Licence: In copyright
Credit: Mediaeval medicine / by G. Henslow. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![483 gone through many editions, and is still published at the present day. I am informed that, of two editions, the smaller one has been sold at the rate of about 1,370 copies per annum for the last fifty years, and a larger one at about 200 per annum for the same period. The theory of likeness appears to have been applied even to the signs of the zodiac, as the two following specimens of Culpeper’s teaching shows. “ Under Aries [the Ram] are born men of thick hair, white or yellowish, curling; long visage, crooked nose, short legs, little feet. The first fifteen degrees give a more gross body than the later.” “ Under Tatirus [the Bull] are born men of short and thick stature, big broad men, high forehead, wide nose, great mouth, fat short neck, dark ruddy colour, short arms, thick hands, thick black hair, short legs ; slowe to anger, but if once angered, hardly ever pleased again.” Galen, who lived from A.b. 131-200, appears to have regarded drugs as divisible into four groups, hot, dry, cold, and moist; and then sub- divided these into four degrees. This method of regarding drugs was held well into the eighteenth century, if not later. The belief in the virtues of natural objects was largely based on signatures. That is, because they seemed to represent the form or colour connected with certain diseases, therefore such parts of plants &c., were especially intended for the use of healing; hence the stony fruits of Gromwell were good for stone ; the yellow juice of Celandine for jaundice, &c. An anaesthetic drug for surgical purposes is mentioned by Pliny, in writing on the Mandrake, as being “ given before incisions or punctures are made in the body in order to ensure insensibility to the patient.” * In the Middle Ages, a drug called “dwale ” is described, composed of Mandrake, Opium, black Solamtm, Henbane, Hemlock, Bryony, Lettuce, with the gall of swine and vinegar. “ Then let him that shall be cut sit near a good fire, and make him drink thereof till he fall on sleep. And then men may safely cut him; and when he hath been served fully and thou wilt have him to wake, take vinegar and salt and wash well his temples and cheeks and he shall awake anon right.” It is difficult to find any account of its actual use ; the drug seemingly being quoted by sixteenth- century writers as only having formerly been employed. The latest was Vigo, an Italian surgeon (lived 1460-1517 ?), who describes the Mandrake, using the words, “ whentyewiW cut off a member without feeling it, &c.” ; but adds there is “ great danger ” in its use. Possibly this was the cause of the disuse of dwale. The Deadly Nightshade is now called Dwale. Strong vegetable perfumes were believed to be antiseptic and to neutralise the poisonous properties of the plague. Thus in ‘ Loimologia,’ published in 1720, a treatise on the plague of 1666, among other remedies are aloes, cinnamon, myrrh, cloves, mace, mastic, &c. The contagion was thought to be due to an aura resulting fi’om the corruption of the “ nitrous spirit of the air.” Hence the recommendation is made that “ such things ought to be used as exhale very subtile vapours, as the spicy drugs and gums. Such drugs as are from a vegetable production and abound with subtile, volatile parts, are of service * Nat. Hist. bk. 25, c. 94.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22397309_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
