SUBSECT. 2. Simples purging Melancholy downward.

Polypodie and Epithyme, are without all exceptions, gentle purgers of melancholy. Dioscorides will have them void flegm; but Brassivola out of his experience averreth, that they purge this humor; they are used in decoction, infusion, &c. simple, mixt, &c.

Mirabolanes, all five kinds, are happily prescribed against melancholy and quartan agues. Brassivola speaks out of a thousand experiences, he gave them in pills, decoction, &c. look for peculiar Receipts in him.

Stœchas, Fumitory, Dodder, herb Mercury, roots of Capers, Genista or broom, Pennyriall and half boiled Cabbage, I finde in this Catalogue of purgers of black choler, Origan, Fetherfew, Ammoniack Salt, Salt-peter. But these are very gentle, alyppus, dragon root, centaury, ditany, Colutea, which Fuchsius cap. 168. & others take for Sene, but most distinguish.

Sene is in the middle of violent and gentle purgers downward, hot in the second degree, dry in the first. Brassivola calls it a wonderfull herb against melancholy, it scowres the blood, illightens the spirits, shakes off sorrow, a most profitable medicine, as Dodonæus terms it, invented by the Arabians, and not heard of before.

It is taken divers wayes, in powder, infusion, but most commonly in the infusion, with ginger, or some cordiall flowres added to correct it. Actuarius commends it sod in broath, with an old cock, or in whey, which is the common convayer of all such things as purge black choler; or steeped in wine, which Heurnius accounts sufficient, without any farther correction.

Aloes by most is said to purge choler, but Aurelianus lib. 2. c. 6. de morb. chron. Arculanus cap. 6. in 9. Rhasis, Julius Alexandrinus, consil. 185. Scoltz. Crato consil. 189. Scoltz. prescribe it to this disease, as good for the stomack and to open the Hæmrods, out of Mesue, Rhasis, Serapio, Avicenna; Menardus ep. lib. 1. epist. 1. opposeth it, Aloes doth not open the veines, or move the Hæmrods, which Leonhartus Fuchsius paradox. lib. 1. likewise affirmes; but Brassivola and Dodonæus defend Mesue out of their experience; let Valesius end the controversie.

Lapis Armenus and Lazuli are much magnified by Alexander lib. 1. cap. 16. Avicenna, Ætius, and Actuarius, if they be well washed, that the water be no more coloured, fiftie times some say. That good Alexander (saith Guianerus) puts such confidence in this one medicine, that he thought all melancholy passions might be cured by it; and I for my part, have oftentimes happily used it, and was never deceived in the operation of it.

The like may be said of Lapis Lazuli, though it be somewhat weaker then the other. Garcias ab Horto hist. lib. 1. cap. 65. relates, that the Physitians of the Moores, familiarly prescribe it to all melancholy passions, and Matthiolus ep. lib. 3. brags of that happy successe which he still had in the administration of it. Nicholas Meripsa puts it amongst the best remedies, sect. 1. cap. 12. in Antidotis;

and if this will not serve (saith Rhasis) then there remaines nothing but Lapis Armenus, and Hellebor it self. Valescus and Iason Pratensis, much commend Pulvis Hali, which is made of it. Iames Damascen. 2. cap. 12. Hercules de Saxonia, &c. speakes well of it. Crato will not approve this; it, and both Hellebors, he saith, are no better then poyson. Victor Trincavelius, lib. 2. cap. 14. found it in his experience, to be very noysome, to trouble the stomack, and hurt their bodies that take it overmuch.

Black Hellebor, that most renowned plant, and famous purger of melancholy, which all antiquity so much used and admired, was first found out by Melampodius a shepherd, as Pliny records, lib. 25. cap. 5. Who seeing it to purge his Goats when they raved, practised it upon Elize and Calene, King Prætus daughters, that ruled in Arcadia, neer the fountain Clitorius, and restored them to their former health.

In Hippocrates time it was in only request, insomuch that he writ a book of it, a fragment of which remaines yet. Theophrastus, Galen, Pliny, Cælius Aurelianus, as ancient as Galen. lib. 1. cap. 6. Areteus lib. 1. cap. 5. Oribasius lib. 7. collect. a famous Greek, Ætius ser. 3. cap. 112. & 113. p. Ægineta, Galens Ape, lib. 7. cap. 4. Actuarius, Trallianus lib. 5. cap. 15. Cornelius Celsus only remaining of the old Latines, lib. 3. cap. 23. extoll and admire this excellent plant,

and it was generally so much esteemed of the ancients for this disease amongst the rest, that they sent all such as were crased, or that doted, to the Anticyræ, or to Phocis in Achaia to be purged, where this plant was in abundance to be had. In Straboes time it was an ordinary voyage, Naviget Anticyras; a common proverb among the Greeks and Latines, to bid a disard or a mad man go take Hellebor;

as in Lucian, Menippus to Tantalus, Tantale desipis, helleboro epoto tibi opus est, eoque sane meraco, Thou art out of thy little wit O Tantalus, and must needs drink Hellebor, and that without mixture. Aristophanes in vespis, drink Hellebor, &c. and Harpax in the ᵗ Comœdian, told Simo and Ballio, two doting fellows, that they had need to be purged with this plant.

When that proud Menacrates, ὁ Ζεὺς, had writ an arrogant letter to Phil. of Macedon, he sent back no other answer but this, Consulo tibi ut ad Anticyram te conferas, noting thereby that he was crased, atque elleboro indigere, had much need of a good purge. Lilius Geraldus saith, that Hercules after all his mad pranks upon his wife and children, was perfectly cured by a purge of Hellebor, which an Anticyrian administred unto him.

They that were sound commonly took it to quicken their wits, (as Ennius of old, Qui non nisi potus ad arma—prosiluit dicenda; and as our Poets drink sack to improve their inventions I find it so registred by Agellius lib. 17. cap. 15.) Carneades the Academick when he was to write against Zeno the Stoick, purged himselfe with Hellebor first, which Petronius puts upon Chrysippus.

In such esteem it continued for many ages, till at length Mesue and some other Arabians began to reject and reprehend it, upon whose authority for many following lusters, it was much debated and quite out of request, held to be poyson and no medicine; and is still oppugned to this day by Crato and some Iunior Physitians.

Their reasons are, because Aristotle l. 1. de plant. c. 3. said, Henbane and Hellebor were poyson; and Alexander Aphrodiseus in the preface of his Problems, gave out, that (speaking of Hellebor) Quailes fed on that which was poyson to men. Galen l. 6. Epid. com. 5. Text. 35. confirms as much: Constantine the Emperour in his Geoponicks, attributes no other vertue to it, then to kill mice and rats, flies and mouldwarps, and so Mizaldus. Nicander of old, Gervinus, Skenkius, and some other Neotericks that have written of poysons, speak of Hellebor in a chief place.

Nicholas Leonicus hath a story of Solon, that besieging I know not what city, steeped Hellebor in a spring of water, which by pipes was conveyed into the middle of the town, and so either poysoned, or else made them so feeble and weak by purging, that they were not able to bear arms.

Notwithstanding all these cavils and objections, most of our late writers do much approve of it. Gariopontus lib. 1. cap. 13. Codronchus com. de helleb. Falopius lib. de med. purg. simpl. cap. 69. & consil. 15. Trincavelii, Montanus 239. Frisemelica consil. 14. Hercules de Saxonia, so that it be opportunely given. Iacobus de Dondis, Agg. Amatus, Lusit. cent. 66. Godef. Stegius cap. 13. Hollerius, and all our Herbalists subscribe.