342 



Old Time Gardens 



trary, Galen says Dill " procureth sleep, wherefore 

 garlands of Dill are worn at feasts." A far more 

 probable reason for its presence at church was the 

 quality assigned to it by Pliny and other herbalists 

 down to Gerarde, that of staying the " yeox or hicket 

 or hicquet," otherwise the hiccough. If we can 

 judge by the manifold remedies offered to allay this 



affliction, it was 

 certainly very 

 prevalent in an- 

 cient times. 

 Cotton Mather 

 wrote a bulky 

 medical treatise 

 entitled The 

 Angel of Be- 

 thesda. It was 

 never printed ; 

 the manuscript 

 is owned by the 

 American Anti- 

 quarian Society. 

 The character of 

 this medico-reli- 

 gious book may be judged by this opening sentence 

 of his chapter on the hiccough : — 



"The Hiccough or the Hicox rather, for it's a Teutonic 

 word that signifies to sob, appears a Lively Emblem of the 

 battle between the Flesh and the Spirit in the Life of Piety. 

 The Conflict in the Pious Mind gives all the Trouble and 

 same uneasiness as Hickox. Death puts an end to the 

 Conflict." 



Caraway. 



