Species or Powders.
Give me leave to premise three or four things before I come to the matter.
Powders are called by the Arabians Suffuc and Alkool. ‘Tis strange the College inserted not these two strange names to puzzle the brains of the unlearned, and make them believe wonders.
I know not well what English name to give the word species, only thus the Ancients used the word for such powders as were ready prepared for an electuary, but yet not mixed with any liquid substance, but they called those powders which were always kept dry for use.
I would desire such as intend to take the pains themselves to make these powders, that they would make great haste in heating them lest the strength fly away in vapour through long keeping them in the air.
That they would sift them through a very fine tiffany lest the powder be too gross, and so part of its operation be lost.
That they would - in keeping them - stop them very close in a glass with a narrow mouth, lest the strength fly out in vapours after it is beaten.
Aromaticum Caryophyllatum - Mesue.
Take of Cloves seven drachms; Mace, Zedoary, Galanga the Lesser, Yellow Sanders, Troches, Diarhoden, Cinnamon, Wood of Aloes, Indian Spikenard, Long Pepper, Cardamoms, of each a drachm; Red Roses, four drachms; Gallia, Moschata, Liquoris, of each two drams; Indian Leaf, Cubebs, of each two scruples; Ambergris, a drachm; Musk, half a scruple; white sugar, as much as is sufficient.
Make a powder of them all, being diligently beaten, and with as much syrup of Citrons as is sufficient you may make it into an electuary.
- It would make a horse break his halter to hear some of their receipts; a boy of seven years old deserves to be whipped if he should transcribe a receipt so scurvily as the College hath done this. I would fain know of them - if they can tell me - how much this sufficient quantity of sugar is, or of what use any at all is among the powder; the truth is, Mesue appoints the sugar to help make it up into an electuary, and they go place it amongst the powder, whether there be an electuary made of it or not.
Again, seeing they vapour that they have taken so much pains in compiling this Book - the greatest part of which was in print above a hundred years before they were born - they might, I say, have taken the pains to have explained Mesue’s meaning, viz. what syrup must be used. Whether syrup of the juice of Citrons or of Citron peel, but I shall let that pass as a matter either of ignorance or carelessness in them; out of question, it is syrup of Citron peel that Mesue here intended.
- This powder strengthens the heart and stomach, helps digestion, expels wind, stays vomiting, and cleanses the stomach of putrified humours.
Aromaticam Rosatum - Gabriel.
Take of Red Roses fifteen drachms; Liquoris, seven drachms; Wood of Aloes, Yellow Sanders, of each three drachms; Cinnamon, five drachms; Cloves, Mace, of each two drachms and a half; Gum Arabic and Tragacanth, of each two drams and two scruples; Nutmegs, Cardomoms the Lesser, Galanga, of each one dram; Indian Spikenard, Ambergris, of each two scruples; Musk, one scruple.
Beat them all into a powder according to art, and keep the powder for you use in a glass or stone pot glazed. By reason of all the ill taste of the Spikenard, you may prepare the powder without it, and so may you any other cordial powder in which Spikenard is.
- It strengthens the brain, heart and stomach, and all such internal members as help towards concoction; it helps digestion, consumes the watery excrements of the bowels, strengthens such as are pined away by reason of the violence of the disease, and restores such as are in a consumption.
The Lesser Cordial Powder - Fernelius.
Take of Hartshorn, Unicorn’s Horn, Pearls, Ivory, of each six grains. Beat them into a fine powder; if you mean to keep it, you may increase the quantity analogically.
The Greater Cordial Powder - Fernelius.
Take of the roots of Tormentil, Dittany, Clove Gilliflowers, Scabious, the seeds of Sorrel, Coriander prepared, Citron, Carduus Benedictus, Endive, Rue, of each one drachm; of the three sorts of Sanders*, Bean White and Red, or if you cannot get them, take the roots of Avens and Tormentil in their steads, Roma Doronicum**, Cinnamon, Cardomoms, Saffron, the flowers of both sorts of Bugloss***, Red Roses and Water Lilies, Wood of Aloes, Mace, of each two scruples;
* White, Red and Yellow.
** A kind of Wolf’s Bane.
*** Viz. Borage and Bugloss.
Ivory, Spodium, Bone of a Stag’s Heart, Red Coral, Pearls, Emerald, Jacinth, Granate, of each one scruple; Raw Silk torrefied*, Bole Armenic, Earth of Lemnos, of each half a dram; Camphire, Ambergris, Musk, of each six grains.
* Dried or roasted by the fire.
Beat them into powder according to art, and with eight times their weight of white sugar dissolved in Rosewater. You may make them into lozenges, if you please.
- Both this and the former powder are appropriated to the heart,as the title shows; therefore they do strengthen that and the vital spirit, and relieve languishing nature.
- All these are cordial powders, and seldom above half a drachm of them given at a time, I suppose more for the cost of them than any ill effects they would work. They are too high for a poor man’s purse; the rich may mix them with any cordial syrup or electuary, which they find appropriated to the same use they are.
A Powder for such as are bruised by a fall - The Augustan Physicians.
Take of Terra sigillata Sanguus Draconis*, Mummy, of each two drachms; Spermaceti, one dram; Rhubarb, half a dram.
* Dragon’s Blood, so called, though it be nothing less but only the gum of a tree.
Beat them into powder according to art.
- You must beat the rest into powder, and then add the Spermaceti to them afterwards; for if you put the Spermaceti and the rest together and go to beat them in that fashion, you may as soon beat the mortar into powder as the Simples. Indeed, your best way is to beat them severally, and then mix them altogether, which being done, make you a gallant medicine for the infirmity specified in the title, a drachm of it being taken in Muscatal, and sweating after it.
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