THE DOCTOR IN OLD TIMES.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1698, 14 June 1884, Page 3

THE DOCTOR IN OLD TIMES.

The state of medicine ia Henry the Eighth's England may be inferred from the passages of the letters patent for establishing Linacre's College, which declare that heretofore a multitude of ignorant persons the greater part of whom had 'no insight into physic or any other kind of learning were the xisual advisees of the sick at moments of urgent peril "so far forth that common artificers, as smiths, weavers, and women, boldly and accustomably took upon them great cures, to the bigh displeasures of God and destruction of many of the king's leige people." Nor was the ignorance confined to practitioners who could not have read a verse to save themselves from the halter. In truth the Tudors had long perished from reigning houses betore the sick had better reason for trusting many a stately court doctor than a rustic dealer in simples. An author of delightful books, William Bulleyn — a doctor of high repute in the reign of our Sixth Edward and his sisters — dosed his patients with " electuaries" and "precious waters," compounded in ways as wonderful as their ingredients were numerous. For the preparation of his celebrated " Electuarium de Gemmis"he says, with the seriousness suitable to a philosopher. "Take two drachms of white perles ; two little peeces of saphyre ; jacinth, corneline, emeraulds, granetfces, of eaoh an ounce ; setwal. the sweate roote doronike, the rind of pometricon. mace, basel seede, of each two drachms ; of redde corall, amber shavings of each two drachms ; rootes both of white and. red behen, ginger, long pepper spicknard. folium, indicum, saffron, cardamon, of each one drachm ; of troch, diaradon, lignum aloes, of each half a small handful ; cinnamon, galiuga, zurubeth, which is a kind of setwal, of each one drachm and a half ; thin peeces of gold and silver, of each a scrnple ; of musk, half a drachm. Make your electuary with hpiiey emblici, which is the fourth kind of mirobolous with roses, strained in equall partes, as much as will suffice. This healeth cold diseases of ye braine, harte, stomkake. It is a medicine proved against the tremblynge of the harte, faynting and souning, the weakness of the stomacke, penaiveness, solitariness. Kings and noblemen have used this for their comfort. It causes them to be bold spirited, the body to smell well, and engendereth to the face good colors. " When such a mess was served, to kings and princes to give them lightness of heart, personal fragrance, and a clear complexion, cheaper and more nauseous messes of half a hundred incongruous ingredients were forced down the throats of the people to bring them round from ague or typhus. —Leisure Hour.