426. _drogges._ MS. Harl. _dragges_; the rest _drogges_, _drugges_, drugs.
As to _dragges_ (which is quite a different word), the Promptorium
Parvulorum has '_dragge_, dragetum'; and Cotgrave defines _dragée_ (the
French form of the word _dragge_) as 'a kind of digestive powder prescribed
unto weak stomachs after meat, and hence any jonkets, comfits, or
sweetmeats served in the last course for stomach-closers.'
_letuaries_, electuaries. '_Letuaire, laituarie_, s. m., électuaire, sorte
de médicament, sirop'; Godefroy.
429-34. Read _th'oldë_. 'The authors mentioned here wrote the chief medical
text-books of the middle ages. Rufus was a Greek physician of Ephesus, of
the age of Trajan; Haly, Serapion, and Avicen (Ebn Sina) were Arabian
physicians and astronomers of the eleventh century; Rhasis was a Spanish
Arab of the tenth century; and Averroes (Ebn Roschd) was a Moorish scholar
who flourished in Morocco in the twelfth century. Johannes Damascenus was
also an Arabian physician, but of a much earlier date (probably of the
ninth century). Constanti[n]us Afer, a native of Carthage, and afterwards
a monk of Monte Cassino, was one of the founders of the school of
Salerno--he lived at the end of the eleventh century. Bernardus Gordonius,
professor of medicine at Montpellier, appears to have been Chaucer's
contemporary. John Gatisden was a distinguished physician of Oxford in the
earlier half of the fourteenth century. Gilbertyn is supposed by Warton to
be the celebrated Gilbertus Anglicus. The names of Hippocrates and Galen
were, in the middle ages, always (or nearly always) spelt Ypocras and
Galienus.'--Wright. Cf. C. 306. Æsculapius, god of medicine, was fabled to
be the son of Apollo. Dioscorides was a Greek physician of the second
century. See the long note in Warton, 1871, ii. 368; and the account in
Saunders' [42] Chaucer (1889), p. 115. I may note here, that Haly wrote a
commentary on Galen, and is mentioned in Skelton's Philip Sparowe, l. 505.
There were three Serapions; the one here meant was probably John Serapion,
in the eleventh century. Averroes wrote a commentary on the works of
Aristotle, and died about 1198. Constantinus is the same as 'the cursed
monk Dan Constantyn,' mentioned in the Marchaunt's Tale, E. 1810. John
Gatisden was a fellow of Merton College, and 'was court-doctor under Edw.
II. He wrote a treatise on medicine called _Rosa Anglica_'; J. Jusserand,
Eng. Wayfaring Life, (1889), p. 180. Cf. Book of the Duchess, 572. Dante,
Inf. iv. 143, mentions 'Ippocrate, Avicenna, e Gallieno, Averrois,' &c.
'Par Hipocras, ne Galien,...
Rasis, Constantin, Avicenne';
Rom. de la Rose, 16161.
See Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 393.
439. 'In cloth of a blood-red colour and of a blueish-grey.' Cf. 'robes de
_pers_,' Rom. de la Rose, 9116. In the Testament of Creseide, ed. 1550, st.
36, we find:--
'Docter in phisike cledde in a scarlet gown,
And furred wel as suche one oughte to be.'
Cf. P. Plowman, B. vi. 271; Hoccleve, de Reg. Princ. p. 26.