PRACTICE AS A PHYSICIAN 93 



1662-4 



The last specimen of his handwriting, which we have, 

 was written when he was seventy years of age. His hand 

 was evidently very shaky. It is a receipt for a Resin 

 ointment similar to that in use until recently in the British 

 Pharmacopoeia. 

 20 Mar. 1662 



Rosen that is blackish 

 Fresh lard a wallnutt 

 Crowne sope a wallnutt 



Boil till it sets clere (?) H . . and keepe stirringe. 



[MS. f. 16 



Then follows, in a steadier hand, 'Mar. 22. John Neale 

 in Lippock, the howse is called Gurmes, hadd a third 

 Ague, and hath lost him about a moneth, and now hath 

 a great cough '. 



Another note on the same paper is ominous : 



(Goute 

 Scurvie 

 Dropsie.' 



These notes supply the clue to the occupation of his 

 declining years. He was evidently applying his great 

 knowledge of simples to the good of ailing neighbours. 

 The latest medical works were sent him, as soon as they 

 were printed, by his London bookseller, who evidently had 

 a standing order to secure the sheets direct from the press. 

 Thus he acquired Culpeper's English Physician, Pemel 

 on Simples and on the Diseases of Children, Cole's Art of 

 Shnpling, Cooke's two works on Chirurgery (containing 

 the ' Marrow of many good authors on the art of 

 Chyrurgery '), Coghan's Haven of Health, and Muffet's 

 Healtlis Improvement ; or rules comprizing and discovering 

 the nature, method and manner of preparing all sorts of 

 food used in this nation. But the most striking confirma- 

 tion of his practising I found in the single word ' phisicke ', 

 with a blank space in front of it, which occurs after his 

 name in the opening sentence, written within a few months 



