74 AUBREY'S NATURAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE. 



Mr. Wm. Montjoy of Bitteston hath an admirable secret for the cure of the Ricketts, for which 

 he was sent to far and neer ; his sonne hath the same. Rickettie children (they say) are long before 

 they breed teeth. I will, whilst 'tis in my mind, insert this remarque ; viz. about 1620, one Ricketts 

 of Newbery, perhaps corruptly from Ricards, a practitioner in physick, was excellent at the curing 

 children with swoln heads and small legges ; and the disease being new and without a name, he being 

 so famous for the cure of it they called the disease the ricketts ; as the King's evill from the King's 

 curing of it with his touch ; and now 'tis good sport to see how they vex their lexicons, and fetch it 

 from the Greek Pax" the back bone. 



For a pinne-and-webbe * in the eye, a pearle, or any humour that comes out of the head. My 

 father laboured under this infirmity, and our learned men of Salisbury could doe him no good. At 

 last one goodwife Holly, a poore woman of Chalke, cured him in a little time. My father gave her 

 a broad piece of gold for the receipt, which is this : Take about halfe a pint of the best white wine 

 vinegar ; put it in a pewter dish, which sett on a cha.fmg dish of coales covered with another pewter 

 dish ; ever and anon wipe off the droppes on the upper dish till you have gott a little glassefull, 

 which reserve in a cleane vessell ; then take about half an ounce of white sugar candie, beaten and 

 searcht very fine, and putt it in the glasse ; so stoppe it, and let it stand. Drop one drop in the 

 morning and evening into the eye, and let the patient lye still a quarter of an hour after it 



I told Mr. Robert Boyle this receipt, and he did much admire it, and tooke a copie of it, and sayd 

 that he that was the inventor of it was a good chymist. If this medicine were donne in a golden dish 

 or porcelane dish, &c. it would not doe tliis cure ; but the vertue proceeds, sayd hee, from the pewter, 

 which the vinegar does take off. 



In the city of Salisbury doe reigne the dropsy, consumption, scurvy, gowte ; it is an exceeding 

 dampish place. 



At Poulshot, a village neer the Devises, in the spring time the inhabitants appeare of a primrose 

 complexion ; 'tis a wett, dirty place. 



Mrs. Fr. Tyndale, of Priorie St Maries, when a child, voyded a lumbricus biceps. Mr. Winces- 

 laus Hollar, when he was at Mechlin, saw an amphisbsena, which he did very curiously delineate, 

 and coloured it in water colours, of the very colour : it was exactly the colour of the inner peele of 

 an onyon : it was about six inches long, but in its repture it made the figure of a semicircle ; both 

 the heads advancing equally. It was found under a piece of old timber, about 1661 ; under the 

 jawes it had barbes like a barbel, which did strengthen Ms motion in running. This draught, 

 amongst a world of others, Mr. Thorn. Chiffinch, of Whitehall, hath ; for which Mr. Hollar protested 

 to me he had no compensation. The diameter was about that of a slo-worme ; and I guesse it was 

 an amphisbaenal slo-worme. 



[The serpents called amphisbsena are so designated (from the Greek afiQiaflatva) in consequence of 

 their ability to move backwards as well as forwards. The head and tail of the amphisbeena are very 

 similar in form : whence the common belief that it possesses a head at each extremity. It was for- 

 merly supposed that cutting off one of its " heads" would fail to destroy this animal ; and that its 

 flesh, dried and pulverized, was an infallible remedy for dislocations and broken bones. J. B.] 



* [The following definitions are from Bailey's Dictionary (1728) : " Pin, and Web, a horny induration of the membranes of the 

 eye, not much unlike a Cataract." " Pearl (among oculists), a web on the eye." J.B.J 



