AND ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED. 43 
may you make it into an oil or ointment, 
which you please, to anoint your sore eyes 
with: I can prove it doth both my own 
experience, and the experience of those to 
whom I have taught it, that most desperate 
sore eyes have been cured by this only 
medicine; and when I pray, is not this far 
better than endangering the eyes by the art 
of the needle? For if this does not abso- 
lutely take away the film, it will so facilitate 
the work, that it might be done without 
danger. The herb or root boiled in white 
wine and drank, a few anniseeds being 
boiled therewith, opens obstructions of the 
liver and gall, helps the yellow jaundice; 
and often using it, helps the dropsy and the 
itch, and those that have old sores in their 
legs, or other parts of the body. The 
juice thereof taken fasting, is held to be 
of singular good use against the pestilence. 
The distilled water, with a little sugar and 
a little good treacle mixed therewith (the 
party upon the taking being laid down to 
sweat a little) has the same effect. The 
juice dropped in the eyes, cleanses them 
from films and cloudiness which darken the 
sight, but it is best to allay the sharpness 
of the juice with a little breast milk. It is 
good in all old filthy corroding ereeping 
ulcers wheresoever, to stay their malignity 
of fretting and running, and to cause them 
to heal more speedily: The juice often 
applied to tetters, ring-worms, or other such 
like spreading cankers, will quickly heal 
them, and rubbed often upon warts, will 
‘take them away. The herb with the roots 
bruised and bathed with oil of camomile, 
and applied to the navel, takes away the 
griping pains in the belly and bowels, and 
all the pains of the mother; and applied to 
women’s breasts,stays the overmuch flowing 
of the courses, The juice or decoction of 
_ the herb gargled between the teeth that ach, 
eases the pain, and the powder of the dried 
_ oot laid upon any aching, hollow or loose 
ue oe Ena ee we jc c 
mixed with some powder of brimstone is 
not only good against the itch, but takes 
away all discolourings: of the skin what- 
soever; and if it chance that in a tender 
body it causes any itchings or inflamma- 
tions, by bathing the place with a little 
vinegar it is helped. 
Another ill-favoured trick have physi- 
cians got to use to the eye, and that is worse 
than the needle; which is to take away the 
films by corroding or gnawing medicines. 
That I absolutely protest against. 
1. Because the tunicles of the eyes 
are very thing, and therefore soon eaten 
asunder. 
2. The callus or film that they wo eat 
away, is seldom of an equal thickness in 
every place, and then the tunicle may be 
eaten asunder in one place, before the film 
be consumed in another, and so be a readier 
way to extinguish the sight than to restore 
it. 
It is called Chelidonium, from the Greek 
word Chelidon, which signifies a swallow; 
because they say, that if you put out the 
eyes of young swallows when they are in 
the nest, the old ones will recover their eyes 
again with this herb. This I am confident, 
for I have tried it, that if we mar the very 
apple of their eyes with a needle, she will 
-recover them again; but whether with this 
herb or not, I know not. 
Also I have read (and it seems to be 
somewhat probable) that the herb, being 
gathered as I shewed before, and the 
elements draw apart from it by art of the 
alchymist, and after they are drawn apart 
rectified, the earthy quality, still in rectify- 
ing them, added to the T'erra damnata (as _ 
Alchymists call it) or Terra Sacratissima Ae 
(as some philosophers call it) the elements _ 
so rectified are sufficient for the cure of all _ 
diseases, the humours PES bape : 
