RECEIPTS FOB FATTENING THE ARCHBISHOP. 121 



archbishop, and added his advice upon the preparation of 

 such things as would tend especially to make those fat 

 who eat or drink them. Chief on this list is tortoise or 

 turtle soup (what say the aldermen of London ?) ; tortoises 

 were to be preferred, the largest being the best. The 

 whole animal, except the shell, was to be stewed down 

 with water till he was as nearly as possible dissolved, and 

 the flesh being eaten, and the juice being drank, no other 

 food or drink being used^ for about twenty days, great 

 fatness would follow. 



Another excellent thing, of the efficacy of which 

 Cardan had personal experience, was the water distilled 

 from the blood of a young full-grown pig and coltsfoot 

 leaves. Two ounces a day of this distilled water, taken 

 with a little sugar for about fifteen days, would fatten a 

 man rapidly, and be found able sometimes to bring back 

 a hectic person from the gates of death. 



He advised also distilled snails ; but when there were 

 so many pleasant things that might be used, he wondered 

 who would employ frogs as they had been employed by 

 some in Italy, though he confessed that even they might 

 find a place in the kitchens of the Britons, cut off as that 

 people is from the whole world. Having said so much, he 

 begged pardon for jesting, and proceeded to name more pro- 

 vocatives of fatness. Among others, he gave the receipt for 

 a capital thing, with which, at the outset of his career, he 



