Even as a surgeon minding off to cut
Som cureless limb; before in use he put
His violent engins in the victim’s member,
Bringeth his patient in a senseless slumber:
And griefless then (guided by use and art)
To save the whole, saws off the infested part.
Porta, writing in 1579, says: “It is possible to extract from several soporific plants a quintessence, which is to be shut up in a well-covered leaden vessel, lest the drug should evaporate. When it is to be used, the lid is to be removed and the medicament held to the nostrils, when its vapour will be drawn in by the breath and attack the citadel of the senses, so that the patient will be sunk in a deeper sleep not to be shook off without much labour.”
A Surgeon Performing an Operation on the Eye
From a woodcut of the XVII century