Syrup and julep

Use in the book

The synopsis places syrups among fluid medicines taken inwardly and also lists juleps and syrups among swallowed liquid purgatives. These are classifications by consistency, route and proposed function, not claims that every syrup must purge. The more detailed compound-medicine discussion describes syrups as preparing the humour for evacuation from heart, spleen, liver and other parts; the next paragraph says they are chiefly preparatives to other physic, mixed with suitable waters or made into juleps. Elsewhere they appear among compounds intended to obtain sleep. Preparation form and therapeutic purpose thus cross-cut one another.

Burton’s catalogue is not uncritical approval of compounding. Cornarius’s complaint attacks obsolete ingredients, barbarous names and unnecessary mixtures in apothecaries’ shops; Burton challenges learned physicians to justify both the numbers and quantities of ingredients. His “300 simples in a julip” is a polemical question about extravagance, not a verified inventory of a particular prescription. Earlier he cites Arnoldus against the assumption that long courses of syrup can expel every fantastic imagining or the devil. That warning follows a preference for trying medicinal diet before medicines and giving drugs only when necessary. The forms belong to an argument about the limits and intelligibility of treatment as well as its resources.

There is controversy even inside the syrup category. Some object to the purging syrups, appealing to a maxim about treating what is concocted rather than crude; Burton reports Mattioli’s subsequent rejection of the objection. The edition points out that the Hippocratic distinction concerns the maturation of humours before purging, whereas Burton’s English gloss applies it to raw things used in medicine. The marginal assertion that such syrups are extremely harmful belongs to the objection, not to an uncontested verdict by Burton or Mattioli.

Names can state an ingredient or a variant without furnishing a recipe. Quercetan’s “Syrupus Genistæ” is broom syrup, distinguished from the adjacent greater and lesser hellebore formulations. “De pomis” names apple syrup. In one prescription that syrup accompanies borage water and a separate hellebore ingredient; in another it is the liquid with which powdered or compounded materials are mixed. A citron-peel syrup similarly serves as a carrier in making an electuary. The noun therefore identifies a constituent as well as a medicine administered on its own. Neither the Latin ingredient-name nor the modern expansion makes a historically fixed composition certain.

The testimony to Altomarus’s syrup requires its margin. Burton reports his solemn claim of many cures and later writers’ praise. The marginal formulation says the syrup alone cured many, but immediately adds that a purge had been given first. “Alone” thus cannot erase the preceding treatment. Similar praise of a hellebore syrup and extract as safe, even for children, remains a historical writer’s claim, not the edition’s assessment of harmlessness. The hellebore family and its already explained preparations remain with their earlier owner.

Outside the treatment catalogue, a Latin list of supposed stimulants to lust includes syrups among rich foods, medicinal pastes, juices and luxurious bedding. Its purpose is excess and provocation, not necessarily cure. At the end of the jealousy discussion, administering a julep or syrup is instead the ordinary medical occasion for a young physician to enter a newly married household; Nevizzano’s question makes that occasion a jealous fear of sexual access. The appended Persian story is specifically corrected by the editor: Burton makes the woman the king’s wife, whereas the consulted Ctesias excerpt identifies his sister. The simple drug names should not lend factual authority to that altered anecdote.

Related entries

Preparatives (Preparatives) distinguishes a stage of treatment from a form of medicine. Confection, Decoction, Electuaries and Oxymel retain neighbouring forms rather than treating them as interchangeable liquids. Helleborism owns the hellebore family, including the named hellebore preparations. Purging supplies the proposed action distinct from syrup as its possible vehicle.

Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.

Places to read

1. Synopsis of the Second Partition · paragraph 15Syrups in the fluid, internally taken class.
2. Synopsis of the Second Partition · paragraph 19Juleps and syrups among swallowed liquid purgatives.
3. Member 4. Subsection 1. Physician, Patient, Medicine · paragraph 12Necessity and prior trial of medicinal diet. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
4. Member 4. Subsection 1. Physician, Patient, Medicine · paragraph 13Long courses of syrup cannot answer every imagined or spiritual affliction.
5. Subsection 5 Compound Alteratives Criticism of Compounds and Mixed Medicines · paragraph 5Cornarius’s criticism of names and needless compounds.
6. Subsection 5 Compound Alteratives Criticism of Compounds and Mixed Medicines · paragraph 8The rhetorical challenge about three hundred ingredients.
7. Subsection 5 Compound Alteratives Criticism of Compounds and Mixed Medicines · paragraph 25Syrups said to prepare the humour for evacuation.
8. Subsection 5 Compound Alteratives Criticism of Compounds and Mixed Medicines · paragraph 26Preparative use with waters or in juleps.
9. Subsection 3 Compound Purgatives · paragraph 37Broom and hellebore syrup names among purgative compounds.
10. Subsection 3 Compound Purgatives · paragraph 38Objection, answer and a shifted Hippocratic maxim.
11. Subsection 3 Preparatives and Purgatives · paragraph 40Historically attributed claims of safety.
12. Subsection 3 Preparatives and Purgatives · paragraph 43Apple syrup as one constituent in a prescription.
13. Subsection 3 Preparatives and Purgatives · paragraph 47; note 7815Altomarus’s cure claim and the prior purge in the accompanying note.
14. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 6Citron-peel syrup as the carrier for an electuary.
15. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 10Compressed naming of quince and apple syrups.
16. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 11Mixing other materials with apple syrup.
17. Subsection 6 Remedies for Accompanying Symptoms: To Bring Sleep, and Against Fearful Dreams, Redness and So On · paragraph 34The turn to correcting remaining symptoms. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
18. Subsection 6 Remedies for Accompanying Symptoms: To Bring Sleep, and Against Fearful Dreams, Redness and So On · paragraph 35The ensuing treatment is directed against sleeplessness. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
19. Subsection 6 Remedies for Accompanying Symptoms: To Bring Sleep, and Against Fearful Dreams, Redness and So On · paragraph 36Syrups within the internally taken sleep medicines.
20. Member 2. Subsection 1. Causes of Heroic Love: Bodily Temperament, Plentiful Diet, Idleness, Place, Climate, and So Forth · paragraph 46Luxury and foods supposed to encourage lust. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
21. Member 2. Subsection 1. Causes of Heroic Love: Bodily Temperament, Plentiful Diet, Idleness, Place, Climate, and So Forth · paragraph 47Latin syrupos in the list of supposed stimulants.
22. Member 2. Subsection 1. Causes of Heroic Love: Bodily Temperament, Plentiful Diet, Idleness, Place, Climate, and So Forth · paragraph 48The list joined to pharmaceutical and culinary luxury. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
23. Prevention Before or After Marriage: Plato’s Community of Wives; Marrying a Courtesan; Love Potions; Brothels; Marrying Someone Equal in Age and Fortune, From a Good Family, Well Educated and of Good Standing; Treating Wives Well; and So On · paragraph 2A medical visit becomes an occasion for jealousy.

In this edition

The modern column regularizes the English spellings to syrup and julep. Syrupus Genistæ becomes “broom syrup,” Syrupe de pomis becomes “apple syrup,” and Syrup. de cort. citri becomes “syrup of citron peel.” These translations clarify ingredients without adding a formula. Longis syrupis yields “with long courses of syrups,” not physically long liquids: duration is the implied treatment-course sense. The source’s syrup. Cidoniorum de pomis is a compressed list translated as syrup of quinces, of apples; its absent conjunction is not repaired in the original. That final listing is supplementary evidence for the apple-syrup access route, not a licence to conflate the fruits.

Syrupes; Syrupe; Syrups; Syrrops

Liquid medicinal preparations, specified locally by ingredient or intended use.

Original wording: “Syrupes are very good, and often used to digest this humour”

Modern wording: “Syrups are very good and often used to prepare this humour for evacuation”

Burton’s recommendation concerns a preparative action in this passage. The same preparation form occurs elsewhere for purging, obtaining sleep, or mixing with other medicines, so no one action defines the noun. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage; the passage; the passage. Lookup: syrup; Syrupes; Syrupe; Syrups; Syrrops; syrupos [Latin inflection].

Julips; julip

Sweet medicinal drinks.

Original wording: “to administer a julip, a syrup, or some such physick”

Modern wording: “to administer a julep, a syrup or some similar medicine”

The ordinary medicinal visit is the occasion of Nevizzano’s question about jealousy, not evidence that a julep is a love potion. Earlier the term names one possible fluid form for compounded drugs. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage; the passage. Lookup: julep [modern access form]; Julips; julip.

longis syrupis

With prolonged courses of syrup-based medicine.

Original wording: “longis syrupis expugnare dæmones & animi phantasmata”

Modern wording: “overcome demons and the mind's phantoms with long courses of syrups”

Longis syrupis supplies with long courses of syrups, while expugnare and its objects supply overcome demons and mental phantoms. The claim is what Arnoldus mocks, not a successful result asserted by the narrator. Lookup: longis syrupis; syrupis; long courses of syrups.

Syrupus Genistæ

Broom syrup, a preparation named for broom.

Original wording: “Syrupus Genistæ for Hypocondriacall melancholy”

Modern wording: “broom syrup for hypochondriacal melancholy”

The same author, Quercetan, is credited with this preparation. Its ingredient-name and intended use do not supply proportions, a precise plant identification or demonstrated efficacy. Lookup: Syrupus Genistæ; Syrupus; broom syrup.

Syrupe de pomis; syrupo de pomis

Apple syrup, either a preparation in its own right or a mixing liquid in a compound.

Original wording: “Syrupe de pomis”

Modern wording: “apple syrup”

De pomis identifies apples. The prescription lists borage water and hellebore separately; their presence is not contained in the meaning of apple syrup. The later Latin syrupo is the inflected form after cum, with. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage. Lookup: de pomis; Syrupe de pomis; syrupo de pomis; apple syrup.

Syrup. de cort. citri

Syrup of citron peel.

Original wording: “Syrup. de cort. citri; fiat electuarium”

Modern wording: “With syrup of citron peel, make an electuary”

The syrup is the liquid carrier used to make the electuary, not the name of the entire resulting mixture. The printed ingredient and preparation abbreviations are expanded in the modern column. Lookup: Syrup. de cort. citri; citron-peel syrup.

hujus solius syrupi usu

By use of this syrup alone, within a claim explicitly preceded by purging.

Original wording: “hujus solius syrupi usu curasse, factâ prius purgatione”

Note translation: “with this syrup alone, a purge having first been given”

Solius modifies the syrup used, but the ablative phrase adds an earlier purge. The full local sentence prevents alone from being misread as excluding all other treatment in Altomarus’s reported cures. Lookup: syrupi; hujus solius syrupi usu; Altomarus syrup.