OF FOREST-TREES. 



239 



9. But besides these, Beech, Alder, Ash, Sycamore, Elder, &c. should 

 be attempted for liquors : Thus Crabs, even our very Brambles, may 

 possibly yield us medical and useful wines. The Poplar was heretofore 

 esteemed more physical than the Birch. The sap of the Oak, juice or 

 decoction of the inner bark, cures the farcy, a virulent and dangerous in- 

 firmity in horses, and which, like the cancer, is reputed incurable by any 

 other topic than some actual or potential cautery. But what is more 

 noble, a dear friend of mine assured me, that a country neighbour of his, 

 at least fourscore years of age, who had lain sick of a bloody strangury, 

 (which by cruel torments reduced him to the very article of death,) was, 

 under God, recovered to perfect and almost miraculous health and 

 strength, so as to be able to fall stoutly to his labour, by one sole draught 

 of beer, wherein was the decoction of the internal bark of the Oak-tree ^ ; 

 and I have seen a composition of an admirable sudorific and diuretic for 

 all affections of the liver, out of the like of the Elm, which might yet be 

 drunk daily as our Coffee is, and with no less delight : But quacking is 

 not my trade ; I speak only here as a plain husbandman and a simple 

 forester ; out of the limits whereof, I hope, I have not unpardonably 

 transgressed. Pan was a Physician, and he, you know, was President of 

 the woods. But I proceed to the Alder. 



s This decoction is very proper in the complaint mentioned, when there is reason to 

 suspect the cause to be a dissolved state of the blood, which is often the case ; but when 

 the bloody urine proceeds from the irritation of a stone in the kidneys or bladder, this 

 remedy will rather aggravate than mitigate the disease. 



