not studied deeply in college and hospital; nor had he taken any long
course of instruction in foreign schools and universities. When he had
decided to become a doctor, he had simply ridden with an old,
established physician--ridden literally--in a half-menial, half-medical
capacity. He had cared for the doctor's horse, swept the doctor's
office, run the doctor's errands, pounded drugs, gathered herbs, and
mixed plasters, until he was fitted to ride for himself. Then he had
applied to the court and received a license to practise--that was all. I
doubt not that this book of mine, and perhaps a manuscript collection of
recipes and prescriptions, and a few Latin treatises that he could
hardly decipher, formed his entire pharmacop[oe]ia. As he had chanced to
inherit a small fortune from a relative, he became a physician of some
note; for in colonial days wealth and position were as essential as were
learning and experience, to enable one to become a good doctor.
I like to think of the rich and pompous old doctor a-riding out to see
his patients, clad in his suit of sober brown or claret color with
shining buttons made of silver coins. The full-skirted coat had great
pockets and flaps, as had the long waistcoat that reached well over the
hips. Knee-breeches dressed his shapely legs, while fine silk stockings
and buckled shoes displayed his well-turned calves and ankles. On his
head he wore a cocked hat and wig. He owned and wore in turn wigs of
different sizes and dignity--ties, periwigs, bags, and bobs. His
portrait was painted in a full-bottomed wig that rivalled the Lord
Chancellor's in size; but his every-day riding-wig was a rather
commonplace horsehair affair with a stiff eel-skin cue. One wig he lost
by a mysterious accident while attending a patient who was lying ill of
a fever, of which the crisis seemed at hand. The doctor decided to
remain all night, and sat down by a table in the sick man's room. The
hours passed slowly away. Physician and nurse and goodwife talked and
droned on; the sick man moaned and tossed in his bed, and begged
fruitlessly for water. At last the room grew silent, the tired watchers
dozed in their chairs, the doctor nodded and nodded, bringing his
eel-skin cue dangerously near the flame of the candle that stood on the
table. Suddenly there was heard a sharp explosion, a hiss, a sizzle; and
when the smoke cleared, and the terrified occupants of the room
collected their senses, the watcher and wife were discovered under the
valance of the bed; the doctor stood scorched and bareheaded, looking
around for his wig; while the sick man, who had jumped out of bed in
the confusion and captured a pitcher of water, drunk half the contents,
and thrown the remainder over the doctor's head, was lying behind the
bed curtains laughing hysterically at the ridiculous appearance of the
man of medicine. Instant death was predicted for the invalid, who,
strange to say, either from the laughter or the water, began to recover
from that moment. The terrified physician was uncertain whether he ought
to attribute the conflagration of his wig to a violent demonstration of
the devil in his effort to obtain possession of the sick man's soul, or
to the powerful influence of some conjunction of the planets, or to the
new-fangled power of electricity which Dr. Franklin had just discovered
and was making so much talk about, and was so recklessly tinkering with
in Philadelphia at that very time. The doctor had strongly disapproved
of Franklin's reprehensible and meddlesome boldness, but he felt that it
was best, nevertheless, to write and obtain the philosopher's advice as
to the feasibility, advisability, and the best convenience of having one
of the new lightning-rods rigged upon his medical back, and running
thence up through his wig, thus warding off further alarming
demonstration. Ere this was done the mystery of the explosion was
solved. When the doctor's new wig arrived from Boston, he ordered his
newly purchased negro servant to powder it well ere it was worn. He was
horrified to see Pompey give the wig a liberal sprinkling of gunpowder
from the powder-horn, instead of starch from the dredging-box; and the
explosion of the old wig was no longer assigned to diabolical,
thaumaturgical, or meteorological influences.
Let us turn from the doctor and the wig to the book; let us see what he
did when he singed his head and burnt his face. He whipped my little
book out of his pocket and turned to page 77; there he was told to make
"Oyl of Eggs. Take twelve yolks of eggs and put them in a pot over the
fire, and let them stand until you perceive them to turn black; then put
them in a press and press out the Oyl." Or he could make "Oyl of Fennel"
if he preferred it. But probably the New England goodwife had on hand
one of the dozen astounding salves described in the book, that the
doctor had ere this instructed her to make, and in which I trust he
found due relief.
One cannot wonder that the sick man craved water, when we read what he
had had to drink. He had been given, a spoonful at a time, this
"Comfortable Juleb for a Feaver," made of "Barley Water & White Wine
each one pint, Whey one quart, two ounces of Conserves of Barberries,
and the Juyces of two limmons and 2 Oranges." The doctor had also taken
(if he had followed his Pearl of Practice) "two Salt white herrings &
slit them down the back and bound them to the soles of the feet" of his
patient; and I doubt not he had bled the sufferer at once, for he always
bled and purged on every possible occasion.
The Water of Life was also given for fevers, a few drops at a time, and
also as a tonic in health.
"Take Balm leaves and stalks, Betony leaves and flowers, Rosemary,
red sage, Taragon, Tormentil leaves, Rossolis and Roses, Carnation,
Hyssop, Thyme, red strings that grow upon Savory, red Fennel leaves
and root, red Mints, of each a handful; bruise these hearbs and put
them in a great earthern pot, & pour on them enough White Wine as
will cover them, stop them close, and let them steep for eight or
nine days; then put to it Cinnamon, Ginger, Angelica-seeds, Cloves,
and Nuttmegs, of each an ounce, a little Saffron, Sugar one pound,
Raysins solis stoned one pound, the loyns and legs of an old Coney,
a fleshy running Capon, the red flesh of the sinews of a leg of
Mutton, four young Chickens, twelve larks, the yolks of twelve
Eggs, a loaf of White-bread cut in sops, and two or three ounces of
Mithridate or Treacle, & as much Muscadine as will cover them all.
Distil al with a moderate fire, and keep the first and second
waters by themselves; and when there comes no more by Distilling
put more Wine into the pot upon the same stuffe and distil it
again, and you shal have another good water. This water
strengtheneth the Spirit, Brain, Heart, Liver, and Stomack. Take
when need is by itself, or with Ale, Beer, or Wine mingled with
Sugar."
Who could doubt that it strengthened the spirit, especially when taken
with ale or wine? Plainly here do we see the need of a doctor being a
good cook. But what pot would hold all that flesh and fowl, that
blooming flower-garden of herbs and posies, that assorted lot of fruits
and spices, to say nothing of the muscadine?
Our ancestors spared no pains in preparing these medicines. They did
not, shifting all responsibility, run to a chemist or apothecary with a
little slip of paper; with their own hands they picked, pulled, pounded,
stamped, shredded, dropped, powdered, and distilled, regardless of
expense, or trouble, or hard work. Truly they deserved to be cured. They
did not measure the drugs with precision in preparing their medicines,
as do our chemists nowadays, nor were their prescriptions written in
Latin nor with cabalistic marks--the asbestos stomachs and colossal
minds of our forefathers were much above such petty minuteness; nor did
they administer the doses with exactness. "The bigth of a walnut,"
"enough to lie on a pen knifes point," "the weight of a shilling,"
"enough to cover a French crown," "as bigg as a haslenut," "as great as
a charger," "the bigth of a Turkeys Egg," "a pretty draught," "a pretty
bunch of herbs," "take a little handful," "take a pretty quantity as
often as you please"--such are the lax directions that accompany these
old prescriptions.
Of course, the remedies given in this book were largely for the diseases
of the day. Physicians and parsons, lords and ladies, combined to
furnish complex and elaborate prescriptions and perfumes to cure and
avert the plague; and the list includes one plague-cure that the Lord
Mayor had from the Queen, and I may add that it is a particularly
unpleasant and revolting one. A plague swept through New England and
decimated the Indian tribes; and though it was not at all like the great
plague that devastated London, I doubt not red man and white man took
confidingly and faithfully medicines such as are given in this little
book of mine: the king's feeble and much-vaunted dose of "White Wine,
Ginger, Treacle, and Sage;" Dr. Atkinson's excellent perfume against the
Plague, of "Angelica roots and Wine Vinegar, that if taken fasting, your
breath would kill the Plague" (it must have been a fearful dose); "Mr.
Fenton's the Chirurgeon's Posset and his Sedour Root."
Cures for small-pox and for gout are many. Varied are the lotions for
the "pin and web in the eye;" so many are there of these that it makes
me suspect that our forefathers were sadly sore-eyed.
One very prevalent ail that our ancestors had to endure (if we can judge
from the number of prescriptions for its relief) was a "cold stomack;"
literally cold, one might think, since most of the cures were by
external application. Lady Spencer used a plebeian "greene turfe of
grasse" to warm her stomach, with the green side, not the dirt side,
placed next the skin. She could scarcely have worn this turf when she
was up and around the house, could she? She must have had it placed upon
her while she was in bed. Josselyn said in his "New England Rarities"
that, "to wear the skin of a Gripe dressed with the doun on" would cure
pain and coldness of the stomach. Thus did like cure like. A
"Restorative Bag" of herbs and spices heated in "boyl'd Vinegar" is
asserted to be "comfortable." "It must be as hot as can be endured, and
keep yourself from studying and musing and it will comfort you much." So
it seems you ought not to study nor to muse if your stomach be cold.
Many and manifold are the remedies to "chear the heart," to "drive
melancholy," to "cure one pensive," "for the megrums," "for a grief;"
and without doubt the lonely colonists often needed them. We know, too,
that "things ill for the heart were beans, pease, sadness, onions,
anger, evil tidings, and loss of friends,"--a very arbitrary and unjust
classification. Melancholy was evidently regarded as a disease, and a
much-to-be-lamented one. External applications were made to "drive the
worms out of the Brain as well as Dross out of the Stomack." Here is "A
pretious water to revive the Spirits:"
"Take four gallons of strong Ale, five ounces of Aniseeds,
Liquorish scraped half a pound, Sweet Mints, Angelica, Eccony,
Cowslip flowers, Sage & Rosemary Flowers, sweet Marjoram, of each
three handfuls, Palitory of the VVal one handful. After it is
fermented two or three dayes, distil it in a Limbeck, and in the
water infuse one handful of the flowers aforesaid, Cinnamon and
Fennel-seed of each half an ounce, Juniper berries bruised one
dram, red Rosebuds, roasted Apples & dates sliced and stoned, of
each half a pound; distil it again and sweeten it with some
Sugarcandy, and take of Ambergreese, Pearl, Red Coral, Hartshorn
pounded, and leaf Gold, of each half a Dram, put them in a fine
Linnen bag, and hang them by a thread in a Glasse."
Think of taking all that trouble to make something to cheer the spirits,
when the four gallons of strong ale with spices would have fully
answered the purpose, without bothering with the herbs and fruits. I
suppose the gold and jewels were particularly cheering ingredients, and
perhaps entitled the drink to its name of precious water. Indeed, it
would be cheering to the spirits nowadays to have the precious metals
and gems that were so lavishly used in these ancient medicines.
Full jewelled were the works of English persons of quality in the time
of the Merry Monarch and his sire. The gold and gems were not always
hung in bags in the medicines; frequently they were powdered and
dissolved, and formed a large portion of the dose. Like Chaucer's
Doctour, they believed that "gold in phisike is a cordial." Dr.
Gifford's "Amber Pils for Consumption" contained a large quantity of
pearls, white amber, and coral, as did also Lady Kent's powder. Sir
Edward Spencer's eye-salve was rich in powdered pearls. The Bishop of
Worcester's "admirable curing powder" was composed largely of "ten skins
of snakes or adders or Slow worms" mixed with "Magistery of Pearls." The
latter was a common ingredient, and under the head of "Choice Secrets
Made Known" we are told how to manufacture it:
"Dissolve two or three ounces of fine seed Pearl in distill'd
Vinegar, and when it's perfectly dissolved and all taken up, pour
the Vinegar into a clean glasse Bason; then drop some few drops of
oyl of Tartar upon it, and it will call down the Pearl into the
powder; then pour the Vinegar clean off softly; then put to the
Pearl clear Conduit or Spring water; pour that off, and do so
often until the taste of the Vinegar and Tartar be clean gone; then
dry the powder of Pearl upon warm embers and keep for your use."
Gold and precious stones were specially necessary "to ease the passion
of the Heart," as indeed they are nowadays. In that century, however,
they applied the mercenary cure inwardly, and prepared it thus:
"Take Damask Roses half-blown, cut off thier whites, and stamp them
very fine, and straine out the Juyce very strong; moisten it in the
stamping with a little Damask Rose water; then put thereto fine
powder Sugar, and boyl it gently to a fine Syrup; then take the
Powders of Amber, Pearl, Rubies, of each half a dram, Ambergreese
one scruple, and mingle them with the said syrup till it be
somewhat thick, and take a little thereof on a knifes point morning
and evening."
I can now understand the reason for the unceasing, the incurable
melancholy that hung like a heavy black shadow over so many Puritan
divines in the early days of New England, as their gloomy sermons, their
sad diaries and letters, plainly show. Those poor ministers had no
chance to use these receipts and thus get cured of "worms in the brain,"
with annual salaries of only £60, which they had to take in corn, wheat,
codfish, or bearskins, in any kind of "country pay," or even in wampum,
in order to get it at all. Rubies and pearls and gold and coral were
scarce drugs in clerical circles in Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth
plantations. Even amber and ivory were far from plentiful. We find John
Winthrop writing in 1682, "I am straitened, having no ivory beaten,
neither any pearle nor corall." Cleopatra drinks were out of fashion in
the New World. So Mather and Hooker and Warham were condemned to die
with uncheered spirits and unjewelled stomachs.
Another ingredient, unicorns' horns, which were ground and used in
powders, must have been difficult to obtain in New England, although I
believe Governor Winthrop had one sent to him as a gift from England;
and John Endicott, writing to him in 1634, said: "I have sent you Mrs
Beggarly her Vnicorns horne & beza stone." Both the unicorn's horn and
the bezoar stone were sovereign antidotes against poison. At another
time Winthrop had sent to him "bezoar stone, mugwort, orgaine, and
galingall root." Ambergris was also too rare and costly for American
Puritans to use, though we find Hull writing for golden ambergroose.
Insomnia is not a bane of our modern civilization alone. This little
book shows that our ancestors craved and sought sleep just as we do.
Here is a prescription to cure sleeplessness, which might be tried by
any wakeful soul of modern times, since it requires neither rubies,
pearls, nor gold for its manufacture:
"Bruise a handful of Anis-seeds, and steep them in Red Rose Water,
& make it up in little bags, & binde one of them to each Nostrill,
and it will cause sleep."
So aniseed bags were used in earlier days for a purpose very different
from our modern one; if your nineteenth century nose should refuse to
accustom itself to having bags hung on it, you can "Chop Chammomile &
crumbs of Brown Bread smal and boyl them with White Wine Vinegar, stir
it wel and spred it on a cloth & binde it to the soles of the feet as
hot as you can suffer it." And if that should not make you sleepy, there
are frankincense-perfumed paper bags for your head, and some very
pleasant things made of rose-leaves for your temples, and hard-boiled
eggs for the nape of your neck--you can choose from all of these.
They had abounding faith in those days. Several of the prescriptions in
"The Queen's Closet" are to cure people at a remote distance, by
applying the nostrums to a linen cloth previously wet with the patient's
blood. They had plasters of power to put on the back of the head to draw
the palate into place; and wonderful elixirs that would keep a dying man
alive five years; and herb-juices to make a dumb man speak. The
following suggestion shows plainly their confiding spirit:
"To Cure Deafnesse. Take the Garden Dasie roots and make juyce
thereof, and lay the worst side of the head low upon the bolster &
drop three or four drops thereof into the better Ear; this do three
or four dayes together."
"Simpatheticall" medicines had a special charm for all the Winthrops,
and that delightful but gullible old English alchemist, Sir Kenelm
Digby, kept them well posted in all the newest nonsense.
In a medical dispensatory of the times the different varieties of
medicines used in New England are enumerated. They are leaves, herbs,
roots, barks, seeds, flowers, juices, distilled waters, syrups, juleps,
decoctions, oils, electuaries, conserves, preserves, lohocks, ointments,
plasters, poultices, troches, and pills. These words and articles are
all used nowadays, except the lohock, which was to be _licked up_, and
in consistency stood in the intermediate ground between an electuary and
a syrup. These terms, of course, were in the Galenic practice. In "The
Queen's Closet" all the physic was found afield, with the exception of
the precious metals and one compound, rubila, which was made of antimony
and nitre, and which was in special favor in the Winthrop family--as
many of their letters show. They sent it and recommended it to their
friends--and better still, they took it faithfully themselves, and with
most satisfactory results.
There was also one mineral "oyntment" made of quicksilver, verdigris,
and brimstone mixed with "barrows grease," which was good for "horse,
man, or other beast." Alum and copperas were once recommended for
external use. The powerful "plaister of Paracelsus," also beloved of the
Winthrops, was not composed of mineral drugs, as might be supposed, but
was made of herbs, and from the ingredients named must have been
particularly nasty smelling as well as powerful.
The medicine mithridate forms a part of many of these prescriptions; it
does not seem to be regarded as an alexipharmic, but as a soporific. It
is said to have been the cure-all of King Mithridates. I will not give
an account of the process of its manufacture; it would fill about three
pages of this book, and I should think it would take about six weeks to
compound a good dose of it. There are forty-five different articles
used, each to be prepared by slow degrees and introduced with great
care; some of them (such as the rape of storax, camel's hay, and bellies
of skinks) must have been inconvenient to procure in New England.
Mithridates would hardly recognize his own medicine in this
conglomeration, for when Pompey found his precious receipt it was simple
enough: "Pound with care two walnuts, two dried figs, twenty pounds of
rice, and a grain of salt." I think we might take this _cum grano
salis_.
Queer were the names of some of the herbs; alehoof, which was
ground-ivy, or gill-go-by-ground, or haymaids, or twinhoof, or
gill-creep-by-ground, and was an herb of Venus, and thus in special use
for "passions of the heart," for "amorous cups," which few Puritans
dared to meddle with. The blessed thistle, of which one scandalized old
writer says, "I suppose the name was put upon it by them that had little
holiness themselves." Clary, or clear-eye, or Christ's-eye, which latter
name makes the same writer indignantly say, "I could wish from my soul
that blasphemy and ignorance were ceased among physicians"--as if the
poor doctors gave these folk-names! The crab-claws so often mentioned
was also an herb, otherwise known as knight's-pond water and
freshwater-soldier. The mints to flavor were horsemint, spearmint,
peppermint, catmint, and heartmint.
The earliest New England colonists did not discover in the new country
all the herbs and simples of their native land, but the Indian powwows
knew of others that answered every purpose--very healing herbs too, as
Wood in his "New England's Prospects" unwillingly acknowledges and thus
explains: "Sometimes the devill for requitall of their worship recovers
the partie to nuzzle them up inn thier devilish Religion." The planters
sent to England for herbs and drugs, as existing inventories show; and
they planted seeds and soon had plenty of home herbs that grew apace in
every dooryard. The New Haven colony passed a law at an early date to
force the destruction of a "great stinking poisonous weed," which is
said to have been the _Datura stramonium_, a medicinal herb. It had been
brought over by the Jamestown colonists, and had spread miraculously,
and was known as "Jimson" or Jamestown weed.
Josselyn gives in his "New England's Rarities" an interesting list of
the herbs known and used by the colonists. Cotton Mather said the most
useful and favorite medicinal plants were alehoof, garlick, elder, sage,
rue, and saffron. Saffron has never lost its popularity. To this day
"saffern tea" is a standing country dose in New England, especially for
the "jarnders." Elder, rue, and saffron were English herbs that were
made settlers here and carefully cultivated; so also were sage, hyssop,
tansy, wormwood, celandine, comfrey, mallows, mayweed, yarrow,
chamomile, dandelion, shepherd's-purse, bloody dock, elecampane,
motherwort, burdock, plantain, catnip, mint, fennel, and dill--all now
flaunting weeds. Dunton wrote, with praise of a Dr. Bullivant, in
Boston, in 1686, "He does not direct his patients to the East Indies to
look for drugs when they may have far better out of their gardens."
There is a charm in these medical rules in my old book, in spite of the
earth-worms and wood-lice and adders and vipers in which some of them
abound (to say nothing of other and more shocking ingredients). In
surprising and unpleasant compounds they do not excel the prescriptions
in a serious medical book published in Exeter, New Hampshire, as late as
1835. Nor is Cotton Mather's favorite and much-vaunted ingredient
_millepedes_, or sowbugs, once mentioned within. All are not vile
in my Queen's Closet--far from it. Medicines composed of Canary wine
or sack, with rose-water, juice of oranges and lemons, syrup of
clove-gillyflower, loaf sugar, "Mallago raisins," nutmegs, cloves,
cinnamon, mace, remind me strongly of Josselyn's New England Nectar, and
render me quite dissatisfied with our modern innovations of quinine,
antipyrine, and phenacetin, and even make only passively welcome the
innocuous and uninteresting homo[eo]pathic pellet and drop.
Many other dispensatories, guides, collections, and records of medical
customs and concoctions, remain to us even of the earliest days. We have
the private receipt-book of John Winthrop, a gathering of choice
receipts given to him in manuscript by one Stafford, of England. These
receipts have been printed in the Collections of the Massachusetts
Historical Society for the year 1862, with delightful notes by Dr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, and are of the same nature as those in the
Queen's Closet. Here is one, which was venomous, yet harmless enough: