Primitive Physic (1747-91)
PRIMITIVE PHYSIC
ORAN EASY AND NA TURAL ME THOD
OF CURING MOST DISEASES
(1747) An Introductory Comment On May 21, 1747, John Wesley arrived in London at the end of a preaching tour through northern England. He remained in town several weeks, with only scattered engagements recorded in his Journal, until the beginning of the yearly Conference on June 20. Much of this time was devoted to preparing two manuscripts for publication, whose printing charges appear during June 1747 in the ledger of the printer
William Strahan. One of these was Wesley's Letter to . . . the Lord Bishop of London, which defended Methodist doctrine and ecclesial practices.1 The other was a major expansion of A Collection of Receipts.
Among the stimuli for the second project was an inventory that Wesley undertook during these weeks of the results of the first six months of health care offered at the free dispensary he had set up in London. He found that about six hundred people had sought help, of which: 'More than three hundred of these came twice or thrice, and we saw no more of them. About twenty of those who had constantly attended did not seem to be either better or worse. Above two hundred were sensibly better, and fifty-one thoroughly cured.'2
This evident divine blessing, coupled with the reception of its first three printings, spurred Wesley to undertake a more extensive revision of A Collection of Receipts than simply adding a few remedies
(as he had done in the third edition).
To begin with, Wesley more than doubled the number of disorders for which advice was given (from ninety-five in the 1746 edition of Collection to 243 in 1747). He also worked carefully through his earlier suggested remedies, cutting out nearly a third, and adding about 550 new items. The new receipts drew heavily upon 1 See 11:335-51 in this edn.
2 JW, Journal, June 6, 1747, 20:177 in this edn. For the launching of this dispensary, see. Journal, Dec. 5, 1746, 20:150-51.
Medical and Health Writings collections by Robert Boyle (again!), Kenelm Digby, Thomas Dover, John Hancocke, Nicolas Lemery, and Thomas Short.3
As a second major change, Wesley replaced the brief opening Advertisement in the three editions of A Collection of Receipts with a preface providing theological justification for offering medical advice. Wesley's underlying concern in this preface can best be seen by comparison to his acknowledged mentor in this work, Robert
Boyle. In the preface to Medicinal Experiments Boyle apologized for infringing upon professional physicians, insisting that he was induced to do so by the 'dictates of philanthropy and Christianity', and citing several earlier philosophers as precedent.4 Boyle added a bit later that 'most of these receipts are intended chiefly for the use of those that live in the country, in places where physicians are scarce, if at all to be had, especially by poor people'.5 While Wesley shared Boyle's concern for this portion of the population, his preface showed no hint of restricting its advice to them. Nor did Wesley acknowledge any sense of infringing upon an enterprise in which he did not belong. Rather, he chastised physicians who allowed concern for prestige and wealth to constrain the care available to any of their neighbors.6 Wesley's concern in this major revision of A Collection of Receipts was to offer even better advice to all of his followers, as part of his vocation as priest/physician.
Three of Wesley's central theological convictions shine through in his preface. The first is his primitivism. Just as Anglican apologists assumed that Christian life and doctrine were purest at the origin of the Christian church, and sought to emulate these 'primitive' times,
Wesley privileged the assumed origins of medical advice in everyday life, and praised the native peoples of North America in particular for preserving its pristine practice.7 A second conviction is closely related. In §6 of the preface Wesley referred to the 'Author of nature', who taught humanity the medicinal value of plants after sin had introduced sickness and death into creation. This calls to mind Ecclesiasticus 38:4, 'The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth.' It also echoes Wesley's frequent insistence that God would not have allowed the potential damages of human sin if God had not already provided
Publication details in each case can be found in the Bibliography.
4Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, p. [v] (A 3 recto).
5Ibid., p. [xi] (A 6 recto).
6 See Preface, §10.
7 See ibid., §4; and Deborah Madden, Chapter 2, A Cheap, Safe and Natural Medicine'-. Religion, Medicine and Culture in John Wesley's 'Primitive Physic' (Atlanta: Rodopi, 2007), 31-94.
Primitive Physic
gracious ways to heal these damages.8 The third theme permeating Wesley's preface is his conviction that God's gracious gifts 'are not to supersede, but to encourage, our own efforts'.9 Nowhere is it more explicit than when he closed the preface with a set of 'plain, easy rules' of diet and exercise for the sake of those 'who desire, through the blessing of God, to retain the health which they have recovered'
In their physical life, as in their spiritual life, Wesley exhorted his people to cultivate regular practices of nurturing health, rather than turning to God's gracious provisions only in times of need.
The final way in which Wesley revised A Collection of Receipts in 1747 was to change its title to Primitive Physic'.; or, An Easy and Natural Method of Curing most Diseases.'0 The new title alerted readers to Wesley's emphasis on primitive or simple medicines. It further signaled to eighteenth-century readers that the book might contain more than medicinal substances. While 'physic' was used at the time to denote such substances, it also commonly referred to health-promoting practices or habits.* 11 To offer physic meant not only to prescribe remedies for specific disorders, but to outline a regimen of diet and exercise that promoted well-being. With the inclusion of such a regimen in his preface, Wesley transformed A Collection of Receipts into a book of Physic.
The degree to which Wesley revised A Collection of Receipts in 1747 was unusual. Most of his publications that went through multiple editions were simply reprinted, with very little change. The closest analogy to his work that June on Collection would likely be the effort he devoted to preparing the third edition of his Explanatory Notes upon the New TestamentA But there is no parallel for the frequency with which Wesley made further revisions to the Primitive Physic after its appearance.
Wesley's Revisions of Primitive Physic Of the apparent twenty-three editions of Primitive Physic published under Wesley's editorial control, at least twelve included
8 See, for example, JW, Sermon 59, 'God's Love to Fallen Man', 2:423-35 in this edn.; and Sermon 63, 'The General Spread of the Gospel', §27, 2:499 in this edn.
9JW, NT Notes, comment on Phil. 2:12-13. See also his sermon on this text; Sermon 85, 'On Working Out Our Own Salvation', §11, 3:199-209 in this edn.
10 JW initially used the spelling 'Physick', at a time when preference for this spelling was just beginning to decline in British culture. Recognizing this fact by 1773, he changed to the spelling 'Physic' when including it in his collected Works.
11 See the first two main definitions of'physic' in OED{ 1989). n See Frank Baker, 'John Wesley, Biblical Commentator', Bulletin of the John
Rylands Library 71.1 (1989): 110-20 (esp. 114-15); and vols. 5-6 in this edn.
Medical and Health Writings changes of some sort. The changes began already with the second edition, published in 1750, where Wesley added more than a dozen ailments and eighty-five receipts, drawing on sources he had used previously.
After two editions that were mere reprints, the positive reception of Primitive Physic led Wesley to work carefully through the text in preparing the fifth edition of 1755. He sought to make it of greater use by: 1) revising the list of ailments through deletions, combination of a few, and inclusion of eleven new disorders; 2) adding short descriptions for many of the ailments to aid users in identifying their disorder; 3) removing several receipts that used items that were difficult to obtain or unsafe; and 4) inserting over 100 new receipts, drawing upon books by Richard Russell, Thomas Short, and Richard Mead.13
The next surviving edition is the eighth, of 1759,14 which included two new ailments and thirty-two new receipts. Among the new ailments was 'Nervous disorders' (§161), with advice drawn mainly from John Hill. But this section also included one of nine instances that mark the first appearance of 'electrifying' among Wesley's recommendations in Primitive Physic, reflecting his concurrent work on The Desideratum}'
Wesley's addition to the Postscript in the ninth edition of 1761 gives reason to believe that the eighth edition was an interim form of this 1761 volume. The comments draw attention to the insertion of the word 'Tried' after remedies that experience had convinced
Wesley were of great efficacy, and to his new-found interest in the medical benefits of electrifying.16 In fact, both of these additions began to appear in the eighth edition.17 They were increased in the ninth edition, which also added to its immediate predecessor another four ailments and nearly forty receipts.
13 See his description of this process in Postscript [I], 14 The addition to the Postscript added in 1760 may suggest that the missing
6th and 7th editions never existed, but more likely it indicates they were simple reprints of the 5th edition; see [Postscript II], §1.
15 See §64, receipt #3; §67, receipt #1; §76, receipt #2; §86, receipt #2; §101, receipt #1; §126, receipt #2; §161, receipt #2; §169, receipt #3; §244, receipt #1; and the table of ailments that could be treated by electrifying appended at the end.
16 See [Postscript II], §§1-2, below.
17The word 'Tried' occurs only once in the 1759 edition (§2, receipt #3), as if JW had just begun making this addition. By contrast, the 1761 edition adds only three receipts for electrifying to the nine in the 1759 edition (§151, receipt #6;
receipt #1; and §261, receipt #4).
Primitive Physic
The next clearly authorized edition was the tenth, published in Bristol in 1762.18 This edition included one new ailment (§115) and twenty new receipts.
There are no known surviving copies of the eleventh edition to determine any changes.
The twelfth edition, published in 1765, contained substantial new material, including seventeen ailments and 120 receipts.
Sources for these new receipts included books byTheophilus Lobb and Lazare Riviere.
While the thirteenth edition was an unchanged reprint, seven new ailments and seventy-eight receipts were included in the fourteenth edition of 1770. Intriguingly, a copy of the thirteenth edition has survived in which Wesley inserted suggested changes by hand, many of which do not appear in the fourteenth edition.19 Apparently
Wesley misplaced this first copy and had to start over preparing a copy of the thirteenth edition—adding further changes, but failing to recall some that had been in the earlier copy. Among Wesley's sources for the published changes were books by Thomas Berdmore, Theophilus Lobb, and David MacBride. He also referred readers in several sections to his recently published extract of Tissot's Advices with Respect to Health.
The fifteenth edition, published in 1772, added six more ailments and forty-one receipts, reaching a count (by Wesley's numbering) of 289 ailments and 1012 receipts. It was also in this edition that Wesley began marking the receipts that he most commended with an asterisk.
Interestingly, when Wesley incorporated Primitive Physic into volume twenty-five of his collected Works in 1773, he based his text on the fourteenth edition rather than the more recent one of 1772.
18 A purported '10th edition' published by John Fisher in Dublin in 1761 survives. However comparison reveals it to be a slightly corrected reprint of the 1759
8th edn., lacking the changes that JW introduced in the 9th edn. Fisher usually published Calvinist material, but he had issued JW's sermon The Cure of EvilSpeaking in 1760. There is no evidence that Fisher had JW's permission for printing Primitive Physic in 1761, or when he reprinted the purported '10th edition' in Dublin in 1763. What is most puzzling is the appearance of this same slight revision of the 8th edn. in 1763 under the imprint of William Pine of Bristol. Based on analysis of printer flowers and the like, this last item must be judged a spurious release of Fisher's publication in England (replacing only the title page). Since the changes in Fisher's version are limited to spelling variations and correction of a few numbering errors, we have ignored its appearances in this critical edition.
19 Originally part of the collection at Wesley College, Headingly, this copy is now held at MARC (WCB, IC/CB45/24). We will note the suggested changes that did not make it into print.
Medical and Health Writings As with other items in this collected set, Wesley worked carefully through the whole text, making multiple changes in spelling and grammar, deleting a couple of ailments and several receipts, and adding new items of each type, to arrive at a total of 291 ailments and 925 receipts.
Unfortunately, as in many other cases of material that appeared in his Works, when it came time to issue a new separate printing of Primitive Physic Wesley sent to the printer one of the last copies of the fifteenth edition, which was issued without change as the sixteenth edition in 1774. As a result Wesley's revisions in Works were stranded there, including four ailments and fifteen receipts found nowhere else.
As described in the general Introduction to this volume (and traced in Appendix D), an attack was launched upon the Primitive Physic by a pseudonymous critic 'Antidote' in a letter dated
December 25, 1775, in the Gazetteer. The immediate object of the attack was a single receipt in the category 'To one poisoned'.20 But 'Antidote' caught the attention of William Hawes, whose 1776 Examination of Mr. John Wesley's 'Primitive Physic' subjected other remedies present in the sixteenth edition to public ridicule. These criticisms led Wesley to remove or correct the most problematic receipts in the seventeenth edition of Primitive Physic, issued in December 1776. Yet even here, amidst all his cutting, Wesley added one new ailment and nine receipts, resulting in a revised total of 275 disorders and 828 remedies.
The next edition for which there are known surviving copies is the twentieth, published around June 1781.21 In an addition to the Postscript that appeared in this edition Wesley suggested that the new publication represented the first major correction of Primitive
Physic in nearly twenty years! The initial thing to note about this claim is that the addition to the Postscript is dated April 20, 1780— which may mean that both it and many of the corrections it mentions appeared first in the (missing) nineteenth edition. Alternatively, Wesley may have uncharacteristically composed the addition to the Postscript first, and then spent a year preparing the twentieth edition.22 The more important thing to note is that Wesley was either forgetful (and misled by the 1760 date on the prior conclud20 See §177, receipt #1.
21 See JW's letter to his book steward, John Atlay, May 26, 1781 (vol. 30 in this edn.), saying that JW had left the new edition on his bureau, ready for press.
22This suggestion would fit with JW's letter to JohnValton the next day (April 21, 1780; vol. 29 in this edn.), asking Valton to gather descriptions of 'as many cheap and simple medicines as you please'.
Primitive Physic ing section of the Postscript) or he purposefully ignored the revisions made in 1776, the substantial addition of receipts of 1765, and the scattered additions in 1770 and 1772. In any case, several further deletions and corrections appeared in the twentieth edition, along with the addition of fourteen new ailments and 155 receipts.
This was also the first edition in which Wesley drew upon William Buchan's Domestic Medicine as a source.
Wesley introduced only minimal changes to the twenty-first edition, dropping one ailment and eight receipts, while adding three new receipts. The resulting total of 288 ailments and 824 numbered receipts would carry over, without change, through the last two editions published in England during Wesley's life.
Principles for Presenting This Critical Text of Primitive Physic The many changes made to the text of Primitive Physic over fortyfour years pose a significant challenge for presenting the text in this critical edition. Our usual practice is to give the text of the first edition of a work, tracing variants in an Appendix, and commenting on significant changes in footnotes. In a few instances, where there are notable additions in later editions, we have made the last printing our base, for the sake of completeness.23 Neither of these options seemed adequate in this case, as they would make it hard to trace when receipts entered and departed from Wesley's text, or the shifting indications of which remedies he preferred.
We have opted to present a collation of all editions, while highlighting the form of the final edition published by Wesley. We include every receipt that appeared in any edition of Primitive Physic during Wesley's life, and indicate (at least by annotation) every ailment for which he prescribed. But we structure the text according to the outline of ailments in the twenty-third edition, and present the receipts for each ailment that remained in that edition first—in the order they appeared within each section.24 Receipts that were dropped from Primitive Physic prior to the final edition appear with proper identification at the end of the section for the appropriate ailment (ordered according to the edition in which they first appeared). Ailments that disappeared over the course of revising
23 This is how we present A Collection of Receipts above, for example.
24 Since the text was unchanged between the 21st and 23rd editions, our presentation technically highlights the text found in the last three editions during Wesley's life.
104 Medical and Health Writings
editions were typically absorbed into other sections and are tracked in footnotes.
As an aid to readers we insert editorially after each receipt an indication of the edition in which it first and last appeared. For example, if a receipt appeared first in the twelfth edition and was present through the sixteenth edition, but dropped from the seventeenth, we add at the end of the receipt: [12-*~ 16].25 We also note if the receipt appeared first in A Collection of Receipts. Thus a receipt that was #2 in the Collection (as presented in this edition), which is retained through all editions of Primitive Physic, would have at its end: [CR#2, l-*~23]/26 For convenience, we assume the presence of an item in non-extant editions in these summaries if the item is found in editions on both sides of the lacunae. If it appears on only one side or the other, we begin or end the record of its occurrence with the surviving evidence, ignoring the non-extant editions. Likewise, we specifically mention the Works edition only when it differs from those surrounding it.27
As an example for how to read these editorial guides, consider receipt #8 in §2 'For an Ague':
Or make six middling pills of cobwebs ... a little before the third fit. [ 1 ->-23] I never knew this to fail. [1-*T3] This seldom fails.
The editorial insertions indicate that the receipt is present in every edition published under Wesley's control. They also show that the comment 'I never knew this to fail' was present in the first thirteen editions, but replaced by 'This seldom fails' in the follow ing editions.
Beyond new ailments and receipts, Wesley made four other major types of addition to Primitive Physic over the years. The first was his insertion of descriptions of ailments in the fifth edition. These descriptions appeared as footnotes and they are included in this edition as the first level of annotation of the text. The second type of addition, which began with a single example in the eighth edition, was Wesley's placement of 'Tried' after select receipts. A third type
25 A chart listing the editions can be found in Appendix A, pp. 630-31.
26 An indication that a receipt was drawn from A Collection of Receipts does not mean that the wording was identical in every case, only that the prescription was substantially the same.
2'Thus, if a receipt appeared in Works that was also found in the 12th through the 17th editions, the editorial indicator will be [12-M7]; whereas if Works deleted a receipt found in these other editions, the indicator will be [12^17, not Works].
Primitive Physic of addition was reference to his abridged version of Tissot's Advices with Respect to Health, appearing first in the fourteenth edition and supplemented in the twentieth. The final major type of addition, which Wesley introduced in the fifteenth edition, was the marking of receipts that he particularly commended with an asterisk.
We have included all of these additions, indicating editorially when they appeared and (in some cases) disappeared. Our main deviation from Wesley's precedent is in placing the asterisk at the end of a receipt, rather than the beginning.
As an example for how to read the editorial guides for these types of addition, consider receipt #3 in §139 'The Itch':
Or steep a shirt half an hour in a quart of water . . . wear it five or six days. [CR#143, l-*~23] Sometimes it needs repeating. [5-^23]
Tried. [9-^23] * [Works, 20-^23] In this case the receipt appeared first in A Collection of Receipts, and was retained through all editions of Primitive Physic. The comment
'Sometimes it needs repeating' was added beginning with the fifth edition. 'Tried' was added beginning with the ninth edition. And an asterisk was added in the Works edition, but lost due to Wesley's reliance on the fifteenth edition for the next separate reprint, until it was added again in the twentieth edition and following.
Numerous variants pepper the editions of Primitive Physic that cannot be captured in the collated text as easily as the additions just considered. These range in significance from simple alternatives of spelling to intentional changes of dosage. All substantial variants are tracked in Appendix A, and those deemed most significant
(such as changes of dosage) are also highlighted in footnotes.
One important set of variants are changes in response to the controversy erupting in late 1775. While we do not rehearse every criticism in Hawes's Investigation (since many are mere ridicule), we comment in footnotes on all instances where a deletion or revision by Wesley was likely in response to Hawes, as well as some cases where
Wesley retained a receipt of which Hawes was particularly scornful.
There are two categories of variants that we have not tried to trace.
The first is variant spellings, particularly of the names of disorders.
Consider the example of colic, which appears in four different spellings among the editions: 'cholick' in 1-^2 & 10^ 13; 'colick' in 5~*~9;
'colic' in 15-M7; and 'cholic' in 14 & 20^23. In keeping with the guidelines of this edition, we have silently standardized such varying archaic spellings to their modern form. The other variant that
Medical and Health Writings we have ignored is the addition of an initial 'Or' to a receipt when it is bumped out of place as the first in a section; or deletion of this
'Or' when a revision moves a previously lower receipt to the top of its section—since neither change affects the content of the receipt.
Turning from the challenge of tracing additions and variants to the ordering of material in this collated edition, there are two settings in which we judged it appropriate to be flexible with our guideline of highlighting the form of the twenty-third edition. The first type of flexibility concerns the ordering of the ailments. Wesley clearly intended for them to be ordered alphabetically. This intention is obscured in the text of the twenty-third edition (at least for modern readers) in two ways. 1) A couple of ailments are simply out of alphabetic order, likely due to printer error. We have moved the affected sections to their proper location and revised the numbering of intervening sections.28 2) A more systemic deviation from modern alphabetic order was created among the ailments starting with the letters 'I/J' and 'U/V' by the continuing influence of medieval English script in Wesley's eighteenth-century setting. This influence led to words in each of these pairs being interspersed alphabetically. We have sorted the ailments in the affected sections into modern alphabetic order.29
The second type of flexibility relates to the numbering of receipts.
We have chosen not to follow Wesley's precedent of numbering receipts consecutively across sections. This was due in large part to the size of this collated edition, containing more than 1600 discrete receipts. We also wanted to avoid any suggestion that the number given a particular receipt was consistent across editions of Primitive
Physic. Numbering changed repeatedly as receipts were added or deleted, and we make no effort to trace this fluctuation. Perhaps most importantly, we have supplemented the numbering in editions published during Wesley's life in scattered instances—to increase clarity and draw attention to discrete remedies.
One of the key instances related to clarity concerns the insertion of references to Wesley's abridged edition of Tissot's Advices with Respect to Health in the fourteenth and twentieth editions. Wesley almost certainly sent to the printer a copy of the previous edition in which, at the end of sections on various ailments, he added in manuscript 'See extract from Dr. Tissot', sometimes including a page number and brief excerpt. Wesley intended this as an addi28 See §39—§48 and §247-§249.
Primitive Physic tional resource relative to the ailment in question. But the printer typically appended it to the last receipt in the section, as if it was a reference for that receipt.30 The inappropriateness of this placement is suggested in the fourteenth edition in every case where
Wesley gives a page number, because the number refers to the first page of a chapter in Advices and has no correlation to the specific remedy. The mismatch is even more evident in the twentieth edition, where Wesley included excerpts of Advices. The first instance is representative: the printer appended the phrase 'See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 104' to receipt #31 in that edition (= §6, receipts
and #5 combined below), rather than presenting it as the header of the excerpt taken from Advices that followed.31 To correct such confusions, we treat every reference to Wesley's extract of Tissot as a separate element, and assign it a number within the sequence of receipts to help make this clear.
A good example of supplementing the numbering to draw attention to discrete remedies can be found in §280, 'The Whites'.
Starting with the fifth edition, Wesley's opening advice was 'Feed sparingly. Use exercise constantly. Sleep moderately, but never lying on your back.' While this is technically compound advice, it all relates to regimen, so we retained it as a single item. However, starting with the fourteenth edition this opening advice was expanded by adding at the beginning 'Live chastely'. It is likely that Wesley wrote this in manuscript above the first receipt in a copy of the thirteenth edition that he was sending to the printer, and the printer mistakenly merged it into the first advice. Even if Wesley indicated the merger, the addition is a discrete type of advice. Thus, we opted to list it separately (with its own number) in this collated edition.
As one further example, consider §193, 'A Scald head'. Wesley inserted into the twentieth edition the prescription of an ointment as a remedy, then advised a purge after the cure had been effected, and finally exhorted to a regimen of cleanliness to avoid further affliction.
These are discrete types of advice, broken into separate paragraphs by the printer, but only the first is numbered in any edition during Wesley's life. We have opted to number each of the paragraphs.
The last dimension of the presentation of the text of Primitive Physic in this edition to which we would draw attention concerns font. The main point to make is that we have largely ignored the 30To cite just the first two instances in the 14th edition, the printer appended the phrase to receipt #84 (= §12, receipt #12 in this edn.) and #152 (= §30, #3).
31 The same mismatch occurs in the second instance within the 20th edition, where the reference to Tissot is tied to receipt #39 (= §7, receipt #5 in this edn.).
Medical and Health Writings frequent use of italics throughout all editions of Primitive Physic.
To begin with, the Postscript was typically rendered in italics as a whole, which we deemed unnecessary. Many of the other instances of italics were to indicate proper names of persons and substances, as was common in the eighteenth century (but no longer so). Some instances were apparently intended to highlight the ingredients in remedies, but this usage was quite inconsistent and we deemed it more confusing than helpful. The main setting in which we have retained italics is when Wesley inserted emphatic or cautionary advice related to an ailment or prescription (see, for example, the two instances in §2 'For an Ague').
We would also note that there is variance among and within editions of drawing attention to insertions deemed particularly noteworthy with either the symbol of a pointing finger [m-] or the abbreviation for note bene [N.B.J. We have converted examples of the first practice to N.B., for the sake of consistency.
Research Aids As with A Collection of Receipts, we have footnoted every instance where we have been able with some confidence to trace a receipt to a published source (based upon significant replication of terms, quantities, etc.). These notes indicate sources for over one-third of the receipts that appeared at one point or another in Primitive Physic during Wesley's life. Doubtless there are other published sources to be discovered, but many of the receipts are too generic to be traced with confidence to any source. Moreover, Wesley acknowledged that one of his key sources was 'conversation' with friends and associates.32
Readers are referred to the Glossaries in Appendix E and Appendix F for definitions of eighteenth-century medical terms that Wesley used and identification of the medicinal herbs, etc., that he commended. A sense of his assumptions about various weights and measures prescribed can be gleaned from the opening section of the Table that concludes Wesley's extract of Tissot's Advices with Respect to Health (see p. 557 below).
For a stemma illustrating the relationship of the twenty-three apparent authorized editions of Primitive Physic published in Britain and Ireland during Wesley's lifetime, and the many textual variants, see Appendix A, pp. 630-40. For further details see Bibliography,
No. 138.
32 JW, 'To the Editor of Lloyd's Evening Post', c. Jan. 23, 1776 (in Appendix D below).
Primitive PhyticK:
O R, A N EASY and NATURAL method O F Curing moft Difeaies.
LONDON Muted: and Sold by Thomas Trte, near Gray's-Inu Gate, Holborn. mdccxlvii.
no Medical and Health Writings Primitive Physic or an Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases
The Preface 1. When man came first out of the hands of the great Creator, clothed in body as well as in soul with immortality and incorruption, there was no place for physic, or 'the art of healing'. As he knew no sin, so he knew no pain, no sickness, weakness, or bodily disorder. The habitation wherein the angelic mind—the divinae particula aurae]— abode, although originally formed out of the dust
of the earth,1 2 was liable to no decay. It had no seeds of corruption or dissolution within itself.3 And there was nothing without to injure it. Heaven and earth and all the hosts of them were mild, benign, and friendly to human nature. The entire creation was at peace with his Creator. So that well might 'the morning stars sing together, and all the sons of God shout for joy'.4
2. But since man rebelled against the Sovereign of heaven and earth, how entirely is the scene changed? The incorruptible frame hath put on corruption, the immortal has put on mortality.5 The seeds of weakness and pain, of sickness and death, are now lodged in our inmost substance—whence a thousand disorders continually spring, even without the aid of external violence. And how is the number of these increased by everything round about us?
The heavens, the earth, and all things contained therein conspire to punish the rebel against the Creator. The sun and moon shed unwholesome influences from above. The earth exhales poisonous damps from beneath. The beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea are in a state of hostility. The air itself that sur-
1 'Fragment of divine spirit'; cf. Horace, Satires, II.ii.79, 'divinae particulam aurae\ 2 See Gen. 2:7.
3JW is echoing here the dominant Christian reading that took Genesis to be presenting Adam and Eve as naturally immortal and perfect prior to their fall into sin. His embrace of this reading is evident as early as 1730, in Sermon 141, 'The Image of God', §11.1-5, 4:296-99 in this edn.; and remains in the distinction between 'dust' and 'mortal corruptible dust' in his 1782 sermon, 'On the Fall of Man', §11.1-2, 2:405 in this edn.
4Job 38:7.
''See 1 Cor. 15:54.
Primitive Physic
rounds us on every side is replete with the shafts of death. Yea, the food we eat daily saps the foundation of the life, which cannot be sustained without it. So has the Lord of all secured the execution of his decree, 'Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return'.6
3. But can there nothing be found to lessen those inconveniences, which cannot be wholly removed? To soften the evils of life, and prevent in part the sickness and pain to which we are continually exposed? Without question there may. One grand preventive of pain and sickness of various kinds seems intimated by the great
Author of nature in the very sentence that entails death upon us: 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.'' The power of exercise both to preserve and restore health is greater than can well be conceived.8 Especially in those who add temperance thereto—who, if they do not confine themselves altogether to eat either bread or 'the herb of the field'9 (which God does not require them to do10), yet steadily observe both that kind and measure of food which experience shows to be most friendly to health and strength.
4. It is probable physic, as well as religion, was in the first ages chiefly traditional—every father delivering down to his sons what he had himself in like manner received concerning the manner of healing both outward hurts and the diseases incident to each climate, and the medicines which were of the greatest efficacy for the cure of each disorder. It is certain this is the method wherein the art of healing is preserved among the Americans11 to this day. Their diseases indeed are exceeding few, nor do they frequently occur, by reason of their continual exercise and (till of late, universal) temperance. But if any is sick, or bit by a serpent, or torn by a wild beast, the fathers immediately tell their children what remedy to apply. And it is rare that the patient suffers long; those medicines being quick, as well as generally infallible.12
6Gen. 3:19.
7 Ibid.
8 This thesis is argued at length in Francis Fuller, Medicina Gymnastica; or, A Treatise concerning the Power of Exercise with respect to the Animal Economy, and the Great Necessity of it in the Cure of several Distempers (London: Knaplock, 1705).
JW read this volume Jan. 5-6, 1731, as recorded in his Oxford diary.
9 Gen. 3:18.
10JW is rejecting any divine requirement for vegetarianism.
"That is, the peoples of North America, prior to European immigration.
12 Compare JW's hesitance about characterizing any medicine as 'infallible' in his 'Advertisement' to Collection of Receipts (above), echoing Boyle, Some Receipts,
[p. iii]; Medicinal Experiments, 1 :[xiii].
Medical and Health Writings 5. Hence perhaps it was that the ancients, not only of Greece and Rome but even of barbarous nations, usually assigned physic a divine original. And indeed it was natural thought that he who had taught it to the very beasts and birds, the Cretan stag, the Egyptian ibis,13 could not be wanting to teach man,
Sanctius his Animal, mentisque capacius altce,14 Yea, sometimes, even by those meaner creatures. For it was easy to infer, 'If this will heal that creature, whose flesh is nearly of the same texture with mine, then in a parallel case it will heal me.' 1 he trial was made. The cure was wrought. And experience and physic grew up together.
6. And has not the Author of nature taught us the use of many other medicines by what is vulgarly termed 'accident'?1" Thus, one walking some years since in a grove of pines, at a time when many in the neighbouring town were afflicted with a kind of new' distemper, little sores in the inside of the mouth, a drop of natural gum fell from one of the trees on the book which he was reading. This he took up and thoughtlessly applied it to one of the sore places. Finding the pain immediately cease, he applied it to another, which was also presently healed. The same remedy he afterwards imparted to others, and it did not fail to heal any that applied it. And doubtless numberless remedies have been thus casually discovered in every age and nation.
7. Thus far physic was wholly founded on experiment. The European as well as the American said to his neighbour, 'Are you sick?
Drink the juice of this herb and your sickness will be at an end.'
'Are you in a burning heat? Leap into that river, and then sweat till you are well.' 'Has the snake bitten you? Chew' and apply that root, and the poison will not hurt you.' Thus ancient men, having a little experience, joined with common sense and common human-
l3Bezoars, hair-balls that accumulate in the stomach of Cretan goats (not stags), were widely assumed in JW's day to have medicinal properties; likewise Toth, the Egyptian god of medical and natural knowledge, was typically depicted with the head of an ibis.
14 Ovid, Metamorphoses, i.76; 'As yet there was no animal capable of higher thought.'
15 JW may be purposefully echoing Robert James's prefatory comment to his three-volume Medicinal Dictionary (London: T. Osbourne, 1743-45; vol. 1, p. i) that many of the discoveries of the medicinal remedies in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms have been by 'the particular direction of providence which are usually attributed to accident'.
Primitive Physic
ity, cured both themselves and their neighbours of most of the distempers to which every nation was subject.
8. But in process of time, men of a philosophical turn were not satisfied with this. They began to enquire how they might account for these things? How such medicines wrought such effects? They examined the human body and all its parts—the nature of the flesh, veins, arteries, nerves; the structure of the brain, heart, lungs, stomach, bowels; with the springs of the several animal functions.16
They explored the several kinds of animal and mineral, as well as vegetable, substances. And hence the whole order of physic which had obtained till that time came gradually to be inverted. Men of learning began to set experience aside, to build physic upon hypotheses, to form theories of diseases and their cure, and to substitute these in the place of experiments.
9. As theories increased, simple medicines were more and more disregarded and disused; till in a course of years the greater part of them were forgotten, at least in the politer nations. In the room of these, abundance of new ones were introduced by reasoning, speculative men; and those more and more difficult to be applied, as being more remote from common observation. Hence rules for the application of these, and medical books, were immensely multiplied. Till at length physic became an abstruse science, quite out of the reach of ordinary men.
10. Physicians now began to be had in admiration, as persons who were something more than human. And profit attended their employ as well as honour. So that they had now two weighty reasons for keeping the bulk of mankind at a distance, that they might not pry into the mysteries of the profession. To this end they increased those difficulties by design, which begun in a manner by accident.
They filled their writings with abundance of technical terms, utterly unintelligible to plain men. They affected to deliver their rules, and to reason upon them, in an abstruse and philosophical manner. They represented the critical knowledge of anatomy, natural philosophy (and what not? Some of them insisting on that of astronomy and astrology too) as necessary previous to the understanding [of] the art of healing. Those who understood only
16JW was not opposed to the flourishing of such investigation and 'descriptive' accounts in the field of natural philosophy; he published an overview of recent work for his followers in Survey of the Wisdom of God in Creation (1763)—see excerpt below. His concern arose when natural philosophers turned from the descriptive task to championing theoretical models to account for the diversity or functioning of the natural world.
114 Medical and Health Writings
how to restore the sick to health they branded with the ignominious name of 'empirics'. They introduced into practice abundance of compound medicines, consisting of so many ingredients that it was scarce possible for common people to know which it was that wrought a cure. Abundance of exotics, neither the nature nor names of which their own countrymen understood.1' Of chemicals such as they neither had skill, nor fortune, nor time to prepare; yea, and of dangerous ones such as they could not use without hazarding life, but by the advice of a physician. And thus both their honour and gain were secured—a vast majority of mankind being utterly cut off from helping either themselves or their neighbours, or once daring to attempt it.
11. Yet there have not been wanting, from time to time, some lovers of mankind who have endeavoured (even contrary to their own interest) to reduce physic to its ancient standard. Who have laboured to explode out of it all hypotheses and fine-spun theories, and to make it a plain, intelligible thing, as it was in the beginning.
Having no more mystery in it than this: 'such a medicine removes such a pain'. These have demonstrably shown that neither the knowledge of astrology, astronomy, natural philosophy, nor even anatomy itself is absolutely necessary to the quick and effectual cure of most diseases incident to human bodies. Nor yet any chemical or exotic or compound medicine, but a single plant or fruit duly applied. So that every man of common sense (unless in some rare cases) may prescribe either to himself or his neighbour; and may be very secure from doing any harm, even where he can do no good.18
12. Even in the last age there was something of this kind done, particularly by the great and good Dr. Sydenham.19 And in the present by his pupil Dr. Dover,20 who has pointed out simple medicines for many diseases. And some such may be found in the writings of the learned and ingenious Dr. Cheyne21—who doubtless would have communicated many more to the world, but for the melancholy reason he gave one of his friends that pressed him with some passages in his works which too much countenanced the modern
17 Note the similar critique of compound and exotic remedies in Thomas Short's Preface to Medicina Britannica, vii.
18The ordering here is consistent with the twofold principle central to the General Rules: First, do no harm . . .; see Nature, Design, and General Rules of the United Societies, §§4-5, 9:70-72 in this edn.
19Thomas Sydenham, M.D. (1624-89).
20Thomas Dover, M.D. (1660-1742).
21 George Cheyne, M.D. (1671-1743).
Primitive Physic 115
practice: 'O sir! We must do something to oblige the faculty, or they will tear us in pieces.'
13. Without any regard to this, without any concern about the obliging or disobliging of any man living, a mean hand has made here some little attempt toward a plain and easy way of curing diseases. I have only consulted herein experience, common sense, and the common interest of mankind.22 And supposing they can be cured this easy way, who would desire to use any other? Who would not wish to have a physician always in his house, and one that attends without fee or reward? To be able (unless in some few complicated cases) to prescribe to his family, as well as himself?
14. If it be said, 'But what need is there of such an attempt?' I answer, the greatest that can possibly be conceived. Is it not needful in the highest degree to rescue men from the jaws of destruction?
From wasting their fortunes, as thousands have done and continue to do daily? From pining away in sickness and pain, either through the ignorance or knavery of physicians? Yea, and many times throwing away their lives, after their health, and time, and substance?
It is inquired, 'But are there not books enough already, on every part of the art of medicine?' Yes, too many ten times over, considering how little purpose the far greater part of them speak. But beside this, they are too dear for poor men to buy, and too hard for plain men to understand. Do you say, 'But there are enough of these collections of receipts.' Where? I have not seen one yet, either in our own or any other tongue, which contains only safe and cheap and easy medicines. In all that have yet fallen into my hands, I find many dear and many far-fetched medicines; beside many of so dangerous a kind as a prudent man would never meddle with. And against the greater part of those medicines there is a farther objection: they consist of too many ingredients. This common method of compounding and decompounding medicines can never be reconciled to common sense.23 Experience shows that one thing will cure most disorders, at least as well as twenty put together. Then why do you add the other nineteen? Only to swell the apothecary's bill. Nay, possibly on purpose to prolong the distemper, that the doctor and he may divide the spoil.
22This might suggest, wrongly, that JW drew upon no published sources for his receipts. His 'experience' apparently included reading works distilling the 'experience' of others.
22 JW had read, while a student in 1725, Robert Boyle's extended argument for simple medicines as preferable to compounded medicines in De Specificorum Remediorum (1696).
Medical and Health Writings But admitting there is some quality in the medicine proposed which has need to be corrected, will not one thing correct it as well as twenty? It is probable, much better. And if not, there is a sufficiency of other medicines which need no such correction.
How often, by thus compounding medicines of opposite qualities, is the virtue of both utterly destroyed? Nay, how often do those joined together destroy life, which single might have preserved it? This occasioned that caution of the great Boerhaave against mixing things without evident necessity, and without full proof of the effect they will produce when joined together as well as of that they produced when asunder.24 Seeing (as he observes) several things which separately taken are safe and powerful medicines, when compounded not only lose their former powers but commence a strong and deadly poison.
15. As to the manner of using the medicines here set down, I should advise, as soon as you know your distemper (which is very easy, unless in a complication of disorders, and then you would do well to apply to a physician that fears God): First, use the first of the remedies for the disease which occurs in the ensuing collection
(unless some other of them be easier to be had, and then it may do just as well). Secondly, after a competent time, if it takes no effect,
use the second, the third, and so on. I have purposely set down (in most cases) several remedies for each disorder. Not only because all are not equally easy to be procured at all times and in all places, but likewise because the medicine which cures one man will not always cure another of the same distemper. Nor will it cure the same man at all times. Therefore it was necessary to have a variety. However,
I have subjoined the letter 'I' to those medicines which are said to be infallible.2^ Thirdly, observe all the time the greatest exactness in your regimen, or manner of living. Abstain from all mixed, all high-seasoned food. Use plain diet, easy of digestion. And this as sparingly as you can, consistent with ease and strength. Drink only water, if it agrees with your stomach; if not, good clear small beer. Use as much exercise daily, in the open air, as you can without weariness. Sup at six or seven on the lightest food. Go to bed early, and rise betimes. To persevere with steadiness in this course is often more than half the cure. Above all, add to the rest (for it is not labour lost) that old, unfashionable medicine, prayer. And have
Herman Boerhaave, M.D. (1688-1738), Academical Lectures on the Theory of Physic (London: W. Innys, 1742), 1:76, etc.
2S Cf. JW's comment in his letter to William Hawes, July 29, 1776 (in Appendix D), that he was not claiming here that he believed these medicines to be infallible—only that many people account them to be so.
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faith in God, who 'killeth and maketh alive, who bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up'.26
16. For the sake of those who desire, through the blessing of God, to retain the health which they have recovered, I have added a few plain, easy rules, chiefly transcribed from Dr. Cheyne.27
I. 1. The air we breathe is of great consequence to our health.
Those who have been long abroad in easterly or northerly winds should drink some thin and warm liquor going to bed, or a draught of toast and water. [6, 17]
2. Tender people should have those who lie with them or are much about them sound, sweet, and healthy. [10-12]
3. Everyone that would preserve health should be as clean and sweet as possible in their houses, clothes, and furniture. [17-18]
II. 1. The great rule of eating and drinking is to suit the quality and quantity of the food to the strength of our digestion; to take always such a sort and such a measure of food as fits light and easy on the stomach. [72]
2. All pickled or smoked or salted food, and all highseasoned, is unwholesome. [73]
3. Nothing conduces more to health than abstinence and plain food with due labour. [74] 4. For studious persons, about eight ounces of animal food and twelve of vegetable in twenty-four hours is sufficient.28 [74] 5. Water is the wholesomest of all drinks; [it] quickens the appetite and strengthens the digestion most. [74]
6. Strong, and more especially spirituous, liquors are a certain, though slow, poison. [75] 7. Experience shows there is no manner of danger in leaving them off all at once. [75] 8. Strong liquors do not prevent the mischiefs of a surfeit, nor carry it off so safely as water. [75]
261 Sam. 2:6.
27 What follows is a series of extracts and distillations, concerning the six 'nonnaturals', from George Cheyne, An Essay on Health and Long Life (London.
George Strahan, 1724). The page location within Cheyne's essay in each case is indicated editorially in brackets at the end of the advice.
28 In a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24) JW inserted by hand the qualification 'commonly' sufficient. This change does not appear in any print edition.
Medical and Health Writings 9. Malt liquors (except clear small beer of a due age) are exceeding hurtful to tender persons. [75] 10. Coffee and tea are extremely hurtful to persons who have weak nerves. [61-63, 76]
III. 1. Tender persons should eat very light suppers; and those, two or three hours before going to bed. [87]
2. They ought constantly to go to bed about nine, rise at four or five. [87-88]
IV. 1. A due degree of exercise is indispensably necessary to health and long life. [106] 2. Walking is the best exercise for those who are able to bear it; riding, for those who are not. The open air, when the weather is fair, contributes much to the benefit of exercise. [106-7]
3. We may strengthen any weak part of the body by constant exercise. Thus the lungs may be strengthened by loud speaking, or walking up an easy ascent. The digestion and the nerves by riding. The arms or hams by strong rubbing them daily. [107]
4. The studious ought to have stated times for exercise, at last two or three hours a day; the one half of this before dinner, the other before going to bed. [108] 5. They should frequently shave, and frequently wash their feet. [228] 6. Those who read or write much should learn to do it standing, otherwise it will impair their health. [229]
7. The fewer clothes anyone uses by day or by night, the hardier he will be. [228] 8. Exercise, first, should always be on an empty stomach. Secondly, should never be continued to weariness. Thirdly, after it we should take care to cool by degrees, otherwise we shall catch cold. [99-100] 9. The flesh-brush is a most useful exercise, especially to strengthen any part that is weak. [108] 10. Cold-bathing is of great advantage to health. It prevents abundance of diseases. It promotes perspiration, helps the circulation of the blood, and prevents the danger of catching cold. Tender people should pour water upon the head before they go in, and walk in swiftly. To jump in with the head foremost is too great a shock to nature. [102-3, 108]
V. 1. Costiveness cannot long consist with health. Therefore care should be taken to remove it at the beginning; and when it
Primitive Physic 119
is removed, to prevent its return by soft, cool, opening diet.
[110-14] 2. Obstructed perspiration (vulgarly called 'catching cold') is one great source of diseases. Whenever there appears the least sign of this, let it be removed by gentle sweats. [129-30,
143] VI. 1. The passions have a greater influence on health than most people are aware of. [170] 2. All violent and sudden passions dispose to, or actually throw people into, acute diseases. [170] 3. The slow and lasting passions, such as grief and hopeless love, bring on chronical diseases. [170]
4. Till the passion which caused the disease is calmed, medicine is applied in vain. [171] 5. The love of God, as it is the sovereign remedy of all miseries, so in particular it effectually prevents all the bodily disorders the passions introduce, by keeping the passions themselves within due bounds. And by the unspeakable joy and perfect calm, serenity, and tranquility it gives the mind, it becomes the most powerful of all the means of health and long life. [171-72]
London June 11, 1747 [1-23]
Postscript [I]
1. It was a great surprise to the editor of the following collection that there was so swift and large a demand for it that three impressions were called for in four or five years, and that it was not only republished by the booksellers of a neighbouring nation but also inserted by parts in their public papers,29 and so propagated through the whole kingdom. This encouraged him carefully to revise the whole and to publish it again, with several alterations which it is hoped may make it of greater use to those who love common sense and common honesty.
2. Those alterations are still in pursuance of my first design: to set down cheap, safe, and easy medicines—easy to be known, easy to be
29See the 3rd and 4th editions, published in Dublin.
Medical and Health Writings procured, and easy to be applied by plain, unlettered men. Accordingly, I have omitted a considerable number which, though cheap and safe, were not so common or well known. And have added almost an equal number to which that objection cannot be made.
Which are not only of small price, and extremely safe, but likewise easily to be found—if not in every house or yard, yet in every town and almost every village throughout the kingdom.
3. It is because they are not safe, but extremely dangerous, that I have omitted (together with antimony) the four Herculean medicines—opium, the bark, steel,30 and most of the preparations of quicksilver.31 Herculean indeed! Far too strong for common men to grapple with. How many fatal effects have these produced, even in the hands of no ordinary physicians? With regard to four of these, instances are glaring and undeniable. And whereas quicksilver, the fifth, is in its native form as innocent as bread or water, has not the art been discovered so to prepare it as to make it the most deadly of poisons? These, physicians have justly termed 'edged tools'. But they have not yet taught them to wound at a distance. And honest men are under no necessity of touching them, or coming within their reach.
4. Instead of these, I have once more ventured to recommend to men of plain, unbiased reason such remedies as air, water, milk, whey, honey, treacle, salt, vinegar, and common English herbs, with a few foreign medicines almost equally cheap, safe, and common.
And this I have done on that principle whereby I desire to be governed in all my actions, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, the same do unto them'.32
5. At the request of many persons, I have likewise added plain definitions of most distempers;33 not indeed accurate or philosophical definitions, but such as are suited to men of ordinary capacities, and as may just enable them, in common, simple cases, to distinguish one disease from another. In uncommon or complicated dis-
30 JW added an annotation to these first three items in editions 5-*" 13, that read
'Except in one instance of each'; changed in editions 14-*-23 to 'Except in a very few cases'.
31 Note the similar restriction in the book JW read while in Georgia, John Tennent,
Every Man his own Doctor (Williamsburg, VA: William Parks, 1734), 55: 'No mention is made of mercury, opium, or the Peruvian bark, which have almost obtained the reputation of specifics. I acknowledge the powerful effects of these medicines, but am persuaded they ought to be administered with the greatest skill and discernment.'
32 Matt. 7:12.
33 Cf. JW's earlier assumption that recognizing disorders was typically 'very easy'; in Preface, §15.
Primitive Physic eases, or where life is more immediately in danger, I again advise every man without delay to apply to a physician that fears God.
Bristol October 16, 1755 [5^23]
[Postscript II]'4
London November 10, 1760 [1.] During the observation and experience of more than five years which have passed since the last impression of this tract I have had many opportunities of trying the virtues of the ensuing remedies, and I have now added the word 'Tried' to these which I have found to be of great efficacy.3,1 believe many others to be equal virtue, but it has not lain in my way to make the trial.
[2.] In this course of time I have likewise had occasion to collect several other remedies, tried either by myself or others, which are inserted under their proper heads. Some of these I have found to be of uncommon virtue, equal to any of those which were before published. And one I must aver, from personal knowledge, grounded on a thousand experiments, to be far superior to other medicines I have known—I mean electricity. I cannot but entreat all those who are well-wishers to mankind to make full proof of this. Certainly it comes the nearest an universal medicine of any yet known in the world.
[3.] One grand advantage which most of these medicines have above those commonly used is this: You may be sure of having them good in their kind; pure, genuine, unsophisticate. But who can be sure of this when the medicines he uses are compounded by an apothecary? Perhaps he has not the drug prescribed by the physician, and so puts in its place 'what will do as well'. Perhaps he cannot afford to make up the medicine as the dispensatory directs and sell it at the common price, so he puts in cheaper ingredients.
34The first two paragraphs of this postscript suggest that the 8th edition, published in Bristol in 1759, was an interim form of the changes in the 9th edition. It was in the earlier edition that JW first prescribed electrifying; and the first specific insertion of the word 'Tried' was also in a single receipt of the 1759 edition (§2, receipt #3). This postscript also raises question whether the missing 6th and 7th editions ever existed, though it likely means that they were simple reprints.
35JW may have remembered the precedent for this addition set by Robert Boyle, who marked the remedies that he had tried himself in Some Receipts (see [p. vi]).
Medical and Health Writings And you take neither you nor your physician knows what! How many inconveniences must this occasion? How many constitutions are ruined hereby? How many valuable lives are lost? Whereas all these inconveniences may be prevented by a little care and common sense, in the use of those plain, simple remedies which are here collected.
[9-^23]
[Postscript III] Otley April 20, 178036 Since the last correction of this tract, near twenty years ago, " abundance of objections have been made to several parts of it. These I have considered with all the attention which I was master of. And in consequence hereof, have now omitted many articles and altered many others. I have likewise added a considerable number of medicines, several of which have been but lately discovered, and several
(although they had been long in use) I had never tried before. But I still advise, 'in complicated cases, or where life is in immediate danger, let everyone apply without delay, to a physician that fears
God'.38 From one who does not, be his fame ever so great, I should expect a curse rather than a blessing. [20 ^23]
Most of those medicines which I prefer to the rest, are now marked with an asterisk.39 [15-^2340] 36The date matches JW's travel schedule. Since the 20th edition was published in 1781, the preface (and the changes evident in the 20th edition) may have appeared in the 19th edition, but no copies are known to survive.
3'The preceding dated postscript remarks may have led JVV to overlook the revisions in 1776, the substantial addition of receipts in 1765, as well as the scattered additions in 1770 and 1772.
"Postscript I, §5, above.
39 Once again there was precedent for this move in Robert Boyle, who marked the receipts that he considered best in Some Receipts (see [p. v]; or Medicinal Experiments, l:[xiv]).
40 This closing announcement was dated 'Oct. 20, 1772' in editions 15~M7; 'Aug. 10, 1773' in Works; and left undated in editions 20-»-23.
Primitive Physic
A Collection of Receipts [1791 and previous]
1. Abortion (to prevent) [5^23] #1. Women of a weak or relaxed habit should use solid food, avoiding great quantities of tea and other weak and watery liquors. They should go soon to bed and rise early; and take frequent exercise, but avoid being over-fatigued.41
If of a full habit, they ought to use a spare diet, and chiefly
of the vegetable kind, avoiding strong liquors and everything that may tend to heat the body or increase the quantity of blood.42 [20^23] #3. In the first case, take daily half a pint of a decoction of lignum
guaiacum, boiling an ounce of it in a quart of water for five minutes.43 [5-^23] #4. In the latter case, give half a dram of powdered nitre, in a cup of water gruel, every five or six hours.
In both cases she should sleep on a hard mattress with her
head low, and be kept cool and quiet.44 [20-^23] [iadditional receipts in previous editions]
Or, in a sanguine habit, let blood.45 [12^16] #7. If there is a full strong pulse, bleed in small quantities and at
stated intervals. [17] 41 Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 658.
42 Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 659.
43 The 16th edition read simply: 'Use daily a decoction of lignum guaiacum, boiling an ounce of it in a quart of water.' Hawes (Examination, 10) declared this
'most improper' because it would increase the activity of the heart and make the woman more liable to abort. JW responded by adding more specificity to the dosage, as seen above.
44 Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 659.
45 See Riviere, Practice of Physick, 515. Hawes (Examination, 10) criticized the use of the term 'sanguine' as unknown to most readers, and challenged Wesley to be more specific in his directions. JW revised the receipt along the lines suggested by Hawes in the next edition (i.e., to the wording of #7), then deleted it from subsequent editions.
124 Medical and Health Writings
2. For an Ague* 4 [CR, F*~23] N.B. Nothing tends more to prolong an ague than indulging a lazy indolent disposition. The patient ought therefore, between the fits, to take as much exercise as he can bear;41' and to use a light diet, and for common drink lemonade is the most proper. [20-^231
Go into the cold bath just before the cold fit.4' [1^23] #2. When all other means fail, give blue vitriol, from one grain to two grains, in the absence of the fit; and repeat it three or four times in twenty-four hours. [20~^23] #3. Or take a handful of groundsell, shred it small, put it into a
paper bag four inches square, pricking that side which is to be next the skin full of holes. Cover this with a thin linen and wear it on the pit of the stomach, renewing it two hours before the fit.48 [CR#1, 1^23] Tried. [8-^23] #4. Or apply to the stomach a large onion slit. [1-^23]
Or melt two-penny worth of frankincense, spread it on linen,
grate a nutmeg upon it, cover it with linen, and hang this bag on the pit of the stomach. I have never vet known it fail.
Or boil yarrow in new milk till it is tender enough to spread as
a plaster. An hour before the cold fit apply this to the wrists, and let it be on till the hot fit is over. If another fit comes, use a fresh plaster.49 [CR#2, 1-^23] This often cures a quartan
[ague]. [5-^23] #7. Or drink a quart of cold water just before the cold fit. Then go
to bed and sweat.50 [1-^23] #8. Or make six middling pills of cobwebs. Take one a little before the cold fit; two a little before the next fit (suppose the next day); the other three, if need be, a little before the third fit.51 [l-*~23] I never knew this to fail. [1*M3] This seldom fails.b [14^23]
"An ague is an intermitting fever, each fit of which is preceded by a cold shivering and goes off in a sweat. [5-*~23] b But observe, they must be fresh cobwebs; not those that are some years old, which are little better than a lump of dirt. And you should neither eat nor drink for an hour or two after. [This note appears only in Works]
46 Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 184.
4'Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 215.
48Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:8.
49 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 3:21.
50Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 27.
51JW attributes this cure to Dr. William Piper of Essex in the prefatory comments to his abridged version of Tissot's Advices with Respect to Health, §7 (below in this vol.).
Primitive Physic
Or put a teaspoonful of salt of tarter into a large glass of spring-water, and drink it by little and little. Repeat the same dose the next two days, before the time of the fit.
Or [take] two teaspoonfuls of sal-prunella an hour before the
fit. It commonly cures in thrice taking. [CR#5, 1-^23] #11. Or [take] a large spoonful of powdered camomile flowers.
Or [take] a teaspoonful of spirits of hartshorn, in a glass of water.52 [5-^23] * [15-^23] #13. Or eat a small lemon, rind and all. [2-^23]
#14. Or in a hot fit, if violent, take eight to ten drops of laudanum;
if costive, in hiera picra.53 [14-^23] #15. Dr. Lind says an ague is certainly cured by taking from ten to twenty drops of laudanum, with two drams of syrup of poppies, in any warm liquid, half an hour after the heat begins. '4
N.B. It is proper to take a gentle vomit, and sometimes a purge, before you use any of these medicines. [l-*~23] If a vomit is taken two hours
before the fit is expected, it generally prevents that fit, and sometimes cures an ague, especially in children. It is also proper to repeat the medicine (whatever it be) about a week after, in order to prevent a relapse.
Do not take any purge soon after. [9^23]
The daily use of the flesh-brush, and frequent cold bathing are a great use to prevent relapses. [ 14^23] #16. Children have been cured by wearing a waistcoat in which
bark was quilted." [20~*~23] 52 JW added in the Works edn. 'an hour before the fit'.
53 In the 16th edition the dosage suggested was 'ten, twelve, or fifteen drops'.
Hawes (Examination, 12) charged this was 'very dangerous', being likely to 'heat the system much more, endanger delirium, and convert the present disease into a continued fever'. JW responded by decreasing the dosage as shown above. Starting with the 20th edition he also added the similar receipt #15, invoking the authority of Dr. James Lind.
54 Cf. James Lind (1716-94), An Essay on Diseases incidental to Europeans in Hot
Climates (London: Becket and de Hondt, 1768), 316-17.
55JW likely took from a newspaper account. The case was reported a year after JW added this receipt in Hugh Smythson, The Compleat Family Physician (London: Harrison, 1781), 959.
Medical and Health Writings [iadditional receipts in previous editions] #17. Or spread soft wax, about the thickness of a crown piece, large enough to cover each wrist. On this spread the leaves of the tops of rue. Let this plaster lie on your wrist five or six days.56 [CR#3, 1-M] #18. Or split two large figs and spread on them white alabaster
beaten to powder. Bind these to the wrists. [CR#4, 1-^4] #19. Or [take] an ounce of juice of pellitory of Spain, sweating after it. It cures the second or third time of using.1' [l->~4]
Or from a dram and half to two drams of good stone brim
stone, finely powdered. If need be, repeat it.58 [CR#8, l-*~4] #21. Ora teaspoonful of brimstone mixed with honey. [CR#8,
2-M] #22. Or [take] a large spoonful of brimstone, powdered, in a cup of hot white wine. Then lie down in bed and sweat. [CR#8,
12-M7] #23. Or apply a handful of yarrow in like manner [as that used with groundsell above].59 [1-*~16] #24. Or drink a pint of decoction of camomile, sweetened with treacle. Take it warm in bed, and sweat two hours.60 [2-M6]
Or [apply to the stomach] sliced roots of water lilies. Tried.
[12-M7, not Works] #26. Or [take] twenty grains of sal ammoniac, two hours before the fit. [15-^16, not Works] #27. Or [take twenty grains] of powdered nutmeg and alum.
[15-M6, not Works] 3. A tertian Aguf [1~*~23]
Is often cured by taking a purge one day, and the next bleeding, in the beginning of the fit.61 [12-^23]
Or a teaspoonful of salt of tartar in spring-w ater. This also cures double tertians, triple, quartan, long lasting fevers, and cThat is, an ague which returns every other day. In this, use light and sparing diet on the day between. [5-^23] 56 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:53.
57 Short, Medicina Britannica, 219-20.
58 Cf. Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:13-14.
59 Short, Medicina Britannica, 184.
60 Digby, Choice Receipts, 4.
61 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #503, p. 319.
Primitive Physic most diseases rising from obstructions, especially if senna be premised twice or thrice.
Or apply to each wrist a plaster of treacle and soot. Tried.
Or use the cold bath (unless you are of an advanced age, or
extremely weak).6' But when you use this, on any account whatever, it is proper:
1. To bleed or purge, before you begin.
2. To go in cool; to immerse at once, but not head foremost; to stay in only two or three minutes (or less at first).
3. Never to bathe on a full stomach.
4. To bathe twice or thrice a week at least, till you have bathed nine or ten times.
5. To sweat immediately after it (going to bed) in palsies, rickets, and all diseases wherein the nerves are obstructed.64
6. You may use yourself to it, without any danger, by beginning in May and at first just plunging in and coming out immediately. But many have begun in winter without any inconvenience.
[additional receipts in previous editions] #5. Boil a handful of ribwort in whey. Drink this warm, an hour before the fit comes, and lie down and sweat.63 [1-*T6]
Or after purging, vomiting, or bleeding, take a dram of treacle in plantain water, three mornings.66 [12-^17]
#7. Or before, yea in the midst of the fit, take twenty drops of
spirit of sulphur in a pint of cold water.67 [12-M6] 4. A double tertian [Ague] [12~*~23]
before the fit (after a purge or two) three ounces of chicory68 water, half a dram of salt of wormwood, and fifteen drops of spirit of sulphur.69 [12-^23] 62 Hawes (Examination, 12) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
63 See Floyer, Psychrolousia, 160; the parenthetical comment was added starting with the 5th edition.
first five qualifications come from Floyer, Psychrolousia, 24-25.
65 Hawes (Examination, 12) ridiculed this as implying one could initiate sweating by command.
66 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #146, p. 80.
67 Hawes (Examination, 13) charged, 'This can be of no use whatever; yea, it may be sometimes injurious.'
68JW spelled this 'cichory', as in Riviere.
69 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #20, p. 10.
Medical and Health Writings #2. To perfect the cure, on the fourth day after you miss the fit, take two drams of senna, half a dram of salt of tartar, infused all night in four ounces of chicory water. Strain it and drink it.
[12-^23]
5. A quartan AguA [1^23] #1. Apply to the suture of the head, w hen the fit is coming, wallJuly-flowers beaten together, leaves and flowers, with a little
salt.70 Keep it on till the hot fit is over. Repeat this, if need be.
[15-M6]71 #2. Use strong exercise (as riding or walking, as far as you can bear it) an hour or two before the fit. If possible, continue it till the fit begins. This alone w ill frequently cure.
Tried [9-^23] #3. Or apply to the wrists a plaster of turpentine. [5-*-23] #4. Or [apply to the wrists a plaster] of bruised pepper, mixed
with treacle. [5-*-23] #5. Or apply oil of turpentine to the small of the back, before the
fit. [1(0-23] #6. For a tertian or quartan, vomit with ten grains of ipecacuanha an hour before the cold fit begins. 2 Then go to bed, and continue a large sweat by lemonade (that is, lemon, sugar, and water) for six or eight hours. This usually cures in three or four times. If it does not, use the cold bath between the fits.
[1(0-23] * [15-^21] #7. Or take twenty grains of pow dered saffron before the fit, in a
glass of white wine.73 [12^-23]
dThat is, an ague in which misses two days, coming on Monday (suppose) and again on Thursday. [5-»~23] °Lemery, New Curiosities, 8.
'' Hawes (Examination, 14) ridiculed this remedy. JW dropped the asterisk in subsequent editions.
72 Editions through the 16th said only 'vomit an hour after the cold fit begins'.
Hawes (Examination, 14) endorsed the need for a vomit, but called on Wesley to instruct readers what to use for this purpose. Wesley obliged as above in subsequent editions.
73 Riviere, Practice of Physick, 591. Editions through the 16th prescribed only 'ten grains'. Hawes (Examination, 15) charged that this was too little to make a difference, so JW doubled the dose in subsequent editions.
Primitive Physic [additional receipts in previous editions] #8. Or [apply to the wrists a plaster] of bruised garlic. [10-*-16]
Or take for seven mornings an infusion of senna, with a teaspoonful of cream of tartar.74 [12-*-16, not Works]
Or drink every morning a gill of white wine, wherein half a
sliced Seville orange is boiled.75 [12-*-17] #11. Or take for ten, twelve, or fourteen mornings half a pint of water in which half an ounce of senna and a dram of salt of tartar have been infused twelve hours.76 [12-*-17]
Or take sugar candy, three drams; ginger, two drams; cam
phor, one dram. Mix them into a powder and take a dram in warm water.77 [12-*-17] 6. St. Anthony's fird [CR, 1^23]
Take a glass of tar-water warm, in bed, every hour, washing the part with the same.78 [ 1 ->-23] *[15-*-23]
N.B. Tar-water is made thus: Put a gallon of cold water to a quart of Norway tar. Stir them together with aflat stick for five or six minutes.
After it has stood covered for three days, pour off the water clear, bottle and cork it.79 [l-*-23]
Or take a decoction of elder leaves, as a sweat. [CR#11, l-*-23] * [15-*-23] #3. Applying to the part a cloth dipped in lime-water, mixed with a
little camphorated spirits of wine. [CR#13, l-*-23] * [15-*-23] N.B. Lime water is made thus: Infuse a pound of good quicklime in six quarts of spring-water for twenty-four hours. Decant and keep for use A [CR#149, l-*-23]
' St. Anthony's fire is a fever attended with a red and painful swelling, full of pimples, which afterwards turn into small blisters, on the face or some other part of the body. The sooner the eruption is, the less danger. Let your diet be only water gruel, or barley broth, with roasted apples. [5->-23]
74Riviere, Four Books, Observation #166, p. 88.
75 Hawes (Examination, 15) noted that JW gave no indication of how long to continue this treatment and worried it might turn 'weakly and delicate women' into addicts.
76 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #166, p. 88.
77 Riviere, Practice of Physick, 591.
78Berkeley, Letter to Prior, 1, 5. JW retained this receipt, despite Hawes's extended criticism (Examination, 15).
79 Berkeley, Letter to Prior, 2.
80Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:42.
Medical and Health Writ mgs #4. Or take two or three gentle purges. No acute fever bears repeated purges better than this, especially when it affects the head. [5-^23] #5. Or boil a handful of sage, two handfuls of elder leave
(or bark), and an ounce of alum in two quarts of forge water, [down] to a pint. Wash with this every night.
See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 104.81
If the pulse be low, and the spirits sunk, nourishing broths
and a little negus may be given to advantage.
Or let three drams of nitre be dissolved in as much elderflower tea as the patient can drink in twenty-four hours. If the disease attacks the head, bleeding is necessary.
Dressing the inflammation with greasy ointments, salves, etc.
is very improper.
Bathing the feet and legs in warm water is serviceable, and often relieves the patient much.
In Scotland the common people cover the part with a linen cloth covered with meal.82 [20-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #8. Or apply leaves of water dock. [1-^4]
Take a pint of cold water twice a day.83 [1-M-] #10. Or [take a decoction] of wild thyme. [CR #13, 1-M6]
Or wash it with water wherein bran is boiled. [1-M6]
Or (using the internal medicine at the same time) apply a plaster of Venice treacle.84 [1-*~16] #13. Or drink just so much seawater as does not vomit or
purge, every morning for seven days.85 This is the proper measure, in whatever case it is taken. It seldom fails.86
[5-M7] 1 .e., Advices, Chap. XIX (see below in this vol.). JW summarizes here §190—§192.
82 Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 318.
83 Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 52.
84 Dover, Ancient Physician's Legacy, 101.
85 Russell, Dissertation, 120.
In the 16th edition this receipt followed immediately that prescribing warm tar-water. Hawes (Examination, 16) ridiculed the prescription of both a hot and cold drink for the same ailment.
Primitive Physic
7. The Apoplexf [CR, l-*~23] #1. Ib prevent, use the cold bath and drink only water.87 [l->~23]
In the fit, put a handful of salt into a pint of cold water, and if possible, pour down the throat of the patient. He will immediately come to himself. So will one who seems dead by a fall.
But send for a good physician immediately. [5-*~2388] *[15-^23] #3. If the fit be soon after a meal, do not bleed but vomit.89
#4. Rub the head, feet, and hands strongly, and let two strong
men carry the patient, upright, backward and forward about the room. [8^23] * [15-^23] #5. A seton in the neck, with low diet, has often prevented a relapse. [5~*~23] #6. See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 53.90
There is a wide difference between the 'sanguineous' and 'serous' apoplexy; the latter is often followed by palsy.
The former is distinguished by the countenance appearing florid; the face swelled or puffed up; and the blood vessels, especially about the neck and temples, are turgid; the pulse beats strong; the eyes are prominent and fixed; and the breathing is difficult, and performed with a snorting. This invades more suddenly than the serous apoplexy. Use large bleedings, from the arm or neck; bathe the feet in warm water; cupping on the back of the head, with deep scarification. The garters should be tied very tight to lessen the motion of the blood from the lower extremities. A scruple of nitre may be given in water, every three or four hours.
When the patient is so far recovered as to be able to swallow,
let him take a strong purge. But if this cannot be effected, a clyster should be thrown up, with plenty of fresh butter and a large spoonful of common salt in it.
f An apoplexy is a total loss of all sense and voluntary motion, commonly attended with a strong pulse, hard breathing, and snorting. [5^23]
87Floyer, Psychrolousia, 149-50.
88The exhortation to send for a good physician was tied to receipt #6 in editions
5-►16.
89 JW kept this receipt, even though Hawes (Examination, 17) deemed it 'essentially wrong' and potentially fatal.
901.e., Advices, Chap. IX (see below in this vol.). The following four paragraphs digest and revise somewhat §98—§101.
132 Medical and Health Writings
In the serous apoplexy the pulse is not so strong, the countenance is less florid, and not attended with so great a difficulty of breathing. Here the bleeding is not so necessary, but a vomit of three grains of emetic tartar may be given, and afterwards a purge as before, and the powder of white hellebore blown up the nose, etc. [20^23] This apoplexy is generally preceded by an unusual heaviness, giddiness,
and drowsiness. [20-^23] [,additional receipts in previous editions] #7. In the fit, blow powder of white hellebore up the nose, and fix
a cupping glass, without scarifying, to the nape of the neck, and another to each shoulder.91 [1*M6; cf. CR#14]
#8. Or fill the mouth with salt.92 [12-M6]
8. Canine Appetiteg [5~*~23] #1. 'If it be without vomiting, is often cured by a small bit of bread dipped in wine, and applied to the nostrils.' Dr. Schomberg.93 [5^23]
[,additional receipts in previous edition94] #2. Chew liquorice. [Works] #3. Or roll a piece of alum in your mouth. Some have been kept alive hereby fourteen days. [Works]
9. The Asthma* [CR, 1^23] #1. Take a pint of cold water every morning, washing the head
BAn insatiable desire of eating. [5-*~23] h An asthma is a difficulty of breathing, from a disorder in the lungs. In the common (or moist) asthma, the patient spits much. [5-*-23]
91 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:33. Hawes {Examination, 17) criticized the use of white hellebore and argued that, while the use of cupping glasses was appropriate, they would not be effective without scarification. JW deleted mention of cupping glasses from all subsequent editions. He also dropped mention of white hellebore at first, but brought it back in with the 20th edition, in the extract fromTissot.
92 Hawes (Examination, 17) suggested that this remedy is likely to suffocate the patient.
93 Schomberg, Aphorismi Practici, 26.
94The following receipts appear in a section 'Hunger (to prevent)' found only in Works.
Prim itive Physic 133
therein immediately after, and using the cold bath once a fortnight.95 [1-^23] #2. Or cut an ounce of stick liquorice into slices. Steep this in a quart of water four and twenty hours, and use it, when you are worse than usual, as a common drink. I have known this give much ease. [10-^23] *[15-*~23] #3. Or [take] half a pint of tar-water twice a day.96 [CR#21, 1-^23]
Or live a fortnight on boiled carrots only. It seldom fails.
[5-23] #5. Or take an ounce of quicksilver every morning, and spoon
ful of aqua sulphurata or fifteen drops of elixir of vitriol in a large glass of spring-water at five in the evening.98 [l->~23]
I[nfallible]. [1-^9] Tried. [9-*~14] This has cured an inveterate asthma. [15-^23] *[15^23] #6. Or take from ten to sixty drops of elixir of vitriol, in a glass of
water, three or four times a day. [20-^23] N.B. Elixir of vitriol is made thus: Drop gradually four ounces of strong
oil of vitriol into a pint of spirits of wine or brandy. Let it stand three days, and add to it ginger sliced, half an ounce, and Jamaica pepper, whole, one ounce. In three days more it is fit for use. But if the patient be subject to belchings, take the mixture for the asthma cough (as Art. 56") after the elixir of vitriol.
Or into a quart of boiling water, put a teaspoonful of balsamic aether. Receive the steam into the lungs through a fumigator twice a day. [20-^23]
N.B. Balsamic aether is made thus: Put four ounces of spirits of wine and one ounce of balsam of Tolu into a vial, with one ounce of aether.
Keep it well corked. But it will not keep above a week. [20^23]
For present relief, vomit with a quart or more of warm water.
The more you drink, the better. [1^23] 95Floyer, Psychrolousia, 145.
96 Berkeley, Philosophical Reflexions, 5-6.
97 Hawes (Examination, 19) characterized this remedy as inefficacious. JW kept the receipt, but dropped the asterisk in subsequent editions.
98Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 36.
991.e., §10, receipt #10.
Medical and Health Writings N.B. Do this whenever you find any motion to vomit, and take care always to keep your body open. [1~*~23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Take a pint of cold water every night, as you lie down in bed.11"1
[1-16] #10. Or a spoonful of nettle juice, mixed with clarified honey every night and morning."11 [CR#17, 1~M7]
Ora teaspoonful of nitre and as much sal ammoniac in half a pint of water. [1-MJ #12. Or take an ounce of elecampane roots, sliced thin, and a hand
ful of ground-ivy leaves; boil them in three pints of springwater [down] to a quart. Strain and sweeten it with honey, and drink a glass morning and evening.102 [CR#20, 1~MJ
Or [take] a spoonful of syrup of garlic three or four times a
day. [2-M] #14. Or drink seawater every morning.103 [5-*~16, not Works] 10. A dry or convulsive Asthma [CR, 1^23]
Juice of radishes relieves much. [5-*~23] #2. So does a cup of strong coffee. [5-^23]
Or garlic, either raw, or preserved, or in syrup. [5^23] #4. Or drink a pint of new milk morning and evening. This has
cured an inveterate asthma. [5-*~23] #5. Or beat fine saffron small, and take eight or ten grains every night.104 [CR#22, 1^23] Tried.
Take from three to five grains of ipecacuanha every morning; or from five to ten grains every evening. Do this, if need be, for a month or six weeks. Five grains usually vomit. In a violent fit, take a scruple instantly.
In any asthma the best drink is apple water.105 [l->~23] That is,
boiling water poured on sliced apples. [14^23] #8. The food should be light and easy of digestion. Ripe fruits
baked, boiled, or roasted are very proper. But strong liquors 100Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 27, 55. Hawes (Examination, 19) characterized this remedy as inefficacious.
10lKettilby, Collection, 156.
102Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 3:30.
103 Hawes (Examination, 19) characterized this remedy as inefficacious.
104Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:71.
,0SBaynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 314.
Primitive Physic
of all kinds, especially beer or ale, are hurtful. If any supper is taken, it should be very light.106 [20~*~23]
All disorders of the breast are much relieved by keeping the feet warm, and promoting perspiration. Exercise is also of great importance; so that the patient should take as much every day as his strength will bear. Issues are found, in general, to be of great service.107 [20-^23] #10. Dr. Smyth, in his Formulae, recommends mustard-whey as
common drink in moist asthma, and a decoction of the madder root to promote spitting.
N.B. The decoction is made thus: Boil an ounce of madder and two drams of mace in three pints of water; [down] to two pints; then strain it and take a teacupful three or four times a day.m [20~*~23]
But the most efficacious medicine is the quicksilver and aqua sulphurata (as Art. 45109). N.B. Where the latter cannot be got, ten drops of oil of vitriol, in a large glass of spring-water, will answer the same end. [20^23] #12. I have known many persons greatly relieved, and some cured,
by taking as much jalap every morning as would lie on a sixpence. [20-^23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Use the cold bath thrice a week.110 [1^17] #14. Or dry and powder a toad. Make it into small pills, and take
one every hour till the convulsions cease.* * 111 [1~*~16, not Works] #15. Or [drink] tea made with hyssop, or ground-ivy, or daisy flowers and liquorice.112 [5^16]
11. To cure Baldness [1^23] #1. Rub the part morning and evening with onions, till it is red; and rub it afterwards with honey.113 [l-*~23]
106Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 515.
107 Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 516-17.
108I.e., Hugh Smith (c. 1730-90), Formulae Medicamentorum (London: W. Johnston, 1768), 96.
1091.e., §9, receipt #5.
110 Hawes (Examination, 20) characterized this remedy as inefficacious.
111 Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 34. Hawes (Examination, 20) ridiculed this
'curious' receipt.
112 Hawes (Examination, 20) characterized this remedy as inefficacious.
113 Short, Medicina Britannica, 208-9.
136 Medical and Health Writings
Or wash it with a decoction of boxwood.114 [12-*~23lb] Tried.
Or electrify it daily. [14-^23] 12. Bleeding at the nose (to prevent) [CR, 1~*~23]
Drink whey largely every morning, and eat raisins much.
Or dissolve two scruples of nitre in half a pint of water, and take a teacupful every hour.116 [20-^23]
To cure it, apply to the neck, behind and on each side, a cloth
dipped in cold water.11' [CR#23, 1^23] #4. Or put the legs and arms in cold water. [20-^23]
Or wash the temples, nose, and neck with vinegar. [5~*~23] * [15-^23] #6. Or keep a little roll of white paper under the tongue.
Or snuff up vinegar and water.118 [12-^23] #8. Or foment the legs and arms with it. [20^23]
Or steep a linen rag in sharp vinegar, burn it, and blow the
ashes up the nose with a quill. [l-*~23] #10. Or apply tents made of soft lint, dipped in cold water strongly impregnated with tincture of iron, and introduced within the nostrils quite through to their posterior apertures.
This method, Mr. Hey says, never failed him.11'' [20^23] #11. Or dissolve an ounce of alum, powdered, in a pint of vinegar;
apply a cloth dipped in this to the temples, steeping the feet in warm water. [20^23] #12. In a violent case, go into the pond or river. Tried. [10^23]
See extract from Dr. Tissot.120 [14^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #14. Or put into the nose betony stamped with a little salt. [l-*-4]
114 Short, Medicina Britannica, 30.
115This receipt was in the later section 'To make Hair grow' in 12->~13.
U6Cf. Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 423 117 Sydenham, Compleat Method, 80. mRiviere, Four Books, Observation #23, p. 11.
"'William Hey (1736-1819), letter to Joseph Priestley, in Priestley, Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (London: J. Johnson, 1775), 293. Hey was an active Methodist in Leeds, so JW may be drawing on oral comments.
120I.e., Advices, §332 (see below).
Primitive Physic #15. Or put up the nostril powdered betony with a little salt.121
[15-M6] #16. Or hold strawberry root, or cockle[bur] root under the tongue.122 [l->~4] #17. Or chew nettle-root, spitting out the juice.123 [2~M7]
Hold a red-hot poker under the nose.124 [5-*T6]
13. Bleeding of a wound [CR, l-*~23]
Make two or three tight ligatures toward the lower part of each joint; slacken them gradually.
Or apply tops of nettles bruised.125 [1-^23] #3. Or strew on it the ashes of a linen rag dipped in sharp vinegar and burnt. [1-^23] #4. Or take ripe puff-balls, break them warily, and save the
powder. Strew this on the wound and bind it on.126 [CR#24, 1-^23] I[nfallible]. [5-*~23] This will stop the bleeding of an amputated limb without any cautery.
Or take of brandy, two ounces; Castile soap, two drams; potash,
one dram. Scrape the soap fine and dissolve it in the brandy, then add the potash. Mix them well together and keep them close-stopped in a phial. Apply a little of this, warmed, to a bleeding vessel and the blood immediately congeals. [14^23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #6. Or [strew on it] vine-leaves, dried and powdered.
Or spread the ashes of a linen cloth thick on another linen cloth, and apply it. [1-»~16] * [15-M6] #8. Or [apply] leaves of allheal bruised. I[nfallible]. [1-M7]
14. Spitting Blood [1 23] #1. Take a teacupful of stewed prunes, at lying down, for two or
three nights.12' [1-^23] Tried. [9-*~23] * [15-^23] 121 Hawes (Examination, 21) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
122 Short, Medicina Britannica, 45-47 (see strawberry root in note on p. 45).
123 Hawes (Examination, 21) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
124 Hawes (Examination, 21) sharply ridiculed this receipt.
125 Lemery, New Curiosities, 8.
126 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:9; Digby, Choice Receipts, 48-49. l27Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 46-47.
Medical and Health Writings #2. Or two spoonfuls of juice of nettles every morning, and a large cup of decoction of nettles at night, for a week.128 [1-^23]
Tried. [9^23] *[15-^23] #3. Or three spoonfuls of sage juice in a little honey. This presently stops either spitting or vomiting blood.129 [l-*~23] Tried.
Or half a teaspoonful of Barbados tar on a lump of loaf-sugar,
at night. (It commonly cures at once.) [1^23] * [15~*~23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Or [take] a spoonful of juice of betony in a cup of new milk,
for three or four mornings. [l-*~4] #6. Or [take] half a pint of decoction of St. John's-wort, morning and evening. [l->~4) #7. Or [take half a pint of decoction] of ground-ivy.
Or [take half a pint of decoction] of horsetail (the herb). Or a
dram of the root, powdered.130 [1^4] #9. Or [take] a glass of decoction of onions.131 [1~M6]
Or take frequently a spoonful of the juice of nettles and plantain leaves, mixed and sweetened with sugar candy.132 [5-*~16]
15. Vomiting Blood [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Take two spoonfuls of nettle-juice. (N.B. This also dissolves
blood coagulated in the stomach.133) [CR#232, 1^23] Tried.
Or take as much saltpetre as will lie upon half a crown, dissolved in a glass of cold water, two or three times a day. [20~*~23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #3. Or [take] one spoonful of the juice of quinces.134 [CR#233,
Or [take] a spoonful of juice or syrup of horsetail.135 [1^4] 128Short, Medicina Britannica, 203.
129 Short, Medicina Britannica, 252.
130 Short, Medicina Britannica, 147.
131 Short, Medicina Britannica, 209. Hawes (Examination, 22) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
132 Hawes (Examination, 22) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
133 Cf. Short, Medicina Britannica, 47-48 (in footnote).
134 Hawes (Examination, 22) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
135 Short, Medicina Britannica, 147
Primitive Physic
Take three spoonfuls of sage juice in honey.136 [1-M3] #6. Or [take] a quarter of a pint of decoction of nettles and plantain two or three times a day.137 [2-^16]
16. To dissolve coagulated Blood [CR, 1+23]
Bind on the part for some hours a paste made of black soap and crumbs of white bread.138 [CR#51, 1-^23]
Or [bind on the part] grated root of burdock spread on a rag.
Renew this twice a day.139 [CR#52, l-*~23]
17. Blisters [15+23] #1. On the feet, occasioned by walking, are cured by drawing a needle full of worsted through them. Clip it off at both ends, and leave it till the skin peels off. [15-^23]
18. Boils [1+23]
Apply a little Venice turpentine. [1-^23] #2. Or [apply] an equal quantity of soap and brown sugar well mixed. [20-^23] #3. Or [apply] a plaster of honey and wheat flour. [2^23]
Or [apply a plaster] of figs. [2-^23] #5. Or [apply] a little saffron in a white-bread poultice. [1-^23]
It is proper to purge also. [2-^23]
[iadditional receipt in previous editions\ #7. Or [apply] the leaves of arum or Wake-robin. [1-M-]
19. Hard Breasts [1+23] #1. Apply turnips roasted till soft, then mashed and mixed with a little oil of roses. Change this twice a day, keeping the breast very warm with flannel.140 [2-^23]
136 Short, Medicina Britannica, 252.
137 Hawes (Examination, 22) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
138Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:57-58.
139 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:59.
140 Digbv, Choice Receipts, 73.
Medical and Health Writings [alternative receipt in previous edition] #2. Boil turnips well, squeeze out the water, mash them, and mix them throughly with fresh butter, and apply this warm to the breast, on a thick cloth, changing it morning and evening. [1]
20. Sore Breasts and swelled [Breasts] [2~*~23] #1. Boil a handf ul of camomile and as much mallows in milk and
water. Foment with it between two flannels as hot as can be borne, every twelve hours. It also dissolves any knot or swelling in any part.
21. A Bruise [CR, 1^23]141 #1. Immediately apply treacle spread on brown paper. [l-*-23]
Tried. [9^23] *[15-^23] #2. Or apply a plaster of chopped parsley mixed with butter.142
Or electrify the part. This is the quickest cure of all. [14^23] *[15-^23] [iadditional receipts in previous editions]
Or [apply] clarified honey.143 [CR#26, 1^16] #5. Or [apply] a fomentation of verjuice and camomile flowers.
not Works] #6. Drink comfrey tea morning and evening. [2-^4] #7. Or rub it with one spoonful of oil of turpentine and two of
neat's-foot oil. [8~M6, not Works] 22. To prevent swelling from a Bruise [T*^23]
Immediately apply a cloth, five or six times doubled, dipped
in cold water, and new dipped when it grows warm. [1-^23] Tried. [9-^23] 14' Editions 2-*-4 have a section for 'An Inward Bruise' that was absorbed into this section starting with edition 5; the receipts of'An Inward Bruise' are included here.
142Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:57.
143Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:15.
Primitive Physic 23. To cure a swelling from a Bruise [1~*~23] #1. Foment it half an hour, morning and evening, with cloths dipped in water as hot as you can bear. [1^23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #2. Or apply seaweed. [5^16, not Works] #3. Cut leaves of bitter-sweet small and boil them in hog's lard,
with four ounces of linseed, finely powdered, [down] to a poultice. Apply this hot. I[nfallible].144 [1-M]
24. A Burn or Scald [CR, 1^23] #1. Immediately plunge the part into cold water. Keep it in an hour, if it be not well before. Perhaps for four or five hours.
Tried. [9-^23] #2. Or electrify it. If this can be done presently, it totally cures the
most desperate burn. [14^23] * [15^23] #3. Or if the part cannot be dipped, apply a cloth, four times doubled, dipped in cold water, changing it when it grows warm. [1^23] #4. Or apply a bruised onion.145 [CR#28, 1^23] * [15-^23]
Or apply oil, and strew on it powdered ginger.
[additional receipts in previous editions] #6. Or [apply] a rag dipped in rum or spirits of wine. [CR#29,
i-M] #7. Or [apply] unslacked lime, mixed with honey. [I'M] #8. Or [apply] bruised leaves of dwarf elder.146 [1-M-]
Or [apply] elder berries stamped. [1-M-] #10. Or [apply] tincture of myrrh. [1-^16, not Works]
Or [apply] oil and parsley stamped together. [CR#30, 1-M7] #12. Or [apply] oil of elder.
25. A deep Burn or scald [CR, T^23] #1. Apply black varnish with a feather, till it is well. [1-^23]
144 Short, Medicina Britannica, 205-6. This receipt appeared (as the sole entry) in a section titled 'Bruises exceedingly Swelled' found only in editions 1"M.
145 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:61. m Short, Medicina Britannica, 87.
Medical and Health Writings #2. Or [apply] inner rind of elder, well mixed with fresh butter.147 When this is bound on with a rag, plunge the part into cold water. This will suspend the pain till the medicine heals.
[1-23] #3. Or mix lime-water and sweet oil, to the thickness of cream,
apply it with a feather several times a day.148 This is the most effectual application I ever met with. [20^23]
Or put twenty-five drops of Goulard's extract of lead to half a pint of rainwater; dip linen rags in it and apply them to the part affected. This is particularly serviceable if the burn is near the eyes. [20-^23]
26. A Cancer in the breast [CR, l-*~23]
Of thirteen years standing, was cured by frequently applying red poppy-water, plantain, and rose-water, mixed with honey of roses. Afterwards, the waters used alone perfected the cure.
Use the cold bath. (This has cured many.) This cured Mrs.
Bates of Leicestershire of a cancer in her breast, a consumption, a sciatica, and rheumatism, which she had had near twenty years. She bathed daily for a month, and drank only water. N.B. Generally where cold bathing is necessary to cure a disease, water drinking is so to prevent a relapse.149 [1^23]
A bleeding cancer was cured by drinking, twice a day, a quar
ter of a pint of the juice of clivers or goosegrass, and covering the wounds with bruised leaves. [20^23] #4. Another bleeding cancer was cured by the following receipt.
Take half a pint of small beer. When it boils, dissolve in it an ounce and a half of beeswax. Then put in an ounce of hog's lard, and boil them together. When it is cold, pour the beer from it and apply it, spread upon white leather. Renew it every other day. It brings out great blotches, which are to be washed with sal-prunella dissolved in warm water.
'A cancer is an hard, round, uneven, painful swelling of a blackish or leaden colour, the veins round which seem ready to burst. It comes commonly at first with a swelling about as big as a pea, which does not at first give much pain, nor change the colour of the skin. [5-^23] 147 Cf. CR, #32; Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:61—62.
148 Cf. CR, #33; Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:43.
149Floyer, Psychrolousia, 114-16.
Primitive Physic
Monsieur Le Februn advises, 'Dissolve four grains of arsenic in a pint of water. Take a spoonful of this, with a spoonful of milk and half an ounce of syrup of poppies, every morning.'
If it be not broke, apply a piece of sheet-lead, beat very thin and
pricked full of pinholes, for days and weeks, to the whole breast.
Purges should be added every third or fourth day. [2-^23] #7. Or rub the whole breast morning and evening with spirits of hartshorn, mixed with oil. [9^23] #8. Or keep it continually moist with honey. [14^23]
Or take horse-spurs' and dry them by the fire till they will beat
to a powder. Sift and infuse two drams in two quarts of ale.1'0
Drink half a pint every six hours, new milk warm.151 It has cured many.152 [5^23] Tried.
Or apply goose dung and celandine, beat well together and
spread on a fine rag. It will both cleanse and heal the sore.
Or [apply] a poultice of wild parsnips—flowers, leaves, and stalks—changing it morning and evening.
Or [a poultice of] scraped carrots. [14^23] #13. Or take brimstone and aqua sulphurata (as Art. 45153). This
has cured one far advanced in years. [5-^23] #14. Dr. Cheyne says a total ass-milk diet, about two quarts a day, without any other food or drink, will cure a confirmed cancer.154 [1(D~23]
[additional receipts in previous editions1'5] #15. Or apply a poultice of hemlock; but let not lie on so long at a time as to blister. [CR#36, 1-M-] #16. Or take half a dram of Venice soap twice a day. [CR#37,
i These are a kind of warts, that grow on the inside of a horse's forelegs [now called a 'chestnut']. [15-^23] 150Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:64.
1S11.e., at the temperature of milk just expressed.
152 JW retained this and the following receipt, despite Hawes's ridicule (Examination, 25-26).
1531.e., §9, receipt #5.
154 Cheyne, Natural Method, 263.
155 In a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24) JW added by hand a new receipt: 'Or [a poultice] of red cabbage. Tried.' This receipt did not appear in any print edition.
Medical and Health Writings #17. Or take a mellow apple, cut off the top, take out the core, fill the hole with hog's grease; then cover it with the top and roast the apple throughly. Take off the paring, beat the pap as well. Spread it thick on linen, and lay it warm on the sore, putting a bladder over it. Change this every twelve or twenty-four hours. [1^16] #18. Or live three months on apples and apple water. [1~H7]
Or [apply] leaves of hounds-tongues. [2->~4] #20. Three inveterate cancers, which adhered to the bones, were
totally cured at Paris, by anointing the ulcers thrice a day with infusion of leaves of plumbago in olive oil. The pain which the application at first occasioned was over in about a fortnight. [10-M6]
27. A Cancer in any other part [1~*~23] #1. Apply red onions bruised. [l-*~23] #2. Or make a plaster of rock alum, vinegar, and honey, equal quantities, with wheat flour. Change it every twelve hours. It often cures in three or four days. [1^23]
#3. Or stamp the flowers, leaves, and stalks of wild parsnips, and
apply them as a plaster, changing it every twelve hours. It usually cures in a few days.
A cancer under the eye was cured by drinking a quart of tar-
water daily, washing the same with it, and then applying a plaster of tar and mutton-suet melted together. It was well in two months, though of twenty years standing. [20-^23]
28. Cancer in the mouth [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Boil a few leaves of succory, plantain, and rue with a spoonful of honey, for a quarter of an hour. Gargle with this often in an hour.156 Infallible]. [1-^23] #2. Or [gargle] with vinegar and honey, wherein half an ounce of
rock alum is boiled. [l-*~23] #3. Or mix as much burnt alum and as much black pepper as lies on a sixpence with an ounce of honey, and frequently touch the part. [14-^23]
1S6Digby, Choice Receipts, 109.
Primitive Physic
Or blow the ashes of scarlet cloth into the mouth or throat.
This also cures the thrush. [15-M6] It seldom fails.
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #5. Or take an ounce of flour of sulphur, and half an ounce of
rock alum, finely powdered. Mix these well together with pure honey and apply often.157 [CR#38, 1->T7] * [15-M7]
Wash the mouth often with a mixture of vinegar, plantain juice, and rose-water. [l->~4] #7. Or [wash the mouth] with a little Roman vitriol dissolved in a
pint of water; then apply cream. This also speedily cures the shingles. Tried. [9-M7] #8. Or boil a pint of red wine, with a quarter of a pint of honey, and half an ounce of alum, till a third part is wasted. Frequently gargle with it. [15-^16, Works]
29. Chilblains (to prevent) [5^23]
Wear flannel socks, [5-^23] or socks of chamois leather.
[,additional receipt in previous editions] #2. Or wash the hands with flour of mustard. [5-M7]
30. Chilblains (to cure) [CR, 1~^23] #1. Apply salt and onions pounded together.118 [CR#34, 1^23]
Or a poultice of roasted onions hot. Keep it on two or three
days, if not cured sooner. [1-^23] * [15-^23] #3. Or wash them (if broke) with tincture of myrrh in a little water. [l-*~23] #4. See extract from Dr. Tissot.159 [14-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #5. Or [apply a poultice of] hot turnip-parings (roasted), changing them twice or thrice a day.160 [CR#35, 1~M7]
Or [apply a poultice] of roasted apples or turnips. [2~M] 157 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:71.
158 Cf. Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:61 ('For a recent burn').
1591.e. the section on chilblains in Advices, §§299-308 (see below in this vol.).
160 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:26.
146 Medical and Health Writings
31. Children [14-^23] #1. To prevent the rickets, tenderness, and weakness, dip them in cold water every morning, at least till they are eight or nine months old.161 [14^23] #2. No roller should ever be put round their bodies, nor any stays
used. Instead of them, when they are put into short petticoats, put a waistcoat under their frocks.162 [14~*~23]
Let them go barefooted and bareheaded, till they are three or four years old at least.163 [14~*~23] #4. It is best to wean a child when seven months old. It should lie
in the cradle at least a year. [14^23] #5. No child should touch any spirituous or fermented liquor, nor animal food, before two years old.164
Their drink should be water. Tea they should never taste, till ten or twelve years old. Milk, milk-porridge, and water gruel are the proper breakfasts for children.165 [14^23] But what mother has sense enough and grace enough to mind this?166
32. Chincough or Whooping-cough [1~*~23] #1. Use the cold bath daily. [1-^23] #2. Or rub the feet throughly with hog's lard, before the fire, at going to bed, and keep the child warm therein. Tried. [9^23]
Or rub the back at lying down with old rum. It seldom fails.
[5-23] #4. Or give a spoonful of juice of penny-royal mixed with brown sugar-candy, twice a day.167 [l-*~23, not Works]
Or [give] half a pint of milk warm from the cow with the
quantity of a nutmeg of conserve of roses dissolved in it, every morning. [2-*~23] 161 Floyer, Psychrolousia, 173-74; 14-*-16 add at the end of the sentence afterwards, their hands and feet'.
I6Lobb, Good Samaritan, 2. A roller is 'a light frame, moving on castors, in which a child may learn to walk without danger of falling' (OED). Hawes mistakenly assumes that JW got this advice from Dr. Cadogan (see Examination, 28).
163 Cf. Lobb, Good Samaritan, 2; JW added 'bareheaded'.
164Lobb, Good Samaritan, 2.
165 Cf. Lobb, Good Samaritan, 2; JW added the prohibition of tea.
160This final comment appears only in the Works edn.
I6' Short, Medicina Britannica, 220.
Primitive Physic
Or dissolve a scruple of salt of tartar168 in a quarter of a pint of clear water. Add to it ten grains of finely powdered cochineal, and sweeten it with loaf-sugar. Give a child within the year the fourth part of a spoonful of this four times a day, with a spoonful of barley-water after it. Give a child two years old half a spoonful; a child above four years old, a spoonful.
Boiled apples put into warm milk may be his chief food. This relieves in twenty-four hours, and cures in five or six days.169
Or [give] from three to five grains of gum gamboge. It vomits
and purges; and Dr. Cook says, always cures.170 [14-^23] #8. Or take two grains of tartar-emetic, and half a dram of prepared crab's claws, powdered. Let them be mixed very well together. One grain, one grain and a half, or two grains of this composition, may be added to five or six grains of magnesia, and given in a small spoonful of milk and water in the forenoon between breakfast and dinner to a child a year old. At night, if the fever is very high, half the former dose of this powder may be given, with from five to ten grains of nitre. [2(D~23]
In desperate cases, change of air alone has cured. [9-^23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #10. Drink a pint of cold water every night.1'1 [1-M-]
Or [give a spoonful of juice] of coltsfoot. [1-M-] #12. Or give ass's-milk for seven weeks.172 [17]
33. Cholera morbus; i.e. flux and vomiting [1^23] #1. Drink two or three quarts of cold water, if strong; of warm
water, if weak.173 [1~>~23] #2. Or boil a chicken an hour in two gallons of water, and drink of this till the vomiting ceases.174 [1-^23]
Or [drink] decoction of rice, or barley, or toasted oaten-bread.
[20-^23]
have 'salt of wormwood' (like Lobb) instead of'salt of tartar'.
169Lobb, Good Samaritan, 6-7.
170 Dr. John Cook (1705-77), 'Letter to the Editor', London Magazine 33 (1764):
573-76. l7lHancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 113-14.
172 JW actually took this remedy from Hawes, Examination, 30!
173 Cf. Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 57.
174 Cf. Sydenham, Compleat Method, 50.
Medical and Health Writings #4. If the pain is very severe, stupe the belly with flannels dipped in spirits and water. [20-^23] #5. The third day after the cure, take ten or fifteen grains of rhubarb. [20-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #6. Or drink a draught of vinegar and water.17'' [12-H7]
Or take six grains of laudanum,1'6 and apply a slit onion to the stomach. [12-M7]
34. Chops [i.e.y chaps] in womens nipples [12~*~ 23] #1. Apply balsam of sugar.177 [12-^23] #2. Or apply butter of wax, which speedily heals them. [20-^23]
35. Chopt [i.e., chapped] hands [1~*~23]
To Prevent #1. Wash them with flour of mustard. [5-*~23] I[nfallible]. [5->~8] #2. Or wash them in bran and water boiled together. [1-^23]
[additional receipt in previous editions] #3. Or apply oil of myrrh. [1-^16]
To Cure #1. Wash with soft soap mixed with red sand. [1-^23] Tried.178
Or wash them in sugar and water. Tried. [20-^23] l75Hawes (Examination, 31) characterized this receipt as 'insignificant'.
176Hawes (Examination, 31) noted that the term 'grains' implied JW meant solid opium, not the weaker alcoholic solution, and that this dose would be fatal. JW changed 'grains' to 'drops' in the 17th edition, before totally deleting the receipt in subsequent editions.
17' Riviere, Four Books, Observation #314, p. 258.
178The Works edition omits 'Tried' and the asterisk; but adds the comment 'I find nothing equal to this'.
Primitive Physic 36. Chopt [i.e., chapped] lips [2+23] #1. Apply a little sal-prunella. [2-^23]
37. A Cold [1+23] #1. Drink a pint of cold water lying down in bed.179 [1-^23] Tried.
Or [take] a spoonful of treacle in half a pint of water. [1^23] Tried. [9^-23] #3. Or to one spoonful of oatmeal and one spoonful of honey add a piece of butter the bigness of a nutmeg. Pour on gradually near a pint of boiling water. Drink this lying down in bed.
[5^23, not Works]
38. A Cold in the head [1+23]
Pare very thin the yellow rind of an orange. Roll it up inside out, and thrust a roll into each nostril.180 [1~*~23]
[39.181] To prevent the ill effects of Cold [12+23] #1. The moment a person gets into an house, with his hands or feet quite chilled, let him put them into a vessel of water as cold as can be got, and hold them there till they begin to glow.
This they will do in a minute or two. This method likewise effectually prevents chilblains.
[40.] The Colic (in the fit) [CR, 1+23]
Drink a pint of cold water.182 [CR#39, 1-^23] Tried. [9-*~23] * [15-^23] #2. Or [drink] a quart of warm water. [CR#40, 1-^23] Tried.
[9-^23] 179Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 42-43.
180Digby, Choice Receipts, 14-15.
181 This receipt is out of order in every edition where it appears—coming as #48, after 'Windy Colic'. We have moved it for consistency, and revised the numbering of intervening sections.
182Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 57-58.
150 Medical and Health Writings
Or drink largely of camomile tea.1X1 [CR#47, 1-^23] #4. Or take from thirty to forty grains of yellow peel of oranges, powdered, in a glass of water.184 [CR#43, 1-^23]
Or take from thirty to forty drops of oil of aniseed on a lump 5 of sugar.185 [CR#50, 1^23] #6. Or apply outwardly a bag of hot oats.186 [CR#48, 1 -*~23]
Or steep the legs in hot water a quarter of an hour. [15-^23, not Works] #8. Or take as much Daffy's elixir as will presently purge. This
10 relieves the most violent cholic in an hour or two. [2T*~23] Daffy's elixir is made thus: Senna, two ounces; jalap, one ounce; coriander seed, half an ounce; Geneva or proof spirit, three pints. Let them digest seven days, strain, and add loaf-sugar four ounces. [20]n'
[additional receipts in previous editions] #9. Or [drink] a pint of water in which a red hot flint is quenched.188 [CR#41, I'M 6, not Works] #10. Or [take] a teaspoonful of haws, dried and powdered.1 v'
Or [take] half a dram of mastic, mixed with the yolk of a new-laid egg, twice a day.190 [CR#45, 1~*~4]
Or [drink largely] of decoction of mallow leaves.191 [CR#46, 1->~16, not Works] 183This receipt appeared in a separate section for 'A Stubborn Colic1 in l-*-4.
184 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:72. Editions through the 16th prescribed 'two scruples to half a dram1 (as in Boyle). Hawes (Examination, 32) suggested
'thirty to forty grains1 was more precise, and Wesley adopted the suggestion starting with the 17th edition.
185 This receipt appeared in a separate section for 'A Stubborn Colic1 in l-*-4. l-*~8 give a dosage of'forty to a hundred drops1; 9-M6 have 'thirty to sixty drops'.
Hawes (Examination, 33) characterized this as too indiscriminate, so JW changed to the above starting with the 17th edition.
186 Allen, Synopsis, 1:279; this receipt appeared in a separate section for 'A Stubborn Colic1 in l-*~4.
187 The 20th edition included both this simpler formula for Daffy's elixir and the more detailed formula after §288 below. JW dropped the simpler formula in following editions, while keeping the other.
188 Hawes (Examination, 32) ridiculed the efficacy of this receipt.
189 See Kettilby, Collection, 148 (JW substitutes water for white wine here; but keeps wine below when using same remedy for stone).
190 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:40; this receipt appeared in a separate section for 'A Stubborn Colic1 in 1^-4.
191 This receipt appeared in a separate section for 'A Stubborn Colic' in l->-4.
Primitive Physic #13. Or take thirty drops of spirit of turpentine in a glass of water.192 [1-M7] #14. Or [drink] as largely as possible of warm tar-water.193 [1->T7, not Works] #15. Or beat together into a cake one part of stoned raisins of the
sun and three parts of juniper berries; eat more or less according to the pain.194 [5-M7, not Works]
#16. Or [apply outwardly] hot water in a bladder. [9-M7, not Works]
[41.] The dry Colic (to prevent) [20~*^23] #1. Drink ginger tea. [20~*~23]
[42.] Colic in children [1~*~23] #1. Give a scruple of powdered aniseed in their meat.
Tried. [9-^23] #2. Or [give] small doses of magnesia. [20-^23] #3. Or put one grain of emetic tartar into six tablespoonfuls of
water. A small teaspoonful will puke a child of a week old; a large teaspoonful is sufficient for one a month old; and so in proportion. Repeat the puke every day, or every other day, as the case requires. [20^23]
This is perhaps the best medicine yet discovered for infants. It speedily cures inward fits, gripes, looseness, thrush, and convulsions in children.
But if the child is costive, his bowels must be opened first with a little magnesia or manna, before you give a puke. [ 20^23]
[43.] A bilious Colid [2^23] #1. Drink warm lemonade. [20-^23] I know nothing like it.
kThis is generally attended with vomiting a greenish or a frothy matter, with feverish heat, violent thirst, a bitter taste in the mouth, and little and high-coloured urine. [5-*~23] 192 Hawes (Examination, 32) judged this remedy 'exceedingly injurious'.
193 Berkeley, Letter to Prior, 4.
194 Hawes (Examination, 33) criticized the receipt for lack of precision on dosage.
] 52 Medical and Health Writings
Give a spoonful of sweet oil every hour. This has cured one judged to be at the point of death. [2—23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #3. Or boil an ounce of bruised aniseeds in two quarts of water,
till half is boiled away. When it is cool, infuse an ounce of manna and four drams of Glauber's salts. [2—17] Drink as much of it as you can. [5—17] Tried. [9—17]
In half a pint of warm water, infuse an ounce of manna and four drams of Glauber's salts. Drink it directly. Tried.
[ Works] [44.] An habitual Colic [5~*~23]
Wear a thin soft flannel on the part. [5—23] [45.] A hysteric Colid [1^23]
Mrs. Watts, by using the cold bath two and twenty times in a month, was entirely cured of an hysteric colic, fits, and convulsive motions, continual sweatings and vomitings, wandering pains in her limbs and head, with total loss of appetite.19"'
[1-23] #2. In the fit, drink half a pint of water with a little wheat flour in
it, and a spoonful of vinegar. [1—23] #3. Or [drink half a pint] of warm lemonade. Tried. [9—23] *
[ Works] #4. Or take 20, 30, or 40 drops of balsam of Peru in fine sugar. If
need be, take this twice or thrice a day. [5—23, not Works] #5. Or in extremity, boil three ounces of burdock seed in water, which give as a clyster.196 [1—23] #6. Or [use] twenty drops of laudanum, in any proper clyster, which thus injected give instant ease.19' [5—23]
'Is attended with a violent pain about the pit of the stomach, with great sinking of the spirits, and often with greenish vomitings.
195Plover, Psychrolousia, 116-17.
I% Short, Medicina Britannica, 34. 1-*T place this receipt in section on 'A Nervous Colic'.
197 Cf. Riviere, Four Books, Observation #112, pp. 64-65.
Primitive Physic
[iadditional receipt in previous editions] #7. Or [drink] a glassful of vinegar.198 [2~M6]
[46.] A nervous CholitC [1^23] #1. Use the cold bath daily for three or four weeks.199 [l->~23]
Or take quicksilver and aqua sulphurata,200 daily for a month
(as Art. 45201). [1-^23] [47. ] Colic from the fumes of lead, or
white lead, verdigris, etc. [2~*~23] #1. In the fit, drink fresh melted butter, and then vomit with warm water. [2-^23] #2. To prevent or cure, breakfast daily on fat broth, and use oil of
sweet almonds frequently and largely. [5-^23] #3. Smelters of metals, plumbers, etc. may be in a good measure preserved from the poisonous fumes that surround them by breathing through cloth or flannel mufflers, twice or thrice doubled, dipped in a solution of sea-salt or salt of tartar, and then dried. These mufflers might also be of great use in many similar cases.202 [12-^23]
[iadditional receipt in previous editions] #4. Or give clysters of oil or fat broth. [2^15, Works]
[48.] Windy Colic [2(4^23] #1. Parched peas, eaten freely, have had the most happy effect when all other means have failed. [20-^23]
"'This is frequently termed the 'dry bellyache'. It often continues several days, with little urine and obstinate costiveness. [5-*~23] A colic with purging, some term the 'watery gripes'. [15-»-23] 198 Hawes (Examination, 34) judged any prescription of vinegar (or lemonade, which JW kept) for this condition to be 'highly injurious'.
'"Floyer, Psychrolousia, 116. Editions through the 16th instructed bathing daily for 'a month'. Hawes (Examination, 34) judged this imprecise, so JW revised to the above in subsequent editions.
have 'take an ounCe 0f quicksilver'; 5-^9 have 'take of quicksilver and gas of sulphur'.
2011.e., §9, receipt #5.
202 Works adds at the end of the sentence, 'even though dipped in nothing'.
154 Medical and Health Writings
49. A Consumption [1~*~23] #1. Cold bathing has cured many deep consumptions.203 [l-*~23]
Tried. [9-^23] #2. One in a deep consumption was advised to drink nothing but water, and eat nothing but water gruel, without salt or sugar.
In three months time he was perfectly well. [1-^23] #3. Take no food but new buttermilk, churned in a bottle, and
white bread. I have known this successful.204 [2-^23] #4. Or use as common drink: spring-water and new milk, each a quart; sugar candy, two ounces. [15-^23]
Or boil two handfuls of sorrel in a pint of whey, strain it, and
drink a glass thrice a day.205 [1-^23] Tried. [14-^23] #6. Or turn a pint of skimmed milk with half a pint of small beer.206 Boil in this whey about twenty ivy leaves, and two or three sprigs of hyssop. Drink half over night, the rest in the morning. Do this if needful for tw o months daily. This has cured in a desperate case. [5-^23] Tried.
Or take a cow heel from the tripe house ready dressed, two
quarts of new milk, two ounces of hartshorn shavings, two ounces of isinglass, a quarter of a pound of sugar candy, and a race of ginger.207 Put all these in a pot and set them in an oven after the bread is drawn. Let it continue there till the oven is near cold. And let the patient live on this. I have known this cure a deep consumption more than once. [5^23]
Or every morning cut up a little turf of fresh earth and, lying
down, breathe into the hole for a quarter of an hour.208 [l-^23] I have known a deep consumption cured thus.
'Mr. Masters of Evesham, was so far gone in a consumption that he could not stand alone. I advised him to lose six ounces of blood, every day, for a fortnight, if he lived so long.
And then every other day; then every third day; then every fifth day, for the same time. In three months he was well.' Dr.
Dover.209 [1-^23] Tried. [9-^23]
203 FI oyer, Psychrolousia, 176.
204Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 461-62.
205 Cf. Herman Boerhaave, Boerhaave's Treatise of the Materia Medica (London:
W. Innys etal., 1739), 195-96.
206I.e., curdle the milk.
207 1.e., ginger root.
208JW retains this receipt, even though Hawes (Examination, 38) assumes that the very mention of it will 'excite the reader's risibility'.
209 Dover, Ancient Physician's Legacy, 32.
Primitive Physic
Or throw frankincense on burning coals, and receive the smoke through a proper tube into the lungs. [5—23] Tried.
[9-23] #11. Or take in for a quarter of an hour, morning and evening, the steam of white rosin and beeswax, boiling on an hot fire-shovel. This has cured one who was in the third stage of consumption. [15—23] * [Works] #12. Or [take in] the steam of sweet spirit of vitriol dropped into
warm water. [20—23] #13. Or take morning and evening a teaspoonful of white rosin,
powdered and mixed with honey. This cured one in less than a month, who was very near death. [15—23] * [Works]
#14. Or drink thrice a day two spoonfuls of juice of watercresses.
This has cured a deep consumption. [15—23] * [Works] #15. In the last stage, suck an healthy woman daily.210 [12—23]
This cured my father. [14—23] * [Works] #16. For diet, use milk and apples, or water gruel, made with fine flour. Drink cider-whey, barley-water sharpened with lemon juice, or apple water. [14—23] #17. So long as the tickling cough continues, chew well and swal
low a mouthful or two of a biscuit or crust of bread. If you cannot swallow it, spit it out. This will always shorten the fit, and would often prevent a consumption. [14—23]
#18. See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 33.211 [20—23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #19. So has the living wholly on apples and apple water [cured many deep consumptions].212 [1—4] #20. Or [take morning and night] a cup of decoction of great daisy flowers. [1—4] #21. Or [take morning and night] a teaspoonful of powdered root
of arum (or Wake-robin), with as much powdered brimstone.
[1-4] #22. Or take a spoonful of syrup of fox-glove, morning and evening. [1-17] Tried. [9-17] #23. Or smoke balsam of Tolu, like tobacco.213 [5—16, not Works]
Or take half a pint of skimmed milk, put [in] one spoonful
of the best rum, sweetened with a little sugar or sugar of 210 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #384, p. 278.
211 The second half of Advices, Chap. 4, §§52-69 (see below).
212Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 315-16.
213 Mead, Medical Precepts, 40.
156 Medical and Health Writings
roses; take it new milk warm,214 lying in bed an hour after it.
And use for common drink: eight parts water, three parts skimmed milk, one part rum, sweetened with a little sugar.
[5-M3] #25. A beginning consumption was cured by drinking decoction
of guaiacum morning and evening for fifteen days (without sweating), with a light diet.215 [12-M6]
Or live on raisins and bread, and drink only decoction of barley and liquorice.216 [12-M6, not Works]
To strengthen the body take saltpetre, half a dram, [and] salt
of steel, fifteen grains, in a quarter of a pint of water. Add two ounces of the best brandy, and sweeten it with loaf-sugar.
Drink two spoonfuls of this about eleven in the morning, and at five in the afternoon, washing it down with a dish of sage tea. This mixture may be repeated twice or thrice.21' [1TM6, not Works] #28. To remove the fever, mix saltpetre, one dram; cochineal,
half a dram; the best brandy and sugar, an ounce each; with a quarter of a pint of water. Of this mixture take two large spoonfuls, every third or fourth hour.218 [14-M6, not Works]
Beat up the yolk of a new-laid egg in half a pint of spring-
water. Sweeten it with fine sugar. Take this every morning.
Or boil an handful of rosemary, and inspire219 the steam a quarter of an hour, morning and evening. [15-M7]
lately knew a consumption cured in two or three weeks by
drinking a pint decoction of nettles, morning and evening.
[Works]
50. Convulsions [CR, l-*~23] #1. Use the cold bath.220 [1-^23] 2141.e., at the temperature of milk just expressed.
215 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #99, p. 57. Hawes (Examination, 36-37) judged this remedy to be 'absolutely improper' and liable to make the condition worse.
216 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #634, p. 429.
2I' Lobb, Good Samaritan, 14. Hawes (Examination, 39-40) criticizes this receipt for failing to consider the changes made by mixing a neutral and metalic salt.
2,8 Lobb, Good Samaritan, 13.
2191.e., breathe in.
220Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 460.
Primitive Physic
Or take a teaspoonful of valerian root," powdered, in a cup of water, every evening. [l-*~23] Or mixed with asafoetida.
Or half a dram of mistletoe, powdered, every six hours; drinking after it a draught of strong infusion thereof.22' [CR#53, 1-^23]
[additional receipt in previous editions] #4. Or a spoonful of syrup of oak moss, morning and evening.
[1-4]
51. Convulsions in children [CR, P*~23] #1. Scrape peony roots fresh digged. Apply what you have scraped off to the soles of the feet. It helps immediately. [1*^23] Tried.
[9-^23]
[additional receipt in previous editions] #2. Or give the child, according to its age, from two to seven grains of volatile salt of amber, in water.222 [CR#54, I'M-]
52. Convulsions in the bowels of children. [P*~23] #1. Give a child a quarter [year] old a spoonful of the juice of pellitory of the wall, two or three times a day. It goes through at once but purges no more. Use syrup, if juice cannot be had. [1-^23]
53. Corns (to prevent) [l-*~23] #1. Frequently wash the feet in cold water.223 [l-*~23]
54. Corns (to cure) [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Apply fresh every morning the yeast of small beer, spread on a rag.224 [CR#57, 1-^23]
" If valerian root stinks, touch it not; but prepare it for yourself, by drying it where no cat can get near it. [Works edn. only]
221 Cf. Digby, Choice Receipts, 61.
222 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:11.
221 FI oyer, Psychrolousia, 97.
224 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:70.
Medical and Health Writings #2. Or, after paring them close, apply bruised ivy leaves daily, and in fifteen days they will drop out.22'' [1*^23] Tried. [17-^23]
Or apply chalk, powdered and mixed with water. This also cures warts. [20-^23] #4. Some corns are cured by a pitch plaster. [12-^23]
All are greatly eased by steeping the feet in hot water wherein
oatmeal is boiled. This also helps dry and hot feet. [12^23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Apply a little piece of fresh beef every morning.226 [CR#55,
1-M] #7. Or boil the juice of radishes, till it is thick enough to spread as a plaster.
Or cleanse from earth the root and herb of houseleek, crush it with your fingers, and apply it. Renew it every three hours, for twenty-four hours.228 [1~>-16] I[nfallible]. [8~M6]
55. Costiveness [CR, l-*~23]
Rise early every morning. [CR#64, 1-^23] #2. Or boil, in a pint and half of broth, half a handful of mallow leaves chopped. Strain this and drink it before you eat anything else.229 [CR#66, 1-^23] Do this frequently, if needful. [2-^23]
Or breakfast, twice a week or oftener, on water gruel with cur
rants. [5-^23] Tried. [9-^23] * [Works] #4. Or take the bigness of a large nutmeg of cream of tartar, mixed with honey, as often as you need.220 [2-^23] * [Works]
Or take daily, two hours before dinner, a small teacup of
stewed prunes; [12-^23] and a glass of wine and water before and after it.231 [12-^17] #6. Or use for common drink: water, or treacle beer, impregnated with fixed air. [20-^23] #7. Or live upon bread, made of wheat flour with all the bran in it.
[20-^23] 225 Short, Medicina Britannica, 156-57.
226 Allen, Synopsis, 2:123.
227Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:69.
228 Lemery, New Curiosities, 22.
229 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 3:24.
230Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:64.
231 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #206, p. 113.
Primitive Physic
Or boil an ounce and a half of tamarinds in three pints of water, [down] to a quart. In this, strained, when cold, infuse all night two drams of senna and one dram of red rose leaves.
Drink a cup every morning. [12—23] #9. See Dr. Tissot.232 [14—23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #10. Or take a decoction of tamarinds in whey.233 [CR#65, 1—4]
Or [take] an ounce of the juice of white iris root in whey.234
[1-4]
56. A Cough [CR, 1^23] #1. Every cough is a dry cough at first. As long as it continues
so, it may be cured by chewing, immediately after you cough, the quantity of a peppercorn of Peruvian bark. Swallow your spittle as long as it is bitter, and then spit out the wood. If you cough again, do this again. It very seldom fails to cure any dry cough. [8—23] Tried. [9—13] I earnestly desire everyone who has any regard for his health to try this within twenty-four hours after he first perceives a cough.
[9-23] #2. Or drink a pint of cold water, lying down in bed.235 [CR#58,
1—23] Tried. [9-23] #3. Or make a hole through a lemon and fill it with honey. Roast
it and catch the juice. Take a teaspoonful of this frequently.
[2—23] Tried. [9—23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #4. Or mix an ounce of linseed oil with an ounce of white sugar candy, powdered; and take a teaspoonful whenever the cough comes. [CR#60, 1 — 16] #5. Or [take a teaspoonful of] a linctus of tar mixed with honey.236
232 This reference is puzzling, as there is no chapter on costiveness in Advices
(orTissot's original); perhaps JW was referring toTissot's medicine No. 32, also made from tamarinds.
233 Allen, Synopsis, 1:256.
234 Short, Medicina Britannica, 212-13.
235 Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 20-21.
236 Berkeley, Philosophical Reflexions, 11.
160 Medical and Health Writings
57. An asthmatic Cough [1~*~23] #1. Take Spanish liquorice, two ounces; salt of tartar, half an ounce. Boil the liquorice in three pints of water, [down] to a quart. Add the salt to it when it is blood-warm. Drink two spoonfuls of this every two hours. [1-^23] It seldom fails.
Tried. [9-*~23] I have known this cure an inveterate moist asthma.
[additional receipt in previous editions] #2. Or drink half a pint of tar-water morning and evening.23,
[1-M] 58. A consumptive Cough [CR, 1~*~23]
To stop it for a time, at lying down keep a little stick liquorice, shaved like horse-radish, between the cheek and the gums.
I believe this never fails. [8^23] * [Works] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Slit ten or twelve raisins of the sun, take out the stones, and fill
them with the small tender tops of rue. Take these early every morning, fasting two or three hours after.238 [CR#61, 1~M3]
Or boil a pound of raisins stoned in a quart of old verjuice, [down] to about a pint. Then add a pound of brown sugarcandy and let it simmer into syrup.239 Take near a spoonful every three or four hours. [2-^17, not Works]
Or drink daily coltsfoot tea, sweetened with sugar-candy. [15]
59. A convulsive Cough [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Eat preserved walnuts. [CR#62, l-*~23] [additional receipt in previous editions]
Or boil a handful of bay leaves in milk, turn this with white
wine,240 and drink a draught of the whey often. [CR#63, 1-M6] 237 Berkeley, Philosophical Reflexions, 5-6.
238 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:67—68.
239 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:158.
2401.e., curdle the milk.
Primitive Physic 60. An inveterate Cough [1^23] #1. Wash the head in cold water every morning. [1—23]
Or use the cold bath. It seldom fails. [1—23] #3. Or peel and slice a large turnip, spread coarse sugar between the slices, and let it stand in a dish till all the juice drains down. Take a spoonful of this whenever you cough. [14—23]
Or take a spoonful of syrup of horehound morning and eve
ning. [1—23] Tried. [9—23] #5. Or take from ten to twenty drops of elixir of vitriol, in a glass of water, twice or thrice a day. This is useful when the cough is attended with costiveness or relaxation of the stomach and lungs. [20—23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #6. Or stew turnips in an oven in their own juice. Pour off the
liquor and take a spoonful, sweetened, every four hours.241
[1-4] #7. Or [take] a spoonful of syrup of turnips every three hours.242
[1-4] #8. Or [take a spoonful] of syrup of onions. [1—4] #9. Or [take] a spoonful of juice of onions. [1 — 17, not Works]
Or [take] half a pint of decoction of horehound.243 [1—4] #11. Or take half a pint of decoction of wild thyme, sweetened
with honey, lying down in bed.244 [1—4] #12. Or take peeled turnips, three pounds; sugar, one pound; put
them in an earthen pot close covered for twenty-four hours.
Strain the juice, and take two or three spoonfuls morning and evening.243 [1 — 13] Tried. [9—13] #13. Or take half a pint of decoction of onions, morning and eve
ning. [1 — 16, not Works] #14. Or put a scruple of spermaceti into the yolk of a new-laid egg, and sip it up in the morning fasting. [1 — 16, not Works]
Or mix the juice of boiled turnips with fine powdered sugarcandy, till it is a kind of syrup. Swallow a little of it drop by drop from time to time.246 [CR#59, 1 — 16]
241 Short, Medicina Bn tannic a, 291.
242 Cf. Short, Medicina Britannica, 123 (in footnote).
243 Short, Medicina Britannica, 124 (in footnote).
244 Short, Medicina Britannica, 293.
245 Short, Medicina Britannica, 123 (in footnote).
246Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:67.
162 Medical and Health Writings
61. A pleuritic Cough [l-*~23] #1. Powder an ounce of spermaceti fine. Work it in a marble mortar with the yolk of a new-laid egg. Mix them in white wine, and take a small glass every three hours. [1^23]
62. A tickling Cough [1~*~23] #1. Drink water whitened with oatmeal four times a day. [\-*~23]
Or keep a piece of barley-sugar or sugar-candy constantly in your mouth. [5-^23]
63. Violent Coughing from a sharp thin rheum [l-*~23] #1. Work into old conserve of roses as much as you can of pure
frankincense, powdered as fine as possible. Take a bolus of this twice or thrice a day.247 It eases presently, and cures in two or three weeks. [1-^23] #2. Or take half a grain of the inspissated248 milky juice of sowthistle, once or twice a day. It has the anodyne and antispasmodic properties of opium, without its narcotic effects. Or it may be made into laudanum, in the same manner as opium is, and five or six drops taken on a lump of sugar, thrice a day.
The milky juice of all the sow-thistles, dandelions, and lettuces have nearly the same virtues. [20-^23]
Or use milk diet as much as possible.
64. The Cramp (to prevent) [CR, 1~*~23]
Tie your garter smooth and tight under your knee at going to bed. [CR#67, l-*~23] Tried. [9~M3] I never knew this fail.
It seldom fails. [21 ->-23] * [Works] #2. Or take half a pint of tar-water, morning and evening.249 [l-»-23]
Or be electrified through the part which uses to be affected.
This generally prevents it for a month; sometimes for a twelvemonth. [8-^23]Tried. [9-M3] 247 Digby, Choice Receipts, 14.
248 1.e., thickened.
'4'Berkeley, Philosophical Reflexions, 32, 5. This receipt appeared under 'The Cramp (to cure)' in 1~M3.
Primitive Physic
Or to one ounce and a half of spirits of turpentine, add flour of brimstone and sulphur vivum, each half an ounce. Smell to it at night, three or four times. [20-^23]
Or lay a roll of brimstone under your pillow.
65. The Cramp (to cure) [l-*~23] #1. Strongly put out your heel. [21-^23] #2. Or chafe the part with Hungary water. [5-*-23]
Or hold a roll of brimstone in your hand.250 1 have frequently
done this with success. [14-^23] * [Works] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Apply boiled nettles hot. [1-*T3] #5. Or stretch out the opposite arm and clench the fist. [5-M3]
Stretch out the limb immediately. [5-M6] #7. Or [chafe the part] with rectified spirits of wine. [8~M6]
66. A Cut [1~*~23] #1. Keep it closed with your thumb a quarter of an hour. Then double a rag five or six times, dip it in cold water, and bind it on. [1-^23] Tried. [9-^23] #2. Or bind on toasted cheese. This will cure a deep cut. [14^23]
Or [bind on] pounded grass. Shake it off after twelve hours
and, if need be, apply fresh. [14^23]
67. Deafness [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Be electrified through the ear. [8-*~23] Tried.
Or use the cold bath.251 [l-*~23] #3. Or put a little salt into the ear. [9-^23]
Or drop into it a teaspoonful of salt water. [1-^23] #5. Or [drop into the ear] three or four drops of onion juice at ly
ing down, and stop it with a little wool.252 [1-^23] 2S0Whytt, Observations, 466.
251 See Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 466-67.
252 Short, Medicina Britannic a, 209-10.
Medical and Health Writings [iadditional receipts in previous editions] #6. Or [drop into the ear] a little juice of elder leaves. [CR#69,1-M-]
Or [drop into the ear a teaspoonful] of juice of ground-ivy.2"5
not Works] #8. Or [drop into the ear a teaspoonful] of spring-water, in a pint
of which a spoonful of bay-salt has been dissolved for four and twenty hours. Do this, if need be, seven or eight nights lying on the opposite side.254 [14-^16] #9. Or [put into the ear a little] saltpetre. [10-M6, not Works]
68. Deafness from wax [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Syringe the ear with warm water. Tried. [17-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #2. Or drop in [the ear] pennyroyal water, cold drawn, four or five
nights.255 [l->~4] #3. Syringe the ear with warm sage tea. [CR#70, 1~M6] d ried.
[9-16] #4. Or put in [the ear] wild mint bruised, with the juice, changing it often. [1-M6]
69. Deafness with a dry ear [14~*~23, not Works] #1. Mix brandy and sweet oil. Dip black wool in this and put it into the ear. When it grows dry, wash it well in brandy; dip it and put it in again. [14-^23, not Works]
70. Deafness with headache and buzzing in the head [l-*~23]
Peel a clove of garlic, dip it in honey, and put it into your ear at night with a little black wool. Lie w ith that ear uppermost.
Put the same in the other ear the next night. Do this, if need be, eight or ten nights.256 [l->~23] Tried. [21-^23]
71. A settled Deafness [l-*~23] #1. Take a red onion, pick out the core, fill the place with oil of roasted almonds. Let it stand a night. Then bruise and strain
253 Short, Medicina Britannica, 127.
25+Lobb, Good Samaritan, 37.
255 Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 468-69.
236 Cf. Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:20-21.
Primitive Physic it. Drop three or four drops into the ear, morning and evening, and stop it with black wool. [1-^23] 72. Delivery [1^23] #1. After delivery in childbirth, the mother's first milk is the only
proper purge for the child. Let it begin to suck ten or twelve hours after the birth. [14-^23] [additional receipt in previous editions]
Peel, slice, and fry a large white onion in two or three spoon
fuls of the best oil, till it is tender. Boil this with half a glass of water. Strain, and drink it in the morning fasting, for two or three weeks before the time of childbirth.257 [1^16]
73. A Diahetef [CR, 1^23] #1. Drink wine boiled with ginger, as much and as often as your strength will bear. Let your drink be milk and water. All milkmeats are good.
Or drink, three or four times a day, a quarter of a pint of alum
posset, putting three drams of alum to four pints of milk.258 It seldom fails to cure in eight or ten days. [1-^23] Dr. Mead.259
[Works] #3. Or infuse half an ounce of cantharides in a pound of elixir of
vitriol. Give from 15 to 30 or even 40 drops in Bristol-water, twice or thrice a day.260 [10-^23] °A diabetes is a frequent and large discharge of pale and sweetish urine, attended with constant thirst, and a wasting of the whole body.
257 Hawes (Examination, 43) ridiculed this receipt; particularly under its original title: 'To cause an easy Delivery'.
258 rea(j 'Qr drink morning and evening a quarter of pint of alum possetdrink, made as strong as your stomach will bear'; drawn from Dover, Ancient Physician's Legacy, 28.
25,The revised form starting in 5th edition comes from Mead, Medical Precepts, 186.
260 In a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24) JW added by hand another receipt: 'Or drink tar-water twice a day'. This receipt did not appear in any print edition.
166 Medical and Health Writings
74. The Dr opsf [CR, T*^23] #1. Use the cold bath daily, after purging.261 [1-^23]
Or rub the swelled parts with salad oil by a warm hand, at least an hour a day. This has done wonders in some cases. [12-^23]
Or cover the whole belly with a large new sponge, dipped in
strong lime water and then squeezed out. This, bound on, often cures even without any sensible evacuation of water.
[Works] #4. Or apply green dock leaves to the joints and soles of the feet, changing them once a day.262 [CR#9, l-*~23263]
Or mix half an ounce of amber with a quart of wine vinegar.
Heat a brick (only not red hot) and put it into a tub. Pour them upon it, and hold the parts swelled over the smoke, covering the tub close, to keep in the smoke. The water will come out incrediblv, and the patient be cured.264 [l-*~23] Tried.
[Works] #6. Or eat a crust of bread every morning, fasting. [8^23] Tried.
Or take as much as lies on a six-pence of powdered laurelleaves, every second or third day. It works both ways.
Tried. [12-^23] #8. Or mix a pound of the coarsest sugar with a pint of juice of
pellitory of the wall bruised in a marble mortar. Boil it as long as any scum rises. When cool, bottle and cork it. If very bad, take three spoonfuls at night, and two in the morning. It seldom fails. [1-^23] Tried.
Or make tea of roots of dwarf elder. It works by urine. Every
twelve or fourteen minutes (that is, after every discharge) drink a teacupful. I have known a dropsy cured by this in twelve hours time. [14-^23] * [Works] #10. One was cured by taking a dram of nitre every morning in a
little ale. [20-^23] # 11. Tar-water drank twice a day has cured many.265 [1-^23]
PA dropsy is a preternatural collection of water in the head, breast, belly, or all over the body. It is attended with a continual thirst. The part swelled pits, if you press it with your fingers. The urine is pale and little.
261 Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 216-17.
262 Short, Medicina Britannica, 35.
26'In 1-M this receipt appeared in a section titled 'Anasarca, or Flesh-Dropsy'.
264Digby, Choice Receipts, 34-35.
265 Berkeley, Philosophical Reflexions, 6.
Primitive Physic
So has infusion of juniper berries, roasted and made into a liquor like coffee. [10-*-23] #13. Or [take] three spoonfuls of the juice of leeks and elder leaves.266 [5^23] I[nfallible]. [5-^8] Tried. [14-^23] This cures the windy dropsy. [21-^23] #14. Or [take] half a pint of decoction of butcher's broom, inter
mixing purges twice or thrice a week. [1-^23] The proper purge is ten grains of jalap with six of powdered ginger. It may be increased or lessened according to the strength of the patient.267 [5-*~23] #15. Or [take half a pint] of the decoction of the tops of oak boughs.
This cured an inveterate dropsy in fifteen days.268 [12-^23] #16. Or take senna, cream of tartar, and jalap, half an ounce each.
Mix them and take a dram every morning in broth. It usually cures in twenty days.269 [12-^23] This is nearly the same with Dr. Ward's powder.2 01 suppose he took it from hence. He says, it seldom fails, either in the watery or windy dropsy.
Or be electrified. This cures dropsies supposed incurable.
N.B. How amazingly little is yet known, even of the human body! Have not dropsical persons been continually advised to abstain from drink as much as possible? But how can we reconcile this with the following undeniable facts, published in the late Medical Transactions?27'
Jane Roberts, aged twenty, was at length constrained to take her bed by a confirmed ascites and anasarca. In this desperate case she drank as much as she would, first of small beer, and when that failed, of thin milk. After a while her skin cracked in many places, and she continued drinking and leaking till she was quite well.272
A middle-aged man in the west of England drank every day five or six quarts of cider and, without any other medicine, was totally cured in a few weeks time of a dropsy long supposed to be incurable.2' '
266 Short, Medicina Britannica, 102.
267 Short, Medicina Britannica, 37.
268 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #507, p. 320.
269 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #664, p. 437.
270 A patent medicine of Joshua Ward (1684-1761).
271 Royal College of Physicians of London, Medical Transactions (London: The College, 1768ff). See JW's comment on reading the accounts that follow in his
Journal, July 23, 1772, 22:343 in this edn. (but note we are correcting the suggested identification in footnote 12).
272 Medical Transactions 2 (1772): 240M2.
273Medical Transactions 2 (1772): 245-48.
Medical and Health Writings A farmer aged seventy, in a confirmed ascites, was given over for death. Being desperate, he drank three quarts of cold water every four and twenty hours. His whole food meantime was sea-biscuit, sometimes with a little butter. For sixteen days he seemed worse.
Then he discharged for near a week a vast quantity of water, and was
soon free from his disease, which never returned.274 [15*^23] [iadditional receipts in previous editions]
Or fry rue in oil of walnuts and apply it hot, as a poultice, to the navel; changing it once a day.2'1 [CR#10, 1^4]
Or drink nothing else but a decoction of diet-drink of moun
tain sage (four pound[s] to a kilderkin).276 [1~*~4] #20. Or half a pint of decoction of white bryony.2" [1~*~4]
Take a spoonful of the juice of artichoke leaves, morning and evening. [CR#74, 1^17] #22. Or abstain from all drink for thirty days. To ease your thirst,
hold often on your tongue a thin, small slice of toasted bread, dipped in brandy; or wash the mouth with juice of lemons.2'*
Tried. [9-M7] #23. Or drink half a pint of seawater morning and evening.
[1-M6, not Works] #24. Or boil two handfuls of elder roots in a quart of water. Strain it, and drink a large glass thrice a day for thirty days. It frequently cures in that time. [1*M7, not Works]
Or take a spoonful of whole mustard seed, night and morn
ing, and drink on it half a pint of decoction of green broomtops. This works both by stool and urine. [5-M6, not Works]
Or drink nothing but lemonade; i.e. lemon, sugar, and water.
not Works] #27. Or use sal-prunella in your common drink [for] thirty
days.279 [12-M6] #28. Or take morning and afternoon half a pint of strong tea of lavender cotton, eating a slice of bread and butter, stewed thick with garlic. [14^16, not Works] 274Medical Transactions 2 (1772): 238-40. Works marks this last example with an asterisk, and adds 'This is well worth trying'.
Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:52. In l-*-4 this receipt appeared in a section titled 'Anasarca, or Flesh-Dropsy'.
276 Digby, Choice Receipts, 27-28.
277 Short, Medicina Britannica, 39.
278 Allen, Synopsis, 1:338.
279 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #507, p. 320.
Primitive Physic
Or steep half an ounce of jalap in a quartern280 of Geneva [spirit] for twelve hours. Draw it off. Divide it into three parts, and take it every other morning. Then put a large spoonful of syrup of marsh mallows into half a pint of stale beer, and when it has boiled a little, cool it and drink it at lying down in bed. Do this three times. This has cured many. [20]
75. Drowned281 [12^23]
Rub the trunk of the body all over with salt. It frequently recovers them that seem dead. [12-^23] #2. See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 150.282 [14-*~23]
76. The Earache [CR, 1^23] #1. Rub the ear hard for a quarter of an hour.
Tried. [9-^23] #2. Or be electrified. [8-*~23] Tried. [9~M2] #3. Or put in a roasted fig or onion, as hot as may be. [CR#79,
Tried. [15-^23] #4. Or blow the smoke of tobacco strongly into it. [CR#81, 1-^23]
But if the earache is caused by an inflammation of the uvula, it is cured in two or three hours by receiving into the mouth the steam of bruised hempseed, boiled in water. [20-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #6. Or [drop in the ear juice] of monk's rhubarb.283 [1*M]
Or drop in juice of goosegrass.284 [1-M3] #8. Or apply to it a hot roll. [CR#78, I'M 6]
#9. Or drop in juice of wormwood. [15-M7, not Works]
77 Earache from cold [l-*~23]
Boil rue, or rosemary, or garlic, and let the steam go into the ear through a funnel. [l-*~23] 280A fourth part.
281 See also §149, receipt #2 below.
282 1.e., Advices, Chapter XXVII (below in this vol.).
283 Short, Medicina Britannica, 79.
284 Short, Medicina Britannica, 122.
170 Medical and Health Writings
78. Earache from heat [l-*~ 23] #1. Apply cloths four times doubled and dipped in cold water, changing them when warm, for half an hour.
79. Earache from worms [CR, R*~23]
Drop in warm milk and it brings them out.285 [CR#82, 1-+-23] #2. Or [drop in] juice of wormwood, which kills them.286 [CR#83,
1-^23]
[additional receipt in previous editions] #3. Or [drop in] oil of bitter almonds.
80. Noise in the Ears [1~*~23]
Drop in juice of onions. [l-*~23] [.additional receipt in previous editions]
Or fill them with bruised hyssop. [1^17]
81. Hard wax in the Ears [2~*~23] #1. Is best dissolved by warm water.287 [2-^23]
82. Eyes bleared [l-*~23] #1. Drop into them juice of crab apples.288 [l-*~23]
83. A bloodshot Eye [CR, 1^23] #1. Apply linen rags dipped in cold water for two or three hours.
[1-23] #2. Or blow in white sugar-candy, finely powdered. [ 1 -*-23]
285 Allen, Synopsis, 2:52.
286 Allen, Synopsis, 2:52.
287Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 468.
288 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90 (in footnote).
Primitive Physic
Or apply boiled hyssop, as a poultice.289 [l-*~23] This has a wonderful efficacy. [8-^23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Or mix half a dram of well-powdered tutty with an ounce of
rose water. Drop this often into the eye.290 [CR#85, 1-M-].
Or drop in juice of clover.291 [l->~4] 84. A bruise in the Eye [CR, 1^23]
Apply, as a plaster, conserve of roses. [CR#86, l-*~23] [additional receipt in previous editions]
Or [apply as a plaster] a paste of black soap and white bread
crumbs. But take care it get not into the eye.292 [CR#87, 1-M7] 85. Clouds flying before the Eyes [1^23]
Take a dram of powdered betony every morning.293 [1-^23] #2. Or be electrified.
Is often cured by cold bathing.294 [1-^23] #2. Or by electrifying. [8^23] Tried. This has cured a suffusion of sixteen, and even a gutta serena of twenty-four years standing. [9^23]
87. Dull sight [in an Eye] [R*~23] #1. Drop in two or three drops of juice of rotten apples often.
[1-23] 289 Short, Medicina Britannica, 151.
290 Cf. Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:79 (JW omits frog's spawn, Canary wine, and aqua mirabilis).
291 Short, Medicina Britannica, 61.
292 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:77.
293 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90 (in footnote).
294 Floyer, Psychrolousia, 79, 128.
Medical and Health Writings [iadditional receipts in previous editions] #2. Drop in juice of brooklime.29' [1^4]
Or [drop in juice] of eyebright.296 [l-*~4] #4. Wash the eyes morning and evening with decoction of betony.297 [1^4]
Use eyebright tea daily.298 [1-*~16] #6. Or [use] powdered eyebright, both in meat and drink.299 [1~M6]
88. Films [in an Eye] [CR, 1^23]
Dry Zibethum Occidentale (i.e. stercus humanumm) slowly, powder it fine, and blow it into the eye twice or thrice a day.301
Or mix juice of ground-ivy with a little honey and two or three
grains of bay-salt. Drop it in morning and evening. [1^23] #3. Or touch them cautiously every day with lunar caustic.
[additional receipt in previous editions] #4. Or take the white part of hen's dung, carefully dried, with an
equal quantity of burnt alum and double-refined sugar; sift them, and blow a little into the eye at going to bed. [14~M7, not Works]
89. Hot or sharp humours [in an Eye] [CR, 1~*~23] #1.Apply a few drops of double-refined sugar, melted in brandy.
Tried. [12-^23] #2. Or boil a handful of bramble leaves, with a little alum, in a
quart of spring-water, [down] to a pint. Drop this frequently 295 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90-91 (in footnote). This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Suffusion' [i.e., cataract],
296 Short, Medicina Britannica, 89-90. This receipt appeared in a section titled
'Suffusion' [i.e., cataract].
297 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90 (in footnote). This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Dim or Misty Sight'.
298 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:126. This receipt appeared in a section titled
'Eyes Dim or Decayed'.
299 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90 (in footnote). This receipt appeared in a separate section titled 'Eyes Dim or Decayed'.
300 'Human excrement'.
301 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:11.
Primitive Physic 173
into the eye. This likewise speedily cures cankers or any sores.
[5-23] #3. Or lay a thin slice of raw beef on the nape of the neck. Tried.
[10-^23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #4. Beat the white of an egg into a water, in which mix fine sugar, and drop it frequently into the eye.302 [CR#89, 1—17]
Or drop in juice of daisies morning and evening. [1 —16303]
90. Eyes or Eyelids inflamed [1-+-23] #1. Apply as a poultice boiled, roasted, or rotten apples warm.304
[Works] #2. Or [apply as a poultice] wormwood tops with the yolk of an
egg.305 [1—23] This will hardly fail. [8-^23] #3. Or beat up the white of an egg, with two spoonfuls of white rose water, into a white froth. Apply this on a fine rag, changing it so that it may not grow dry, till the eye or eyelid is well.
[1-23] Tried. [9-^23] #4. Or dissolve an ounce of fine gum arabic in two or three spoon
fuls of spring-water; put a drop into the inner corner of the eye, from the point of a hair-pencil, four or five times a day.
At the same time take as much saltpetre as will lie upon a six-pence, dissolved in a glass of water, three or four times a day; abstaining from all strong liquids as much as possible, till cured. [20-*~23] #5. White bread poultices applied to the eyes in an inflamed state
frequently occasion total blindness. [20—23] #6. After the inflammation is subsided, if weakness still remains, dip a finger in the white copperas eye-water and rub round the eye, three or four times a day. [20—23]
N.B. All acrid eye-waters and powders, put into the eyes when they are much inflamed, horribly increase both the pain and inflammation.
[20—23] 302 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:37.
303This receipt appeared under 'Rheum in the Eye' in 1—4.
304 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 3:4.
305 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90 (in footnote).
Medical and Health Writings [iadditional receipts in previous editions] #7. Or drop in often the juice of eyebright.306 [1—4]
Or [drop in often the juice of] cinquefoil.307 [1—4] #9. Or [drop in often the juice of] quick grass. [1—4]
Or [apply] a thick apple paring lying down in bed. [1 —16308]
91. A lachrymal fistula [in an Eyef [1~^23] #1. Apply a poultice of fine leaves of rue.309 [1—23]
Or wash the eye morning and evening with decoction of
quince leaves.310 [1—233n] [additional receipt in previous editions] #3. Or take a dram of betony leaves, powdered, daily.312 [1 — 17,
not Works] 92. Pearl in the Eye [l-*~23]
Apply a drop of juice of celandine with a feather thrice a dav.
[1-23] #2. Or [apply a drop of the juice] of three-leaved grass. It commonly cures in seven days. [1—23] #3. Or dissolve a little sal ammoniac in rose water. Keep this
three days in a copper vessel. Drop it twice a day into the eye.
[12-23] #4. Or reduce separately, to the finest powder possible, an equal weight of loaf-sugar, cream of tartar, and bole armoniac; mix them together, and put a little into the eye (without blowing it in) three or four times a day. [20—23]
qThis disorder in the inner corner of the eye causes the tears to flow involuntarily. [5^23] When it is confirmed, only a surgeon can cure it. [20-»-23]
306 Short, Medicina Britannica, 89-90.
307 Short, Medicina Britannica, 58.
308 This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Burning Eyes, or hot rheum' in 1—10.
309 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90 (in footnote).
3111 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90 (in footnote).
311 This receipt appeared under 'Involuntary Tears' in 1-M.
312 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90 (in footnote).
Primitive Physic [additional receipt in previous editions] #5. Or [apply a drop of] the juice of rue. [12-M6]
93. Sore Eyes [15~*~23] #1. Drink eyebright tea, and wash the eyes with it. [15-^23]
94. White specks in the Eye [1^23] #1. Going to bed, put a little earwax on the speck. This has cured
many. [2^23] * [Works, 20-^23] [additional receipts in previous editions] #2. Drop in a drop of juice of rue morning and evening.313 [l->~4]
Or [drop in a drop of the juice] of celandine.314 [l->-4] #4. Put a seed of clary into the eye, at going to bed.315 [l-»-4]
Or [put on the speck] a drop of the juice of fennel.316 [1->T6] #6. Or [put on the speck] a drop of ivy juice. [1-M7317] After
wards blow in a little powdered loaf-sugar. [5^17]
95. An excellent Eye-water [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Put half an ounce of lapis calaminaris powered into half a pint of French white wine, and as much white rose water.318 Drop a drop or two into the corner of the eye. It cures soreness, weakness, and most diseases of the eye. I have known it cure total blindness.319 [CR#90, 1-^23] * [Works]
313 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90 (in footnote). This receipt appeared in a separate section titled 'Spots in the Eye'.
314 Short, Medicina Britannica, 51, 90 (in footnote). This receipt appeared in a separate section titled 'Spots in the Eye'.
315 Short, Medicina Britannica, 60, 90 (in footnote).
316 Short, Medicina Britannica, 90 (in footnote).
3l7This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Spots in the Eye' in l->-4.
began 'Heat half an ounce of lapis calaminaris red hot, and quench it in half a pint of French white wine, and as much white rose water. Then pound it fine and infuse it. Shake the bottle when you use it, dropping a drop ...'. Works then added the note 'It takes effect, even if you use the lapis caliminaris ready powdered.'
319 Close variation found in Dictionarium Rusticum & Urbanicum (London: J.
Nicholson, 1704), entry for 'Blood-shotten-eyes'.
Medical and Health Writings [additional receipt in previous editions] #2. Another [eye-water]: Infuse in lime water a dram of sal ammoniac, powdered, for twelve hours. Then strain and keep it for use. This also cures most disorders of the eyes. [1-^16]
96. Another [Eye-water] [E*~23] #1. Boil very lightly one spoonful of white copperas scraped, and three spoonfuls of white salt, in three pints of spring-water.
When cold, bottle it in large vials without straining. Take up the vial softly, and put a drop or two in the eye morning and evening.
N.B. It answers the intention of almost all the preceding medicines. It
takes away redness, or any soreness whatever. It cures pearls, pm and web, rheums, and often blindness itself. [1^23] But it makes the eye smart. [21-*~23]
97. Another [Eye-water] [12~*~23] #1. Stamp and strain ground-ivy, celandine, and daisies, an equal quantity. Add a little rose water and loaf-sugar. Drop a drop or two at a time into the eye, and it takes away all manner of inflammation, smarting, itching, spots, webs, or any other disorder whatsoever, yea, though the sight were almost gone.3211 [12-^23]
98. [Another Eye-water] [9~*~23]
An eye-water which was used by Sir Stephen Fox,321 when he was 60 years of age, and could hardly see with the help of spectacles; but hereby in some time recovered his sight, and could see to read the smallest print without glass or spectacles till above eighty.
Take six ounces of rectified spirits of wine, dissolve it in one dram of camphor, then add two small handfuls of dried elder flowers. In twenty-four hours, after it is infused, it is ready for use. Take out a little in a teaspoon, dip your finger in it, and bathe your forehead over your eyes and each temple with it
320 Cf. Short, Aledicina Britannica, 127.
321 Stephen Fox (1627-1716).
Primitive Physic
several times, morning and night, and twice more in the day, constantly. Meantime dip a soft rag in dead small beer, new milk warm, and dab each eye a dozen times gently, morning and evening. [9-*~23] * [Works] #2. If it is a watery humour, you may with your finger wet the eye
lids two or three times apiece; but be sure to shut your eyes, or it makes them smart and burn excessively. If you have the toothache or swelled face, rub it well in on the part and it will take away the pain. It will cure any bruise also if used immediately. Tried. It will cure any inflammation in the eyes. [9-^23]
99. Weak Eyes [2^23] #1. Wash the head daily with cold water. [2^23] Tried. [9^23]
[additional receipt in previous editions] #2. Moisten the eyelids morning and evening with camphorated spirits of wine, keeping the eye shut. [2-M6]
100. Fainting on letting blood [12~*~ 23] #1. Is prevented by taking before it some good broth. [12-*-23]
Or by lying on the bed, during the operation. [20-^23]
101. The Falling sickness1 [CR, 1^23] #1. Be electrified. [8-*~23] Tried.
Or use the cold bath for a month daily. [1^23] #3. Or take a teaspoonful of peony root, dried and grated fine,
morning and evening for three months. [l-*-23] #4. Or [take] half a spoonful of valerian root, powdered. It often cures in twice taking.'22 [12-^23] #5. Or [take] half a pint of tar-water, morning and evening, for
three months.323 [CR#97, 1^23] r In the falling sickness the patient falls to the ground, either quite stiff or convulsed all over, utterly senseless, gnashing his teeth, and foaming at the mouth. [5^23]
322 Short, Medicina Britannica, 294 (in footnote).
323 Berkeley, Philosophical Reflections, 5. For specific mention of epilepsy (i.e., falling sickness) see Berkeley, A Letter to Prior, 13-14.
Medical and Health Writings #6. Or [take] a glass of juice of pellitory of the wall every morning. [20-^23] Tried. [20-^22] #7. Or take five or six drops of laudanum, fasting, for six or seven mornings. [8-*-23] This has cured many.
Or use an entire milk diet for three months.324 [CR#92,
It seldom fails. [8-*~23] #9. In the fit, blow up the nose a little powdered ginger. [1-^23]
Or [blow up the nose] leaves of asarabacca, powdered.
N.B. This is the famous 'Major's snuff'. [8-^23] #11. One who is subject to the falling sickness may prevent a fit, if
he feels it coming, by this simple experiment. Let him always carry with him a piece of metal as broad as he is able to hold between his teeth when his jaws are stretched to the utmost.
When he feels the fit approaching let him immediately put this between his teeth, so as to keep his jaws at their utmost stretch. In about a minute this will bring him quite to himself, and prevent the fit for that time. If one [should] put this metal between the teeth of one that is in the fit, and force them open till his jaws are at the utmost stretch, the fit will immediately go off and the patient very soon recover.325 [12-^23] * [Works]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #12. Or take a teaspoonful of germander, gathered in May, dried in the shade, and powdered, for nine days, morning and evening. [1^4] #13. Or [take a spoonful] of juice of cinquefoil.326 [l-*~4]
Or infuse an ounce of mustard seed in a quart of white w ine,
twenty-four hours, and take a glass morning and evening.327
[1-4] #15. To prevent a relapse, take a pill or two of powdered toad (see
Art. 43 328) before and after every new moon.329 [1-^4] #16. Or take the quantity of a nutmeg of conserve of w hite peony root daily, for three months. [1-^8] 324 Allen, Synopsis, 1:169-70.
325 Lobb, Good Samaritan, 32. In a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/ CB45/24) JW added by hand another sentence: 'A crownpiece [i.e., a piece of leather from a bridle] might do; but iron or steel would do better.' This sentence does not appear in any print edition.
326 Short, Medicina Britannica, 59.
327 Short, Medicina Britannica, 196.
328I.e., §10, receipt #14.
329 Dover, Ancient Physician's Legacy, 34.
Primitive Physic 179
Or [take] half a pint of decoction of lignum guaiacum, morning and evening. [CR#91, 1 — 16] I[nfallible]. [5—16]
Or take a spoonful of juice of rue, morning and evening, for a month. [1—16, not Works] #19. Or take half a dram of powdered mistletoe every six hours,
drinking after it a strong infusion of mistletoe.330 1[nfallible].
[5-17] #20. Or drink a draught of vinegar and water every morning, and a spoonful of vinegar before the fit. [12—16]
102. The Falling of the fundament [l-*~23] #1. Apply a cloth covered thick with brick-dust. [1—23] * [Works]
Or boil a handful of red rose leaves in a quarter of a pint of
red wine, dip a cloth in it and apply it, as hot as can be borne.
Do this till all is used. [1—23] * [Works] [additional receipt in previous editions]
Or boil eight beetles in oil of mastic and anoint the part,
and sprinkle thereon powdered eggshells. [12—16, not Works]
103. A Falling down of the womb [1^23] #1. May be cured in the manner last mentioned [§102, receipt
[1-23] #2. Or wear a pessary of cork, and take once or twice a day a tea
cupful of the decoction of the bark, with ten drops of elixir of vitriol. [20—23]
104. Extreme Fat [2CF*~23] #1. Use a total vegetable diet. I know one who was entirely cured of this by living a year thus. She breakfasted and supped on milk and water (with bread), and dined on turnips, carrots, or other roots, drinking water. [20—23]
330 Cf. Digby, Choice Receipts, 61.
180 Medical and Health Writings
105. A Fever [CR, F*~23] (In the beginning of any fever, if the stomach is uneasy, vomit; if the bowels, purge; if the pulse be hard, full, or strong, bleed.)
[17-^23]
Drink a pint or two of cold water lying down in bed.331
I never knew it do hurt. [5~^23] #2. Or [drink] a large glass of tar-water warm, every hour.332
Or [drink] thin water gruel sweetened with honey, with one or
two drams of nitre in each quart. [20-^23] #4. N.B. The best of all juleps in a fever is this: Toast a large thin slice of bread, without burning. Put it hot into a pint of cold water. Then set it on the fire till it is pretty hot. In a dry heat it may be given cold; in a moist heat, warm. The more largely the better.333 [1-^23] Tried. [9~*~23] #5. Or, for a change, use pippin or wood-sorrel tea, or pippinIS whey or wood-sorrel-whey. [21-^23] #6. To prevent catching any infectious fever, do not breathe near
the face of the sick person, never swallow your spittle w hile in the room. [5^23] Infection seizes the stomach first. [9-^23]
Or stamp a handful of leaves of woodbine,334 put fair w ater to it, and use it cold as a clyster. It often cures in an hour.335
Or smear the wrists, five or six inches long, with warm treacle
and cover it with brown paper. [l->~23337] #9. Or apply treacle plasters to the head and soles of the feet, changing them every twelve hours.
Or use Doctor Boerhaave's fever-powder—viz., eight ounces
of nitre, a quarter of an ounce of camphor, half a quarter of an ounce of saffron, and eight grains of cochineal. These are to be powdered, mixed together, and kept dry in a bottle. Ten grains taken on going to bed abate feverish heat, and procure
331 Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 27.
332Berkeley, Philosophical Reflections, 4, 55.
333 Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 48-49.
334 1-M4 have 'caprifolium' (as in Digby) instead of'woodbine'.
333 Digby, Choice Receipts, 11-12.
336This receipt appeared under 'A Burning Fever' in 1-*T6.
337This receipt appeared under 'A Burning Fever' in 1-»~16.
338This receipt appeared under 'An Acute Fever' in 15-»~ 16.
Primitive Physic 181
rest. Ten grains are to be taken every three or four hours for a continued fever. [20—23] #11. See Dr. Tissot.339 [14—23] [additional receipts in previous editions34°]
Or [drink] sorrel tea. [1—4] #13. Or [drink a decoction of] plantain. [1—4]
Drink nothing but stale buttermilk.341 [1—4] #15. Or [drink a] decoction of violet leaves.342 [1 — 16, not Works]
Or [drink a] decoction of strawberry leaves. [1 — 17] #17. If not very violent, take a dram of sal-prunella every four
hours in warm water, till it abates. [1 —17343] #18. Drink only thin water gruel, or boiled milk and water. The more you drink the better. [1—17]344 #19. Put an ounce of rice in a pint of water. Set it near the fire till
it is scalding hot. Then pour it off clear [and use as a julep].
[9-16] 106. A high Fever [l ~*~23]
Attended with a delirium and a vigilia, has been cured by plunging into cold water, which is a safe and sure remedy in the beginning of any fever.345 [1—23] #2. Such a delirium is often cured by applying to the top of the
head a treacle plaster. Tried.346 [14—23] * [Works] [additional receipt in previous editions]
Such a delirium is often cured by applying warm lamb's-lung to the head.34/ [12—16, not Works] 339This was first inserted in the section 'A Burning Fever', so the specific reference is to Advices, Chap. XV (see below in this vol.).
340 In a copy of the 13th edn. (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24) JW added by hand another receipt: 'Or, [drink a decoction] of powdered saltpetre in a little sage tea.'
This receipt did not appear in any print edition.
341 Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 156. This receipt appeared under 'A Hectic
Fever' in l-*-4.
342 Short, Medicina Britannica, 298.
343This receipt appeared under 'A Continual Fever' in 1^16.
344This receipt appeared under 'A Strong Hectic' in l-*~4; 'A Hectic Fever' in 5-—17. Hawes (Examination, 45-46) warned that it might do 'irreparable damage'.
345 Willis, London Practice of Physick, 459-60.
346 Works omits 'Tried'; but adds 'This has all, and more than all, the effect of a blister'.
347 Hawes (Examination, 51) dismissed this remedy.
182 Medical and Health Writings
107. An intermitting Fever [CR, l-*~23] #1. Drink warm lemonade in the beginning of every fit. It cures in a few days. [CR#100, U*~23] Tried.
Or take a teaspoonful of oil of sulphur in a cup of balm tea, once or twice a day. [2^23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #3. Take the [cobweb] pills, as in Art. 9.348 [1-M-]
Or [take] half a dram of powdered cochineal, an hour before each fit. [14~M6] #5. Or [drink] a quarter of a pint of burdock tea, using either the
leaf or root. [14-^16] #6. Or [take] six grains of powdered snake-root, every hour, during the intermission. [14-^17]
108. A Fever with pains in the limbs [l-*~23] #1. Take twenty drops of spirits of hartshorn in a cup of water,
twice or thrice in twenty-four hours. [1-^23] #2. Or drink largely of cinquefoil tea. [15-*~23]
[additional receipt in previous editions] #3. Or [take twenty drops of spirit of hartshorn] in strong camo
mile tea, lying down in bed.349 [2^16, not Works] 109. A rash Fever [l-*~23]
Drink every hour a spoonful of juice of ground-ivy. It cures in twenty-four hours. Use the decoction when vou have not the juice.350 [1-^23] * [Works]
110. A slow Fever [1 -*~23] #1. Use the cold bath for two or three weeks, daily.351 [l-*~23]
348 1.e., §2, receipt #8.
349 Hawes (Examination, 51) dismissed this remedy.
350 Short, Medicina Britannica, 127.
351Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 473-74.
Primitive Physic 111. A worm Fever [20~*^23] #1. Boil a handful of rue and wormwood in water. Foment the belly with the decoction, and apply the boiled herbs as a poultice. Repeat the application night and morning. This frequently brings away worms from children, who will take no internal medicine; and is likewise serviceable if the fever be of the putrid kind. [20-^23]
112. A Fistula [1~^23]
Wash mussel-shells clean, burn them to powder, sift them fine.
Mix them with hog's lard. Spread it on clean wash-leather and apply it. This cured one that was thought to be at the point of death. N.B. This cures the piles.
Grind an ounce of mercury sublimate in a glass mortar, with
a glass pestle, as fine as possible. Put it into a glass bottle and pour on it two quarts of pure spring-water. Cork it close, and for six days shake it well every hour. Then let it settle for twenty-four hours. Pour it off clear. Filter it in a glass funnel, and keep it for use close stopped. Put a spoonful of this water in a vial and add two spoonfuls of pure spring-water. Shake them well together and drink it fasting. It works both by vomit and by stool, but very safely. Keep yourself very warm, and walk as much as you can. The first time neither eat nor drink till two hours after it has done working. Take this every other day. In forty days this will also cure any cancer, any old sore, or king's evil, broken or unbroken. After the first or second vomit you may use water gruel, as in other vomits. [1-^23]
N.B. Very weak persons should not use this. [5-*~23] But I have known it used safely and successfully. [14^23]
Or have a vessel so contrived that you may sit with the part in
cold water, a quarter of an hour every morning. I have known a gentleman of seventy cured thereby.
Or put a large stone of unslacked lime into four quarts of water, let it stand one night. Take four ounces of rock alum and four ounces of white copperas, calcine them to dryness, then powder them as fine as possible. Take three pints of the above water and put the powder into it, and boil it for half an hour, then
184 Medical and Health Writings
let it cool and bottle it for use. Let the fistula be syringed with this often, a little warm; and make a tent to fit the place, dip it in the water, and apply it twice a day. Cover it with a plaster of diachylon. This water will destroy the callosity of the edges of the fistula, which otherwise would prevent its healing, and if managed as above, will heal it up at the same time.
113. To destroy Fleas and bugs [14~*~23]
Cover the floor of the room with the leaves of alder, gathered while the dew hangs upon them. Adhering to these they are killed thereby.352 [14^23] #2. Or powder stavesacre and sprinkle it on the body, or on the bed.353 [14^23]
114. Flegrn [i.e., phlegm] [9^23] #1. To prevent or cure, take a spoonful of warm water the first
thing in the morning. [9-^23] 115. Flooding (in lying-in)354 [10~*~23] #1. Cover the body with cloths, dipped in vinegar and water,
changing them as they grow warm. Drink cooling, acid liquors. [10-^23] This is a complaint which is never to be thought little of.
Sometimes a violent flooding comes on before delivery and the only way to save both the mother and child is to deliver the woman immediately; which being done, the flooding will generally cease. Sometimes a slight flooding comes on some weeks before labour; and here, if the patient be kept cool, her diet light, and small doses of nitre often repeated (an ounce divided into thirty parts, and one given every four hours), she will frequently go her full time and do well. But if it should become excessive, delivery should be affected as soon as may be.
352 Short, Medicina Britannica, 3.
353 Lobb, Good Samaritan, 35.
354That is, to suffer a uterine haemorrhage during pregnancy.
Primitive Physic
If a flooding should come on after delivery, the patient should be laid with her head low, kept cool, and be in all respects treated as for an excessive flux of the menses. Linen cloths which have been wrung out of vinegar and water should be applied to the belly, the loins, and the thighs. These must be changed as they grow dry, and may be discontinued as soon as the flooding abates. Sometimes the following mixture will do great things—viz., pennyroyal water, simple cinnamon water, and syrup of poppies, of each two ounces; acid elixir of vitriol, one dram. Mix and take two tablespoonfuls every hour. But large doses of nitre given often (a scruple every hour) is generally the most efficacious. But when all other things seem to have no effect, cold water dashed upon the patient's belly will stop the flooding immediately.355 [20^23]
[additional receipt in previous editions] #2. Or take four ounces of juice of nettles, morning and evening, for two days. Apply meantime a sponge dipped in vinegar and red wine.
116. A Flux [CR, 1+23] #1. Receive the smoke of turpentine cast on burning coals. This cures also the bloody flux, and the falling of the fundament.
Or put a large brown toast into three quarts of water, with a dram of cochineal, powdered, and a dram of salt of wormwood. Drink it all in as short a time as you conveniently can.
Tried.
N.B. This rarely fails to cure all fluxes, cholera morbus, yea and inflammation of the bowels. [15-*~23] #3. Or take a spoonful of plantain seed bruised, morning and
evening, till it stops.356 [1-^23] #4. Or ten grains of ipecacuanha, three mornings successively.
It is likewise excellent as a sudorific. [9^23] #5. Or boil four ounces of rasped logwood, or fresh logwood chips, in three quarts of water, [down] to two. Strain it and
355 Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 662.
356Digby, Choice Receipts, 18.
Medical and Health Writings drink a quarter of a pint, sweetened with loaf-sugar, warm, twice a day. It both binds and heals. Or take a small teacupful of it every hour. [20^23] #6. Or boil the fat of a breast of mutton in a quart of water for an hour. Drink the broth as soon as you can conveniently. This will cure the most inveterate flux. Tried.
See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 124.357 [20-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #8. Or wear wild tansy in the shoes next the skin.358 [1~*~4]
#9. Or [take] the leaves of it [plantain] boiled in small broth.3"9
not Works] #10. Or [take] three or four ounces of its [plantain] juice.360
not Works] #11. Or [take] a dram of the seed of flax-weed in two or three
spoonfuls of broth.3611[nfallible]. [CR#111, 1-^17] #12. Or drink two or three quarts of warm water. [1~M7]
Use the cold bath daily, and drink a draught of water from the spring.362 [2-M6] #14. Or sit over camomile-flowers boiled in milk.
#15. Or [take] a dram of cork, powdered.363 [12-M3]
117. A bloody Flux [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Apply a suppository of linen dipped in aqua vitae.
Or drink cold water as largely as possible, taking nothing else
till the flux stops. [1~*~23] #3. Or take a large apple and at the top pick out all the core and fill up the place with a piece of honeycomb (the honey being strained out). Roast the apple in embers and eat it, and this will stop the flux immediately. [l-*-23]
Or [take] grated rhubarb, as much as lies on a shilling, with
half as much grated nutmeg, in a glass of white wine, lying down, every other night. [1^23] Tried. [9^23]
35' I.e., Advices, Chap. XXIII (see below).
358 Short, Medicina Britannica, 266.
359 Short, Medicina Britannica, 229 (in footnote).
360 Short, Medicina Britannica, 229 (in footnote).
361 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 3:25.
362 Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 459. Hawes (Examination, 53) contended that this would tend to cause contractions and increase the flux. JW apparently accepted the argument.
363 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #678, p. 444.
Primitive Physic #5. Or take four drops of laudanum, and apply to the belly a poultice of wormwood and red roses boiled in milk.364 [12-M3]
In a dysentery, the worst of all fluxes, feed on rice, salep, sago, and sometimes beef-tea; but no flesh. [20-M3]
To stop it, take a spoonful of suet melted over a slow fire. Do
not let blood. [20-M3] #8. N.B. A person was cured in one day by feeding on rice-milk, and sitting a quarter of an hour in a shallow tub, having it in warm water three inches deep. [15-M3] #9. See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 125.365 [20-M3]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #10. Or [drink] a pint of whey made with a lump of rock alum as hot as you can bear it. [1-M] #11. Or [take] a spoonful of juice of water dock, morning and
evening. [1-M] #12. Or [take] a small nutmeg, powdered, in the yoke of an egg.
Or [drink] decoction of primrose leaves morning and evening.366 [I'M 6] #14. Or [take] thirty grains of powdered root of gladwin367 at
night, twice or thrice a week. It is just as good as rhubarb in most cases.368 [I'M7] #15. Or [drink a decoction] of millet seed. [10M6]
Or take two grains of laudanum in conserve of roses, lying
down. If need be, repeat it. Afterwards take a little rhubarb.369
[12-M3] #17. Or [drink] a pint of decoction of burnet, with a lump of butter in it, morning and evening. It usually cures in three days.370 [12M7] #18. Or [take] a dram of salt of vitriol dissolved in water. [12M7,
not Works] #19. Or take an ounce of plantain seed, boil it in a quart of springwater, [down] to a pint and a half. Strain and sweeten it with loaf-sugar. Take a quarter of a pint warm, night and morning, if need be for seven or eight days. [Works]
364 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #678, p. 444.
365 1.e., Advices, Chap. XXIV (see below).
366 Short, Medicina Britannica, 235.
367 1.e., gladdon, a popular name for the iris.
368 Hawes (Examination, 54) rejects the claim that the iris is as effective as rhubarb.
369 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #184, p. 96.
370 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #284, p. 241.
188 Medical and Health Writings
118. To prevent (or stop a beginning) Gangrene [12^23] #1. Foment continually with vinegar in which dross of iron (either sparks or clinkers) has been boiled.3'1 [12-^23]
119. The Gout in the stomach [1^23]
'Dissolve two drams ofVenice treacle in a glass of mountain [wine]. After drinking it, go to bed. You will be easier in two hours, and well in sixteen.' Dr. Dover.372 [1^23]
Or boil a pugils of tansy in a quarter of a pint of mountain
[wine]. Drink it in bed. [2^23] I believe this never fails.
Tried. [9-^13] * [20-^23] #3. To prevent its return, dissolve half an ounce of gum guaiacum in two ounces of sal volatile. Take a teaspoonful of this every morning in a glass of spring-water. N.B. This helps any sharp pain in the stomach. Dr. Boerhaave.
knew a gentleman who was cured many times by a large
draught of cold water. [20-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #5. Or take two spoonfuls of juice of wormwood. [9~M6, not Works] #6.1 have known the gout driven from the stomach into the feet in half a minute (and that over and over) by drinking a large draught of cold water.373 [Works]
120. The Gout in the foot or hand [1~*~ 23]
Apply a raw, lean beefsteak. Change it once in twelve hours, till cured.374 [1^23] Tried. [17-^23] SA pugil is as much as you can take up between your thumb and two forefingers.
371 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #641, p. 430.
3/2 Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 16.
373 Hancocke, Fehrifugum Magnum, 64-65.
3/4Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 16. Hawes (Examination, 55-56) excerpted the ridicule of this receipt in Augustus Montague Toplady, Fhe Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted (London: Vallance & Simmons, 1775), vi-viii.
Primitive Physic
[iadditional receipt in previous editions] #2. Keep them an hour in cold water, changed as it grows warm.375 [l-*~4] 121. The Gout in any limb1 [CR, 1~*~23]
Rub the part with warm treacle, and then bind on a flannel smeared therewith. Repeat, if need be, once in twelve hours.
This has cured an inveterate gout [2~*-23] in thirty-six hours.
Or drink a pint of a strong infusion of elder-buds, dry or green,
morning and evening. This has cured inveterate gouts. [14~*~23] #3. Or at six in the evening, undress, and wrap yourself up in blankets. Then put your legs up to the knees in water, as hot as you can bear it. As it cools let hot water be poured in, so as to keep you in a strong sweat till ten. Then go into a bed well warmed, and sweat till morning. [CR#116, 1-^23] I have known this cure an inveterate gout [5-^23] in a person above sixty, who lived eleven years after.
The very matter of the gout is frequently3 6 destroyed by a
steady use of Mynsicht's elixir of vitriol.3" [10^23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
#5. Or take thirty drops of spirit of hartshorn, thrice a day, in a
draught of buckbean378 tea. Keep warm after it. [CR#114, 1-M] #6. Or 'take a handful of snails. Pick them out of the shells. Stamp them in a mortar with salt, soap, and sweet oil. Apply this as a plaster, and in three days it will destroy the gout.' [I'M]
#7. Or dry sage in the sun for a day. Apply this, and in one night it
will ease the pain. [1~M6] 'Regard not them who say the gout ought not to be cured. They mean, it cannot.
I know it cannot by their regular prescriptions. [5^23] But I have known it cured in many cases, without any ill effect following. [9-*-23] I have cured myself several times. [20-*T3] 375This receipt appears in a section titled 'Swelled feet' found only in 1-M.
376 1 0-M6 have 'surely' instead of'frequently'.
377 Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 14.
3780rig., 'bugbane' but this is not used to cure gout. Another name for buckbean is bogbean.
190 Medical and Health Writings
Or mix in warm water half a spoonful of salt, three spoonfuls of yeast, with rye-meal, and spread it on flannel. Sew this to the soles of the feet. Renew this (keeping your bed) every twelve hours. It generally cures in three days. [12-*T7, not Works] #9. Or apply bruised nettles. [14^16]
122. The Gravel [CR, 1~*~23]
Eat largely of spinach. [5-^23] #2. Or drink largely of warm water sweetened with honey.
[CR#120, M3]
#3. Or [drink largely] of pellitory of the wall tea, so sweetened.
Or infuse an ounce of wild parsley seeds in a pint of white
wine for twelve days. Drink a glass of it fasting three months.379 [1-^23] #5. To prevent its return, breakfast for three months on agrimony tea. It entirely cured me twenty380 years ago, nor have I had the least symptoms of it since.
[additional receipts in previous editions] #6. Or [drink largely] of peach-leaf tea.381 [1->T7]
#7. Or [drink largely] of decoction of the unspotted arsesmart.
I[nfallible]. [12-M7, not Works] #8. Take as much as lies upon a shilling of broom seed finely ground, morning and evening.382 [14~M6, not Works]
123. The Green sickness [2^23] #1. Take an ounce of quicksilver every morning.383 [2-^23]
Or [take] a cup of decoction of lignum guaiacum (commonly called lignum vitae) morning and evening. [2-^23]
Or grind together into a fine powder three ounces of the finest
3791^9 have 'mornings' instead of'months'.
380 When first inserted in 1761, JW dated 'twelve years ago'; it was changed to 'twenty years ago' in 1770. So JW's bout with gravel was about 1750.
381 Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 42.
382 Lobb, Good Samaritan, 22.
383 Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 58-60.
Primitive Physic steel-filings, and two ounces of red sugar candy. Take from a scruple to half a dram every morning.384 Ijnfallible]. [9^23]
See Dr. Tissot.385 [14-^23] 124. To kill animalcula that cause the Gums
to waste away from the teeth [2^23] #1. Gargle thrice a day with salt and water. [2-^23]
125. To make Hair grow [2(T*~23] #1. Wash it every night with a strong decoction of rosemary. Dry it with flannel. Tried. [2(D~23]
126. The Headache [CR, T*~23] #1. Rub the head a quarter of an hour. [CR#122, 1 ->~23] Tried.
Or be electrified. [8-^23] Tried. [9-^23, not Works] #3. Or apply to each temple the thin yellow rind of a lemon, newly
pared off. [2-^23] #4. Or pour upon the palm of the hand a little brandy, with some
zestu of lemon, and hold it to the forehead. [2-^23] #5. Or [hold to the forehead] a little aether. [20-^23]
Or, if you have catched cold, boil a handful of rosemary in a quart of water. Put this in a mug and hold your head (covered with a napkin) over the steam, as hot as you can bear.
Repeat this till the pain ceases.386 [CR#123, 1-^23] Tried.
Or snuff up the nose camphorated spirits of lavender. [5-^23] #8. Or [snuff up the nose] a little juice of horse-radish. [CR#127,
"Zest is the juice of the peel squeezed out. [20-*~23] 38+Banyer, Pharmacopoia Pauperum, 12.
385 1.e., Advices, Chap. XXV (see below).
386 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 3:22.
Medical and Health Writings [additional receipts in previous editions] #9. Or apply rose leaves mixed with the white of an egg to the forehead.187 [l-*~4] #10. Or put a leaf of wood betony up each nostril. [I'M-]
Or [snuff up the nose] juice of primrose root.388 [I'M] #12. Or [snuff up the nose] juice of ground-ivy.389 [CR#125,
1-M7] Infallible]. [5-^9] #13. Or drop juice of pimpernel into the ear.390 [1-M6, not Works]
Or drink half a pint of strong decoction of ground-ivy, morning and evening.391 [2-^16]
127. A chronical Headache [1^23] #1. Keep your feet in warm water a quarter of an hour before you
go to bed, for two or three weeks. [1~*~23] Tried. [9^23] #2. Or wear tender hemlock leaves under the feet, changing them daily.392 [CR#124, 1^23] #3. Or order a teakettle of cold water to be poured on your head every morning in a slender stream. [5^23]
Or take a large teacup full of carduus tea, without sugar, fast
ing, for six or seven mornings. [1^23393] Tried. [9-*~23] [additional receipts in previous editions\
Or wash the head with decoction of quick-grass.394 [1^4] #6. Or take an ounce of the juice of primrose leaves and roots,
with as much milk, every morning.395 [l-*~4] #7. Or boil wood betony in new milk, and strain it. Breakfast on this for five or six weeks.396 1[nfallible].
Or apply to the head bruised cummin seed, fried with an
egg.398 [1-M6, not Works399] 38/Lemery, New Curiosities, 14.
388 Short, Medicina Britannica, 235.
389Allen, Synopsis, 1:135.
390 Lemery, New Curiosities, 14.
391 Digby, Choice Receipts, 87.
392 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 3:11.
393This receipt appeared under 'Periodical Headache' in 1-M.
394 Short, Medicina Britannica, 77.
395 Short, Medicina Britannica, 235.
396 Short, Medicina Britannica, 25.
397This receipt appeared under 'An Inveterate Headache' in 1-M.
398 Short, Medicina Britannica, 71.
399This receipt appeared under 'An Inveterate Headache' in l-*-4.
Primitive Physic 128. Headache from heat [l-*~ 23] #1. Apply to the forehead cloths dipped in cold water, for an hour.
Tried. [9-^23] [jadditional receipts in previous editions] #2. Or beat white poppy seed to powder, mix this with yolks of
eggs, and apply it to the temples and forehead. [1-M7] #3. Or dry and powder primrose leaves. Take a pinch of this twice or thrice a day. [14-M6]
129. A nervous Headache [CR, 1^23] #1. Dry and powder an ounce of marjoram and half an ounce of asarabacca, mix them and take them as snuff, keeping the ears and throat warm. [CR#128, 1^23] This is of great use even in a cancer. [8-^23] But it will suffice to take a small pinch every other night, lying down in bed. [14-^23]
[iadditional receipt in previous editions] #2. Or take half a dram of powdered marum,' morning and eve
ning, in any liquid. [8-*~16, not Works] 130. A violent Headache [2CH~23]
Take of white wine vinegar and water, each three spoonfuls; with half spoonful of Hungary w ater. Apply this twice a day to the eyelids and temples. [20-^23]
131. Hemicraniaw [CR, 1^23] #1. Use cold bathing. [1-^23] #2. Or apply to that part of the head, shaved, a plaster that will
stick, with a hole cut in the middle of it as big as an halfpenny. Place over that hole leaves of ranunculus, bruised and very moist. It is a gentle blister.400 [CR#129, 1-^23] vSome call it mastic. [15-*-16] "That is, an headache which affects but one side of the head.
400 Allen, Synopsis, 1:134.
Medical and Health Writings [additional receipt in previous editions] #3. Or snuff up smoke of amber for half an hour. [12-^16]
132. Stoppage in the Head [1~*~23] #1. Snuff up juice of primrose, keeping the head warm.401 [1-^23]
133. The Heart-burning' [l-*~23] #1. Drink a pint of cold water.402 [1^23] dried.
Or drink slowly of decoction of camomile flowers. [5^23] #3. Or chew five or six peppercorns a little, then swallow them.
[1-23] #4. Or eat four or five oysters. [17~*~23] #5. Or chew fennel or parsley and swallow your spittle. [15-^23]
Or [chew] a piece of Spanish liquorice.403 [20^23] #7. Sometimes a vomit is needful.
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #8. In the fit, take a scruple of salt of wormwood in a spoonful of
lemon juice. [12-^17] #9. Or [take] a teaspoonful of crab's eyes, ground to an impalpable powder.404 [12-^16] #10. Or take six almonds and twelve raw peas, and eat them together. [1-M4]
134. The Hiccup [CR, T^23]
To Prevent [123] #1. Infuse a scruple of musk in a quart of mountain wine, and take a small glass every morning. [17-^23] XA sharp gnawing pain at the orifice of the stomach. [5-*-23]
401 Short, Medicina Britannic a, 235.
41)21 Iancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 56.
401JW added this receipt by hand in a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24), but it did not appear in print copies until the 20th.
404 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:18.
Primitive Physic
To Cure #1. Swallow a mouthful of water, stopping the mouth and ears.
Tried. [9^23] #2. Or take anything that makes you sneeze.
Or [take] two or three preserved damsons.405 [CR#132, l->-23] #4. Or [take] three drops of oil of cinnamon on a lump of sugar.406
Tried. [9-^23] #5. Or [take] ten drops of chemical oil of amber, dropped on sugar and then mixed with a little water.
[iadditional receipt in previous editions] #6. Or [take] a little candied ginger. [CR#133, 1-M7]
135. Hoarseness [CR, 1^23]
1. Rub the soles of the feet before the fire, with garlic and lard well beaten together, overnight. The hoarseness will be gone the next day. [1-^23] Tried.
Or take a pint of cold water lying down. [l->~23] #3. Or swallow slowly the juice of radishes.
Or [take] half a pint of mustard-whey, lying down. [12~*~23] #5. Or [take] a teaspoonful of conserve of roses every night. Tried.
[iWorks] #6. Or dry nettle-roots in an oven, then powder them finely and
mix with an equal quantity of treacle. Take a teaspoonful of this twice a day. [12-^23] * [Works] #7. Or boil a large handful of wheat-bran in a quart of water, strain, and sweeten it with honey. Sup of it frequently.
[20^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #8. Or instead of supper, eat an apple and drink half a pint of water. [1-M6] #9. Or take a spoonful of sage juice, morning and evening.+(l/
[1-16] #10. Or [take] fifteen drops of balsam of sulphur on a lump of sugar. [10*^17, not Works] 4135 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 3:11. A damson is a type of plum.
44)6 Lobb, Good Samaritan, 25.
407 Cf. Short, Medicina Britannica, 252-53.
Medical and Health Writings #11. Or boil a large handful of bran and a few raisins in a quart of water. Strain and sweeten it with sugar-candy, and use it for common drink. [12-*~16] 136. Hypochondriac and Hysteric disorders [l-*~23]
Use cold bathing.40* [\-*~23] #2. Or take an ounce of quicksilver every morning; and ten drops of elixir of vitriol in the afternoon, in a glass of cold water.409
[1^23]
[137.410] The Iliacpassiori [1~*~23] #1. Apply warm flannels soaked in spirits of wine.411 [5-^23]
Or hold a live puppy constantly on the belly.412 [5-^23] Dr.
Sydenham. [5-^23] #3. Or immerse up to the breast in a warm bath.413 [5-^23] #4. Or take, ounce by ounce, a pound or a pound and a half of quicksilver.414 [l-*~23] #5. Inflammations in general are more certainly abated by smart
purging than by bleeding.41'' [20-^23] #6. See Dr. Tissot, page 120.416 [14-*~23]
[additional receipt in previous editions] #7. Or take a decoction of the seed of dill in oil and water, and
then a bit of bread dipped in water.41' [1-M6] y In this violent kind of colic the excrements are thrown up by the mouth in vomiting. [5-*-23] 408 FI over, Psychrolousia, 19-20; and Baynard in same, 210-11.
409Cf. Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 54—55.
410 In medieval English script, like Latin, the T was used as both vowel and consonant. Eventually this double usage was divided by the introduction of 'J' for the consonant. But in the eighteenth century it was still common to treat T and 'J' as identical letters when alphabetizing. Wesley ordered his receipts in this way, placing Jaundice before Iliac passion, Imposthume, and Itch. We have reorganized to modern alphabetizing for the benefit of readers of this edition.
4.1 Mead, Medical Precepts, 128.
4.2 Mead, Medical Precepts, 128-29; JW clearly draws from Mead, who cites Sydenham.
413 Mead, Medical Precepts, 129.
4,4Dover, Ancient Physician's Legacy, 113, 116.
4l5Mead, Medical Precepts, 126-27.
4l6I.e., Advices, Chap. XXII.
417 Short, Medicina Britannica, 75.
Primitive Physic [138.J An Imposthume [1 23] #1. Put the white of two leeks in a wet cloth, and so roast them in ashes, but not too much. Stamp them in a mortar with a little hog's grease. Spread it thick plaster-wise and apply, changing it every hour, till all the matter be come out, which it will be in three times. I[nfallible].
[139.] The Itchf [CR, 1^23]
Wash the parts affected with strong rum. [2-^23] Tried. [9-^23] #2. Or anoint them with black soap.418 [CR#142, 2-^23] But wash it off soon. [21->~23] #3. Or steep a shirt half an hour in a quart of water mixed with half an ounce of powdered brimstone. Dry it slowly, and wear it five or six days.419 [CR#143, l-*~23] Sometimes it needs repeating. [5-^23] Tried.
Or mix powder of white hellebore with cream for three days.
Anoint the joints three mornings and evenings. [CR#144, 1-^23] It seldom fails. [5~*~23] #5. Or beat together the juice of two or three lemons with the
same quantity of oil of roses. Anoint the parts affected. It cures in two or three times using.
[iadditional receipts in previous editions420] #6. Wash the parts affected with smith's-forge-water. [1-M-]
Or [wash] with a strong decoction of chickweed morning and
evening.421 [1-M-] #8. Or anoint thrice with garlic root mixed with hog's lard.422 [1-+-4]
2This distemper is nothing but a kind of very small lice which burrow under the skin. Therefore inward medicines are absolutely needless. Is it possible any physician should be ignorant of this? [5->-23] [2-*-4 had the notation 'The itch is not a disorder in the blood, but animalcula in the skin']
418 Allen, Synopsis, 2:71.
4,9 Willis, London Practice of Physick, 226. This is repeated in Allen, Synopsis,
2:71; but JW specifically calls it 'Dr. Willis's cure' in a letter to Andrew Wilson,
July 8, 1774.
420 In a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24) JW added by hand another receipt: 'Or boil for a few minutes an ounce of stavesacre in a pint of water. Wash the parts with a sponge or wet cloth.' This receipt does not appear in any print edition.
421 Short, Medicina Britannica, 259 (in footnote).
422 Short, Medicina Britannica, 259 (in footnote).
Medical and Health Writings #9. Or beat dock roots in a mortar with sweet butter. Anoint with this. It cures in five or six times of using. [1—4]
Or [wash with strong decoction] of hyssop, four or five days.
[1-M 7] #11. Or mix an ounce of ginger, finely powdered, with a quarter
of a pound of fresh butter. Use it morning and evening. It cures in four or five days. [1 — 17] #12. Or [wash] with water in which quicksilver has been boiled.
[14-17] #13. Or [wash] with strong decoction of dock root for nine or ten
days.423 [1 — 16] #14. Or mix a little fine bay-salt, and as much flour of brimstone, with a little sweet oil. Rub it well in the palms of the hands, and dry it in. It commonly cures in three nights. [2—16].
[140.] The Jaundice [CR, T^23] #1. Wear leaves of celandine, upon and under the feet. [1—23]
Or take a small pill of Castile soap every morning for eight or
ten days. [5—23] Tried. [9—23] * [Works] #3. Or beat the white of an egg thin. Take it morning and evening in a glass of water.424 [12—23] I[nfallible]. [14—23] * [Works]
Or [take] half a pint of strong decoction of nettles. [1—23] #5. Or [take half a pint of strong decoction] of burdock leaves,
morning and evening. [20—23] #6. Or boil three ounces of burdock root in two quarts of water,
[down] to three pints. Drink a teacup of this every morning.
[1-23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #7. Wash the hands and feet with decoction of dock root, [for] 14 days, morning and evening. [1—4] #8. Or [take] half a pint of tar-water thrice a day.425 [CR#140,
1-4] #9. Or [take] two or three spoonfuls of the juice of quick-grass,
every morning.426 [1—4] #10. Or drink a quarter of a pint of decoction of dock root, morning and evening. [1—4] 42-' Short, Medicinu Britannica, 260 (in footnote).
424 Lobb, Good Samaritan, 31.
425 Cf. Berkeley, Letter to Prior, 13-14.
426 Short, Medicina Britannica, 77.
Primitive Physic 199
#11. Or [drink] half a pint of decoction of monk's rhubarb.427
Or [drink half a pint] of decoction of dandelion; the whole plant.428 [1-^4] #13. Or take as much as lies on a shilling of calcined eggshells, three
mornings fasting, and walk till you sweat. [CR#137, 1-M3] [141.] The Jaundice in children [CR, 1~*~23]
Take half an ounce of fine rhubarb, powdered. Mix with it thoroughly, by long beating, two handfuls of good wellcleaned currants. Of this give a teaspoonful every morning.429
142. The Kings evit [CR, 1-^23] #1. Take as much cream of tartar as lies on a sixpence, every morning and evening. [5~*~23] #2. Or drink for six weeks half a pint of a strong decoction of
devil's-bit.430 [CR#147, 1-^23] Tried. [9^23] #3. Or use the diet-drink as in the article 'Scorbutic sores'.4311 have known this cure one whose breast was as full of holes as an honeycomb. [2-^23] * [Works, 20-^23] #4. Or set a quart of honey by the fire to melt. When it is cold,
strew into it a pound and a half of quicklime beat very fine and sifted through a hair-sieve. Stir this about till it boil up of itself into a hard lump. Beat this when cold very fine, and sift it as before. Take of this as much as lies on a shilling, in a glass of water, every morning fasting, an hour before breakfast; at four in the afternoon; and at going to bed. [l-*-23]
Or make a leaf of dried burdock into a pint of tea. Take half
a pint twice a day, for four months. I have known this cure hundreds. [20-^23] aIt commonly appears first by the thickness of the lips, or a stubborn humour in the eyes; then come hard swellings, in the neck chiefly; then running sores.
427 Short, Medicina Britannica, 79.
428 Short, Medicina Britannica, 74.
429 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:36.
430Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:113.
4311.e., §198, receipt #1.
Medical and Health Writings #6. The best purge for the king's evil is tincture of jalap, which is made thus: Jalap in powder, two ounces; Geneva, or proof spirits, one pint. Let them infuse seven days. A teaspoonful or two is sufficient for a child ten years old, in a morning, fasting; and repeated once or twice a week, so as to keep the stomach and bowels clean, will frequently cure the king's evil. But all violent purges, when repeated too often, are pernicious. [20^23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #7. Or use a strong decoction of felon-wort as common drink, for
three months.432 [CR#148, 1-MJ #8. Or infuse a handful of mountain saxifrage in a quart of water twenty-four hours. Drink half a pint, morning and evening, for three months. It seldom fails. [1"MJ
Or beat garden snails with a little parsley to the consistence of
a plaster. Apply it to the sores, changing it every twenty-four hours.433 [1-MJ #10. Or [drink for six weeks half a pint of a strong decoction] of ground-ivy. [1~M6, not Works] #11. Or [drink for six weeks half a pint] of decoction of dead
nettles. [1~M6] #12. Or [drink for six weeks half a pint of a strong decoction] of coltsfoot. Meantime apply the herb, beaten up with powdered linseed and hog's lard, to the sores, renewing it twice a day.434 [1-M6] #13. Or use lime-water for common drink.435 [CR#149, 1-*~16,
not Works] #14. Or take two spoonfuls of the juice of water parsnips, with two spoonfuls of milk, every morning, fasting, for the six summer months. Two hours after, breakfast on water gruel with a little bread. N.B. This cures the scurvy in three months. [2-^16]
143. Lameness, from a fixed contraction of the parts [14~*~23]
Beat the yolk of a new-laid egg very thin and, by a spoonful at time, add and beat up with it three ounces of water. Rub this
432 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:155.
+33Digby, Choice Receipts, 103.
434 Short, Medicina Britannica, 65.
435 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:42.
Primitive Physic 201
gently into the parts for a few minutes, three or four times a day.436 [14-^23] 144. Legs inflamed437 [1^23] #1. Apply fuller's earth, spread on brown paper. [l-*~23] It seldom
Or [apply] bruised turnips. [15-^23] [iadditional receipts in previous editions]
Bathe them every morning in cold water, and take an easy
purge twice a week.438 [1-*~16] #4. Or take wormwood, southernwood, and rue; stamp them together and fry them in honey, till they grow dry. Then apply them as hot as you can bear.439 [CR#213, 1->~16]
Or rub them with warm juice of plantain.440 [1~M7] #6. Or [apply] boiled turnips mixed w ith mutton-suet.441 [5-*~16]
145. Legs sore and running [2^23]
Wash them in brandy and apply elder-leaves, changing them twice a day. This will dry up all the sores, though the leg were like an honeycomb. [2-^23] Proved. [2-^8] Tried.
Or poultice them with rotten apples. Tried. [10-^23] But take also three or four purges.442 [17-*~23]
146. Leprosy0 [CR, 1^23] #1. Use the cold bath.443 [1^23] b In this disease the skin in many parts is covered with rough, whitish, scaly pustules; and if these are rubbed off, with a kind of scaly scurf. [5^23]
436 Lobb, Good Samaritan, 31.
437 See also below '207. A Sore leg'.
438This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Swelled legs' in 1-M6. Hawes {Examination, 73) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
439This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Swelled legs' in I'M 6. Hawes (Examination, 73) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
440 Hawes (Examination, 59) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
441 Hawes (Examination, 59) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
442This addition was likely in response to Hawes's warning against too quickly stanching a chronic discharge (see Examination, 59-60).
443 Plover, Psychrolousia, 8-9. Cf. Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 91.
Medical and Health Writings #2. Or wash in the sea, often and long.444 [CR#150, l-*-23]
Or mix well an ounce of pomatum, a dram of powdered brimstone, and half an ounce of sal-prunella; and anoint the parts so long as there is need.441 [CR#152, l->-23]
Or add a pint of juice of houseleek, and half a pint of verjuice,
to a pint and half of posset-drink. Drink this in twenty-four hours. It often cures the quinsy and white swellings on the joints.446 [l-*-23] * [Works] #5. Or drink half a pint of celery-whey, morning and evening.
This cured in a most desperate case. [9-*-23] #6. Or drink for a month a decoction of burdock leaves, morning and evening. Tried. [12-*-23] [iadditional receipts in previous editions]
Or wash the parts with juice of calamint.447 [l-*-16] #8. Or drink for a month a decoction of elm bark, morning and
evening. [CR# 151, l-*-17] #9. Or apply nettles bruised in a mortar. [14-*-16]
147. Lethargy [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Snuff strong vinegar up the nose.
Or take half a pint of decoction of watercresses, morning and evening. [l-*-23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #3. Or [snuff up the nose] powder of white hellebore.448 [CR#154,
1-M6] #4. Or take half a pint of decoction of savory, morning and eve
ning. [1-M7] 148. Lice (to kill) [CR, 1^23]
Sprinkle Spanish snuff over the head. [l-*-23] 444 See Floyer, Psychrolousia, 158-59.
445Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 3:11.
Choice Receipts, 88. I'M 6 read 'It cures also the quinsy and all sorts of white swellings on the joints' (as in Digby).
447 Short, Medicina Britannica, 186.
448 Hawes (Examination, 60) warned that this remedy could be 'very dangerous'.
Primitive Physic 203
Or wash it with a decoction of amaranth. [CR#155, 1^23]449 149. For one seemingly killed with Lightning, or a damp, or suffocated [l-*~23] #1. Plunge him immediately into cold water. [1^23]
Or blow strongly with bellows down his throat. [1^23] This
may recover a person seemingly drowned. [2-*~23] It is still better if a strong man blows into his mouth. [14^23]
150. Lues venerea [5^23] #1. Take an ounce of quicksilver every morning, and a spoonful of aqua sulphurata in a glass of water at five in the afternoon.450 1 have known a person cured by this when supposed to be at the point of death, who had been infected by a foul nurse, before she was a year old. I insert this for the sake of such innocent sufferers.45' [5^23]
151. Lunacy [CR, 1^23] #1. Give a decoction of agrimony four times a day. [l->~23]
Or rub the head several times a day with vinegar in which ground-ivy leaves have been infused.452 [5^23]
Or take daily an ounce of distilled vinegar. [20~^23] #4. Or boil juice of ground-ivy with sweet oil and white wine,
[down] into an ointment. Shave the head. Anoint it therewith and chafe it in, warm, every other day, for three weeks.
Bruise also the leaves and bind them on the head, and give three spoonfuls of the juice warm every morning.453 [CR#157,
This generally cures melancholy.454 [5-^23] 449 In a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24) JW added by hand another receipt: 'Or [wash ititi with a decoction] of stavesacre (sold by the druggists).' This receipt did not appear in any print edition.
450 Dover, Ancient Physician's Legacy, 36 (though not specifically for Lues venerea).
451 This last sentence is set off with a pointing finger signifying N.B. in 15-*~23.
452 Mead, Medical Precepts, 94-95.
453 Kettilby, Collection, 177.
454This last sentence is set off with a pointing finger signifying N.B. in 15-*-23.
204 Medical and Health Writings
The juice [of ground-ivy] alone, taken twice a day, will cure.
Or electrify. Tried. [9-^23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Or [give a decoction, four times a day,] of pimpernel.4" [1~M-] #8. Or [give] juice of ground-ivy, three ounces, daily.
152. Raging Madnesf [1~*~23] #1. Apply to the head cloths dipped in cold water.
Or set the patient with his head under a great waterfall, as long as his strength will bear.456 [1-^23]
Or pour water on his head out of a teakettle. [5^23] #4. Or let him eat nothing but apples for a month.45, [1-^23]
Or [let him eat] nothing but bread and milk. Tried. [9^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #6. Keep on the head a cap filled with snow, for two or three
weeks.458 [1^4] #7. Or give juice and decoction of heartsease daily.4''9 [1-^4] 153. The bite of a Mad dog [CR, 1^23]
Plunge into cold water daily, for twenty days, and keep as long under it as possible.460 [CR#159, l-*-23] This has cured, even after the hydrophobia was begun.d [2^23]
Tt is a sure rule that all madmen are cowards, and may be conquered by binding only, without beating. Dr. Mead [Medical Precepts, 98]. [5-*~23] He also observes that blistering the head does more harm than good. Keep the head close shaved, and frequently wash it with vinegar [Mead, Medical Precepts, 94]. [20-*~23] d If this is really a nervous disorder, what winder if it should be cured by cold bathing? [5^23] Yet Dr. Nugent doubts if this ever cured anyone? [only in Works; see Nugent, Hydrophobia, 108-10] 453 Willis, London Practice of Physick, 485.
436 Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 447-48.
43' Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 444—45.
458 Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 444.
459 Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 446-47.
460 Cf. Allen, Synopsis, 1:198 (Allen recommends purging after immersing in cold water).
Primitive Physic #2. Or mix ashes of trefoil with hog's lard and anoint the part, as soon as possible. Repeat this twice or thrice, at six hours distance. This has cured many, and particularly a dog bit on the nose by a mad dog.461 [8-^23] #3. Or mix a pound of salt with a quart of water. Squeeze, bathe,
and wash the wound with this for an hour. Then bind some salt upon it for twelve hours.462 [14-^23] * [Works]
N.B. The author of this receipt was hit six times by mad dogs, and always cured himself by this means.
Or mix powdered liverwort, four drams; black pepper, two drams. Divide this into four parts, and take one in warm milk for four mornings, fasting.463 [5-^23] Dr. Mead affirms he never knew this to fail. [9-*~23] But it has sometimes failed.
Or take two or three spoonfuls of the juice of ribwort, morn
ing and evening, as soon as possible after the bite. Repeat this for two or three changes of the moon. It has not been known to fail. [9-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #6. Or apply, as soon as possible, juice of fig-tree made into an ointment with hog's grease.
Or apply juice of dragon's blood mixed with vinegar out
wardly, and drink of the same morning and evening, five or six days.464 [1-*~16, not Works] #8. Or [apply and drink juice] of liverwort. [2-^4]
Galen says none ever failed of a cure who took two spoonfuls of ashes of crawfish daily, for forty days.465 [5~M7]
Or, as soon as bitten, moisten a spoonful or two of salt with
water; but do not make it quite fluid. Rub some of it into the wound; and repeat this three or four times a day, for ten days; binding likewise part of it on the wound. [12*M7, not Works]
Spirit of salt, a little diluted with water, has the same effect,
if it be applied to the wound immediately and for several days. [12-M6, not Works] 461 This last sentence is set off with a pointing finger signifying N.B. in 15-*-23.
462 Lobb, Good Samaritan, 27.
463 Mead, Mechanical Account of Poisons, 164-66.
464Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 210.
465 Mead, Mechanical Account of Poisons, 159-60; he attributes to Galen.
Medical and Health Writings 154. The Measles* [1^23] N.B. Immediately consult an honest physician. [17^23]
Drink only thin water gruel, or milk and water, the more the
better; or toast and water. [l->~23] #2. If the cough be very troublesome, take frequently a spoonful of barley-water, sweetened with oil of sweet almonds newly drawn, mixed with syrup of maidenhair.
After the measles take three or four purges, and for some
weeks take care of catching cold. Use light diet, and drink barley-water instead of malt drink. [5-^23]
See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 82.466 [20^23]
155. Menses obstructed [1^23] #1. Be electrified. Tried. [9^23] #2. Take half a pint of strong decoction of pennyroyal every night, at going to bed.467 [1^23] #3. Or boil five large heads of hemp in a pint of water, [down] to
half. Strain it and drink it, going to bed, two or three nights.468
It seldom fails. [l-*~23] Tried. [9-^23] #4. Or take from eight to twelve grains of calomel, in a pill, for two or three nights, taking care not to catch cold. It vomits and purges. [2-*~23] Tried". [9*^23] #5. Or pour twelve ounces of rectified spirits of wine on four
ounces of roots of black hellebore, and let it stand in a warm place twenty-four hours. Pour it off, and take from thirty to forty drops, in any liquid, fasting. It is good likewise in the green sickness, in all hypochondriacal cases, and in obstinate madness.469 [9-^23] #6. Or burn a little sulphur of antimony on a chafing-dish of
coals, and receive the smoke by a funnel. In a few minutes it will take effect. [1-^23]
'This distemper is always preceded by a violent cough, often fourteen days before the red spots come out. [5-^23] 4461.e., Advices, Chap. XIV.
467 Short, Medicina Britannica, 97 (in footnote).
468 Short, Medicina Britannica, 137-38.
4MBanyer, Pharmacopoia Pauperum, 96.
Primitive Physic N.B. Let any of these medicines be used at the regular times, as near as can be judged. [5-*~23] #7. See Dr. Tissot.470 [14^23]
[(additional receipts in previous editions] #8. Or [take] a teaspoonful of columbine seeds, powdered, thrice a day.471 [1-M6, not Works] #9. Or [take] a spoonful of juice or syrup of brooklime, morning
and evening.472 [1^16, not Works] #10. Or [take] half a pint of rosemary decoction. [2-^4]
Or [take] three or four spoonfuls of nettle-juice every morning. A dram of the seed, powdered, has the same effect.
[14-M6]
156. Menses nimii473 [1^23] #1. Drink nothing but cold water, with a spoonful of fine flour
stirred in it. At the time, drink a glass of the coldest water you can get, and apply a thick cloth dipped in cold water. [1-^23]
Or put the feet into cold water. [l->~23] #3. Or apply a sponge dipped in red wine and vinegar. [2-^23]
Or bleed in the arm. Stop the orifice often with the finger, and
then let it bleed again. [2-^23] #5. Or boil four or five leaves of the red hollyhock4'4 in a pint of milk, with a small quantity of sugar. Drink this in the morning. If the person can afford it, she may add a teaspoonful of balm of Gilead. [5^23] This does not often fail. [8-^23]
Or reduce to a fine powder half an ounce of alum, with a
quarter of an ounce of dragon's blood.4'' In a violent case, take a quarter of a dram every half hour. It scarce ever fails to stop the flux before half an ounce is taken. This also cures the whites.
4701.e., Advices, Chap. XXV.
471 Short, Medicina Britannica, 97 (in footnote).
472 Short, Medicina Britannica, 97 (in footnote).
473 1.e., excessive flow in menstruation.
4740rig., 'holy oak'; a common variant at the time for hollyhock.
475 Cf. Banyer, Pharmacopoia Pauperum, 69.
Medical and Health Writings [additional receipts in previous editions] #7. Or drink daily a quarter pint of decoction of cinquefoil.476 [1-M-]
Or use daily decoction, syrup, or powder of horsetail, nettles, or plantain.477 [1-M6] #9. Or, after a small rhubarb purge, boil the peel of seven Seville or
anges in three pints of spring-water, [down] to a quart. Take ten spoonfuls, sweetened with white sugar, four times a day. [2-M7]
Or take, about six in the evening, five or six ounces of the juice of nettles, and apply below the navel a poultice of the same juice and wheat-flour. If need be, repeat both at midnight. [12-^16]
157. To resolve coagulated Milk478 [CR, 7^23]
Cover the woman with a tablecloth and hold a pan of hot water just under her breast. Then stroke it three or four minutes.
Do this twice a day, till it is cured.
158. To increase Milk [CR, 7^23] #1. Drink a pint of water [when] going to bed. [1-^23]
Or drink largely of pottage made with lentils.479 [CR#161, 1^23]480
159. To make Milk agree with the stomach [7*~23] #1. If it lie heavy, put a little salt in it; if it curdle, sugar. For bilious persons, mix it with water. [1-^23]
160. A Mortification (to stop) [20~*~23] #1. Apply a poultice of flour, honey, and water with a little veast.
[20-^23] 476 Short, Medicina Britannica, 59.
+" Short, Medicina Britannica, 147.
4781.e., mastitis.
4,9 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:114.
480 In a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24) JW added by hand another receipt: 'Keep some leaves of burnet between the breasts for three or four days.' This receipt did not appear in any print edition.
Primitive Physic 161. Nervous disorders [8~*~23] #1. [Are of two kinds: 1) those which proceed from the nerves being compressed by the swelling of the muscular flesh; or 2) when the nerves themselves are disordered. In the former case, temperance and abstemiousness will generally cure. In the latter481] when the nerves perform their office too languidly, a good air is the first requisite. The patient also should rise early and, as soon as the dew is off the ground, walk. Let his breakfast be mother of thyme tea, gathered in June, using half as much as we do of common tea. [It should be drunk with the finest sugar, and cream may be added if he please. Coffee must be avoided.482] When the nerves are too sensible, let the person breathe a proper air. Let him eat veal, chickens, or mutton. Vegetables should be eat[en] sparingly; the most innocent is the French bean; and the best root, the turnip. Wine should be avoided carefully. So should all sauces. Sometimes he may breakfast upon a quarter of an ounce of the powder of valerian-root infused in hot water, to which he may add cream and sugar. Tea is not proper. When the person finds an uncommon oppression, let him take a large spoonful of the tincture of valerian-root.483 [8^23]
TV. B. The tincture should be made thus: Cut to pieces six ounces of mid
valerian-root, gathered in June and fresh dried. Bruise it by a few strokes in a mortar, that the pieces may be split, but it should not be beat into a powder. Put this into a quart of strong white wine. Cork the bottle and let it stand three weeks, shaking it every day; then press it out and filter the tincture through paper.m [8^23]
N.B. The true, wild valerian has no bad smell. If it has, cats have urinated upon it, which they will do if they can come at it. [15^23]
But I am firmly persuaded, there is no remedy in nature for
nervous disorders of every kind, comparable to the proper and constant use of the electrical machine. [8-^23]
481 This opening section in square brackets appears only in 8->-17.
482The two sentences in square brackets appear only in 8-*-17.
4S3This paragraph abridges Hill, Construction of the Nerves, 10-51.
484 Hill, Construction of the Nerves, 52-53.
Medical and Health Writings [iadditional receipts in previous editions] #3. Take also as much as will lie on a shilling of the powder of mistletoe, twice a day, when the stomach is most empty, fasting two hours after it; then once a day; and afterwards every other, or every third day, till there is no more need of medicines.
N.B. Let this plant be gathered in May, and the leaves and bark dried carefully in the free air, without sun, till they are brittle. Let them then be reduced to a fine powder, and kept in that form. Dr. Hill.485 [8^ 17]
Drink every night a teaspoonful of cream of tartar, boiled in half a pint of milk.486 [15^16] 162. Nettle rash{ [15~*~ 23]
Rub the parts strongly with parsley. Internals profit nothing.+8/ [15-^23] 163. Old age [12^23]
Take tar-water, morning and evening.488 Tried. [12^23] #2. Or [take, morning and evening,] decoction of nettles. Either of these will probably renew strength for some years. [12-^23]
Or be electrified daily. [12-^23] #4. Or chew cinnamon daily, and swallow your spittle. [20-^23]
But remember, the only radical cure is wrought by death!489
164. An old stubborn Pain in the back [D*~23]
Steep root of water fern in water, till the water become[s] thick and clammy. Then rub the parts therewith, morning and evening.490 [l-*~23] 'A slight fever (which sometimes lasts for weeks or months), attended with itching or smarting, and an eruption just like that as is occasioned by nettles. [15-»-23]
In Georgia, we call it 'the prickly heat'. [17-*~23] 483 Hill, Construction of the Nerves, 53-54.
486This receipt appears in a section title 'A Nervous fever' found only in 15-M6.
487Medical Transactions 2 (1772): 173-85; receipt on p. 182.
488 Berkeley, Letter to Prior, 14.
489This sermonic reminder is found only in Works.
490 Short, Medicina Britannica, 95-96.
Primitive Physic #2. Or apply a plaster, and take daily balsam of capivi. [20-^23]
Or apply garlic and hog's lard to the feet, as Art. 419.491 Tried.
[21-K23] [iadditional receipt in previous edition] #4. Or drink largely of tea made of black currant leaves. [Works]
Be electrified daily, for three months, from the places where the nerves spring which are brought to the paralytic part. If the parts beneath the head are affected, the fault is in the spinal marrow. If half the body, half the marrow is touched. [12^23]
N.B. A palsy may be cured in spring or summer, but rarely in winter.
Or use the cold bath, if you are under fifty,492 rubbing and sweating after it. [1-^23] #3. Or shred white onions and bake them gently, in an earthen
pot, till they are soft. Spread a thick plaster of this and apply it to the benumbed part, all over the side if need be.49? [1-^23]
Ijnfallible], [1-^8] Tried. [9-M3] I have known this to cure a person of 75 years old. [14-^23] #4. Or take tar-water, morning and evening.494 [1-^23]
Or boil white and red sage, a handful of each, in a quart of
white wine. Strain and bottle it. Take a small glass, morning and evening. This helps all nervous disorders. [1^23]
Or take a teaspoonful of powdered sage, lying down in bed.
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #7. Or drink decoction of wood betony, morning and evening.49,1
[1-M]
8 A palsy is the loss of motion, or feeling, or both, in any particular part of the body. [5-*~23] 491 Orig. '418'; a mistake; referring to §135, receipt #1.
492 1_^4 jac]c qualification 'if you are under fifty'.
493 Digby, Choice Receipts, 267.
494 Berkeley, Philosophical Reflexions, 7, 32.
495 Short, Medicina Britannica, 26.
Medical and Health Writings #8. Or [drink a decoction] of water dock, applying the boiled leaves. [1-M6, not Works] #9. Or apply to the parts boiled sage leaves, hot; and drink decoction of sage, morning and evening.496 [1^16]
166. Palsy of the hands [P*~23] #1. Wash them often in decoction of sage, as hot as you can bear.497 [W3] #2. Or boil a handful of elder leaves, and two or three spoonfuls
of mustard seed, in a quart of water. Wash often in this, as hot as may be. [l->~23]
167. Palsy of the mouth [1^23] #1. After purging well, chew mustard seed often.
Or gargle with juice of wood sage.498 [l-*~23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #3. Or [after purging well, chew] pellitory of Spain.499 [1-^4]
Or hold in your mouth half an ounce of spirit of lavender.
[1-17]
168. Palsy from working with white lead or verdigris. [2^23] #1. Use warm baths and a milk diet. [2^23]
169. The Palpitation or heating of the heart [1~*~ 23] #1. Drink a pint of cold water. [1-^23] #2. Or apply outwardly a rag dipped in vinegar. [5^23]
Or be electrified. [8-^23] Tried. [9-^23] #4. Or take a decoction of motherwort every night.500 [l->-23]
4,6 Short, Medicina Britannica, 252-53.
497 Short, Medicina Britannica, 252.
498 Short, Medicina Britannica, 252.
499 Short, Medicina Britannica, 219.
500 Short, Medicina Britannica, 189.
Primitive Physic
[iadditional receipt in previous editions] #5. Or apply outwardly balm leaves, sprinkled with vinegar. [1—4]
170. The Piles (to prevent) /7—23] #1. Wash the parts often with cold water.501 [1—23]
171. The Piles (to cure) [CR, T^23] #1. Apply warm treacle.
Or [apply] a tobacco leaf, steeped in water twenty-four
hours.502 [1-23] #3. Or [apply] a poultice of boiled brooklime.503 It seldom fails.
Or [apply] a bruised onion skinned, or roasted in ashes. It
perfectly cures the dry piles.504 [1—23] #5. Or [apply] varnish. It perfectly cures both the blind and bleeding piles.505 [CR#166, 1—23] I[nfallible]. [2—8] Tried.
[9-23] #6. Or fumigate with vinegar wherein red hot flints have been
quenched. This softens even scirrhus tumours.506 [12—23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Or [apply] ale-yeast. [2—4] #8. Or [apply] leeks fried in butter. [5—16, not Works]
Or fumigate with houseleek boiled in white wine.507 [12—16,
not Works] #10. If they be outward, apply with a feather juniper oil every fourth hour; if inward, syringe with a quarter of a spoonful of it. The pain will cease in less than two hours, and the piles will wither away. [ Works508]
501Floyer, Psychrolousia, 97.
502 Lemery, New Curiosities, 21.
503 Short, Medicina Britannica, 101 (in footnote).
504 Short, Medicina Britannica, 209.
505 Cf. JW's letter to Robert Carr Brackenbury, Sept. 26, 1785, 'The varnish used by the cabinet makers seldom fails to cure the piles in a day or two. I mean the blind piles, so called; but the bleeding ones are not so easily removed.'
506 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #207, p. 113.
507 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #106, p. 61.
508 This receipt was placed at the end of 'The inward Piles' in Works:; but it clearly was meant to apply to both, so we moved it here.
214 Medical and Health Writings
172. The inward Piles [1~*~23] #1. Swallow a pill of pitch, fasting. One pill usually cures the bleeding piles. [12^23] * [Works] #2. Or eat a large leek, boiled. [20-^23]
Or take, twice a day, as much as lies on a shilling of the skin of
walnuts, powdered. [20-^23] [additional receipts in previous editions] #4. Drink largely of treacle and water. [CR#163, 1-M7]
Or drink a spoonful of juice of yarrow, or of leeks, three
or four mornings. [I'M 6] Cures inward bleeding piles. [1] Infallible]. [2^8] Tried. [9^16] #6. Or take from one to two drams of flour of brimstone, twice a day, in a cup of water-gruel. [9*M7] #7. Or [take, twice a day, in a cup of water-gruel,] as much sul
phur vivum as lies on a shilling. It should open the body a little. I[nfallible]. [14-M6]
173. Violent bleeding Piles [12-^23] #1. Lightly boil juice of nettles, with a little sugar. Take two ounces. It seldom needs repeating. [12^23]
174. The Plague (to prevent) [1^23] #1. Eat marigold flowers daily, as a salad, with oil and vinegar.509
[1-23] #2. Or infuse rue, sage, mint, rosemary, wormwood—of each a
handful—in two quarts of the sharpest vinegar, over warm embers, for eight days. Then strain it through a flannel and add half an ounce of camphor, dissolved in three ounces of rectified spirits of wine. With this wash the loins, face, and mouth, and snuff a little up the nose when you go abroad.
Smell to a sponge dipped therein when you approach infected persons or places.510 [l-*~23]
N.B. This is the famous Marseilles vinegar. [20-^23] 509 Short, Medicina Britannica, 176.
510Kettilby, Collection, 182.
Primitive Physic [iadditional receipt in previous editions] #3. Or [eat] a little of the tops of rue with bread and butter, every morning.511 [1-^16] 175. The Plague (to cure) [l-*-23]
Cold water alone, drank largely, has cured it.512 [1~»~23] #2. Or an ounce or two of the juice of marigolds.513 [l-»~23]
Or, after bleeding fifty or sixty ounces, drink very largely of water sharpened with spirit of vitriol.514 [l->~23]
Or [drink] a draught of brine as soon as seized. Sweat in bed.
Take no other drink for some hours. [5^23] #5. Or use lemon-juice largely in everything.
[iadditional receipt in previous editions] #6. Or take a dram of angelica, powdered, every six hours. It is a
strong sweat.515 [1-M6] 176. The Pleurisy [CR, 1^23]
Take half a dram of soot. [12-^23] #2. Or take the core out of an apple, fill it with white frankincense, stop it close with the piece you cut out, and roast it in ashes.
Mash and eat it.5161[nfallible]. [1^23, not Works] #3. Or [take] a glass of tar-water, warm, every half hour."'17
Or [take a glass] of decoction of nettles; and apply the herb, hot, as a poultice.518 [1^23] I[nfallible]. [1-^5] Tried. [9-M4]
I never knew it to fail. [15-^23] * [Works] #5. Or [apply] a plaster of flour of brimstone and white of an egg.
Tried. [9-*~23] This seldom fails. [21-^23] * [Works] hA pleurisy is a fever attended with a violent pain in the side, and a pulse remarkably hard. [5-*-23] 511 Digby, Choice Receipts, 80.
512Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 232.
513 Short, Medicina Britannica, 176.
514Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 79.
5,5 Short, Medicina Britannica, 9.
51('Digby, Choice Receipts, 97—98.
517 Berkeley, Philosophical Reflections, 29.
518 Short, Medicina Britannica, 204.
Medical and Health Writings #6. In disorders of this kind, Dr. Huxham advises, 'Sip almost continually thin whey, barley-water, or hyssop-tea, sharpened with lemon or vinegar, and water. If the spitting stop suddenly, take a little vomit. Likewise camphorated vinegar, with syrup of elder or raspberries, is good. To appease the cough, take often, a little at a time, of roasted apples; yea, strawberries, raspberries, or currants.'519 [14-^23]
See Dr. Tissot, page 38.520 [14-*-23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions\ #8. Or drink a quart of cold water.521 [1~*~4]
Or take a dram of corn poppies, powdered, in warm water.
Infallible]. [1-M] #10. Or [take a dram] of burdock root. [l-*~4] #11. Or take half a dram of olibanum, in warm water, every four
hours.522 [1"*~4] #12. Or [take] from a scruple to a dram of powdered olibanum, in the pulp of a roasted apple. [1-^4] #13. Apply to the side onions roasted in the embers, mixed with
cream.525 [1-M6] #14. Or [take a glass of decoction of] boiled fennel, or camomile flowers. [14-M6, not Works]
177. To one Poisoned [2~*~23] #1. Give one or two grains of distilled verdigris. It vomits in an instant.524 [2^23] #2. Let one poisoned by arsenic dissolve a quarter of an ounce of salt of tartar in a pint of water, and drink every quarter of an hour as much as he can, till he is well. [15-^23]
Let one poisoned by opium take thirty drops of elixir of
51,JW is distilling Huxham, Essay on Fevers, 200-213.
5201.e., Advices, Chap. V.
521 Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 52-53.
522 Dover, Ancient Physician's Legacy, 125-26.
523 Short, Medicina Britannica, 209.
524 Boyle Godfrey, A Treasure of Useful Discoveries (Dublin: for the author, 1746),
159-60. 2-*-16 prescribed 'one or two drams' as in Godfrey. This is the receipt that prompted 'Antidote's' attack upon Primitive Physic in December 1775 and the resulting controversy traced in Appendix D. Hawes rehearsed several entries in this controversy in Examination, 64-68. JW's response was to revise as above, starting with the 17th edition.
Primitive Physic 217
vitriol every quarter of an hour, till the drowsiness or wildness ceases. [15—23] #4. Or [take] a spoonful of lemon-juice. [20—23]
Let one poisoned with mercury sublimate dissolve an ounce of salt of tartar in a gallon of water, and drink largely of it.
[12—23] This will entirely destroy the force of the poison, if it be used soon. [15—23] #6. Nothing cures the African poison, but a decoction of the roots of the sensitive plant.525 [12—23]
178. Polypus in the nose [12~*~23] #1. Powder a lump of alum and snuff it up frequently. Then dissolve powdered alum in brandy; dip lint therein, and apply it at going to bed. [12—23]
179. A Prick or cut that festers [CR, 1~*~23]
Apply turpentine. [CR#168, 1—23] 180. Ptylaism1 [15^23]
A very violent and stubborn disorder of this kind was cured by chewing perpetually a little dry bread and swallowing it with the spittle.526 [15—23]
181. An easy Purge [l-*~23] #1. Drink a pint of warmish water, fasting; walking after it.
[1-23] #2. Or [take] a soft egg with a teaspoonful of salt. [20—23]
'A continual spitting. [15-*~*>3] 525 It is uncertain what JW intended by 'African poison'. There were no common
British ailments or herbs of the name. There are a few contemporary uses of this term (mainly in North America) to designate disorders attributed to 'black magic'.
526 John Power, 'An Account of an extraordinary Ptyalism, and of its Cure', Medical Transactions 2 (1772): 34—38; here, p. 37.
Medical and Health Writings #3. Or infuse from half a dram to two drams of damask roseleaves, dried, in half a pint of warm water for twelve hours, and take it. [1—23] #4. Or infuse three drams of senna and a scruple of salt of tartar in half a pint of warm river-water for twelve hours. Then strain and take it in the morning. [1—23]
Wild ash is a plant of the very same nature with senna, but
of greater virtue. Its leaves, taken in the same quantity, purge full as well—and do not gripe, as senna does. It is therefore far preferable to that which is brought from Turkey or Italv.
[12-23]
NB. The wild ash is called in the north of England, 'round-tree', 'quicken, 'quickbeam', or 'wiggan-tree'. The leaves should be gathered when the tree is in flower. [20^23]
182. A stronger Purge [1^23] #1. Drink half a pint of strong decoction of dock root.527 [1—23]
#2. Or two drams of the powdered root of monk's rhubarb, with a
scruple of ginger.''28 [1—23] 183. The Quinsy' [CR, 1^23]
Apply a large white bread toast, half an inch thick, dipped in brandy, to the crown of the head, till it dries.529 [CR#170,
1-23] #2. Or swallow slowly white-rose water mixed with syrup of mul
berries. [CR#169, 1-23] Tried. [9-23] * [Works] #3. Or [swallow slowly] juice or jelly of black currants, or decoction of the leaves or bark.530 [2—23] Infallible], [2—12]
'The quinsv is a fever attended with difficulty of swallowing, and often breathing. [5-23] S2/ Short, Medicina Britannica, 35.
528 Short, Medicina Britannica, 79.
529JW retained this receipt, even though Hawes summarily rejected it (Examination., 69).
3,0 Henry Baker, ' 1 he Virtue of Jelly of Black Currants in curing Inflammations of the Throat', Philosophical Transactions 41 (1739): 655-60.
Primitive Physic #4. Or draw in, as hot as you can bear (for ten or twelve minutes together), the fumes of red-rose leaves, or camomile flowers boiled in water and vinegar. [14-^23] #5. Or [draw in the fumes] of a decoction of bruised hemp seed.
This speedily cures the sore throat, peripneumony, and inflammation of the uvula. [20-^23] #6. See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 41.531 [20-*-23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #7. Or swallow slowly decoction of houseleek (see likewise Art.
Or take a spoonful of the juice of cinquefoil, every two hours.
[1-4] #9. Or [take] a glass of decoction of water dock. [1-M-] #10. Or drink a quart of cold water lying down in bed.533 [1-^16]
(To prevent.) Wear a black ribbon round the neck, next the
skin. [2-^4] 184. A Quinsy of the breast [15~*~23]
Take eight to twenty drops of laudanum, lying down in bed.534
This helps. [21-^23] #2. Or make an issue in the thigh. [20-^23] This cures. [21 ->-23]
[,additional receipt in previous edition] #3. Electrifying through the breast is of admirable service. [Works]
185. The Rheumatism1 [CR, l-*~23] #1. To prevent, wear washed wool under the feet. [20-^23] kThis is known by a sudden unaccountable difficulty of breathing, seizing a person in the night or on any violent motion. [15-^23]
'Rheumatical pains are generally most violent as soon as you are warm in bed.
But there is a cold rheumatism, which is most painful when the part is cold. Constant rubbing will cure this. [21-^23]
5311.e., Advices, Chap. VI, 'Diseases of the Throat'.
532 1.e., the directions for preparing the decoction in §146, receipt #4. While this receipt was removed, the parenthetical reference was mistakenly retained in edns.
5-10, now tied to §183, receipt #3, where it made no sense.
533 Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 51.
534 William Heberden, 'Some Account of a Disorder of the Breast', Medical Transactions 2 (1772): 59-67. Hawes (Examination, 69-71) drew attention to JW's source.
He likely also prodded JW to revise the dosage of 'eight to ten drops' present in editions through the 16th upward (as shown above) to match Heberden's original advice.
220 Medical and Health Writings
To cure, use the cold bath, with rubbing and sweating.535
Or apply warm steams. [20^23] #4. Or rub in warm treacle, and apply to the part a brown paper smeared therewith. [CR#178, 1-^23] Change it in twelve hours. [5-^23]Tried. [9-^23] * [Works] #5. Or drink half a pint of tar-water, morning and evening.536
Or steep six or seven cloves of garlic in half a pint of white wine. Drink it lying down. It sweats, and frequently cures at once. [2-^23] #7. Or mix flour of brimstone with honey, equal quantities. Take
three teaspoonfuls at night, two in the morning; and one afterwards, morning and evening, till cured. This succeeds oftener than any remedy I have found.
Or live on new milk-whey and white bread for fourteen days.
This has cured a desperate case.53, [CR#173, l->-23] #9. Or pound the green stalks of English rhubarb, in May or June, with an equal quantity of lump sugar. Take the quantity of a nutmeg of this, three or four times a day. [9-^23] This seldom fails. [14-^23] * [Works] #10. In a stubborn rheumatism let your diet be barley-gruel,
with currants, roasted apples, fresh whey, and light pudding.
See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 61.538 [20-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #12. Or chew rhubarb two hours a day and swallow your spittle.539
[CR#177, 1-M]
Or take a glass of mustard water, morning and evening.
[1-M] #14. Or [take a glass] of water in which two spoonfuls of scraped horse-radish have been steeped for twenty-four hours.
Or drink half a pint of decoction of young leaves of holly,
sweetened with treacle, thrice a day, lying in bed. Drink plenty of toast and water with it, and sweat.
53:,Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 475.
536Berkeley, Philosophical Reflexions, 5, 54.
537 Sydenham, Compleat Method, 22.
538I.e., Advices, Chap. XI.
539Allen, Synopsis, 1:364-65.
Primitive Physic #16. Or drink very largely of warm water in bed.540 [1-M6, not Works] #17. Or take, morning and evening, as much lignum guaiacum, powdered, as lies on a shilling.541 [1~M6]
Or [take, morning and evening,] as much flour of sulphur [as
lies on a shilling], washing it down with decoction of lignum guaiacum.542 [1-*~16] #19. Drink decoction of herb Robert, and apply it as a poultice.543
[1-16] #20. Or [drink largely of decoction] of lavender cotton, or elder-
top tea. [15-M7] #21. Or take two cloves of garlic and one dram of gum ammoniac; beat them together in a marble mortar, with a little water, so as to make three boluses. Take one of them, night and morning, and drink sassafras tea freely. [20]
186. To restore the strength after a Rheumatism [2~*~23] #1. Make a strong broth of cow-heels and wash the parts with it,
warm, twice a day. It has restored one who was quite a cripple, having no strength left either in his leg, thigh, or loins.
Or mix gum guaiacum (in powder) with honey or treacle; take two or three teaspoonfuls (or as much as you can bear without purging), twice or thrice a day. This is the best medicine I have met with for chronic rheumatism. [20^23]
Or dissolve one ounce of gum guaiacum in three ounces of
spirits of wine. Take sixty or eighty drops on loaf-sugar, two or three times a day. This is Dr. Hill's 'Essence of Bardana'.544
Or drop thirty drops of volatile tincture of guaiacum on a
lump of sugar, and take this in a glass of water every four hours. It usually cures in a day. Tried.
540 Cf. Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 61; JW changes to 'warm water'.
541 Hawes (Experience, 71) warned that many lives had been lost by the use of guaiacum at the onset of a rheumatic attack.
542 Hawes's warning against guaiacum (Experience, 71) is likely at work here as well.
543 Short, Medicina Britannica, 140. This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Pain in the joints'. Hawes (Examination, 58) ridiculed prescribing both internal and external use of the herb at the same time, calling it 'egregious quackery'.
544 This is a puzzling claim. Sir John Hill (1714-75) patented an 'Elixir of Bardana', also known as 'Essence of Water Dock'—indicating its actual main ingredient.
Medical and Health Writings [,additional receipt in previous editions] #5. Or drink every morning half a pint of buckbane [i.e., buckbean] tea, with a teaspoonful of spirits of hartshorn.54' [14-M7]
187. Rickets (to prevent or cure) [1~*~23]
Wash the child every morning in cold water.'46 [1^23] 188. Ringworms™ [1^23]
Apply rotten apples. [12^23] #2. Or [apply] pounded garlic. [15*>~23] #3. Or rub them with the juice of houseleek.
Or wash them with Hungary water, camphorated. [5-^23] #5. Or [wash them] twice a day with oil of sweet almonds and oil
of tartar mixed.547 [20^23] [iadditional receipts in previous editions] #6. Or wash them with decoction of soapwort.548 [1^13]
#7. Or rub them with oil of paper. [1-M6, not Works]
189. Running at the nose [5^23] #1. Snuff up a teaspoonful of spirits of hartshorn. [5~*~23]
190. A Rupture [1~*~23] #1. Foment with hot aqua vitae for two hours.549 [12-^23]
Or take agrimony, spleenwort, Solomon's seal, strawberry roots;
a handful of each. Pick and wash them well. Stamp and boil them two hours, in two quarts of white wine, in a vessel close m Vulgarly called tetters. [15-»~23] 545 Appears in Mary Morris, Every One Their own Physician; included with The House-Keeper's Pocket-Book, 7th edn. (London: Ware, 1760), 25.
S46Floyer, Psychrolousia, 87-88.
547 JW added this receipt by hand in a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24), but it did not make it into a print edition until the 20th.
548 Short, Medicina Britannica, 49.
549 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #282, pp. 240-41.
Primitive Physic
stopped. Strain and drink a large glass of this every morning; and, an hour after, drink another. It commonly cures in a fortnight.550 [1-^23] A good truss meantime is of great use. [5-*~23]
'I place', says Dr. Riviere, 'a broad plank sloping from the side of the bed to the ground. On this I lay the patient upon pillows, with his head downward. Then I foment the part for half an hour with cloths, four times doubled, steeped in cold water, gentiy touching it with my fingers. Afterwards I bind on it, many times doubled, a cloth shaped like a triangle, wet in cold water. The gut is generally restored to its place in a few hours.
If not, I repeat the operation twice a day, and in two or three days the disease is cured.'551 [12-^23]
[,additional receipts in previous editions] #4. Take decoction of plantain leaves, morning and evening."'52
Or dry a spoonful of plantain seed by the fire, boil it in milk, and take half a pint every morning.3"'3 [8~M6]
191. A Rupture in children [1~*~23] #1. Boil a spoonful of eggshells, dried in an oven and powdered, in a pint of milk, [down] to three quarters of a pint. Feed the child constantly with bread boiled in this milk. [1-^23]
192. A windy Rupture [1~*~23] #1. Warm cow-dung well. Spread it thick on leather, strewing some cummin seeds on it, and apply it hot. When cold, put on a new one. It commonly cures a child (keeping his bed) in two days.554 [1-^23]
193. A Scald head [CR, 1^23]
Anoint it with Barbados tar.555 [CR#183, 1-^23] 550 Digby, Choice Receipts, 106—7.
551 Riviere, Four Books, Observation # 430, p. 297.
552This receipt appeared in a section titled 'A fresh Rupture'.
553This receipt appeared in a section titled 'A fresh Rupture'.
554 Digby, Choice Receipts, 107.
555 Allen, Synopsis, 2:3 (pisseloeum Indicum).
Medical and Health Writings #2. Or apply daily white-wine vinegar. Tried. [12-^23]
If wood soot is mixed with fresh butter, into an ointment, and the head anointed with it every day, it will generally cure it in the beginning. But when it is become very bad, a plaster should be made of gall, dried to the consistency of a salve, and spread upon linen. This should be applied all over the parts affected, and continued on four or five days. Then it should be taken off, and the head dressed with soot-ointment as before.
After the cure, give two or three gentle purges. [20-^23] #5. If a proper regard was paid to cleanliness in the head and
apparel of children, the scald head would seldom be seen.
[20-^23]
[additional receipt in previous editions] #6. Or [anoint] with yarrow ointment made with goose-grease.
[12-M6]
194. The Sciatica* [CR, 1^23] #1. Is certainly cured by a purge taken in a few' hours after it begins. [5-^23] #2. Or use cold bathing and sweat, together with the flesh-brush twice a day. [5-^23] #3. Or boil nettles till soft. Foment with the liquor, then apply the
herbs as a poultice.''56 [l-*-23] I have known this cure a sciatica of forty-five years standing.
Or apply nettles bruised in a mortar. [15-^23] #5. Or [apply] a mud made of powdered pit-coal and warm water.
This frequently cures sores, weakness of the limbs,557 most disorders of the legs, and swellings and stiffness of the joints.
It cured a swelling of the elbow joint, though accompanied with a fistula, arising from a caries of the bone.
[ Works]
"The sciatica is a violent pain in the hip, chiefly in the joint of the thigh bone
[5^3] 1,6 Short, Medicina Britantiica, 191 (in footnote).
read This also cures palsies, weakness ...'. JW was likely responding to Hawse s snide comment on 'so remarkable a cure for so many incurable diseases'
(.Examination, 72).
Primitive Physic
#6. See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 69558 [20—23].
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #7. Or apply quicklime mixed with soft soap. [CR#184, 1—4]
Or apply leaves of ranunculus, bruised, for six hours.559
[CR#185, 1-16]
Or boil calamint (otherwise called peppermint560). Apply this as a poultice, shifting it daily. Meantime drink a decoction of it, morning and evening.561 [1 — 16, not Works]
'Many have been cured in four or five days only, by drinking
half a pint of cold water daily, in the morning and at four in the afternoon.'562 [1—17] #11. Or [apply] flannels, dipped in stale lye boiled with salt, as hot as you can bear, for an hour. [1 — 17] #12. Or apply pounded roots of burdock and of elecampane, cold.
This usually cures, if kept on twenty-four hours; but it gives pain. [2—17]
195. Inflammations or swellings of the Scrotum [1^23] #1. Wash it thrice a day with strong decoction of agrimony.
[1-23]
196.565 A Scorbutic atrophf [ l-*~23] #1. Use cold bathing. Which also cures all scorbutic pains.164
[1—23]
a degree of scurvv as causes the flesh to waste away like a consumption.
[5—23] 5S8I.e., Advices, §§123-26.
555 Allen, Synopsis, 1:554.
560 True peppermint is Mentha piperita, developed in the late seventeenth century as a natural hybrid between spearmint, Mentha spicata, and water mint, Mentha aquati.
561 Short, Medicina Britannica, 186.
562 Cf. Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 67.
563 JW apparently placed this and the next two items slightly out of alphabetic order because 'scorbutic' is the adjectival form of'scurvy'.
564Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 195-96,477-78. 'Scorbutic pains' is set out as a separate section in I'M7, but simply refers back to this receipt.
226 Medical and Health Writings
197. Scorbutic gums [2(7^23] #1. Wash them daily with a decoction of the Peruvian bark, adding a little tincture of roses, with a solution of myrrh. [20-^23]
198. Scorbutic sores [1~*~23]
A diet-drink: Put half a pound of fresh-shaved lignum guaiacum (called by the block-makers, 'lignum vitae') and half an ounce of senna into an earthen pot that holds six quarts. Add five quarts of soft water, and lute the pot close. Set this in a kettle of cold water and put it over a fire, till it has boiled three hours. Let it stand in the kettle till cold. When it has stood one night, drink daily half a pint, new-milk warm, [in the morning] fasting, and at four in the afternoon. Wash with a little of it. In three months all the sores will be dried up. [l-*~23] Tried.
[iadditional receipt in previous editions] #2. Apply boiled brooklime as a poultice.56'' [l-*~4]
199. The Scurvf [CR, 1^23]
Live on turnips for a month. [l-»-23] #2. Or take tar-water morning and evening, for three months.566
Or [take] three spoonfuls of nettle-juice every morning.
Tried. [14-^23] #4. Or [take] decoction of burdock: Boil three ounces of the dried root in two quarts of water, [down] to three pints. Take half a pint daily, unless it purges too much; if so, take less. A decoction of the leaves (boiling one leaf four minutes in a quart of water) has the same effect.
Or take a cupful of the juice of goosegrass, in the morning,
fasting, for a month. It is frequently called 'hairif' or 'clivers'.
Last year I knew many persons cured by it. [20-^23] pThe scurvy is known by heaviness of body, weariness, rottenness of gums, and yellow, lead, or violet-coloured spots on the legs [5-*-23] or arms. [20-^23] N.B. A scurvy attended with costiveness (which is most common) is termed 'hot scurvy'; one attended with looseness, a 'cold scurvy'.
565This receipt appeared in a section titled 'A scorbutic Ulcer'.
566 Berkeley, Philosophical Reflexions, 45.
Primitive Physic
Or pound into pulp Seville oranges sliced, rind and all, and powder sugar, equal quantities. Take a teaspoonful three or four times a day. [5-*~23] Ijnfallible]. [5-*~8] Tried.
[Works] #7. Or squeeze the juice of half a Seville orange into a pint of
milk, over the fire. Sweeten the whey with loaf-sugar, and drink it every morning, new milk-warm. To make any whey, milk should be skimmed after it is boiled. [12-^23]
Or pour three quarts of boiling water on a quart of ground malt. Stir them well, and let the mixture stand, covered close, for four hours. Strain it off, and use this as common drink.
In hot weather, brew this fresh every day.567 It will hardly fail.
[Works] #9. Or take, morning and evening, a spoonful or two of lemon
juice and sugar. 'It is a precious remedy, and well tried.' Dr.
Macbride.568 [14-^23] * [Works, 20^23] #10. Water and garden cresses, mustard, and juice of scurvy-grass
help in a cold scurvy. [5^23] #11. When there is a continual salt-taste in the mouth, take a pint of lime-water, morning and evening. [5^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #12. Or [live] on an entire milk diet for six months.'69 [CR#187,
1-M6] #13. Or [take] decoction of fumitory.''0 [I'M-] #14. Or [take] infusion of horse-radish.''1 [1-M6, not Works]
Or infuse dried dock roots in your common drink.'72 [1-^16,
not Works] #16. Or use infusion or powder of wall rue, morning and evening.'73 [1-M6, not Works] #17. Or [take] decoction of great water dock. [1-M7] Perhaps
there is not in nature a more effectual plant for the scurvy than water dock. Especially when it appears in cutaneous eruptions. But sometimes it requires patience. The best way of making the decoction is this: Put half a pound of the bark
567 MacBride, Experimental Essays, 199-200.
568 MacBride, Experimental Essays, 207.
569 Allen, Synopsis, 1:365.
570 Short, Medicina Britannica, 258 (in footnote).
571 Cf. Short, Medicina Britannica, 258 (in footnote).
572 Short, Medicina Britannica, 258 (in footnote).
573 Short, Medicina Britannica, 258 (in footnote).
228 Medical and Health Writings
from the root in an earthen vessel. Pour on it six pints of rainwater and boil it gently, till a quart is wasted. Then keep it in a cool place for use. You may drink half a pint, warm, two, three, or four times a day. It cures also relaxation or wind at the stomach, and all disorders proceeding therefrom.
It cures all diseases of the nerves—as twitchings, contractions, tremblings, convulsions, palsies, febrile heats and colds, headaches, vertigos, vapours, melancholy. [12~M7, not
Works] #18. See Art. 419.574 [5*^13] #19. Or boil scurvy-grass and sorrel in broth, and feed upon it
daily.575 [9-M6] #20. Or use as common drink, water made very sweet with treacle, honey, or sugar. [14-M6, not Works]
#21. Or take (from the small branches in spring, from the branch
ing roots in autumn) four ounces of the fresh inner elm bark.
Boil them in two quarts of water, [down] to three pints, and take half a pint morning and evening. In a month or two this cures likewise almost any leprosy or surfeit.1'6 As does decoction of burdock. [15-M7]
200. A broken Shin5 7 [5~*~23] #1. Bind a dry oak leaf upon it. [5-^23] #2. Or put on a bit of white paper moistened with spittle. It
will stay on till the place is well. Tried. This cures a cut also.
[20-^23]
201. ShingleA [5~*~23] #1. Drink seawater every morning for a week; toward the close, bathe also. [5^23, not Works] #2. Or apply pounded garlic. [15-*~23] qA kind of ringworm which encircles the bodv, like a belt, of an hand's breadth.
receipt #14.
Short, Medicina Britannica, 269.
576 Daniel Lysons, 'Letter on Elm Bark', Medical Transactions 2 (1772): 203-25; here, p. 213.
,771.e., broken skin on the shin; not a broken shin bone (or tibia).
Primitive Physic [iadditional receipt in previous editions] #3. See Art. 1 15.578 [9-MO] 202. Sickishness in the morning [CR, l-*~23]
Eat nothing after six in the evening. [CR#188, 1-M3] #2. Or drink half a pint of water impregnated with fixed air.
[20-M3] 203. Sinews shrunk [9^23]
Rub it every morning with fasting spittle. Tried. [9-*~23] #2. Or beat the yolk of a new-laid egg, mix it with a spoonful of water, and rub the part with it, before the fire, three or four times a day. [14~M3]
204. Skin rubbed off [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Apply pounded allheal. It seldom needs repeating.579
[CR#189, 1-M3]
#2. Or a bit of white paper with spittle. [20-M3]
205. Smallpox [CR, l-*-23] #1. Drink largely of toast and water.580 [1-^23] #2. Or let your whole food be milk and water mixed with a little
white bread. [8~M3] Tried. [9~M3] * [Works] #3. Or [let your whole food be] milk and apples.581 [1"M3]
Take care to have a free, pure, and cool air. Therefore open the
casement every day; only do not let it chill the patient. [5-*~23] #5. If they strike in, and convulsions follow, drink a pint of cold water immediately. This instantly stops the convulsions, and drives out the pock. [5-M3] Tried. [9-M3] * [Works]
'There may be pustules a second time, coming out and ripening like the smallpox, but it is barely a cutaneous disorder.
578I.e., §28, receipt #7.
579 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:16.
580 Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 34-35.
581 Sydenham, Works, 103.
Medical and Health Writings 'In violent cases, bleed in the foot. Bathe the legs in warm water twice or thrice a day, before and at the eruption; and apply boiled turnips to the feet. Never keep the head too hot.
'In very low depressed cases, wine may be given. And if the pustules lie buried in the skin, a gentle vomit. In many cases, a gentle purge of manna, cream of tartar, or rhubarb.
'In the crude ichorose smallpox, a dish of coffee now and then with a little thick milk in it, has often quieted the vexatious cough.
'After the incrustation is formed, change the sick; but let it be with very dry, warm linen.'
— Dr. Huxham.582 [14-^23] 206. A long running Sore in the back [12-*-23]
Was entirely cured by eating betony in everything. [12-^23] #2. Or take every morning two or three spoonfuls of nettle juice; and apply nettles, bruised in a mortar, to the part. This cures any old sore or ulcer. I[nfallible].
207. A Sore [on the] leg [26*-23] #1. Bind a diachylon plaster, an inch broad, round the leg, just
above the sore; and foment it, morning and evening, with hot water. [20-^23] #2. Any sore is healed by a plaster of mutton-suet, even though it fester or breed proud flesh. [20^23]
208. A Sore mouth [CR, 1^-23] #1. Apply the white of an egg, beat up with loaf-sugar. [CR#192,
Or gargle with juice of cinquefoil.583 [l-»~23] #3. Or boil together a pound of treacle, three yolks of eggs,
an ounce of bole armoniac, and a nutmeg [size] of alum, a quarter of an hour. Apply this to the sore part, or to an aching tooth. Tried. [9-^23] 582Excerpts from Huxham, Essay on Fevers, 129-30,136,142^43,147-48,161-62.
583 Short, Medicina Britannica, 58.
Primitive Physic 231
209. A Sore throat [1~*~23] #1. Take a pint of cold water, lying down in bed.584 [1-M3] Tried.
[9-M3] #2. Or apply a chin-stay585 of roasted figs. [1~M3] #3. Or [apply] a flannel sprinkled with spirits of hartshorn to the
throat, rubbing Hungary water on the top of the head. [5~M3] Tried. [9-M3] #4. Or snuff a little honey up the nose. [1-M3]
An old sore throat was cured by living wholly on apples and apple water. [1*M3]
[,additional receipts in previous editions586] #6. Or swallow slowly juice of cinquefoil.''8' [1-M]
Or swallow gently rose water and syrup of mulberries. [1M0] Tried. [9-MO] #8. Or apply boiled nettles. [Works]
210. An inflamed Sore throat [20~*~23]
Lay nitre and loaf-sugar mixed on the tongue. [20-M3] 211. A putrid Sore throat [20~*~23]
Lay on the tongue a lump of sugar dipped in brandy. Tried.
[20-M3] 212. A Sprain [CR, 1^23]
Hold the part in very cold water, for two hours. [1-M3] Tried.
[9—23] #2. Or apply cloths dipped therein, four times doubled, for two hours, changing them as they grow warm. [1—23]
#3. Or bathe it in good crab[-apple] verjuice. [1—23]
584 Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 51.
585 a band for fastening a hat or cap under the chin; or, a support for the chin.
586 In a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24) JW added by hand another receipt: 'Or [take a pint of] jelly of black currants.' This receipt did not appear in any print edition.
587 Short, Medicina Britannica, 59.
232 Medical and Health Writings
Or boil bran in wine vinegar, [down] to a poultice. Apply this warm, and renew it once in twelve hours.[CR#194, \-*~23]
Or mix a little turpentine with flour and the yolk of an egg, and apply it as plaster. [1^23] This cures in a desperate case.
Weakness remaining after a sprain is cured by fomenting the
part daily in beef-brine. [8-^23] #7. Suppose the ankle sprained. 1. Foment it with warm vinegar, four or five minutes every four hours. 2. Stand, if you can, three or four minutes at a time on both your feet, and frequently move the sprained foot. Sometimes also, while sitting with your foot on a low stool, move it to and fro. 3. Let it be gently rubbed, with a warm hand, at least thrice a day. 4. Two hours after every application of the vinegar, let it be just wetted with spirits of wine and then gently rubbed.589 [14-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #8. Or steep'911 it with one spoonful of brandy, two of vinegar, and four of water. [1-M6] #9. Or boil eight ounces of Castile soap, and as much bay-salt, in
four quarts of water. Put the part sprained into this for half an hour, or foment with it. [2-M7]
213. A venomous Sting [CR, l-*~23] #1. Apply the juice of honeysuckle leaves.
Or [apply] a poultice of bruised plantain and honey. [CR#197, 1-^23] #3. Or take inwardly one dram of black currant leaves, powdered.
It is an excellent counter-poison. [l-*~23] [additional receipt in previous editions]
#4. Apply a little Venice treacle. [I'M 4]
214. The Sting of a bee [1~*~23] #1. Apply honey. [l-*~23] 588Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:43.
589Lobb, Good Samaritan, 30-31.
590Orig., 'stoop'.
Primitive Physic 215. Sting of a nettle [P*~23] #1. Rub the part with juice of nettles.591 [l-*-23]
216. Sting of a wasp [1~*~23] #1. Rub the part with bruised leaves of houseleek. [1-^23]
Or [rub the part with bruised leaves] of watercresses. [1-^23] #3. Or [rub the part with bruised leaves] of rue. [1-^23]
Or apply treacle. [2-*~23] #5. Or [apply] sweet oil. [20^23] #6. Or [apply] bruised onions. [12^23] #7. Or [apply] garlic. [15-^23]
217. Sting of a bee or wasp in the eye [1^23]
Apply carduus, bruised, with the white of an egg. Renew it if it grows dry. [1^23]
218. Sting in the gullet [2(7^23] #1. Beat well together with a spoon some honey and sweet oil, with a little vinegar. Swallow a spoonful every minute till ease is procured.
219. A Stitch in the side [1^23] #1. Apply treacle spread on a hot toast. [1~*~23] Tried. [9^23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions]592 #2. Or boil two or three sprigs of pennyroyal in a pint of milk.
Drink the milk and apply a poultice of the herbs hot. [1-^13] #3. Drink decoction of nettles, and apply the herbs hot. [1-M6]
Tried. [9-M6] #4. Or take a teaspoonful of Irish slate, finely powdered. [2-M3] 591 Short, Medicina Britannica, 203.
592These receipts appeared in a section titled 'Frequent or violent Stitches' in
234 Medical and Health Writings
220. Accidental sickishness or pain in the Stomach [1~*~23] #1. Vomit with a quart or more of warm water. Do this twice or thrice, omitting a day between. [1-^23] 221. Pain in the Stomach from bad digestion [1^23]
Take fasting, or in the fit, half a pint of camomile tea. Do this five or six mornings. [1-^23] #2. Or drink the juice of half a large lemon or sweet orange, immediately after dinner, every day. Dr. Mead.
#3. Or [drink] from ten to twenty593 drops of elixir of vitriol in
sage tea, twice or thrice a day. [2-*~23] #4. Or, in the fit, [drink] a glass of vinegar. [1-^23]
Or take two or three teaspoonfuls of stomach-tincture, in a glass of water, thrice a day.
N.B. The tincture is made thus: Gentian-root sliced, one ounce; orange peel dried, half an ounce; cochineal, fifteen grains; of proof-brandy, one pint. In three or four days it is fit for use. This is useful in all disorders that arise from a relaxed stomach,594 [20-*~23]
[iadditional receipt in previous editions]™ #6. About eleven in the morning, drink a glass of water in which a leaf of carduus has been infused twelve hours. [Works]
222. Choleric hot pains in the Stomach [1~*~23] #1. Take half a pint of decoction of ground-ivy, with a teaspoonful of the powder of it, five or six mornings. I[nfallible]. [1-^23]
223. Coldness of the Stomach [1~*~23] #1. Take a spoonful of syrup of the juice of carduus benedictus, fasting, for three or four mornings. Ifnfallible]. [1-^23]
Or chew a leaf of carduus every morning and sw allow the
spittle. [14-^23] Tried. [17~>~23] 393 2-*~20 have 'twenty to forty drops', instead of'ten to twenty drops'.
594 A similar receipt appeared in Penelope Bradshaw, Bradshaw's Valuable Family Jewel [London: s.n., c. 1751], 88.
595 This receipt appeared in a section titled 'A weak Stomach' found only in Works.
Primitive Physic 235
224. Pain in the Stomach, with coldness and wind [1~*~23] #1. Swallow five or six corns of pepper, for six or seven mornings.
Tried. [9-^23] 225. Stone (to preventj [1~*~23]
Eat a thin crust of dry bread every morning. [1^-23] Tried.
Or drink a pint of warm water daily, just before dinner. After discharging one stone, this will prevent the generating of another.596 [l~*-23] #3. Stoop down and raise yourself up again. If you feel pain, as
if cut through the middle, the pain is not from the stone but rheumatism. [5-*-23] #4. Beware of costiveness. Use no violent diuretics. Mead is the
proper drink. [5^-23] #5. Or slice a large onion, pour half a pint of warm water upon it.
After it has stood twelve hours, drink the water. Do this every morning till you are well.
226. In a raging fit [caused by the Stone] [1^23] #1. Beat onions into a pulp and apply them as a poultice, to the back or to the groin. It gives speedy ease in the most racking pain.598 [1-^23] Tried.
[additional receipts in previous editions] #2. Or give a clyster with oil of turpentine. [1-M2]
Or apply heated parsley. [10-*-20]
227. Stone (to ease or cure) [1~*~23] #1. Boil half a pound of parsnips in a quart of water. Drink a glass of this morning and evening, and use no other drink all the day. It usually cures in six weeks.''99 [l~>-23]
596Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 206.
597 In l-*-4 the receipt is placed in a section titled 'In the Fit.'
598 Short, Medicina Britannica, 209.
599 Digby, Choice Receipts, 91.
Medical and Health Writings #2. 'Or take, morning and evening, a teaspoonful of onions calcined in a fire-shovel into white ashes, in white wine. An ounce will often dissolve the stone.'600 [l-^23601]
Or take a teaspoonful of violet seed, powdered, morning and evening. It both wastes the stone and brings it away.602
3 603] #4. Or drink largely of water impregnated with fixed air. [20-^23]
Those who have not a convenient apparatus [for fixed air], may substitute the following method. Dissolve fifteen grains of salt of tartar in six spoonfuls of water, to which add as much water, acidulated with oil of vitriol, as will neutralize the salt.
They are to be gradually mixed with each other, so as to prevent the effervescence or dissipation of the fixed air as much as possible. [20^23]
receipts in previous editionsm] #5. Or dry and powder haws fine. Take a spoonful of this powder in a glass of white wine every morning.60'' [l->~4]
#6. Or make tea of peach leaves dried in the sun, and drink two or
three dishes every morning.606 [1^4] #7. Take decoction of agrimony morning and evening.
Tried. [14-M7] #8. Or [take decoction, morning and evening,] of camomile. [1-^17]
Or take daily four pints of lime-water, made by pouring four
quarts of water on a pound of fresh calcined' oyster-shells and cockle-shells.607 [5-^17] #10. Or burn the dried shells of kidney beans to powder. Put two teaspoonfuls of this into a half pint teapot. Pour boiling water on it at night. In the morning pour it off clear, warm it
' I.e. heated red hot, and afterwards powdered. [15-^17] 600 Digby, Choice Receipts, 93.
601 This receipt was categorized under 'The Stone (to dissolve)' in l->~4.
602 Short, Medicina Britannica, 298.
603This receipt was categorized under 'The Stone (to dissolve)' in l-*-4.
604 In a copy of the 13th edition (MARC, WCB, IC/CB45/24) JW added by hand another receipt: 'Or [drink half a pint] of lemonade.' This receipt did not appear in any print edition.
605 Digby, Choice Receipts, 90-91.
606 Dover, Ancient Physicians Legacy, 42 (for gravel). This receipt was categorized under 'The Stone (to dissolve)' in 1-M-.
607 'Cockle' is the English name of bivalve molluscs of the genus Cardium.
Primitive Physic
again, and drink it, sweetened with honey. Do this daily, every other fortnight, till cured. [CR#204, 1M6,608 not Works]
228. Stone in the kidneys [1^23] #1. Use the cold bath.609 [l-*-23] #2. Or drink half a pint of water every morning.610 [1-^23]
Or boil an ounce of common thistle-root and four drams of
liquorice in a pint of water. Drink half of it every morning.
[12-^23]
receipt in previous editions] #4. Or [drink] decoction of speedwell largely.611 [1M6]
229. Stoppage in the kidneys [1^23]
Take decoction, or juice, or syrup of ground-ivy, morning and evening.612 [\-*-23] #2. Or [take, morning and evening] half a pint of tar-water.613
[1-23] #3. Or [take] twelve grains of salt of amber in a little water.614
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #4. Or [take a spoonful] of juice of radishes.61 [1~M7]
Or [take a spoonful] of pellitory of the wall.616 [1-*T6]
Sit over the steam of warm water. [20-^23] 608This receipt was categorized under 'The Stone (to dissolve)' in 1M.
609 Floyer, Psychrolousia, 92, 115.
6l0Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 205—6.
611 Short, Medicina Britannica, 275.
612 Short, Medicina Britannica, 192 (in footnote).
613 Berkeley, Philosophical Reflexions, 29-32.
6,4Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:113. This receipt appeared in a duplicate section titled 'Stoppage in the Kidneys' that appeared immediately after 'King's evil' in 1-M0.
6,5 Short, Medicina Britannica, 192 (in footnote).
616 Short, Medicina Britannica, 192 (in footnote).
Medical and Health Writings #2. Or drink largely of decoction of turnips, sweetened with clarified honey.617 [1-^23] #3. Or [drink largely] of warm lemonade. [2-^23] I[nfallible].
Tried. [9-^23] * [Works, 20-^23] #4. Or dissolve half an ounce of saltpetre in a quart of water;
drink a glass of it every hour. [20-^23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Or [drink largely] of decoction of gromwell (either seed or leaves).618 [1-M-] #6. Or take a teaspoonful of calcined eggshells, morning and
evening. [l-*03] #7. Use the cold bath.619 [1^16] #8. Or [drink largely] of decoction of mallows. [CR#207, 1-M6, not Works] #9. Or [drink largely] of decoction of red nettle seed. [1-*M6]
231. Sunburn (smarting) [2^23]
Wash the face with sage tea. [2-*~23] 232. A fresh Surfeit!1" [9^23]
Take about the size of a nutmeg of the green tops of wormwood. [9-*-23] 233. To stop profuse Sweating [1^23]
Drink largely of cold water. [l-*-23] 234. To prevent it [profuse Sweating] [12~*~23]
Mix an ounce of tincture of Peruvian bark with half an ounce of spirit of vitriol. Take a teaspoonful, morning and night, in a glass of water. [12-*~23] 61' Short, Medicina Britannica, 192 (in footnote).
6l8Short, Medicina Britannica, 123.
619 Floyer, Psychrolousia, 138, 152. Hawes (Examination, 72) specifically questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
6201.e., an overindulgence in food or drink.
Primitive Physic 235. To cure night-Siveats [12-*-23] #1. Drink a gill of warm milk at lying down. [12-^23]
236. Swelled glands in the neck [5~*~23] #1. Take seawater every other day.621 [5-^23]
237. Indolent Swellings [26*-23] #1. Are often cured by warm steams. [20-^23]
238. Soft and flabby Swellings [26*-23] #1. Pump cold water on them daily. [20-^23]
Or use constant friction. [20*-23] #3. Or [use] proper bandages. [20^23]
239. A white Swelling (on the joints) [CR, l*-23]
Hold the part, half an hour every morning, under a pump or cock.622 This cures also pains in the joints. [CR#214, l->-23] It seldom fails. [5^23] Tried. [9-^23] #2. Or pour on it daily a stream of warm water.623 [10-^23] *
[2(0-23] #3. Or [pour] a stream of cold water one day, and warm the next,
and so on by turns.624 [12-^23] Use these remedies at the first, if possible.
It is likewise proper to intermix gentle purges, to prevent a relapse. [10^23] #5. Or [apply] boiled nettles. [14-^23]
[(additional receipts in previous editions] #6. Apply a green colewort with red veins, bruising the ribs. Renew this morning and evening.62' [CR#215, 1-M-]
621 Cf. Russell, Dissertation, 10-11.
622 1.e., a water tap. 1--17 have 'under the stream that falls from a mill; or under ...'. Cf. Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 440-41.
621 Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 437-38.
624 Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 439—40.
625 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:140.
240 Medical and Health Writings
Or apply a poultice of wormwood, fried with hog's lard.
[1-15] #8. Or apply daily a bladder filled with warm water. [10—17] 240. To dissolve white or hard Swellings [T^23]
Take white roses, elder flowers, leaves of foxglove, and [leaves] of St. John's-wort, a handful each; mix with hog's lard and make an ointment. [1—23] #2. Or hold them, morning and evening, in the steam of vinegar
poured on red hot flints. [12—23] [additional receipts in previous editions] #3. See likewise Art. 453.626 [2—5] #4. Or [apply] a green colewort leaf, having veins bruised with the
haft of a knife. Renew it twice a day.627 [14—17] * [Works] 241. To fasten the Teeth [T^23]
Put powdered alum, the quantity of a nutmeg, in a quart of spring-water, for twenty-four hours. Then strain the water and gargle with it.628 [1—23] #2. Or gargle often with phillyrea leaves boiled with a little alum in forge water.629 [1—23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #3. Chew often roots of brooklime.630 [1 — 17]
Or boil so much [the quantity of a nutmeg] of alum therein [a quart of spring-water]. Strain and keep for use. [2—16, not
Works] 242. To clean the Teeth [CR, 1~*~23]
Rub them with ashes of burnt bread. [CR#216, 1—23] 626I.e., §146, receipt #4.
627Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:140.
628Digby, Choice Receipts, 44.
629 Short, Medicina Britannica, 226.
630 Short, Medicina Britannica, 115 (in footnote).
Primitive Physic 243. To prevent the Toothache [CR, 1~*~23] #1. Wash the mouth with cold water every morning, [CR#218,
and rinse after every meal. [14-*~23] Tried. [9~M3, not Works] #2. Or rub the teeth often with tobacco ashes.631 [CR#217, l-*~23,
not Works] 244. To cure the Toothache [CR, T*~23]
Be electrified through the teeth. [8^23] Tried. [9~*~23] #2. Or apply to the aching tooth an artificial magnet. [12-^23]
Or rub the cheek a quarter of an hour. [CR#219, 1-^23] #4. Or lay roasted parings of turnips, as hot as may be, behind the
ear.632 [1-^23] #5. Or put a leaf of betony, bruised, up the nose. [1-^23] #6. Or lay bruised or boiled nettles to the cheek. [1-^23] Tried.
[Works, 20-^23] #7. Or lay a clove of garlic on the tooth.
Or hold a slice of apple, slightly boiled, between the teeth.
Tried. [9^-23] #9. Or keep the feet in warm water, and rub them well with bran, just before bedtime. [5-^23] Tried. [9-^23]
N.B. The first twenty teeth generally last till the sixth or seventh year.
After that, till the fourteenth or fifteenth year, they fall out one by one, and are succeeded by others. The shedding of the teeth is wisely intended and brought about in a singular manner. Their hardness will not admit of distension like other parts of the body. Hence after an enlargement of the jawbone, the original teeth are no longer able to fill the cavities of it. They must stand unsupported by each other, and leave spaces be
tween them. Under the first teeth therefore is placed a new set, which by constantly pressing upon their roots, rob them of their nourishment, and
finally push them out of their sockets.™ [14-^23] 631 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 1:17. In a copy of the 13th edition (MARC,
WCB, IC/CB45/24) JW deleted 'often' and added by hand 'afterwards rinsing your mouth'. This correction did not appear in any print edition.
632 Short, Medicina Britannica, 291.
633 Berdmore, Treatise, 22-26.
Medical and Health Writings [additional receipts in previous editions] #10. Or [lay on the tooth] a piece of the root of masterwort.634
[1-4] #11. Or [chew the] root of yarrow.635 [1—4] #12. Or gargle with juice of monk's rhubarb.636 [1—4]
#13. Or chew the root of the yellow water-flower-de-luce.
1-13] Infallible], [5-13] #14. Or put a clove of garlic into the ear.63' [1 — 16]
Or [put into the ear] parsley much bruised, with a little baysalt. [1-M 6] #16. Or [put into the ear] a piece of plantain root, fresh digged
up, and washed.638 [1 — 16, not Works] Ifnfallible]. [1—4] #17. Or gargle with decoction of mulberry leaves.639 [1—16, not Works] #18. Or put into the hollow tooth a little cotton, dipped in Lu-
catelli's balsam. [1 — 16] #19. Or apply to the cheek gumTacamahac spread on silk. [2—17]
Or dissolve a dram of crude sal ammoniac in two drams of lemon-juice. Wet cotton and apply [to the tooth]. [2—20, not
Works] #21. Or take an ounce of rob of elder in broth, and gargle with it.
[5-13] #22. Or [lay to the cheek] a bag filled with hot camomile flowers.
[5-13] #23. Or [apply to the tooth] a drop or two of oil of cloves on cot
ton. [5-^16] 245. Toothache from cold air [14~*~ 23]
Keep the mouth full of warm water.640 [14—23] 246. Teeth set on edge [14~*~23] #1. Rub the tops of the teeth with a dry towel.641 [14—23]
634 Short, Medicina Britannica, 177.
635 Short, Medicina Britannica, 184.
636 Short, Medicina Britannica, 79.
637 Short, Medicina Britannica, 114.
03s Short, Medicina Britannica, 227.
639 Short, Medicina Britannica, 115 (in footnote).
640 Berdmore, Treatise, 121-22.
641Berdmore, Treatise, 173.
Primitive Physic
N.B. There is no such thing as worms in the teeth. Children's using coral is always useless, often hurtful.642 [14^23/
'Forcing the teeth into order is always dangerous. Filing is generally hurtful.
'All rough and cutting powders destroy the teeth. So do all common tinctures.
'Sweetmeats are apt to hurt the teeth, if the mouth be not rinsed after them. Cracking nuts often breaks off the enamel. So does biting thread in two.
'Constant use of toothpicks is a bad practice. 'Constant smoking of tobacco destroys many good sets of teeth.' Mr. Beardmore.643 [14^23]
receipt in previous editions] #2. Or chew sorrel leaves.644 [14^16]
[247. j645 Pain in the Testicles [7^23] #1. Apply pellitory of the wall, beaten up into a poultice, changing it morning and evening. [1-^23]
[248. J Testicles inflamed [12^23] #1. Boil bean flour in three parts water, one part vinegar. [Apply it as a poultice.]646 [12-^23]
[249.] Extreme Thirst (without a fever) [12^23] #1. Drink spring-water in which a little sal-prunella is dissolved.64' [12^23]
[additional receipt in previous edition]1'4X 642 Ibid., 184, 196-97.
6+3 Ibid., 218-24, 226-28 & 247, 255-57, and 258-60.
6441.e., Berdmore, Treatise, 174.
645 The receipt on 'Thirst' was correctly ordered after the receipts on testicles when it first appeared in 12^13; it was misplaced before them in 14->~23, except for Works. We have restored the original order.
646 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #139, p. 78. The [bracketed] section appears only in 15-M6.
647 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #324, p. 260.
648 This receipt is found in a section present only in Works, titled 'Thirst (to prevent or quench)'.
244 Medical and Health Writings
Capt. Edwards with thirteen men got into the [lifejboat, just as the ship sunk. Having neither meat nor drink, in a week half of them died. Being parched with heat, he dipped his shirt in the sea, and put it on again; and so did the rest. And this they repeated several times a day. Their flesh was soon candied over with salt. But their thirst was at an end. Neither were they faint or ravenously hungry, till in five or six days more, they rowed themselves to land. Here is an important discovery! Seawater, externally applied, was to them both meat and drink! [Works]
250. To draw out Thorns, splinters, or bones [1^23] #1. Apply nettle roots and salt. [1-^23]
Or [apply] turpentine spread on leather.
[additional receipts in previous editions] #3. Apply primrose leaves, beaten into a poultice.649 [l-*~4]
Apply a poultice of chewed bread.630 [CR#193, 1-M-] #5. Or [apply] a little turpentine.651 [1^4]
251. Thruslf [1^23] #1. Mix juice of celandine with honey, to the thickness of cream.
Infuse a little powdered saffron. Let this simmer a while, and scum it. Apply it (when needed) with a feather. [1-^23] At the same time give eight or ten grains of rhubarb. [8-^23] To a grown person, twenty. [14-^23] This also cures canker.
Or take an ounce of clarified honey, having scummed off all the
dross from it. Put in a dram of rock alum, finely powdered, and stir them well together. Let the child's mouth be rubbed well with this, five or six times a day, with a bit of rag tied upon the end of a stick, and though it be the thorough thrush, it will cure it in a few days. I never knew it fail. [20-^23]
Or burn scarlet cloth to ashes and blow them into the mouth.
This seldom fails. [15-^23] sLittle, white ulcers in the mouth. [5-*~23] 649 Short, Medicina Britannica, 236.
6S0This receipt appears in a separate section in 1-M titled "To draw a Splinter'.
65lThis receipt appears in a separate section in l-*-4 titled 'To draw a Splinter'.
Primitive Physic 252. Tonsils swelled [20+23] #1. Wash them with lavender-water. [20-^23]
receipts in previous editions]652 #2. Gargle with decoction of nettles.653 [1-M6]
Or [gargle with decoction] of primrose leaves.654 [1^16]
253. Torpor (or numbness of the limbs) [1+23] #1. Use the cold bath, with rubbing and sweating.655 [1-^23]
254. Twisting of the guts [5+23] #1. Many at the point of death have been cured by taking one,
two, or three pounds of quicksilver, ounce bv ounce. Pareus.656
Use the cold bath, with purges intermixed. [1*>~23] #2. Or mix the juice of leeks and of elder. Take two or three spoonfuls of this morning and evening.657 [l-»-23] Tried. [14-^23]
Or eat a few parched peas every hour. [20-^23]
[256.658] An Ulcer [CR, 1+23] #1. Dry and powder a walnut leaf, strew it on, and lay another walnut leaf on that. [1^23] Tried. [14-^23]
652These receipts appear in a section titled 'A swelled Throat' found in 1^16.
653 Short, Medicina Britannica, 204. Hawes (Examination, 74) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
654 Short, Medicina Britannica, 236. Hawes (Examination, 74) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
655 Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 475.
656 Ambroise Pare (1510-90). See The Works of that famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey (London: Cotes & Young, 1634), 811.
657 Short, Medicina Britannica, 102.
658 In medieval English script, like Latin, the 'V' was used as both vowel and consonant. Eventually this double usage was divided by the introduction of 'U' for the vowel. But in the eighteenth century it was still common to treat 'U' and 'V' as identical letters when alphabetizing. Wesley ordered his receipts in this way, treating Vertigo and Viper before Ulcer, etc. We have reorganized to modern alphabetizing for the benefit of readers of this edition.
Medical and Health Writings #2. Or boil walnut-tree leaves in water, with a little sugar. Apply a cloth dipped in this, changing it once in two days. [CR#227,
This has done wonders. [14*^23] * [Works] #3. Or foment, morning and evening, with a decoction of walnut-tree leaves, and bind the leaves on. This has cured foul bones. Yea, and a leprosy. [12-*~23] Tried.
20-^21]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #4. Apply a poultice of chewed bread, changing it every twelve
hours. [CR#226, 1~M] #5. Take a quarter of a pint of decoction of horsetail, morning and evening.659 [1-^4] #6. Drink tar-water, morning and evening.660 [1-M6]
#7. Or [drink, morning and evening,] decoction of pimpernel.661
[1-16] [257.] Ulcer in the bladder or kidneys [l-*~23]
Take decoction of agrimony, thrice a day. [1-^23] #2. Or [take, thrice a day] decoction, powder, or syrup of horsetail.662 [1-^23]
[258. ] Ulcer in the gum or jaw [12-*~23] #1. Apply honey of roses, sharpened with spirit of vitriol.663
Or fill the whites of eggs, boiled hard and slit, with myrrh and
sugar candy, powdered. Tie them up, and hang them on sticks lying across a glass. A liquid distills, with which anoint the sores often in a day.664 [12-^23] 659 Short, Medicina Britannica, 147. This receipt appeared in a section titled 'An Ulcer in the lungs' present in l->-4.
660 Berkeley, Philosophical Reflexions, 5. This receipt appeared in a section titled
'An inward Ulcer' present in l-*-16. Hawes (Examination, 77) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
661 This receipt appeared in a section titled 'An inward Ulcer' present in 1-*T6.
Hawes (Examination, 77) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
662 Short, Medicina Britannica, 147 663 Riviere, Practice of Physick, 135.
664Riviere, Four Books, Observation #168, p. 89.
Primitive Physic [259.] A fistulous Ulcer [1-*^23] #1. Apply wood betony, bruised, changing it daily. [1-^23]
[additional receipt in previous editions] #2. Or [apply] leaves of water dock, bruised. [1-M6]
[260.] A bleeding varicose Ulcer in the leg [1~*~23] #1. Was cured only by constant cold bathing.665 [1-^23]
[261.] A malignant Ulcer [1^23] #1. Foment, morning and evening, with a decoction of mint.
Then sprinkle on it finely powdered rue.666 [1^23] #2. Or burn to ashes (but not too long) the gross stalks on which red coleworts grow. Make a plaster of this and fresh butter.
Change it once a day.667 [CR#228, 1^16] #3. Or apply a poultice of parsnips. This will cure even when the
bone is foul. [8-*~23668] #4. Or be electrified. Tried. [9^23669] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Foment it daily with juice of mercury. [l-*-4] #6. Or apply daily juice of pimpernel boiled with the herb.6/0
[1-^16, not Works]
[262.] An Ulcer in the urethra' [14~*~23] #1. Take a clove of garlic, morning and evening. [14-^23]
'The urethra is the passage of the urine. [20-^23] 66SFloyer, Psychrolousia, 119.
666 Short, Medicina Britannica, 206 (in footnote).
607 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:148. This receipt appeared in a section titled
'A stubborn Ulcer' in 1-M6. w,8This receipt appeared in a section titled 'A stubborn Ulcer' in 8-M6.
669This receipt appeared in a section titled 'A stubborn Ulcer' in 9-M6.
670 Short, Medicina Britannica, 206 (in footnote).
248 Medical and Health Writings
[263.] Bloody Urine [CR, 1^23] #1. Take twice a day a pint of decoction of agrimony.6'1 [1 -*-23]
Or [take twice a day a pint] of decoction of yarrow.672 [17—23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Or [take half a pint] of decoction of calamint.6'3 [I'M] #4. Or [take half a pint] of decoction (or syrup, or powder) of
horsetail.674 [1—4] #5. Take a quarter of a pint of sheep's-milk, twice a day.67'
[CR#234, 1-16]
[264.] Urine by drops with heat and pain [1~*~23] #1. Drink nothing but lemonade. [1—23] Tried. [9—23]
Or beat up the pulp of five or six roasted apples with near
a quart of water. Take it at lying down. It commonly cures before morning.676 [1—23]
[265.] Involuntary Urine [1^23] #1. Use the cold bath.67' [1—23] #2. Or take a teaspoonful of powdered agrimony in a little water,
morning and evening. [1—23] #3. Or [take] a quarter of a pint of alum posset drink every night.
[1-23] #4. Or foment with rose-leaves and plantain-leaves, boiled in smith's forge water. Then apply plasters of alum and bole armoniac, made up with oil and vinegar. [12—23]
Or apply a blister to the os sacrum.678 This seldom fails.
[20-23] 6.1 Short, Medicina Britannica, 48 (in footnote).
6.2 Short, Medicina Britannica, 48 (in footnote).
673 Short, Medicina Britannica, 48 (in footnote).
674 Short, Medicina Britannica, 48 (in footnote), and 147.
675 Allen, Synopsis, 1:323. Hawes (Examination, 80—81) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
676 Short, Medicina Britannica, 11.
677 Floyer, Psychrolousia, 128.
678 The small triangular bone at the back of the pelvis.
Primitive Physic
[iadditional receipt in previous editions] #6. Or [take] half a pint of lime-water.
[266.] Sharp Urine [CR, 1^23] #1. lake two spoonfuls of fresh juice of ground-ivy.679 [CR#235,
[267.] Suppression of Urine [1^23]
Is sometimes relieved by bleeding. [12-^23] #2. Or drink largely of warm lemonade.680 [l-*~23] Tried.
Or [take] a scruple of nitre, every two hours. [12-*~23] #4. Or take a spoonful of juice of lemons, sweetened with syrup of violets.681 [CR#210, l-*-23] #5. Or [take] ten grains of mercurius dulcis. [20^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #6. Or [take] from two scruples to a dram of calcined eggshells, in a glass of white wine. [1-M-] #7. Or [take] from half a dram to a dram of powdered ivy.682 [1~*~4]
Or [take] a spoonful of juice of radishes.683 [CR#211, 1-^16] #9. Or [take] two spoonfuls of juice of onions.684 [1^16]
Or [take a spoonful] of bruised mustard-seed.68" [CR#211,
14-^16, not Works]
[268.] Uvula inflamed1 [1^23] #1. Gargle with a decoction of beaten hemp seed.686 [1-^23]
"This is usually called the palate of the mouth. [5-»-23] 67''Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:146.
680 Short, Medicina Britannica, 191 (in footnote).
681 Allen, Synopsis, 1:319.
682 Short, Medicina Britannica, 191 (in footnote).
683 Cf. Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:146. Hawes (Examination, 80-81) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
684 Short, Medicina Britannica, 191 (in footnote).
685 Cf. Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:146. Hawes (Examination, 80-81) questioned the efficacy of this receipt.
686 Short, Medicina Britannica, 157 (in footnote).
Medical and Health Writings #2. Or [gargle] with a decoction of dandelion.68' [1^23]
Or touch it frequently with camphorated spirits of wine.
[269.] Uvula relaxed [CR, 1~*~23]
Bruise the veins of a cabbage leaf and lay it, hot, on the crown of the head. Repeat, if needed, in two hours. [CR#236, l-*-23] Infallible]. [l-*~8] I never knew this to fail.
[Works] #2. Or gargle with an infusion of mustard seed.688 [1-^23]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #3. Or [gargle with decoction] of wild tansy. [1-M-]
Or gargle with decoction of water dock. [1-M6]
[270.] A Vein or sinew cut [5~*~23] #1. Apply the inner green rind of hazel, fresh scraped. [5-^23]
[271.] The Vertigo; or swimming in the head [1~*~23] #1. Take a vomit or two. [5-^23] #2. Or use the cold bath for a month. [1-^23]
#3. Or, in a May morning about sunrise, snuff up daily the dew
that is on mallow leaves. [1-^23] #4. Or apply to the top of the head, shaven, a plaster of flour of brimstone and white of eggs.689 [CR#224, 1-^23] Tried.
[Works, 2(M3] #5. Or take every morning half a dram of mustard seed.690 [l-*-23]
Or mix together one part of salt of tartar with three parts
cream of tartar. Take a teaspoonful in a glass of water, every morning, fasting. This is serviceable when the vertigo springs from acid, tough phlegm in the stomach. [20-^23]
687 Short, Medicina Britannica, 157 (in footnote).
688 Short, Medicina Britannica, 197.
689 Allen, Synopsis, 1:140.
690 Short, Medicina Britannica, 64 (in footnote).
Primitive Physic
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #7. Or snuff up the nose the juice of black or red beets. [1M]
Or [take every morning] a dram of columbine seed, in sage tea.691 [1M] #9. Or [take every morning a dram] of southernwood.692 [1M]
Or drop juice of pimpernel into the ear, morning and eve
ning. [1M6] #11. Or drink, morning and evening, half a pint of decoction of primrose root.693 1[nfallible]. [1M6] #12. Or [drink morning and evening half a pint of decoction] of
sage, washing also the head therewith.694 [1-M 6] #13. Or boil five or six buckthorn leaves in half a pint of water.
Drink this, fasting, for nine or ten mornings. [2-M] #14. Or take a teaspoonful of spirit of hartshorn in a glass of water. [15~M6]
[272.] Vigilia, inability to sleep [1~*~23] #1. Apply to the forehead, for two hours, cloths four times
doubled and dipped in cold water. [1*M3] I have known this applied to a lying-in woman, and her life saved thereby.
Or take a grain or two695 of camphor. It is both safer and surer than opium. [5~M3] #3. Asafoetida, from ten to thirty grains, likewise will in most cases
have as much effect as opium. [8~M3] #4. Drink no green-tea in the afternoon. [21-M3]
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #5. Or use the cold bath.696 It cures even in desperate cases. [1M6]
Or apply to the head leaves of water lilies. [1M6] #7. Or [apply to the head] a poultice of henbane and poppy seeds
beaten together. [1M7] #8. Anoint the temples with milk; next, with camphor.69' [Works]
691 Short, Medicina Britannica, 64 (in footnote).
692 Short, Medicina Britannica, 64 (in footnote).
693 Short, Medicina Britannica, 235.
694 Short, Medicina Britannica, 64 (in footnote).
695 5 M4 prescribe 'small doses' of camphor; 15-M6 change to 'a few grains'.
696 Cf. Floyer, Psychrolousia, 79, 134.
697 This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Sleep (to procure)' present only in Works.
Medical and Health Writings #9. Or [anoint the temples] with oil of roses (an ounce), well mixed with three drams of vinegar.698 [Works]
Or finish your supper with boiled lettuce. Galen.699 [Works] [273.] Bite of a Viper or rattlesnake [CR, 1~*~23]
Apply bruised garlic. [12-^23] #2. Rub the place immediately with common [olive] oil. 00
Query. Would not the same cure the bite of a mad dog? [l-*~23] Would it not be worthwhile to make the trial on a dog? [5-*~23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #3. Or apply, every other day, powdered euphorbium on lint; the
other day, only a linen bolster. [12-^13] #4. Or apply the anus of a pigeon to the wound/01 Sometimes two are needful. [12-M3] #5. Or powder common pit-coal fine and searce 02 it. Mix it into a paste with a little water. Apply it daily. This cures even foul bones. [12-^16]
[274.] To prevent the bite of a Viper [l-*-23]
Rub the hands with the juice of radishes. [l-*~23] [275.] An easy and safe Vomit [l-*~23]
Pour a dish of tea on twenty grains of ipecacuanha. You may sweeten it, if you please. When it has stood four or five minutes, pour the tea off clear and drink it. [9~*~23]
698This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Sleep (to procure)' present only in Works. m Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs (De alimentorum facultatibus), Book 2.
This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Sleep (to procure)' present only in Works.
700 Cf. Sydenham, Works, xix.
701 This remedy traces back to William Salmon, Seplasium: The Compleat English Physician (London: Matthew Gilliflower, 1693), 521; though JW's source may have been more recent.
'"2 Sift through a sieve or strainer.
Primitive Physic
[iadditional receipts in previous editions] #2. Mix an ounce of honey with an ounce of vinegar; infuse a good spoonful of horse-radish, scraped, for twenty-four hours.
Drink this, and work it well off with warm water.703 [1—4] #3. Or [boil in a quart of water, then drink] a dram and half of
primrose root, powdered. It is best if gathered in August.704
[1-16] #4. Or infuse three drams of radish-seed in a quart of warm water for twelve hours. Squeeze off the water and take it.705 [1—16]
Boil half a handful of artichoke leaves in a quart of water [and
drink it]. The more you drink of warm water after it, the better. [1—17] [276.] To stop Vomiting [CR, 1+23]
Apply a large onion, slit across the grain, to the pit of the stomach. [CR#229, 1-23] Infallible]. [2-8] Tried. [9-23] *
[Works, 20—23] #2. Or take a spoonful of lemon juice, and six grains of salt of
tartar.706 [CR#231, 1-23] [additional receipts in previous editions] #3. Or [apply to the stomach] a bag of saffron/07 [CR#230, 1—4]
Or infuse an ounce of quicksilver in a large glass full of water
for twenty-four hours.708 Then drink the water. I[nfallible]./09 [1—16] #5. If the vomiting be not the effect of a medicine, after every vomiting drink a pint of warm water.'10 [1—17]
277. Warts [CR, 1+23] #1. Rub them daily with a radish. [CR#237, 1—23] 703 This receipt appeared in a section titled 'An excellent Vomit for a palled stomach' present only in l-*-4.
704Short, Medicina Britannica, 235.
705 Short, Medicina Britannica, 240.
706 Willis, London Practice of Physick, 5.
707 Allen, Synopsis, 1:250.
708 Works omits 'for twenty-four hours'.
709 Hawes (Examination, 78) questioned the efficacy of this receipt, particularly if one waited twenty-four hours after the infusion before drinking.
710 Cf. Hancocke, Febrifugum Magnum, 56-57.
Medical and Health Writings #2. Or [rub them] with juice of marigold flowers.711 [l->-23] It will hardly fail. [15^23] #3. Or [rub them with] water in which sal ammoniac is dissolved.712 [CR#239, 1-^23] #4. Or apply bruised purslane as a poultice, changing it twice a
day. It cures in seven or eight days.713 [12^23] [additional receipts in previous editions]
Or [rub them] with juice of dandelion.'14 [CR#238, 1-^16] #6. Or anoint them four or five times with the milk of a fig-tree.
not Works] 278. Weakness in the ankles [1+23]
Hold them in cold water a quarter of an hour, morning and evening. [1-^23] 279. A soft Wen [12+23]
Wrap leaves of sorrel in a wet paper, and roast them in the embers. Mix it with finely sifted ashes into a poultice. Apply this warm, daily.715 [12-^23] #2. Dr. Riviere says, 'I cured a wen as big as a large fist thus: I made
an instrument of hard wood, like the stone with which the painters grind their colours on a marble. With this I rubbed it half an hour twice a day. Then I laid on a suppurating plaster, very hot, which I kept on four or five days. The wen suppurated and was opened. Afterward all the substance of it turned into matter and was evacuated. Thus I have cured many since.'716 [12-^23]
280. The Whites717 [1+23] #1. Live chastely. [14^23]
711 Digby, Choice Receipts, 86.
712 Allen, Synopsis, 2:123.
711 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #449, p. 302.
714 Allen, Synopsis, 2:123 (dentis leonis is the dandylion).
7,3 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #475, p. 308.
710 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #440, p. 300.
717 See also §156, receipt #6, above.
Primitive Physic
Feed sparingly. Use exercise constantly. Sleep moderately, but never lying on your back. [5—23] #3. Take eight grains of jalap every eight days. This usually cures in five weeks.718 [12—23] #4. Or first, bleed. Then purge thrice with twenty grains of rhu
barb and five of calomel. [2—23] #5. Or boil four or five leaves of the white hollyhock in a pint of milk, with a little sugar. Then add a teaspoonful of balm of Gilead. Drink this every morning. [5—23] Ijnfallible]. [5—8]
It rarely fails. [9—23] #6. Or make Venice turpentine, flour, and fine sugar—equal quan
tities—into small pills. Take three or four of these, morning and evening. This also cures most pains in the back. [2—23]
Or take yellow rosin, powdered, one ounce; conserve of roses, half an ounce; powdered rhubarb, three drams; syrup, a sufficient quantity to make an electuary. Take a large teaspoonful of this twice a day, in a cup of comfrey root tea. [20—23]
Or in a quarter of a pint of water wherein three drams of
tamarinds and a dram of lentisk wood has been boiled, when cold, infuse senna, a dram, [and] coriander seed and liquorice, a dram and half each. Let them stand all night. Strain the liquor in the morning, and drink it daily, two hours before breakfast.719 [12—23] #9. Or take quicksilver and aqua sulphurata, as for an asthma/20
This seldom fails. [5—23]
[,additional receipts in previous editions] #10. Take daily three spoonfuls of juice of cinquefoil, morning and evening/21 [1—4] #11. Or [take] a teaspoonful of lavender cotton leaves, pow
dered/22 [1—4] #12. Or, after purging, take about fifteen grains of ceruse of antimony in white wine, twice or thrice a day. [1 — 16]
Or [take] decoction of rosemary, daily, for three months.
[2-4] #14. Or [take decoction] of dead nettles. [2—4] #15. Or [take] a large bolus of moss, with a little syrup of marsh
718 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #401, p. 288.
719 Riviere, Four Books, Observation #281, p. 240.
720 1.e., §9, receipt #5.
721 Short, Medicina Britannica, 59.
722 Cf. Short, Medicina Britannica, 161.
256 Medical and Health Writings
mallows and white of egg, daily, for three months. Add, morning and evening, twenty-five drops of elixir of vitriol and tincture of steel mixed. [2->-4] #16. Or boil an handful of dead nettle flowers and a dram of cinnamon in half a pint of milk. Drink half of it every night and morning. [9-^16]
281. A Whitlow [CR, 1+23]
Apply treacle. Tried. [9-*-23] #2. Or [apply] honey and flour. Tried. [12^23]
Or [apply] a poultice of chewed bread. Shift it once a day.
Or [apply] a poultice of powdered pit-coal and warm water.
[additional receipts in previous editions] #5. Or [apply] a plaster of ground-ivy stamped. [1^17]
Or [apply a plaster] of smallage. [2-*-4] #7. Or [apply a poultice] of water lily. [14-*-17]
Or [apply] flour boiled in white wine. [15-*-16]
282. Wormsv [CR, 1+23]
Take two teaspoonfuls of brandy, sweetened with loaf-sugar, every morning. [20-*-23] #2. Or [take] a spoonful of juice of lemons. [8-*-23]
Or [take] two spoonfuls of nettle juice. [14-*-23] #4. Or boil four ounces of quicksilver an hour, in a quart of clear
water. Pour it off and bottle it up. You may use the same quicksilver again and again. Use this for common drink, or at least night and morning for a week or two. Then purge off the dead worms with fifteen or twenty grains of jalap.723 [5-*-23]
VA child may be known to have the worms by chilliness, paleness, hollow eyes, itching of the nose, starting in sleep, and an unusually stinking breath. Worms are never found in children that live wholly on milk. [5-*-23]
/21Lobb, Good Samaritan, 34. 5-*-13 have simply: 'Or boil an ounce of quicksilver in half a pint of spring-water. Use this for common drink'; taken from Mead,
Medical Precepts, 133.
Primitive Physic
Or take two teaspoonfuls of wormseed, mixed with treacle, for six mornings. [CR#241, 1—23] #6. Or [take] one, two, or three drams of powdered fern root, boiled in mead.'24This kills both the flat and the roundworms.
[1—23] Repeat the medicine from time to time. [5—23] #7. Or give one teaspoonful of syrup of bear's-foot at bed time,
and one or two in the morning, for two or three successive days, to children between two and six years of age; regulating the dose according to the strength of the patient.725 [20—23]
Syrup of bear's-foot is made thus: Sprinkle the green leaves with
vinegar, stamp and strain out the juice, and add to it a sufficient quantity of coarse sugar. This is the most powerful medicine for long roundworms.'26 [20—23]
Bruising the green leaves of bear's-foot and smelling often at them sometimes expels worms. [20—23] #9. Or boil half an ounce of aloes, powdered, with a few sprigs of
rue, wormwood, [and] camomile, in half a pint of gall, [down] to the consistency of a plaster. Spread this on thin leather and apply it to the stomach, changing it every twelve hours, for three days. Then take fifteen grains of jalap and it will bring vast quantities of worms away, some burst and some alive.
This will cure when no internal medicine avails. [20—23] #10. See extract from Dr. Tissot, page 145./2/ [20—23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #11. Or [take] a teaspoonful of burnt hartshorn mixed with sugar.
[CR#242, 1-4]
Or [take] a glass of onion water.728 [1 — 16, not Works] #13. Or [take] a spoonful of juice of spearmint.729 [1 — 16]
Infallible], [1] #14. Take a spoonful of salt in a glass of water every morning.
[1-M 7] #15. Or mix two drams of socotrine aloes with four ounces of treacle. Take a small nutmeg [size] of it every morning. [2-M]
Or [take] a dram and a half of nitre in broth. I[nfallible].
[8-16] 724 Short, Medicina Britannica, 94.
725 Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 470.
726 Ibid.
727 1.e., Advices, §§266—67.
728 Short, Medicina Britannica, 208.
729 Short, Medicina Britannica, 185.
258 Medical and Health Writings
Or [drink] a teacupful of strong infusion of peach leaves, sweetened with honey, fasting an hour after. [12-*-17]
Or dissolve an ounce of hepatic aloes in a pint of strong decoction of rue. Take a teaspoonful or two, in a morning, fasting. This destroys both roundworms and ascarides. [20]
Or mix and reduce to fine powder equal parts of rhubarb,
scammony, and calomel, with as much double-refined sugar as is equal to the weight of all the other ingredients. The dose for a child is from six grains to twelve, once or twice a week. An adult may take from twenty to forty [grains] for a dose. [20]
283. Flat Worms [8^23] #1. Mix a tablespoonful of Norway tar in a pint of small beer.
Take it as soon as you can in the morning, fasting. This brought away a tapeworm thirty-six feet in length. [20~*~23]
Or take from two to five grains of gamboge, made into a pill or bolus, in the morning, fasting; drinking after it a little weak green tea, and likewise when it begins to operate, till the worm is evacuated. The dose must be regulated according to the patient's strength; for [otherwise] neither this nor any other medicine given as an alternative is of the least service in this disorder. [20-*-23] #3. If the head of the worm be fixed in the upper orifice of the
stomach, a smart shock from the electrifying machine will probably dislodge it. Then purge. [20-*-23]
To prevent, avoid drinking stagnated water. [20-*-23] [additional receipt in previous editions]
Take filings of tin and red coral, of each an equal quantity.
Pound them together into a very fine powder. Of which one dram, made into a bolus with conserve of the tops of seawormwood, is to be taken twice a day.730 [8-*-20]
284. Wounds [CR, 1~*~23] If you have not an honest surgeon at hand. [17-*-23] #1. Apply juice or powder of yarrow.7311[nfallible].
730 Mead, Medical Precepts, 133.
731 Short, Medicina Britannica, 211 (in footnote).
Primitive Physic
Or bind leaves of ground-ivy upon it.732 [l->-23] #3. Or [bind on it leaves of] wood betony bruised. This quickly heals even cut veins or sinews, and draws out thorns or splinters.733 [l-*-23] #4. Or keep the part in cold water for an hour, keeping the wound
closed with your thumb. Then bind on the thin skin of an eggshell, for days or weeks, till it falls off of itself. Regard not, though it prick or shoot for a time. [1-^23]
[additional receipts in previous editions] #5. If small, apply chewed bread.
Or [apply] leaves of agrimony beaten into a poultice/34 [1-M-] #7. Or [apply] juice of celandine.73'1 [CR#244, 1*^4]
Or [bind on it leaves of] bruised hyssop, with a little sugar.736
Boil half an ounce of fine verdigris in a pound of linseed oil, till it is dissolved. Anoint therewith/37 [9-M6]
285. Inward Wounds [1~*~23] #1. Infuse yarrow twelve hours in warm water. Take a cup of this four times a day.738 [1^23] I[nfallible]. [1~M7]
286. Putrid Wounds [1~*~23] #1. Wash them, morning and evening, with warm decoction of agrimony. If they heal too soon, and matter gather underneath, apply a poultice of the leaves pounded, changing them once a day till well.739 [1-^23] #2. Or apply a carrot poultice; but if a gangrene comes on, apply a
wheat-flour poultice (after it has been by the fire till it begins to ferment) nearly cold. It will not fail. [20^23]
732 Short, Medicina Britannica, 126.
733 Short, Medicina Britannica, 26.
734 Short, Medicina Britannica, 210 (in footnote).
735 Boyle, Medicinal Experiments, 2:149.
736 Short, Medicina Britannica, 152.
737This receipt appeared in a section titled 'Contused or lacerated wounds' present only in 9-M6.
738 Short, Medicina Britannica, 211 (in footnote).
739 Short, Medicina Britannica, 211-12 (in footnote).
260 Medical and Health Writings
287Wounded tendons [1^23] #1. Boil comfrey roots to a thick mucilage, and apply this as a poultice, changing it once a day.740 [1^23]
288. To open a Wound that is closed too soon [15^23] #1. Apply bruised centaury to it. [15-^23]
,4° Short, Medicina Britanntca, 212 (in footnote).
Primitive Physic Daffy's Elixer [20-*- 23] Take of the best senna, guaiacum, liquorice sliced small, aniseeds, coriander seeds, and elecampane root, of each half an ounce; raisins of the sun, stoned, a quarter of a pound. Let them all be bruised and put into a quart of the best brandy. Let it stand by the fire for a few days, then strain it.74' [20-^23]
Stoughton's Drops [20]
Take gentian-root, one ounce; cochineal and saffron, one dram; rhubarb, two drams; the lesser cardamom seeds, grains of paradise, zedoary, snake-root, of each half an ounce; galangal one ounce. Slice the roots and bruise the seeds, then infuse them in a quart of the best brandy, and add the rinds of four
Seville oranges. When it has stood eight days, clear it off, and put a pint and a half more of brandy to the same ingredients, till their virtue is drawn out. This is greatly helpful in disorders of the stomach. See stomachic tincture, page
Turlington's Balsam743 Take balsam of Peru and balsam of Tolu, angelica root and
calamus root, of each half an ounce; gum storax in tears and dragons's blood, of each one ounce; gum benjamin, an ounce and a half; hepatic aloes and frankincense, of each two drams.
Let the roots be sliced thin and the gums bruised, and put all the ingredients into a quart of spirits of wine. Set the bottle by the fire, in a moderate heat, for eight or ten days, then strain it for use.
This is indeed a most excellent medicine for man or beast, and for
any fresh wound. I know none like it. [20-*~23] 741 Cf. Penelope Bradshaw, Bradshaw's Valuable Family Jewel [London: s.n., c.
742 1.e., the simpler directions above in §221, receipt #5. JW dropped this more complex formula from following editions. It was an alternative to the 'Great Cordial Elixir' patented by Robert Stoughton.
743 Robert Turlington patented his 'Balsam of Life' in 1744. He claimed that it contained twenty-seven ingredients, and was effective in the treatment of kidney and bladder stones, cholic, and inward weakness.
262 Medical and Health Writings
Dr. James's Powders744 Instead of giving half a crown a packet for these powders, you may at any druggist's get Dr. Hardwick's fever powder for a shilling an ounce—which, if it be not the same, will answer just the same end. [20-^23]
Cold-Bathing [1 23]745 Cures young children of:
Inflammations of the ears, Convulsions Coughs Cutaneous inflammations, navel, or mouth Rickets Suppression of Urine Vomiting Want of sleep pimples, and scabs Gravel Gripes [l-*~9]
It prevents the growth of hereditary:
Apoplexies Asthmas Blindness Consumptions Deafness Deliria [1-*~17] Gout King's-Evil Melancholy Palsies Rheumatism Stone
44 Robert James (1705-76) patented a fever powder in 1746 that was a mixture of phosphate of lime and oxide of antimony. See J. K. Crellin, 'Dr. James's Fever
Powder', Transactions of the British Society for the History of Pharmacy 1 (1974):
136-43.
745 JW's authority for this list is Floyer, Psychrolousia; for first two boxes see
78—80. Items in the boxes appear in all editions of Primitive Physic unless specifically noted otherwise.
Primitive Physic
It frequently746 cures every nervousw and every paralytic disorder. In particular:
Ague of every sort The Asthma Atrophy Blindness ** Cancer Chin-cough Coagulated blood after bruises Complication of distempers Consumptions Convulsions Convulsive Pains ** Coughs Deafness ** Dropsy Epilepsy Violent Fevers Gout (running) Hectic fevers Hemicrania [l->-15] Hysteric pains Incubus Inflammations ** Involuntary stool or urine ** Lameness (old) Leprosy Lethargy Loss of appetite, of smell,** [of] speech,** [of] taste ** Nephritic pains, Pain in the back, joints,** stomach Palpitation of the heart Rheumatism Rickets [20-^23] Rupture St. Vitus' dance [Chorea Sancti Viti, 1-^8] Sciatica ** Scorbutic pains ** Stone in the kidneys Suffocations Surfeits (at the beginning) Swelling on the joints Tetanus Torpor of the limbs, even when the use of them is lost Tympany Varicose ulcers Vertigo Vigilia The Whites [Fluor Albus 1-^13] w And this, I apprehend, accounts for its frequently curing the bite of a mad dog; especially if it be repeated for twenty-five or thirty days successively. [5_>'23, not Works] 746 1-*H3 lack 'frequently'.
Medical and Health Writings But in all cases where the nerves are obstructed (such as are those marked thus**) you should go to bed immediately after and sweat.1 [1-^23] It is often useful to use the hot bath a few days, before you use the cold. [1^23] Wise parents should dip their children in cold water every morn
ing, till they are three-quarters [of a year] old; and afterward, their hands and their feet.2 [l-*~23] N.B. No child should ever be swathed tight. It lays the foundation for
many diseases.3 [1-^16] N.B. It is best to wean a child at about seven months old. [5-M6] They should lie in the cradle at least a year. No wise parent should suffer a child to drink any tea; (at least, till it is ten or twelve years old) or to taste spice or sugar. Milk, milk-porridge, and water gruel are the proper breakfast for children. [8^16]
Washing the head every morning in cold water, prevents rheums, and cures coughs, old headaches, and sore eyes.4 5 [1^23]
Water-drinking [1 23] Generally prevents
gout hysteric fits stone trembling apoplexies asthmas convulsions madness palsies
To this children should be bred up from their cradles.6 [1-^23] The best water to drink, especially for those who are much troubled with the wind, is rainwater. After it has settled, draw it off clear into another vessel, and it will keep sweet for a long time. [12-^23]
1Flover, Psychrolousia, 128-29.
2Ibid., 93-95.
3 See Baynard, in Floyer, Psychrolousia, 340-42.
4Floyer, Psychrolousia, 93.
5This list comes from Floyer, Psychrolousia, 109-10. 1-M3 lack 'generally'.
6 Floyer, Psychrolousia, 110.
Primitive Physic Electrifyi ng f 8~*~23] In a proper manner, cures1 St. Anthony's fire Leprosy Blindness Restores bulk and fulness to was Blood extravasated Limbs [20—23] Bronchocele Locked jaws or joints [14—23] Burns or scalds [12—23] Menstrual obstructions [9—23] Coldness in the feet Mortification [8] Contractions of the limbs Ophthalmia [20—23] Convulsions [15—23] Pain in the stomach Cramp Palpitation of the heart Deafness Palsy Falling sickness Rheumatism Feet violently disordered Ringworms Felons Sciatica Fistula lachrvmalis Shingles Fits Sinews shrunk [14—23] Flooding [9—23] Spasms [20—23] Ganglions Sprain, [8—23] however old Gout [14-23] Headache Stiff joints [14—23] Imposthumes [14—23] Surfeit Inflammations Swellings of all sorts Involuntary motion of the eyelids Sore Throat [20—23] Toothache King's evil Ulcers [9-23] Knots in the flesh Wasting [14—23] Lameness Weakness of the Legs [14—23] Wens
Drawing sparks removes those tumours on the eyelids called barley-corns, by exciting local inflammation, and promoting suppuration. [20—23] Nor have I yet known one single instance, wherein it has done
harm. So that I cannot but doubt the veracity of those which have affirmed the contrary. [8—23] Dr. De Haen positively
1 All items in the list that follows appear in editions 8—23, unless specifically noted otherwise. See the similar list in Desideratum, II.3, below.
Medical and Health Writings affirms, 'it can do no hurt in any case';2 that is, unless the shock were immoderately strong. [14->~23] Fasting Spittle Outwardly applied every morning, has sometimes relieved and sometimes cured:3
Deafness Eye-lids, red and inflamed Scorbutic tetters Sore legs Warts Blindness Contracted sinews, from a cut [9-^23] Corns (mixed with chewed bread
and applied every morning) Cuts (fresh) Taken inwardly it relieves or cures:
Leprosy Palsy Rheumatism Scurvy Stone Swelled liver Asthmas Cancers Falling sickness Gout Gravel King's evil
The best way is to eat about an ounce of hard bread or sea-biscuit every morning, fasting two or three hours after. This should be done, in stubborn cases, for a month or six weeks.4 [8^23]
N.B. I advise all in or near London to buy their medicines at the Apothecaries Hall. There they are sure to have them good. [15^23]
2 See Anton de Haen (1704-76), Ratio Medendi (Vienna: Trattner, 1757), 139— 48; JW was almost certainly citing from the summary in Priestley, History, 421.
3 All items in the two tables that follow appear in editions 8-*~23, unless specifically noted otherwise. JW's source for these lists, added in 1758, was Nicholas
Robinson (c. 1697-1775), A Treatise on the Virtues and Efficacy of a Crust of Bread, eat early in a Morning, Fasting: To which are added some Particular Remarks concerning the Great Cures accomplished by the Saliva or Fasting Spittle (London: E.
Robinson, 1756); for the first list, see pp. 19-25; for the second, see pp. 25, 34-35, and 62. Robinson was a member of the Royal College of Physicians, and Physician to Christ's Hospital, London.
4See ibid., 33-34.