The apothecary to Queen Elizabeth brought in his quarter-bill, £83, 7s. 8d. Amongst the items were the following: “A confection made like a manus Christi, with bezoar stone, and unicorn’s horn, 11s. Sweet scent for christening of Sir Richard Knightly’s son, 2s. 6d. A conserve of barberries, damascene plums, and others, for Mr. Ralegh, 6s. Rose water for the King of Navarre’s ambassador, 12s. A royal sweetmeat, with rhubarb, 16d.”
A sweet preparation, and a favorite of Dr. Theodore Mayerne, was “balsam of bats.” A cure for hypochondria was composed of “adders, bats, angle-worms, sucking whelps, ox-bones, marrow, and hog’s grease.” Nice!
After perusing—without swallowing—his medical prescriptions, the reader would scarcely desire to follow the directions in his “Excellent and well-approved Receipts in Cooking.” I should rather, to run my risk, breakfast on boarding-house or hotel hash, than partake of food prepared from Dr. Mayerne’s “Cook Book.”
According to Dr. Sherley, Mayerne gave violent drugs, calomel in scruple doses, mixed sugar of lead with conserves, and fed gouty kings on pulverized human bones.
“A small, young mouse roasted,” is recommended by Dr. Bullyn, as a cure for restlessness and nervousness in children. For cold, cough, and tightness of the lungs, he says, “Snayles (snails) broken from the shells and sodden in whyte wyne, with olyv oyle and sugar, are very holsome.” Snails were long a favorite remedy, and given in consumption for no other reason than that “it was a slow disease.” A young puppy’s skin (warm and fresh) was applied to the chest of a child with croup, because he barked! Fish-worms, sow-bugs, crab’s eyes, fish-oil, sheep-droppings, and such delicious stuff were, and still are, favorite remedies with some physicians and country people. The following was one of Dr. Boleyn’s royal remedies:—
“Electuarium de Gemmis. Take two drachms of white perles; two little peeces of saphyre; jacinth, corneline, emerauldes, garnettes, of each an ounce; setwal, the sweate roote doronike, the rind of pomecitron, mace, basel seede, of each two drachms; of redde corall, amber, shaving of ivory, of each two drachms; rootes both of white and red behen, ginger, long peper, spicknard, folium indicum, saffron, cardamon, of each one drachm; of troch. diarodon, lignum aloes, of each half a small handful; cinnamon, galinga, zurubeth, which is a kind of setwal, of each one drachm and a half; thin pieces of gold and sylver, of each half a scruple; of musk, half a drachm. Make your electuary with honey emblici, which is the fourth kind of mirobalans with roses, strained in equall partes, as much as will suffice. This healeth cold, diseases of ye braine, harte, stomack. It is a medicine proved against the tremblynge of the harte, faynting, and sounin, the weakness of the stomacke, pensivenes, solitarines. Kings and noblemen have used this for their comfort. It causeth them to be bold-spirited, the body to smell wel, and ingendreth to the face good coloure.”
“Truly a medicine for kings and noblemen,” says Jeaffreson, who gives the following:—
“During the railroad panic of England (1846), an unfortunate physician prescribed the following for a nervous lady:—
| ℞. | Great Western, 350 shares. | |||
| Eastern Counties, | } | |||
| North Middlesex, | a. a. 1050. | |||
| M. | Haust. 1. Om. noc. cap. | |||
“This direction for a delicate lady to swallow nightly (noc.) 2450 railway shares was cited as proof of the doctor’s insanity, and the management of his private affairs was placed in other hands.”