After a purge, three or four grains of bezoar stone and three grains of ambergris, drunk or taken in borage or bugloss water in which hot gold has been quenched, will do much good; with the heart thus refreshed, the purge will take away less of the body’s strength and substance.

Take half a dram of confection of alkermes; one scruple of bezoar stone; two scruples of white amber, very finely powdered. With syrup of citron peel, make an electuary.

Most endorse bezoar stone: Manardus and many others. “It takes away sadness and makes its user cheerful. I have seen people much afflicted with weakness, fainting fits and melancholy cured by taking three grains by weight of this stone in oxtongue water.” Garcias ab Horto boasts of how many desperate cases of melancholy he has cured with this alone, when all physicians had abandoned them.

But many object to alkermes. In some cases it may help, if it is good and of the finest quality, such as that made at Montpellier in France, which Iodocus Sincerus praises so highly in his Journey through France: he would have no traveller miss seeing it made. But it is not as generally applicable a medicine as the other. Fernelius, consultation 49, distrusts alkermes because of its heat: nothing, he says, aggravates this disease more readily than foods and medicines that act by heating, and he would therefore have them taken cautiously.

I therefore conclude about this and all other medicines as Thucydides does about the plague at Athens: no remedy could be prescribed for it, “for what benefited one proved fatal to others.” There is no universal medicine to be had: what helps one person harms another.

The cold pearl preparation, the ambergris and borage preparations, the cheering electuary of Galen and Rhazes, the electuary of gems, Dianthos, the sweet and bitter musk confections, the Conciliator’s electuary, syrup of quinces, of apples, conserves of roses, violets, fumitory, elecampane, satyrion and lemons, preserved orange peel and so on all have their proper uses.

Take two drams each of the sweet and bitter musk confections; one dram each of bugloss confection, borage confection and violet sugar. Mix with syrup of apples.

Every physician’s writings are full of such recipes. I will add just one because it is unusual: I find it recorded by many learned authors as a proven medicine for mental derangement, head melancholy and similar diseases of the brain.

Take the head of a ram that has never mated with a ewe, cut off with a single blow and with only the horns removed. Boil it thoroughly, skin and wool together. When it is well cooked, take out the brains and add these spices: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, mace and cloves, half a dram of each. Mix the powdered spices with the brains and heat them together in a platter over a chafing dish of coals, stirring them well so that they do not burn. Take care not to dry the mixture too much, or more than calf’s brains ready to be eaten.

Keep it prepared in this way, and for three days give it to the patient on an empty stomach, making him fast for two hours afterwards. It may be eaten with bread, in an egg or in broth, or in any way, provided it is taken. For fourteen days let him follow this diet and drink no wine, and so on.

Gesner, History of Animals, book 1, page 917; Caricterius, Practice, chapter 13, in Nich. de metri, page 129; and the Wittenberg physicians’ work, Tübingen edition, page 62, mention this medicine, though with some variation. Whoever wishes may try it, and many others like it.

Aromatic preparations to smell, made from rosewater, violet flowers, balm, rose cakes, vinegar and so on, greatly refresh the brain and spirits. According to Solomon, Proverbs 27:9, they gladden the heart; and some say they nourish it. “Whether smells nourish” is a question commonly debated in our schools: let Ficino, book 2, chapter 18, decide it, for he brings many arguments to prove that they do.

One is the case of Democritus, who lived for a few days solely by the smell of bread held to his nostrils, when old age prevented him from eating any food.

Ferrerius, Method, book 2, speaks of an excellent confection he made from wine, saffron and other ingredients, which he prescribed for dull, weak, feeble and dying people to smell, and with which he says he did much good: “it was almost as beneficial when smelled as when drunk,” as if he had given them a drink.

Our noble and learned Lord Verulam therefore recommends, in his book On Life and Death, all those cold scents that in any way help to cool the spirits. Montanus, consultation 31, prescribes a preparation that he would have his melancholic patient always keep in his hands. If you want them prepared by chemical methods, consult Oswald Croll’s Basilica Chymica.

The shaved head must be bathed for many mornings in succession with preparations of water lily flowers, lettuce, violets, camomile, wild mallows, a wether’s head and so on. Montanus, consultation 31, would have the head washed in this way once a week.