Billy Atkins, a gout doctor of Charles II.'s time, who resided in the Old
Bailey, did an immense business in his specialty. His remarkable wig and
dress will find a place in our chapter on "Dress." He made a nostrum on
the authority of Swift, compounded of thirty different promiscuous
ingredients.
The apothecary to Queen Elizabeth brought in his quarter-bill, £83, 7s.
8d. Amongst the items were the following: "A confection made like a manus
Christi, with bezoar stone, and unicorn's horn, 11s. Sweet scent for
christening of Sir Richard Knightly's son, 2s. 6d. A conserve of
barberries, damascene plums, and others, for Mr. Ralegh, 6s. Rose water
for the King of Navarre's ambassador, 12s. A royal sweetmeat, with
rhubarb, 16d."
A sweet preparation, and a favorite of Dr. Theodore Mayerne, was "balsam
of bats." A cure for hypochondria was composed of "adders, bats,
angle-worms, sucking whelps, ox-bones, marrow, and hog's grease." Nice!
After perusing--without swallowing--his medical prescriptions, the reader
would scarcely desire to follow the directions in his "Excellent and
well-approved Receipts in Cooking." I should rather, to run my risk,
breakfast on boarding-house or hotel hash, than partake of food prepared
from Dr. Mayerne's "Cook Book."
According to Dr. Sherley, Mayerne gave violent drugs, calomel in scruple
doses, mixed sugar of lead with conserves, and fed gouty kings on
pulverized human bones.
"A small, young mouse roasted," is recommended by Dr. Bullyn, as a cure
for restlessness and nervousness in children. For cold, cough, and
tightness of the lungs, he says, "Snayles (snails) broken from the shells
and sodden in whyte wyne, with olyv oyle and sugar, are very holsome."
Snails were long a favorite remedy, and given in consumption for no other
reason than that "it was a _slow_ disease." A young puppy's skin (warm and
fresh) was applied to the chest of a child with croup, because he
_barked_! Fish-worms, sow-bugs, crab's eyes, fish-oil, sheep-droppings,
and such delicious stuff were, and still are, favorite remedies with some
physicians and country people. The following was one of Dr. Boleyn's royal
remedies:--
"_Electuarium de Gemmis._ Take two drachms of white perles; two little
peeces of saphyre; jacinth, corneline, emerauldes, garnettes, of each an
ounce; setwal, the sweate roote doronike, the rind of pomecitron, mace,
basel seede, of each two drachms; of redde corall, amber, shaving of
ivory, of each two drachms; rootes both of white and red behen, ginger,
long peper, spicknard, folium indicum, saffron, cardamon, of each one
drachm; of troch. diarodon, lignum aloes, of each half a small handful;
cinnamon, galinga, zurubeth, which is a kind of setwal, of each one drachm
and a half; thin pieces of gold and sylver, of each half a scruple; of
musk, half a drachm. Make your electuary with honey emblici, which is the
fourth kind of mirobalans with roses, strained in equall partes, as much
as will suffice. This healeth cold, diseases of ye braine, harte, stomack.
It is a medicine proved against the tremblynge of the harte, faynting, and
sounin, the weakness of the stomacke, pensivenes, solitarines. Kings and
noblemen have used this for their comfort. It causeth them to be
bold-spirited, the body to smell wel, and ingendreth to the face good
coloure."
"Truly a medicine for kings and noblemen," says Jeaffreson, who gives the
following:--
"During the railroad panic of England (1846), an unfortunate physician
prescribed the following for a nervous lady:--
[R]. Great Western, 350 shares.
Eastern Counties,}
North Middlesex, } a. a. 1050.