INTRODUCTION. 31 
recommended in cheerfulness, rest, and temperance : 
and diet is asserted to be more important than 
medicine. The diseases treated of are only the 
common affections, which scarcely require the aid of 
@ physician ; such as colds, coughs, surfeits, colics, 
worms, the swelling of the glands, trifling injuries 
to the teeth, the sight, and the hearing ; and there 
are many antidotes against poison, the constant sub- 
ject of apprehension to our ignorant, and therefore 
suspicious, ancestors. ‘The medicines recommended 
are of the simplest nature, the common food of the 
kitchen, and the produce of the herb garden. The 
Y composition which is of a more dispensatorial 
form, is the application for the cure of a fistula, 
evidently suggested by the disease of duke Robert, 
and which js compounded of chemical ingredients, 
arsenic, sulphur, lime, and soap. The very ample 
directions relating to bleeding, must be referred to 
the prevalence of that practice upon all occasions, 
and amongst all orders of people. 
The style is of course somewhat barbarous, and. 
the inaccuracies have probably been multiplied by 
the mistakes of transcribers. In many places the 
grammar can hardly defend itself. The avaxé- 
‘wOia and change of person are frequent. The 
conjunctions, and other particles, are sometimes 
deficient, and at others redundant. The arrange- 
