THE ANGLO-SAXON HERBALS 23 



weaklings, even if in robust health when they were administered. 

 At times one cannot help wondering whether in those days, 

 as not infrequently happens now, the bulletin was issued that 

 " the operation was quite successful, but the patient died of 

 shock ! " And, as further evidence of the old truth that there 

 is nothing new under the sun, it is pleasant to find that doctors, 

 even in Saxon days, prescribed " carriage exercise," and more- 

 over endeavoured to sweeten it by allowing the patient to " lap 

 up honey " first. This prescription runs thus : 



" Against want of appetite. Let them, after the night's 

 fast, lap up honey, and let them seek for themselves fatigue in 

 riding on horseback or in a wain or such conveyance as they may 

 endure." Leech Book, II. 7. 



In the later herbals, " beauty " recipes are, as is well known, 

 a conspicuous feature, but they find a place also in these old 

 manuscripts. In the third book (the oldest part) of the Leech 

 Book there is a prescription for sunburn which runs thus : 



" For sunburn boil in butter tender ivy twigs, smear there- 

 with." Leech Book, III. 29. 



And in Leech Book II. we find this prescription : 



" That all the body may be of a clean and glad and bright 

 hue, take oil and dregs of old wine equally much, put them into 

 a mortar, mingle well together and smear the body with this in 

 the sun." Leech Book, II. 65. 



Prescriptions for hair falling off are fairly numerous, and there 

 are even two somewhat drastic prescriptions for hair which 

 is too thick. Sowbread and watercress were both used to make 

 hair grow, and in Leech Book I. there is this prescription : 



" If a man's hair fall off, work him a salve. Take the mickle 

 wolf's bane and viper's bugloss and the netherward part of 

 burdock, work the salve out of that wort and out of all these and 

 out of that butter of which no water hath come. If hair fall 



