AN ITINERANT DRUG SELLER.
From a fifteenth century drawing.
“A few simples,” says Burton, “well prepared and understood, are better than such a heap of nonsense, confused compounds, which are in apothecaries’ shops ordinarily sold.”
For madness and melancholy, wormwood was used. Another remedy was clarified whey, with borage, bugloss, endive, succory, etc., a good draught of which was taken in the morning, fasting. For the spleen and liver, syrups were prescribed composed of borage, thyme, epithyme, hops, scolopendra, fumitory, maiden-hair, and bizantine. These syrups were mixed with distilled water by the apothecaries, or stirred into juleps.
Of conserves there were innumerable varieties, and ointments of oil and wax, as well as liniments and plasters of herbs and flowers, well boiled with oil or spirits.
Cataplasms and salves were frequently made of green herbs sodden, pounded, and applied externally.
Gradually, as the years have rolled on, and as the science of chemistry has unlocked the marvellous resources and products of nature, most of these old relics of the days of superstition and witchcraft have been left behind and forgotten, and it remains only for some old black-lettered tome to tell the story and for us to fill in the background to the picture.