CHAP. Ill 



SYLVA 61 



refrigerates inflammations, being applied with linnen 

 dipp'd therein : nay, the acorns themselves eaten 

 fasting, kill the worms, provoke urine, and (some 

 affirm) break even the stone it self. The coals of 

 oak beaten and mingled with honey, cures the 

 carbuncle ; to say nothing of the viscus's, polypods, 

 and other excrescences, of which innumerable reme- 

 dies are composed, noble antidotes, syrups, G?c. Nay, 

 'tis reported, that the very shade of this tree is so 

 wholesome, that the sleeping, or lying under it 

 becomes a present remedy to paralyticks, and recovers 

 those whom the mistaken malign influence of the 

 walnut-tree has smitten : But what is still more 

 strange, I read in one Paulus a Physician of Denmark, 

 that an handful or two of small oak buttons, mingled 

 with oats, given to horses which are black of colour, 

 will in few days eating alter it to a fine dapple-grey, 

 which he attributes to the vitriol abounding in this 

 tree. To conclude ; and upon serious meditation of 

 the various uses of this and other trees, we cannot 

 but take notice of the admirable mechanism of vege- 

 tables in general, as in particular in this species ; that 

 by the diversity of percolations and strainers, and by 

 mixtures, as it were of divine chymistry, various 

 concoctions, Gfc. the sap should be so green on the 

 indented leaves, so lustily esculent for our hardier and 

 rustick constitutions in the fruit ; so flat and pallid in 

 the atramental galls ; and haply, so prognostick in the 

 apple ; so suberous in the bark (for even the cork- 

 tree is but a courser oak) so oozie in the tanners pit ; 

 and in that subduction so wonderfully specifick in 

 corroborating the entrails, and bladder, reins, loins, 

 back, Gfc. which are all but the gifts and qualities, 

 with many more, that these robust sons of the earth 



