34 2 
Old Time Gardens 
trary, Galen says Dill “ procureth sleep, wherefore 
garlands of Dill are worn at feasts.” A far more 
probable reason for its presence at church was the 
quality assigned to it by Pliny and other herbalists 
down to Gerarde, that of staying the cc yeox or hicket 
or hicquet,” otherwise the hiccough. If we can 
judge by the manifold remedies offered to allay this 
affliction, it was 
certainly very 
prevalent in an- 
cient times. 
Cotton Mather 
wrote a bulky 
medical treatise 
entitled The 
Angel of B e- 
thesda. It was 
never printed ; 
the manuscript 
is owned by the 
American Anti- 
quarian Society. 
The character of 
this medico-reli- 
gious book may be judged by this opening sentence 
of his chapter on the hiccough : — 
Caraway. 
u The Hiccough or the Hicox rather, for it’s a Teutonic 
word that signifies to sob, appears a Lively Emblem of the 
battle between the Flesh and the Spirit in the Life of Piety. 
The Conflict in the Pious Mind gives all the Trouble and 
same uneasiness as Hickox. Death puts an end to the 
Conflict.” 
