362 Directions for making of Sj/rups, i^c. 



Eins, and a little oil, or rough sweet suet, which I hold to be- 

 etter, spread upon a cloth and apply to the grieved jjlacf. 

 S. Their use is to case pain, to break sores, to cool infiammations 

 to dissolve hardness, to ease the spleen, to concoct humours, and 

 dissipate swellings. 



4. I beseech you take this caution along with you : Use no 

 poultices (if you can help it) that are of an healing nature, 

 before you have first cleansed the body, because they are subject 

 to draw the humours to them from every part of the body. 



• CHAP. XIII. Of Troches. 



1. THE Latins call them Placentula, or little cakes, and the 

 Greeks Prochikoh, Kuklislioi, and Arliscoi ; they are usually 

 little round Bat cakes, or you may make them square if you 

 will. 



2. Their first invention was, that powders being so kept, 

 might resist the intermission of air, and so endure pure the 

 longer. 



3. Besides, tliey are easier carried in the pockets of such as 

 travel ; as many a man (for example) is forced to tratel whose 

 stomach is too cool, or at least not so hot as it should be, which 

 is most proper, for the stomach is never cold till a man be dead ; 

 in such a case, it is better to carry trociics of wormwood, or ga- 

 langal, in a paper in his pocket, than to take a gallipot along 

 with him. 



4. They are made thus : At night when you go to bed, take 

 two drams of fine gum tragacuuih ; put il into a g. llipot, and 

 put half a quarter of a pint of any distilled water fitting for the 

 purpose you would make your troches for, to cover it, and the 

 next morning you shall find it in such a jelly as the physicians 

 call mucilage: With this you may (with a little pains taking) 

 make a powder into a paste, and that paste into a cake called 

 troches. 



6. Having made them, dry them in the shade, and keep them 

 in a pot for your u-^e. 



CHAP. XIV. Of Pill. 



1. THEY are called Pilulte, because they resemble little balls; 

 the Giceks call them Catopoliu. 



2 It is the opiiiion of modern physicians, that this way of 

 making medicines, was invented only to deceive the palate, 

 that so, by swallowing them down whole, the bitterness of 

 them might not be perceived, or at least might not be insuflfera- 

 ble ; and indeed most of their pills, though not all, are very- 

 bitter. 



3. I am of a clear contrary opinion to this. I rather think 

 they were done up iu this hard form, that so they might be tlie 



