A Drachm For What Ails You

 

We’ve all heard of the old medical procedure of bleeding a patient for…well, almost anything. Less well known are the remedies for various ailments and injuries. Many of them probably did no harm, though most probably required a strong stomach and no gag reflex. I haven't included any that used animal dung as an ingredient although various sorts, including that of peacocks, continued to be employed as medicaments in England until 1721. No, I don't know why they stopped in that year.

Don't try any of these. 

The Pharmacist by Pietro Longhi, 1752

From The English Physician, Enlarged with Three Hundred and Sixty-nine Medicines Made of English Herbs, Not in Any Former Impression of Culpeper's British Herbal ... to which is Added The Family Physician and A Present for the Ladies (1810, but reproduces almost unchanged Culpeper’s text of 1666, with the addition of The Family Physician and A Present for the Ladies):

Compound Tincture of Sena, commonly called Daffy's Elixir. Take of the best sena two ounces; jalan, coriander seeds and cream of tartar, of each one ounce; coarse sugar three quarters of a pound; of brandy three pints. Let then stand all thus mixed together for ten or twelve days, then strain off what is fine for use. This is an agreeable purge and nothing can be more useful than to always keep it ready made in your houses for family use.

My note: I’ll bet it was agreeable, all right: the sugar and brandy would take the curse off almost anything.

How to cure warts. Go into the field and take a black snail, and rub them with the same nine times one way, and then nine times another, and then stick that said snail upon a black thorn and the warts will waste. I have also known a black snail cure corns, being laid thereon as a plaister. If you have what is called blood or bleeding warts, then take a piece of raw beef that never had any salt, and rub them with the same just in the same manner as you used the snail above mentioned: after this operation is performed you must bury the piece of beef in the earth.

How to make Salve for all wounds. Take one pound of hog's lard, three ounces of white lead, three ounces of red lead, three ounces of bees wax, two ounces of black rosin, and four ounces of common turpentine; all these ingredients must be put together in a pan, and boil three quarters of an hour; the turpentine to be put in just before it is done enough, and give it a gentle boil afterwards. This is an excellent salve for burns, old sores or ulcers, as it first draws then heals afterwards; it is excellent for all wounds, and ought to be always kept in your house.

A remedy for a strain, &c. Take the oil of swallows, the oil of peter, and the oil of turpentine, of each an equal quantity, mix them well together, and anoint the part afflicted with the same.

From A Collection of Over 300 Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery, by Mary Kettilby, 1714:

A Powder to Stop a Hickock in Man, Woman, or Child. Put as much Dill-seed finely powder'd as will lie on a Shilling, into two spoonfuls of Syrop of Black Cherries, and take it presently.

The Ricketty Drink. Put an ounce of Rhubarb, three hundred live Wood-lice, Saſſafras, China, and Eringo-roots, of each three ounces; Roots of Osmond-royal, two onnces; Raisons of the Sun ston'd, two ounces; Hart's-Tongue, two hand fuls; Put these into six quarts of Small Ale, and Drink Spring and Fall no other Drink. 'Tis almost infallible for weak Children.

A very good Snail-Water, for a Consumption. TAKE half a peck of Shell Snails, wipe them and bruise them. Shells and all in a Mortar; put to them a gallon of New Milk; as also Balm, Mint, Carduus, unset Hyssop, and Burrage, of each one handful; Raisons of the Sun stoned, Figs, and Dates, of each a quarter of a pound; two large Nutmegs: Slice all these, and put them to the Milk, and distil it with a quick Fire in a cold Still; this will yield near four Wine-quarts of Water very good: You must put two ounces of White Sugar-candy into each Bottle, and let the Water drop on it; stir the Herbs sometimes while it distils, and keep it cover'd on the Head with wet Cloths. Take five spoonfuls at a time, first and last, and at Four in the Afternoon.

For a Strain, Put the Arm or Leg into a Pail of Cold Spring-water, and keep it there 'till the Water be warm; then take it out, and repeat it ’till it be well, which it will be without applying any other Remedy.

A Powder for Digestion. TAKE Gallingale and Setwal of each one ounce; Long-Pepper, Mace, and Nutmeg, of each two ounces; Annis-seeds, Carraway-seeds, Fennel-seeds, and Angelica-seeds, of each half an ounce: Put to these, all finely powder'd, the weight in fine powder'd Sugar ; take as much as will lie on a shilling after every Meal, and Drink a glass of Simple Carduus-Water after it: This has done mighty Cures to weak deprav'd Stomachs.

From The Elaboratory Laid Open, or, The Secrets of Modern Chemistry and Pharmacy Revealed, 1758:

Gascoigne’s Powder (in use in various formulations and by various names from the 16^th to the 19^th century; used for treating feverish conditions including smallpox, measles, plague and for consumption)

Take, of prepared pearls, crabs eyes, red coral, the whitest amber, calcined hartshorn, and oriental bezoar, each one ounce: of the tips of crabs claws powdered, the weight of all the others: make them into a fine powder; and afterwards form them in to balls, by means of a solution of gum arabic.

Note. This composition, which, from the caprice and folly of mankind, has been in very great vogue, differs materially from other testaceous powders in nothing, but the very great expensiveness of some of its ingredients. It has therefore, been seldom prepared with a strict conformity to the prescription here given…

Volatile tincture of bark. Take, of the Peruvian bark*, four ounces, volatile spirit of sal ammoniacum, two pints, digest them, without heat, in a vessel well closed; and strain off the tincture.

*My note: Also known as Jesuit’s bark, a term which was shunned in England because of its connection with the Roman Catholic religion. We would call it quinine.