300 Retrospective Criticism, 



had more than a dozen eggs apiece within them : so that it stands ajrainst 

 reason that one and the same kind should bring forth both ways. ~ The 

 young females are the best, being taken in the spring after they have been 

 awhile out of their dens. Vipers have all the same virtues with serpents, 

 save only vipers are stronger, and they have also the same preparations. 

 In the viper there is nothing venomous but the head and gall ; the flesh, 

 liver, and bones have no poyson in them. 1. The head of the viper is used 

 as an amulet, to be hung about the neck, to cure a quinsie. 2. The flesh 

 is hot and dry, and purges the whole body by sweat ; and, being eaten or 

 drunk, it cures the French disease and the leprosie. 3. The broth of them 

 performs the same things ; eating half a viper at once, and fasting five or 

 six hours after it ; so also they cure old ulcers and fistulas, clear the eye- 

 sight, help the palsie, and strengthen the nerves. 4. The ashes of their 

 heads, mixt with a thick decoction of bitter lupins, and used as an oint- 

 ment to the temples, stops rheums falling into the eyes, and helps their 

 dimness ; and is an excellent thing against St. Anthonie's fire. 5. The fat or 

 grease mixed with honey is an excellent thing to clear the sight. 6. The 

 whole viper, in pouder (the head and gall excepted), cures perfectly the 

 gout, king's evil, taken twice a day to 5ij- or more. 7. Oleum viperarum. 

 ^ Black vipers, Ibiij. ; oil of jessamine, ibij. ; boil them in a close glass till 

 the flesh falls from the bones ; or you may make an oil of them by dessen- 

 sion. It cures the gout, palsie, and leprosies ; cleanses the skin, and helps 

 all the defects thereof. 8. Viper wine. It is made by drowning live vipers 

 in the wine : it cures leprosies and the French disease. 9. Powder of vipers 

 compound. It is made as that of serpents, and has all the same virtues. 

 10. Quintessence of vipers. It is made as we have taught in our Dor. Med., 

 lib. ii. cap. 8. sect. 2., and is very powerful against leprosies, the French 

 disease, and all impurities of the flesh and blood. 11. Essentia viperarum. 

 ^ Of the livers and hearts of vipers, ana ; dry and bruise them, and extract 

 a tincture in seven days with s. v. rectified: To fti. of this tincture add of 

 the fixed salt ^ ss. mixed with the flegm and spirit of vipers ; draw off' by 

 distillation ; of the volatile salt ^i- ; digest till they are united ; so that you 

 have a most ennobled essence of vipers, powerful to all the aforesaid inten- 

 tions. Dose ad 3ij. It is a most excellent medicine, dissolves all excre- 

 ments and coagulations of tumours; dissolving, purifying, and cleansing like 

 soap ; carrying out every ill by urine, sweat, or intense transpiration ; curing 

 all sorts of gouts, the stone in both reins, and black leprosie, French disease, 

 scurvy, melancholy, all obstructions and putrefaction, loss of strength, 

 decays of nature, and consumptions : so that, as it were, it even renovates a 

 man, by taking away what is contrary to nature, and adding what is requisite. 

 12. Spirit of oil volatile and fixed salt of vipers. ^ Dryed vipers with 

 the liver and heart ; cut and gently bruise them ; put them into a retort, 

 from which distil gradatim into a large receiver : so have you a flegm and 

 spirit, and then a volatile salt, sticking to the neck of the retort and sides 

 of the receiver; and at the last a thick stinking oil, which separate. 

 Purify the volatile salt in a long glass, and sublime it by an alembick in 

 sand, with a gentle fire, lest any humidity should follow, as is usual if the 

 fire be increased. This salt is wonderful piercing and volatile, and there- 

 fore ought to be kept close in a glass, with a glass stopper : from the caput 

 mortuum you may make a fixed salt the common way. The volatile salt 

 and spirit are wonderful medicines : they resist putrefaction, open all ob- 

 structions, cure quartans and all sorts of fevers; given an hour before the 

 fit, in a convenient vehicle, to allay the sharpness, as in the emulsion of 

 almonds, with a little rose and cinnamon water and white sugar. Dose of 

 the volatile salt is, a gr. vi. ad x. or xii. ; of the fixed, a 3ss. ad3j. or ^<is. 

 The biting of the vipers is mortal, and kills within three days at farthest if 

 not speedily cured : the poyson is universal, as if the body was set on fire, 

 with convulsions, cold sweats, vomiting, and then death. At first, the poy- 



