Anser sumatur, Veteranus qui videatur,
Post deplumetur, Intralibus evacuetur.
Rheumatism was to be treated with olive oil, and the pharmacist is directed to warm it while he repeats the Psalm “Quare fremerunt gentes” as far as “Postula a me et dabo tibi gentes hereditatem tuam,” then the Gloria and two prayers. This recitation was to be repeated seven times. There were no clocks available at that time, and this therefore was the method of prescribing the length of an operation. Dr. Moore says he finds this direction would cover about a quarter of an hour.
Medical treatises in verse were frequent and popular in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There are several in the British Museum. A curious specimen is preserved in the Royal Library at Stockholm, and it is reproduced in readable English in “Archeologia,” Vol. XXX, with notes by the translator, Mr. George Stephens, and by Dr. Pettigrew. They both believe it was written in the fourteenth century. It consists of 1485 lines. Of these it will suffice to give the first four, and one specimen of its sections. It begins thus:—
In foure parties of amā
Be gynneth ye sekenesse yt yie han
In heed, in wombe, or i ye splene
Or i bleddyr, yese iiij I mene.
The following is entitled in the margin “Hed werk.”