150 NATURAL HISTORY. 



which rise and enter into the cells of the brain : and 

 therefore the working is by extreme and subtile at 

 tenuation ; which that simple hath. I judge the like 

 to be in castoreum, musk, rue-seed, agnus castus 

 seed, &c. 



967* There is a stone^ which they call the blood 

 stone, which worn is thought to be good for them that 

 bleed at the nose : which (no doubt) is by astriction 

 and cooling of the spirits. 1 Quaere, if the stone taken 

 out of the toad s head be not of the like virtue ; for the 

 toad loveth shade and coolness. 



968. Light may be taken from the experiment of the 

 horse-tooth ring, and the garland of periwinkle, how 

 that those things which assuage the strife of the spirits, 

 do help diseases, contrary to the intention desired : for 

 in the curing of the cramp, the intention is to relax the 

 sinews ; but the contraction of the spirits, that they 

 strive less, is the best help : so to procure easy travails 

 of women, the intention is to bring down the child; 

 but the best help is, to stay the coining down too fast : 

 whereunto they say the toad-stone likewise helpeth. So 

 in pestilent fevers, the intention is to expel the infection 

 by sweat and evaporation : but the best means to do it 

 is by nitre, disascordium, and other cool things, which 

 do for a time arrest the expulsion, till nature can do 

 it more quietly. For as one saith prettily : In the 

 quenching of the flame of a pestilent ague, nature is like 

 people that come to quench the fire of a house ; which are 

 so busy, as one of them letteth another. Surely it is an 

 excellent axiom, and of manifold use, that whatsoever 

 appeaseth the contention of spirits, furthereth their 

 action. 



i See Joyful News, &c., p. 18. 



