, pennyroyal, thyme, and mustard, and, when strong, of pellitory, pepper and ginger.

Some medicines were taken in snuff, as the juice of

pimpernels and onions, castor pepper, white hellebore. Clysters of Castile soap and honey, or even of scammony and hellebore, were often used.

The doctors of this age employed cupping and leaches, while they frequently seared the flesh with cauteries or hot iron. About bleeding there were many different opinions. Hercules de Saxonia despised it, but Laurentius, another medical authority, approved of it, from the example of the Arabians.

Some men began with lenitives, then went on to preparatives, and lastly, to purges. Lenitives were electuaries; preparatives were generally syrup of borage, bugloss, apples, fumitory, thyme, or epithyme, mixed with distilled water, or a decoction of bugloss, balm, hops, endive, scolopendy, or fumitory; the gentler purges were senna, cassia, epithyme, myrabolanes, and catholicos.

Doctors were divided between the Paracelsan sect and the Vegetarian, the former used minerals, and the latter vegetables; the "nourishing clysters" of the vegetarians were made of anise, fennel, bastard saffron, hops, mallows, oil of violets, sweet almonds, &c.

Arculanus advises Cauteries were to be

The horrid torture of cauterising sick men with hot irons was by no means uncommon. that the cautery should be of gold. used "when other physic does no

good," says Burton,

by which we may easily conjecture that this frightful remedy, now only used by doctors in cases of poison or hydrophobia, was usually tried on dying wretches past all other hope, as a mere consolation to despairing friends, and as a means of extracting some final fees from their departing victims. Gordonius advises that melancholy men should have their heads bored in two or three places to "let out the fuliginous vapours."

The Elizabethan diaphoretics were decoctions of China root, sassafras, and sarsaparilla. Amber was considered a valuable diuretic; and bezoar stone, particularly that of Montpellier, was thought to "refresh the heart and corroborate the whole body."

Amongst the honest country people of this time there were amulets used to drive off all diseases, and charms to cure most a spider in a nut-shell was good against the ague. Toads burnt alive was supposed to cure epilepsy. St. John's wort gathered on a Friday, with hair of Jupiter when it comes to his effectual deviation (that is about the full moon in July) drove off all fantastical spirits.

People troubled with melancholy washed their heads with very potent extracts of water-lily flowers, lettuce, camomile, and wild mallows; some tied on the hot lungs of sheep, or applied caps of hot and aromatic powders.