AND ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED. 
203 
1. Waters are distilled of herbs, flowers, 
fruits, and roots. 
2. We treat not of strong waters, but of 
cold, as being to act Galen’s part, and not 
Paracelsus’s. 
3. The herbs ought to be distilled when 
they are in the greatest vigour, and so ought 
the flowers also. 
4, The vulgar way of distillations which 
people use, because they know no better, 
is in a pewter still; and although distilled 
waters are the weakest of artificial medi- 
cines, and good for little but mixtures of 
other medicines, yet they are weaker by 
many degrees, than they would be were they 
distilled in sand. If I thought it not impos- 
sible, to teach you the way of distilling in 
sand, I would attempt it. 
5. When you have distilled your water, 
put it into a glass, covered over with a 
paper pricked full of holes, so that the ex- 
crementitious and fiery vapours may ex- 
hale, which cause that settling in distilled 
waters called the Mother, which corrupt 
them, then cover it close, and keep it for 
your use, 
6. Stopping distilled waters with a cork, 
makes them musty, and so does paper, if it 
but touch the water: it is best to stop them 
with a bladder, being first put in water, and 
bound over the top of the glass. 
Such cold waters as are distilled in a 
pewter still (if well kept) will endure a 
year; such as are distilled in sand, as they 
are twice as strong, so they endure twice as 
long. 
CHAPTER I. 
Of Syrups. 
1. A Syrup is a medicine of a liquid 
form, composed. of infusion, decoction and 
Juice. And, 1. For the more grateful taste. 
2. For the better keeping of it: with a cer- 
tain quantity of honey or sugar, hereafter 
Mentioned, boiled to the thickness of new 
bd 
Se and strain it through « w 
2. You see at the first view, That this 
aphorism divides itself into three branches, 
which deserve severally to be treated of, 
viz. 
1. Syrups made by infusion. 
2. Syrups made by decoction. 
3. Syrups made by juice. 
Of each of these, (for your instruction- 
sake, kind countrymen and women) I speak 
a word or two apart. 
Ist, Syrups, made by infusion, are usu- 
ally made of flowers, and of such flowers as 
soon lose their colour and strength by boil- 
ing, as roses, violets, peach flowers, &c. 
They are thus made: Having picked your 
flowers clean, to every pound of them add 
three pounds or three pints, which you will _ 
(for it is all one) of spring water, made 
boiling hot; first put your flowers into a 
pewter-pot, with a cover, and pour the 
water on them; then shutting the pot, let it 
stand by the fire, to keep hot twelve hours, 
and strain it out: (in such syrups as purge) 
as damask roses, peach flowers, &c. the 
usual, and indeed the best way, is to repeat 
this infusion, adding fresh flowers to the 
same liquor divers times, that so it may be 
the stronger) having strained it out, put the 
infusion into a pewter bason, or an earthen 
one well glazed, and to every pint of it add 
two pounds of sugar, which being only 
melted over the fire, without boiling, and 
scummed, will produce you the syrup you 
desire. 
2dly, Syrups made by decoction are 
usually made of compounds, yet may any 
simple herb be thus converted into syrup: 
Take the herb, root, or flowers you would © 
make into a syrup, and bruise it a little; 
then boil it in a convenient quantity of © 
spring water; the more water you boil it in, _ 
the weaker it will be; a handful of the herb 
or root is a convenient quantity for a pint 
of water, boil it till half the water be con- 
‘sumed, then let it stand till it be almost 
