The lesser writings of John Arderne / by D'Arcy Power.

  • D'Arcy Power
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The lesser writings of John Arderne / by D'Arcy Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    for it is full of the Latin tags familiar to every reader of the tracts on fistula. Arderne shows a belief in the effects of the moon on bleeding, but adds very sensibly that patients must not be blooded in very hot or very cold weather ; that old men who have not been used to bleeding should not be Jet blood, and that children under twelve years of age bear bleeding badly. He quotes Rhazes, Galen, Avicenna, Ptolemy, as though the texts of a Latin version lay before him. A prescription is given ‘ for to make an ointment for cancer of a man’s yard ’, clearly with hemorrhage. It consists of lard, white wax, and red dock. These ingredients are to be mingled with ‘ the fat of one hog’, an amount which we know to have been about five pounds, since the whole animal at this period rarely weighed more than forty pounds. Arderne’s Saxon training comes out in this formula as well as in a second; the preparation of another ointment against cancer where he directs that filipendula—the dropwort—is to be taken on a Thursday before sunrise with a paternoster, and in the charms which are recommended to staunch bleeding from the nose. One of these charms consists in writing certain characters and suspending the writing about the neck of the patient, or in writing them on the haft of a knife with which a pig is afterwards killed. A hazel twig, too, may be split, and the head of the patient is put through the loop, the sign of the cross is made on the fore- head, and the invocation is uttered. A styptic powder is also ordered for use in bleeding piles and for the relief of too profuse menstruation. It is noteworthy that Arderne is free from any marked astrological ideas and that it is onlyin the translations executed in the next century that extensive interpolations occur in this tract regarding lucky and unlucky days and the influence of the constellations on the letting of blood. A formula for making Greek fire. The next page or two of the manu- script deals with a method of making Greek fire, and is written in French. Greek fire is essentially a preparation of turpentine, which is called in Arabic ‘ alkitran’, and in other languages ‘Terebintine’. It has marvel- lous virtues—unspecified—and when live sulphur is added to it, as in Spain, it makes horrible sores. The book of Simples. The book of Simples, which has no definite beginning, opens with the following list of names for herbs and diseases in French and other languages. It seems worth while to give it in full, but it is impossible to tell now whether Arderne jotted it down for his own guidance or whether it is an echo of his early travels. ‘In ffrancia that is to saye in fraunce they callene herbes these names that folowene Nele i. (e). pople. Stocorgone 1. Beere. Ineray 1. darnell. Chavener i terra (ubi sennaterra). Drew i. drawke. Chaveneys 1. seed. Ambesoyn i. karloke. Cannere i. hempe. Blewet idem est. Eanynot i. burres. Cheleye 1. mathe. Brounce i. underwode. Lusecte i. tarre. Bronce i. birche. Weldyllon i. edgrowe. Anne i. Aldere.
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