“‘℞. Take of aqua vitæ, four times distilled, three parts, and of the tops and flowers of rosemary two parts: put these together in a close vessel, let them stand in a gentle heat fifty hours, and then distil them. Take one dram of this in the morning once every week, either in your food or drink, and let your face and the diseased limb be washed with it every morning.
“‘It renovates the strength, brightens the spirits, purifies the marrow and nerves, restores and preserves the sight, and prolongs life.’ Thus far from the Breviary.”—Then follows a confirmation which Prevot gives from his own experience.
[970] Medicorum Hungariæ Biographia, [ut supra], p. 214.
[971] The book of Zapata, who is not noticed in the Gelehrten Lexicon, was printed at Rome, as Haller says in his Biblioth. Botan. vol. i. p. 368, in the year 1586; and other editions are mentioned in Boerhavii Methodus Studii Medici, p. 728 and 869. I have now before me, Joh. Bapt. Zapatæ, Medici Romani, Mirabilia seu Secreta Medico-chirurgica—per Davidem Spleissium. Ulmiæ, 1696. The passage above alluded to occurs in page 49.
CORK.
Those who are accustomed to value things used in common life only according to the price for which they can be purchased, will perhaps imagine that my subject must be nearly exhausted when I think it worth my while to entertain my readers with a matter so inconsiderable. Cork, however, is a substance of such a singular property, that no other has yet been found which can be so generally employed with the same advantage; and before the use of it was known, people were obliged on many occasions to supply the want of it by means which to us would appear extremely troublesome.
Cork is a body remarkably light, can be easily compressed, expands again by its elasticity as soon as the compressing power is removed, and therefore fills or stops up very closely that space into which it has been driven by force. It may be easily cut into all forms; and though it abounds with pores, which are the cause of its lightness, it suffers neither water, beer, nor any common liquid to escape through it, and it is only very slowly and after a considerable length of time that it can be penetrated even by spirits. Its numerous pores seem to be too small to afford a passage to the finest particles of water and wine, which can with greater facility ooze through more compact wood that has larger or wider pores[972].
Cork is the exterior bark of a tree, belonging to the genus of the oak, which grows wild in the southern parts of Europe, particularly France, Spain, Portugal and Italy[973]. When the tree is about twenty-six years old it is fit to be barked, and this can be done successively every eight years[974]. The bark always grows up again, and its quality improves with the increasing age of the tree. It is commonly singed a little over a strong fire or glowing coals, and laid to soak a certain time in water, after which it is placed under stones in order to be pressed straight.
This tree, as well as its use, was known to the Greeks and the Romans. By the former it was called phellus. Theophrastus reckons it among the oaks, and says that it has a thick fleshy bark, which must be stripped off every three years to prevent it from perishing. He adds, that it was so light as never to sink in water, and on that account could be used with great advantage for a variety of purposes[975]. The only circumstance which on the first consideration can excite any doubt of the phellus being our cork-tree, is, that he expressly says it lost its leaves annually, whereas our cork-tree retains them. In another passage however he calls it an evergreen[976]. This apparent contradiction several commentators have endeavoured to clear up, but their labour seems unnecessary; for there is a species of our cork-tree which really drops its leaves. Linnæus did not think this species worth his notice; but it has been accurately observed by Clusius and Matthiolus[977], and its existence is confirmed by Miller[978]. As Theophrastus[979], Pliny[980], Varro[981] and others mention a common oak which always retains its leaves, it appears clear to me that the first-mentioned author, where he speaks of evergreens, meant our common species of the cork-tree, and that extraordinary kind of oak; but in the other passage that species which drops its leaves in winter.