88 i TOXJB ROUND MY GARDEN. 



and condition to allow mosses to spring up and spread their 

 velvety carpet. 



Ancient medicine used and abused certain lichens greatly, 

 particularly one, which was a lichen that grows upon the skulls 

 of the dead, and which was called " usnie du crane humain," 

 {nrnseus i cranio humano). 



There is a book bearing date 1684, published at Paris, but 

 written by Sir Kenelm Digby, an Englishman of the time of 

 Elizabeth, entitled, — "Sovereign Remedies and Secret Ex- 

 periments, by Sir Kenelm Digby, Chancellor of the Queen of 

 England. With many other secrets and curious perfumes 

 for the preservation of the beauty of Ladies." This book, 

 among other curious things, contains secret remedies which 

 were then, as they are now-a-days, heaps of secrets which 

 death teaches the doctors. The true receipt for the making 

 of the Orvietan is among them. I copy it. 

 The true composition of the Orvietan or Antidotary Compo- 

 sition, more excellent than the Theriaca. 



Honey, one pound. 



Syiup of lemon, four diachms. 



Fine sugar, half-arpound. 



Theriacal water, 1 pound. 



Koocs of angelica, one ounce. 



Of coral, tormentil, scorsenla, rhaphane, "white ditany and pyrethrura, each one 

 ounce, except the tormentilla, of which there should only be half an ounce. 



These roots are to be pounded and sifted : twenty-one others which follow, and of 

 which I will spare you the names, are to be pounded, but not sifted. Ten kinds of 

 seeds are then added, with one ounce of the first horn of a stag (ftom the right hand 

 branch) ; 1 drachm of the heart of a stag, pounded ; half an 'ounce of pounded 

 pearls, a hare's heart dried in an oven ; the heart and liver of two vipers ; half an 

 ounce of white coral, and of the scrapings of a human skull, only half an ounce. 



I cannot forbear quoting two different remedies against 

 epilepsy. The first is excellent, but still not better than 

 most of those the book contains; it is announced without 

 particular recommendation: the patient is only required to 

 swallow as much of the dung of a peacock as will lie on 

 a fifteen-sous piece, and he will be cured. Now here is a 

 consideration which never presented itself to the minds of 

 financiers, who have since that time expelled from the coinage 

 and proscribed fifteen-sous pieces; and now there are no 

 fifteen-sous pieces, how is it possible to ascertain how much 

 of the peacock's dung ought to be swallowed? Happily, at 

 page 19, another stiU superior receipt presents itself. 



