Friction and embrocation

Use in the book

The bathing account distinguishes a sequence of external applications. Fernel places whole-body rubbing after baths, while the same paragraph records other authorities’ less frequent bathing and their preference for warm rather than hot water to avoid sweating. Plater joins head washes to baths for a melancholic lawyer; the discussion then moves through anointing, further head washes and embrocations. These acts should not all be collapsed into bathing itself. The body’s moderate warmth and the margin’s language of moistening through cooling are both present, without a single harmonized temperature rule.

Elsewhere rubbing has a different position and purpose. Guianerius places the customary morning frictions before gentle exercise, and the margin specifies light rubbing over the whole body. Piso commends frictions among ways to obtain sleep, within a discussion that stresses different responses to noise and silence. In the averters, ordinary rubbing with warm bathing is distinguished from Cardan’s more violent substitute, nettles used until the skin blisters. The shared action does not make the two procedures equally gentle.

For troublesome facial redness, Joubert recommends rubbing other parts, especially the feet, and washing them, appealing to a supposed sympathetic connection between head and feet. The adjacent bleeding proposal is conditioned on an excess of blood; the previous paragraph treats redness arising from fear or suspicion through dismissal of the fear. Thus both the bodily site and the assumed cause alter the account. These are historical prescriptions and explanations, not present-day treatment directions.

Related entries

Chirurgery

Epithemes

Evacuation and retention

Places to read

1. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraphs 34–38Bathing, subsequent rubbing, anointing, head washes and embrocations.
2. Member 4 Exercise of Body and Mind Regulated · paragraphs 9–12Morning rubbing before exercise, with the light-rubbing marginal description.
3. Member 5. Sleeplessness and Frightening Dreams Remedied · paragraphs 35–37Piso’s rubbing among varied sleep remedies.
4. Subsection 4 Remedies That Divert the Humours · paragraphs 4–6Ordinary friction and the separately attributed nettle substitute.
5. Subsection 6 Remedies for Accompanying Symptoms: To Bring Sleep, and Against… · paragraphs 3–5Cause-dependent flushing remedies and the supposed head–feet connection.

In this edition

“frictions all over the body” becomes “rubbing all over the body”, and “embrocations” becomes “applications of liquid remedies”. The wording identifies two actions while retaining their places after bathing. “after those ordinary frictions” becomes “after the customary rubbing of the body”, preserving the later action’s relation to exercise. “Instead of ordinary frictions” becomes “Instead of ordinary rubbing”; the nettle procedure remains an explicit replacement, not the definition of ordinary friction.

embrocation

Printed “embrocations” (English; lemma).

An application of a liquid remedy to the body.

Here: Liquid applications follow bathing, anointing and head washing in the catalogue.

Context: Burton combines attributed bathing practices; these external applications are not medicines swallowed.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: embrocations

Modern rendering: applications of liquid remedies

Word and construction: The plural noun is expanded into a descriptive phrase naming application and material.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

friction · frictions · local use 1

Printed “frictions” (English; lemma).

A rubbing of the body.

Here: Fernel places whole-body rubbing after bathing in his described regimen.

Context: The sequence is Fernel’s; other named authorities in the same paragraph prescribe a different bathing frequency.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: frictions all over the body

Modern rendering: rubbing all over the body

Word and construction: Frictions contributes rubbing; the location remains all over the body.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

friction · frictions · local use 2

Printed “frictions” (English; lemma).

A rubbing of the body.

Here: Ordinary morning rubbing precedes gentle exercise.

Context: Guianerius’s sequence, supported by the margin’s light whole-body rubbing before exercise, concerns the timing of an action rather than a different substance.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: after those ordinary frictions

Modern rendering: after the customary rubbing of the body

Word and construction: Frictions contributes rubbing; body is explicit in the modern phrase and supplied from the topic.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

friction · frictions · local use 3

Printed “frictions” (English; lemma).

A rubbing of the body.

Here: Rubbing is one of the means of procuring sleep.

Context: Piso commends the action; the surrounding account says that different people respond to noise or silence.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Piso commends frictions

Modern rendering: Piso recommends rubbing the body

Word and construction: Frictions supplies rubbing the body; the subject and commendatory modality remain Piso’s.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

friction · frictions · local use 4

Printed “frictions” (English; lemma).

A rubbing of the body.

Here: Ordinary rubbing is distinguished from Cardan’s stronger rubbing with nettles until blistering.

Context: P. Byarus and others approve external rubbing and warm bathing; Cardan’s substitution is separately attributed.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Instead of ordinary frictions, Cardan prescribes rubbing with nettles till they blister the skin

Modern rendering: Instead of ordinary rubbing, Cardan prescribes rubbing with nettles until they blister the skin

Word and construction: Frictions becomes rubbing; the replacement construction and its blistering endpoint remain explicit.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

friction · frictions · local use 5

Printed “frictions” (English; lemma).

A rubbing of the body.

Here: Rubbing other parts, especially feet, is offered for facial flushing through the supposed connection of head and feet.

Context: Joubert is the cited prescriber; the paragraph separately conditions bloodletting on excess blood.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to use frictions of the other parts, feet especially, and washing of them

Modern rendering: He advises rubbing other parts, especially the feet, and washing them

Word and construction: Frictions contributes rubbing; the modern sentence supplies the governing He advises from the previous report.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.