354 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



that because we find not either among the ancients or 

 moderns any alkalick medicine drawn only from a simple 

 vegetable, without any other preparation but mere tritu- 

 ration, therefore he will in this observation (which is the 

 second in number) communicate an antacid medicine of 

 much efficacy in curing the biting of a mad dog, of a 

 viper or other serpent, of fevers, colics, wounds, &c., 

 called by the Palermitans sanatados, which is only a 

 part of a plant of no great account among herbarists ; in 

 brief, it is nothing else but the sponge of the dog-rose, 

 called by some bedeguar, dried and grossly pulverized. 

 For this biting of a viper, after scarification and cupping, 

 sprinkle upon the wound the powder of sanatados, and 

 afterwards give to drink in generous wine a good quantity 

 of the same powder several times. For the biting of a 

 mad dog, give of the same powder inwardly, and apply 

 it outwardly to the wound, first moistened in strong 

 wine, or oil olive ; in like manner use it for the stinging 

 of a scorpion. For continual fevers it is to be often 

 taken in broth or other meats. Several other diseases he 

 mentions in which it is useful, especially the colic, the 

 pains whereof, being given to drink in red wine, to the 

 quantity of about a drachm, it mitigates in half an hour's 

 time. One thing I cannot but wonder at, that Signer 

 Boccone should take no notice that the root of this rose 

 had been of old celebrated by Pliny for the cure of the 

 hydrophobia, as a medicine revealed in a dream (Hist. 

 Nat. 1. xxv, c. 2, and 1. viii, c. 4), in these words : 

 " Insanabilis ad hosce annos fuit rabidi canis morsus, 

 pavorem aqua? potusque omnis afferens odium. Nuper 

 cujusdam militantis in prasterio mater vidit in quiete, ut 

 radicem sylvestris rosae blanditu sibi aspectu pridie in 

 frutecto, mitteret filio bibendam. In Lusitania res gere- 

 batur proxima Hispaniae parte ; casuque accidit, ut milite 

 a morsu canis incipiente aquas separescere superveniret 

 epistola orantis ut pareret religioni, servatusque est ex 

 insperato, et postea quisquis auxilium simile tentavit." 

 2. Another observation he gives us concerning the 



