Caranna outwardly applied, is excellent for aches and swellings in the nerves and joints: If you lay it behind the ears, it draws back humours from the eyes; applied to the temples as they usually do Mastich, it helps the tooth-ache.
Gum Elimi, authors appropriate to fractures in the skull and head. See Arceus’ liniment.
Gum Lacca being well purified, and the quantity of half a dram taken in any convenient liquor, strengthens the stomach and liver, opens obstructions, helps the yellow jaundice and dropsy; provokes urine, breaks the stone in the reins and bladder.
Liquid Amber is not much unlike liquid Styrax: by unction it warms and comforts a cold and moist brain, it eases all griefs coming of a cold cause, it mightily comforts and strengthens a weak stomach, being anointed with it, and helps digestion exceedingly, it dissolves swellings. It is hot in the third degree, and moist in the first.
I think it would do the commonwealth no harm if I should speak a word or two on Manna here, although it be no Gum: I confess authors make some flutter about it, what it is, some holding it to be the juice of a tree; I am confident it is the very same condensated that our honey-dews here are, only the contries whence it comes being far hotter, it falls in great abundance. Let him that desires reason for it, be pleased to read Butler’s book of Bees, a most excellent experimental work, there he shall find reason enough to satisfy any reasonable man. Choose the driest and whitest; it is a very gentle purger of choler, quenches thirst, provokes appetite, eases the roughness of the throat, helps bitterness in the throat, and often proneness to vomit, it is very good for such as are subject to be costive to put it into their drink instead of sugar, it hath no obnoxious quality at all in it, but may be taken by a pregnant woman without any danger; a child of a year old may take an ounce of it at a time dissolved in milk, it will melt like sugar, neither will it be known from it by the taste.
Myrrh is hot and dry in the second degree, dangerous for pregnant women, it is bitter, and yet held to be good for the roughness of the throat and wind-pipe; half a dram of it taken at a time helps rheumatic distillations upon the lungs, pains in the sides; it stops fluxes, provokes the menses, brings away both birth and after-birth, softens the hardness of the womb; being taken two hours before the fit comes, it helps agues. Mathiolus saith he seldom used any other medicine for the quartan ague than a dram of myrrh given in Muskadel an hour before the fit usually came; if you make it up into pills with treacle, and take one of them every morning fasting, it is a sovereign preservative against the pestilence, against the poison of serpents, and other venomous beasts; a singular remedy for a stinking breath if it arise from putrefaction of the stomach, it fastens loose teeth, and stays the shedding off of the hair, outwardly used it breeds flesh in deep wounds, and covers the naked bones with flesh.
Olibanum is hot in the second degree, and dry in the first, you may take a dram of it at a time, it stops looseness and the running of the reins; it strengthens the memory exceedingly, comforts the heart, expels sadness and melancholy, strengthens the heart, helps coughs, rheums and pleurises; your best way (in my opinion,) to take it is to mix it with conserve of roses, and take it in the morning fasting.
Tachamacha is seldom taken inwardly, outwardly spread upon leather, and applied to the navel; it stays the fits of the mother, applied to the side, it mitigates speedily, and in little time quite takes away the pain and windiness of the spleen; the truth is, whatsoever ache or swelling proceeds of wind or cold raw humours, I know no better plaister coming from beyond sea than this gum. It strengthens the brain and memory exceedingly, and stops all such defluctions thence as trouble the eyes, ears, or teeth, it helps the gout and sciatica.
Gum Coopal, and Gum Anime, are very like one another both in body and operation, the former is hard to come by, the last not very easy. It stops defluctions from the head, if you perfume your cap with the smoke of it, it helps the headache and megrim, strengthens the brain, and therefore the sinews.
Gum Tragaganth, which the vulgar call Gum Dragon, being mixed with pectoral Syrups, (which you shall find noted in their proper places) it helps coughs and hoarseness, salt and sharp distillations upon the lungs, being taken with a liquorice stick, being dissolved in sweet wine, it helps (being drank) gnawing in the bowels, sharpness and freetings of the urine, which causes excoriations either in the reins or bladder, being dissolved in milk and the eyes washed with it, it takes away weals and scabs that grow on the eyelids, it is excellently good to be put in poultice to fodder wounds, especially if the nerves or sinews be hurt.