To this lost limb, who, ere they show their art,
Cast one asleep, then cut the diseased part.
William Bulleyn, the author of “A Bulwark of Defence against Sickness,” who practised as a surgeon in the reign of Henry VIII, describes an anæsthetic which he directs to be prepared from the juice of a certain herb (probably mandragora) “pressed forth, and kept in a closed earthen vessel according to art, bringeth deep sleep, and casteth man into a trance, or deep terrible sleep, until he shall be cut of the stone.”
Allusions to anæsthesia by antient poets
The poet Marlowe thus refers to mandragora in his play “The Jew of Malta”:—
Barabas:
I drank of poppy and cold mandrake juice,
And being asleep, belike they thought me dead,
And threw me o’er the walls.
Du Bartas, as translated by Sylvester in 1592, makes the following allusion to anæsthesia:—