Malcolm. Comes the king forth I pray you? Doctor. Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure; their malady convinces The great assay of art; but, at his touch, Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, They presently amend. Malcolm. I thank you, doctor. Macduff. What’s the disease he means? Malcolm. ’Tis call’d the evil A most miraculous work in this good king: Which often, since my here-remain in England, I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people, All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures; Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers; and ’tis spoken, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. III.
On the action of medicines he has given us abundant cause to think he was much better informed than the average man of his time.
Cleo. Give me to drink mandragora Char. Why, madame? Cleo. That I might sleep out this great gap of time, My Antony is away. Antony and Cleopatra, Act I., Sc. V.
Not poppy, nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, Shall ever med’cine thee to that sweet sleep Which thou ow’dst yesterday. Othello, Act III., Sc. III.
Cupid’s cup With the first draught intoxicates apace— A quintessential laudanum or “black drop” Which makes one drunk at once, without the base Expedient of full bumpers. Byron—Don Juan, Canto IX,. Verse LXVII.
——like an opiate which brings troubled rest, Or none, Byron—Don Juan, Canto XVI., Verse X
The drug he gave me, which, he said, was precious And cordial to me, have I not found it Murderous to the senses? Cymbeline, Act IV., Sc. II.
Have we eaten of the insane root, That takes the reason prisoner? Macbeth, Act I., Sc. III.
Commentators think that Shakespeare found the name of this root in Bateman’s Commentary on Bartholeme de Propriet Rerum: “Henbane (Hyoscyamus) is called Insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate or drunke, it breedeth madnesse, or slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly Mirilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason.”
Lib. XVII., Ch. 87.