The Illness of Children.
Among the medicines for children was Venice treacle, made of vipers, white wine, opium, spices, licorice, red roses, tops of germander, and St. John's-wort, with about twenty other herbs, juice of rough sloes, and mixed with honey. Another medicine for children contained forty-two ingredients. As was given in another part of this chapter, rickets was one of the greatest afflictions of children and as was noted, Snail Water was one of the great remedies, for which see page 377. Here is another remedy for rickets, and the child that survived both the rickets and this treatment surely deserved to live:
"In ye Rickets the best Corrective I have ever found is a Syrup made of Black Cherrys. Thus. Take of Cherrys (dry'd ones are as good as any) & put them into a vessel with water. Set ye vessel near ye fire and let ye water be Scalding hot. Then take ye Cherrys into a thin Cloth and squeeze them into ye Vessell, & sweeten ye Liquor with Melosses. Give 2 spoonfuls of this 2 or 3 times a day. If you Dip your Child, Do it in this manner: viz: naked, in ye morning, head foremost in Cold Water, don't dress it Immediately, but let it be made warm in ye Cradle & sweat at least half an Hour moderately. Do this 3 mornings going & if one or both feet are Cold while other Parts sweat (which is sometimes ye Case) Let a little blood be taken out of ye feet ye 2nd Morning and yt will cause them to sweat afterwards. Before ye dips of ye Child give it some Snakeroot and Saffern Steep'd in Rum & Water, give this Immediately before Dipping and after you have dipt ye Child 3 Mornings Give it several times a Day ye following Syrup made of Comfry, Hartshorn, Red Roses, Hogbrake roots, knot-grass, petty-moral roots, sweeten ye Syrup with Melosses. Physicians are generally fearful about diping when ye Fever is hard, but oftentimes all attemps to lower it without diping are vain. Experience has taught me that these fears are groundless, yt many have about diping in Rickety Fevers; I have found in a multitude of Instances of diping is most effectual means to break a Rickety Fever. These Directions are agreeable to what I have practiced for many years."[326]
At the funeral of a boy there would sometimes be boys of about the same age as the deceased to act as nominal pallbearers to walk alongside the coffin borne by stronger young men. When a young child or girl was buried, sometimes the pall-bearers were girls, all dressed in white and wearing long white veils.