GOOD Vehicles to wash down and facilitate the taking more efficacious Medicines, are made of the Waters distilled from those Herbs while they are fresh and fragrant (having not yet lost their volatile Salt;) for those which are commonly kept for Ornament in the Shops are insipid, and of little or no Worth.
A Clyssus also of the same Herbs is preferrable to the Waters, made after
this Manner, let a Quantity of Water be drawn from the green and succulent Plant, and the Juice be expressed from another Parcel of the same Herb, and depurated by standing; let then both be evaporated to the Consistence of Honey, and from it a Tincture drawn with some more distilled Water and a little Spirit of Wine, which is again by Evaporation to be reduced into an Extract; also from the dryed Plant draw its essential Oil, and from the Residium after Distillation the Salt. Of the Extract take [a]ʒ] iv. of the Salt [a]℥] [a][ss.], and of the Oil 50 drops, and mix them together, where let them lie to incorporate more intimately with one another. The inspissated Juices likewise of these Ingredients are of good Effect, and in the Winter, Decoctions may conveniently be made of them for the same medical Purposes; and further, that the Remedies in this Case may be yet the more efficacious, they may be joined with Alkaline-Salts dissolved in a proper Menstruum: For by this Means the Tone of the Stomach will be strengthened, Putrefaction will be prevented, the nitro-saline Effluvia will be resisted, or at least precipitated, and a Diaphoresis promoted.
SOME Berries are also of great Use in Practice; as the Powder of Ivy-Berries given to the Quantity of one Dram in two Parts of Elder Vinegar, and One Part of White-Wine; the Spirit likewise drawn from Elder-Berries would do the same in a Dose of [a]℥] iij. or [a]℥] iv. the Spirit of Juniper Berries given to [a]℥] i. a Spirit drawn from green Walnuts, with Treacle-Water, as also from the Seeds of Carduus, Citrons, &c. had likewise their due Recommendations in powerfully promoting Sweat.
BUT I know nothing amongst the Simples that hath so obtained, for Ages together, as the Oriental Bezoar, and which still hath so great a Name; yet without having any Inclination to contradict a received Opinion, I have been so confirmed by a Multitude of Trials, that the Truth will speak for it self, which manifestly denies its Virtues to be at all equivalent to its Value: And I have really given it in Powder many times to 40 or 50 Grains, without any manner of Effect; and I dare affirm that the Bezoar with which I made these Trials was genuine.
THE Powder also of an Unicorn’s Horn, so much cried up for an Antidote, never answered any good Expectations, although I had several Dozes of it given me by a Merchant, on purpose to try its Virtues: But that which would cure Pidgeons, Fowls, Cats and Dogs, from Arsenical Poisons, as the worthy Gentleman assured me that did, had yet no Efficacy against the pestilential Virulence: Yet if it was not controverted to this very Day, whether or no there is such an Animal in Being as an Unicorn; and it should moreover be granted that the Horn hath these stupendious Virtues; the Price of it would make it purchaseable only by the Rich; whereas in this dreadful Calamity the Populace were chiefly infected; and therefore cheap and common Medicines should be contrived for them by the Physicians; in the Number of which, first occur the Troches of Vipers, given to the Quantity of [a]℈] iv. in compound Scordium Water, or the volatile Salt of Vipers given to [a]ʒ] [a][ss.] in the same Vehicle. A very worthy Person sent us from New-England some Troches made of the Flesh of a Rattle-Snake, from which I found more Success amongst the Sick, than those we commonly have here.
THE Powder of Toads was likewise prodigiously extolled by every Body; but I found more Success in Spirits of Hartshorn, given from [a]℈] ij. to [a]ʒ] i. in Plague-water.
A Youth was seized with a great Difficulty of Breathing, and the Arteries hardly beat, and, in short, all Things seem’d to bespeak him in his last Moments; I prescribed him [a]ʒ] i. of the forementioned Spirits in [a]℥] iij. of compound Scordium Water; but the Symptoms continuing obstinate, I again repeated the same in three Hours Time with Addition of [a]℈] i. more; and five Blisters were also forthwith applied, after which in about half an Hour, he began to move his Limbs, and recollect himself, as if risen from the Dead: but at last when all Things were hopeful, there appeared a Discolouration upon one of his Legs, where a Blister had been raised, with a Loss of Sense very near to a Sphacelation; upon this the affected Part was deeply scarified and then fomented, which, with a Repetition of the same Draught twice in a Day, by the Blessing of Heaven, again restored every Thing into a hopeful Way. For this Spirit is of such a fiery Nature,
that it immediately disperses through the whole Body; and on Account of its great Volatility, helps to encounter with, and correct the saline, malignant Quality of the Pestilence: But I need say no more than that it is the most powerful Diaphoretick that can be given in any Disease whatsoever.
WHENSOEVER Things are brought to Extremity, some have Recourse to Mineral Preparations, in Order to drive out the Pestilence by mere Force; amongst which the chief are Mineral Bezoar, Sulphur Auratum, and Aurum Vitæ, &c. the Preparations of which are to be met with in chymical Writers.