240 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



bring it up again there is danger of him ; but, if he once brook it, 

 there is no doubt of his recovery by the Grace of God ; provided 

 then when the party infected hath taken the aforesaid Medicine 

 and sweateth, if he bring it up again then you must give him the 

 aforesaid quantity of Malmsey and grains, but no Treacle, for it 

 will be too hot for him, being in a sweat. This Medicine is 

 proved, and the party hath recovered, and the sheets have been 

 found full of blew marks, and no sore hath come forth ; this being 

 taken in the beginning of the sickness. Also this medicine saved 

 thirty-eight Commons of Windsor the last great Plague 1593, was 

 proved on many poor people, and they recovered." 



In " The King's Medicine for the Plague," a very simple herb 

 drink, one is assured that after taking it the first day " you shall 

 be safe four-and-twenty days, after the ninth day a whole year by 

 the grace of God." This next remedy for the plague would hardly 

 be found available in a great city ; the poor people of plague- 

 stricken London were, one fears, never able to profit by it, as it 

 calls for wholesale slaughter, not of the innocents, but of as harm- 

 less feathered bipeds. " Mr. Winlour," whoever he may be, who 

 found this prescription so effectual, was no doubt a suburban gen- 

 tleman with cock-chicks galore at his command : 



" A Medicine for the Plague which the Lord Mayor had from 

 the Queen. Take of Sage, Elder, and red Bramble leaves, of each 

 one little handful ; stamp and strain them together through a 

 cloath with a quart of White-wine ; then take a quantity of 

 White-wine- Vinegar, and mingle them together ; and drink 

 thereof morning and night a spoonful at a time nine days to- 

 gether, and you shall be whole. There is no medicine more excel- 

 lent than this, when the sore doth appeare, than to take a Cock- 

 chick and pull it, and let the Rump be bare, and hold the Rump 

 of the said Chick to the sore, and it will gape and labour for life 

 and in the end die ; then take another, and the third, and so long 

 as any one do dye ; for when the poyson is quite drawn out the 

 Chick will live, the sore presently will assuage, and the^ party 

 recover. Mr. Winlour proved this upon one of his own Children, 

 the thirteenth Chick dyed, the fourteenth lived, and the party 

 cured." 



Cock-chicks, especially " running " ones, were in great demand 

 in those bygone days ; they enter into the composition of many 

 of these " excellent receipts " either in an active or passive state. 



" Cock-water for a Consumption Take a running Cock-chick, 

 pull him alive, then kill him, cut him abroad by the back, take 

 out the entrails and wipe him clean, then quarter him and break 

 his bones, then put him into a Rose-Water Still with a pottle of 

 Sack, Currans, and raisins of the Sun stoned, and figs sliced, of each 

 one pound, Dates stoned and cut small half a pound, Rosemary 



