212 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



Galen, Hippocrates, and Dioscorides, the medical virtues 

 of the mistletoe were highly extolled, and until quite 

 recent days its reputation remained unimpaired. In the 

 beginning of the fourteenth century we find it greatly 

 commended in a book calledi Lilium Medicino' as a specific 

 for epilepsy, either taken internally or suspended round 

 the neck,^ and many physicians of much later date have 

 had great faith in its remedial efficacy in this and kindred 

 afFections. 



Sir John Colbatch, a noted physician in the reign of 

 George I., wrote A Dissertation concerning Mistletoe, which 

 plant he claimed upon his title-page to be " a most 

 Wonderful Specifick Remedy, Calculated for the Benefit 

 of the Poor as well as the Rich, and heartily recommended 

 for the Common Good of Mankind." The date on the 

 title-page Is 1720. 



" I have been," he says in his preface, " many Years 

 a Debtor to the World, and since I have not as yet been 

 able to pay ofF my old Scores to my own Satisfaction, the 

 following Dissertation comes out by way of Composition ; 

 which I hope will be accepted In part of Payment, till 

 the original Debt can be discharged. That this came out 

 alone, is from an Impression that I have had upon my 

 Spirits for some Weeks past, that it would be highly 

 criminal in me to let another Mistletoe Season pass without 

 informing the World what a Treasure God Almighty has 

 every Year presented to their View ; and that no body, 

 at least very few, have received any Benefit from It. 



' The mistletoe was by the monkish herbalists called the wood of the 

 Holy Cross, Ligmim Sancice Cruets, so highly did they esteem its healing 

 powers. 



