414 DIRKCTIOJI8 FOB MAKI»0 flTmCI-S, &C. 



cacapl(uinatay and our learned fellows, that if they can read 

 English, that's all, call them cataplasms, because 'tis a crab- 

 bed word few understand ; it is indeed a Tery tine kind of 

 medicine to ripen sores. 



2. They are made of herbs and roots fitted for the di». 

 ease aforesaid, being chopped small and boiled in water to a 

 jelly ; then adding a little barley meal, or meal of lupins, and 

 a little oil or rough sweet suet, which I hold to be better, 

 spread upon a cloth and applied to the grieved part. 



3. Their use is to ease pains, to break sores, to cool in- 

 flammations, to dissolve hardness, to ease the spleen, to con- 

 coct humours, and dissipate swellings. 



4. I beseech you to take this caution along vnth 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 firom every part of 

 the body. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

 0/ Troches. 



1. The Latins call them jalacentiUa^ or little cakes, and the 

 Qree^aprochikoiSykukliscot^ajOidartiscoi ; they are usually litr 

 lie round flat cakes, or you may make them square if you wiU. 



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

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



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

 as travel ; as any man, for example, is forced to travel whose 

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

 which is more proper, for the stomach is never cold till a 

 man be dead ; in such a case ii. is better to carry troches of 

 wormwood or galangal, in a paper in his pocket, than to 

 take a gallipot along with him. 



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

 take two drams of fine gum iragacanth ; put it into a galli- 

 pot, 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 such a jelly 

 as the physicians call mucilage : with this you may, (with a 

 little pains taken) make a powder into a paate, and that 

 paste into cakes called troches. 



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

 them in the pot for your use. 



CHAPTER XJV. 

 0/ PUU, 



1. Th^y are called piltUcBj because they resemble Mttle 

 bnMs; the Greeks call them catapolia. 



J. It is the opinion of modem physicians, that this way of 

 making medicines was invented only to deceire the palate, 



