22 THE OLD ENGLISH HERBALS 



clean of every uncleanness, and thou shall pick it when the 

 moon is nine nights old and eleven nights and thirteen nights 

 and thirty nights and when it is one night old." Herb. Ap. 



In the treatment of disease we find that the material remedies, 

 by which I mean remedies devoid of any mystic meaning, are 

 with few exceptions entirely herbal. The herb drinks were made 

 up with ale, milk or vinegar, many of the potions were made of 

 herbs mixed with honey, and ointments were made of herbs 

 worked up with butter. The most scientific prescription is 

 that for a vapour bath,* and there are suggestions for what may 

 become fashionable once more herb baths. The majority of 

 the prescriptions are for common ailments, and one cannot help 

 being struck by the number there are for broken heads, bleeding 

 noses and bites of mad dogs. However ignorant one may be 

 of medicine, it is impossible to read these old prescriptions without 

 realising that our ancestors were an uncommonly hardy race, 

 for the majority of the remedies would kill any of us modern 



1 The directions for the vapour bath are given in such a brief and yet 

 forceful way that I cannot imagine anyone reading it without feeling at the 

 end as though he had run breathlessly to collect the herbs, and then prepared 

 the bath and finally made the ley of alder ashes to wash the unfortunate 

 patient's head. Like all these cheerful Saxon prescriptions, this one ends 

 with the comforting assurance " it will soon be well with him," and one wonders 

 whether in this, as in many other cases, the patient got well in order to avoid 

 his friends' ministrations. The prescription for a vapour bath made with 

 herbs runs thus : 



" Take bramble rind and elm rind, ash rind, sloethorn, rind of apple tree 

 and ivy, all these from the nether part of the trees, and cucumber, smear wort, 

 everfern, helenium, enchanters nightshade, betony, marrubium, radish, agri- 

 mony. Scrape the worts into a kettle and boil strongly. When it hath 

 strongly boiled remove it off the fire and seat the man over it and wrap the 

 man up that the vapour may get up nowhere, except only that the man may 

 breathe ; beathe him with these fomentations as long as he can bear it. Then 

 have another bath ready for him, take an emmet bed all at once, a bed of 

 those male emmets which at whiles fly, they are red ones, boil them in water, 

 beathe him with it immoderately hot. Then make him a salve. Take worts 

 of each kind of those above mentioned, boil them in butter, smear the sore 

 limbs, they will soon quicken. Make him a ley of alder ashes, wash his head 

 with this cold, it will soon be well with him, and let the man get bled every 

 month when the moon is five and fifteen and twenty nights old." 



