A Plain and Easie Method for Preserving (by God's Blessing) Those That Are Well from the Infection of the Plague, or Any Contagious Distemper, in City, Camp, Fleet, Etc., and for Curing Such as Are Infected with It.

by Thomas Willis

Take of Carduus Water Four Ounces, Pestilential Vinegar One Ounce, Pestilential Extract One Scruple: Mix them.

Or make some Posset-Drink with Pestilential Vinegar; in a Draught of it dissolve one Dram, or a Dram and a half, of any of these Confections, adding one Scruple of Salt of Wormwood.

In a Spoonful or two of Treacle-Water, or Vinegar, or both mix'd; give fifteen or twenty Drops of Spirit of Harts-horn, or of the simple Mixture from half a Dram to a Dram; or of Balsam of Sulphur, from ten to twenty Drops, or fifteen Drops of Elixir Proprietatis.

For the Poorer sort, make Posset-Drink with Pestilential Vinegar, and boyl in it some Butter-Roots, and give a Draught hot.

Or make this Potion which Henricus a Bra magnifies above all other Remedies, from the Experience of it in a great Plague once raging in his Country.

Take Celandine and Rue, of each one handful, Marigold Flowers half a handful; boyl these in a Quart of White-Wine Vinegar; strain it out, and keep it in a Glass Bottle; give two or three Spoonfuls; in which dissolve of Venice Treacle, or Mithridate, one Dram. This will provoke Sweat very powerfully.

Some others commend a Decoction of Guaiacum, to provoke Sweat with it, as in the cure of the French Pox.

A plain Decoction of Rue in White Wine, with a little Vinegar added to it, is highly commended by others.