Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.
Or used externally, such as: Oils of camomile, violets, roses, etc. Ointments: alablastritum, populeum, etc. Liniments; plasters, wax plasters, poultices, forehead applications, warm compresses, medicinal lotions, sacks, bags, scents and flower bouquets, etc. Or purging treatment: continued below. Or treatment particular to the three distinct forms: see Section 5, Members 1–3.
Sections: 2.4.1.5; 2.4.2; 2.5.1; 2.5.2; 2.5.3.
Member 2. Medicines that purge melancholy are either: Simple purgative substances: Subsection 1. Acting upward, as emetics: Asarabacca, laurel, white hellebore, squill or sea onion, antimony, tobacco. Or downward. Subsection 2. Gentler: senna, epithyme, polypody, myrobalans, fumitory, etc. Stronger: aloes, Armenian stone, lapis lazuli, black hellebore.
Or Subsection 3. Compound medicines that purge melancholy. Through the upper parts: The mouth: Swallowed: Liquid, such as potions, juleps, syrups, wines of hellebore, bugloss, etc. Solid, such as Armenian stone and lapis lazuli preparations, Indian pills, fumitory pills, etc. Electuaries: diasena, the confection of Hamech, Hierologladium, etc. Or not swallowed, such as gargles, substances to chew, etc. Or the nostrils: sneezing powders, scents, perfumes, etc. Or through the lower parts: strong and weak enemas, and suppositories of Castile soap, boiled honey, etc.
Sections: 2.4.2.3.
Member 3. Surgical medicine, consisting of: Bloodletting, from almost every part, and for all the distinct forms. With a knife or leeches. Cupping glasses. Cauteries, searing with hot irons, and boring. Pitch plasters and mustard applications. Open sores made in different parts for different purposes.
Sections: 2.4.3.
Section 5. The cure of head melancholy. Member 1. Subsection 1. A moderate diet: food yielding wholesome juices, moistening and easily digested. Good air. More sleep than usual. Daily evacuation of waste, naturally or with medical assistance. Exercise of body and mind, neither too strenuous nor too slight; avoidance of the mind’s passions and disturbances. 2. Bloodletting, if necessary or if the blood is corrupt, from the arm, forehead, etc., or with cupping glasses.
3. Preparatory medicines and purgatives. Preparatory medicines: syrups of borage, bugloss, epithyme and hops, with their distilled waters, etc. Purgatives: those of Montanus and Matthiolus, hellebore treatment, Quercetanus, syrup and extract of hellebore, Hali’s powder, prepared antimony, and Ruland’s wonderful water. These are used if gentler medicines have no effect; with Arnoldus, bugloss wine, senna, cassia, myrobalans, drinkable gold, or first Hamech’s confection, Indian pills, hiera, and pills of Armenian stone and lapis lazuli.
Sections: 2.5.1.3.
4. Treatments that draw the disorder away. Cardan’s nettles, rubbing, enemas, suppositories, sneezing, substances to chew, nasal medicines, cupping glasses. Opening the haemorrhoidal veins with leeches; applying leeches to the forehead and, without making incisions, to the shoulders and thighs. Open sores, boring, cauteries, hot irons at the suture of the crown. 5. Medicines that strengthen the heart, disperse obstructions, and check the disorder. A cup of wine or strong drink. Bezoar stone, amber, spice. Conserves of borage, bugloss, roses, fumitory. Confection of alchermes. The cheering electuary of Galen and Rhazes, etc. Cooling diamargaritum; diaboraginatum, etc.
6. Remedies for accompanying symptoms, such as: To induce sleep, these are: Scents of roses and violets. Rinsing the head with decoctions of water lily, lettuce, mallows, etc. Lotions, ointments and bags applied over the heart. Warm oil compresses for the belly. Baths of fresh water in which mallows, violets, roses, water lilies, borage flowers, rams’ heads, etc., have been boiled.
Sections: 2.5.1.6.
Taken internally: Simples: poppy, water lily, lettuce, roses, purslane, henbane, mandrake, nightshade, opium, etc. Or compounds: Liquid, such as syrups of poppy, mullein, violets, roses. Solid, such as Nicholas’s Rest, Roman Philonium and Paracelsus’s laudanum.
Sections: 2.5.1.6.
Or used externally, such as: Oils of water lily, poppy, violets, roses, mandrake, nutmeg. Scents of vinegar, rosewater, opium. Forehead applications of rose-cake, rose vinegar, nutmeg. Ointments: alablastritum and poplar ointment, by themselves or mixed with opium. Rinsing the head and feet; sponges; music; the murmur and sound of water. Rubbing the head and outer parts; little bags of henbane; wormwood at the patient’s pillow, etc.
Sections: 2.5.1.6.
Against terrifying dreams: avoid late suppers, peas, cabbage, venison and foods that are hard to digest; use balm, hart’s-tongue, etc. Against redness and blushing: internal and external remedies.
Sections: 2.5.1.6.
Member 2. The cure of melancholy throughout the body. Diet, preparatory medicines, purgatives, treatments that draw the disorder away, heart-strengthening medicines and remedies for symptoms, as above. Bloodletting is more necessary and more frequent in this form. Correcting and cleansing the blood with fumitory, senna, chicory, dandelion, endive, etc.
Sections: 2.5.2.
Member 3. The cure of hypochondriacal, or windy, melancholy. Subsection 1. Bloodletting if necessary. Diet, preparatory medicines, treatments that draw the disorder away, heart-strengthening medicines and purgatives, as above, but less forceful. Using boiled pennyroyal, wormwood and centaury, which alone has cured many. Stimulating urination with aniseed, daucus, asarum, etc., and stools, if necessary, with enemas and suppositories. Attending to the spleen, stomach, liver and regions beneath the ribs. Using theriac occasionally in winter. Sometimes vomiting after meals, if the disorder is long established.
Sections: 2.5.3.1.
2. To expel wind: Taken internally: Simples: roots, herbs, spices and seeds. Galangal, gentian, elecampane, angelica, aromatic calamus, zedoary, china root, preserved ginger, etc. Pennyroyal, rue, calamint, bay leaves and berries, scordium, betony, lavender, camomile, centaury, wormwood, cumin, broom, orange peel.
Sections: 2.5.3.2.
Saffron, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, pepper, musk, zedoary with wine, etc. Aniseed, fennel seed, ammi, caraway, cumin, nettle, bay, parsley, grains of paradise.
Sections: 2.5.3.2.
Or compounds, such as: Dianisum, diagalanga, diaciminum, dicalaminthes; the electuary of bay berries, Benedicta laxativa, etc.; wind-dispelling powder, and the powder described in the Florentine Antidotary, aromaticum, rosatum, mithridate. Or used externally: cupping glasses applied below the ribs without incisions; oils of camomile, rue and aniseed, their decoctions, etc.
Sections: 2.5.3.2.