A third would have it a dog, a fourth an oil,
With wild cats’ skins.”
Or if the patient called in the wise woman:—
“A good old woman—
Yes, faith, she dwells in Sea Coal Lane, did cure me
With sodden ale and pellitory of the wall.”
One learns from Ben Jonson that at St. Katherine’s by the Tower there were lunatic asylums:—
“Those are all broken loose
Out of St. Katherine’s, where they used to keep
The better sort of mad folks.”