Customs and Fashions in Old New England
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man took confidingly and faithfully medicines such as are given in this little book of mine: the king's feeble and much-vaunted dose of "White Wine, Ginger, Treacle, and Sage;" Dr. Atkinson's excellent perfume against the Plague, of "Angelica roots and Wine Vinegar, that if taken fasting, your breath would kill the Plague" (it must have been a fearful dose); "Mr. Fenton's the Chirurgeon's Posset and his Sedour Root."
Cures for small-pox and for gout are many. Varied are the lotions for the "pin and web in the eye;" so many are there of these that it makes me suspect that our forefathers were sadly sore-eyed. One very prevalent all that our ancestors had to endure (if we can judge from the number of prescriptions for its relief) was a "cold stomack;" literally cold, one might think, since most of the cures were by external application. Lady Spencer used a plebeian "greene turfe of grasse" to warm her stomach, with the green side, not the dirt side, placed next the skin. She could scarcely have worn this turf when she was up and around the house, could she? She must have had it placed upon her while she was in bed. Josselyn said in his "New England Rarities" that, "to wear the skin of a Gripe dressed with the doun on" would cure pain and coldness of the stomach. Thus did like cure like. A "Restorative Bag" of herbs and spices heated in "boyl'd Vinegar" is asserted to be "comfortable." "It must be as hot as can be endured, and keep yourself from studying and musing and it will comfort you much." So it seems you ought not to study nor to muse if your stomach be cold. Many and manifold are the remedies to "chear the heart," to "drive melancholy," to "cure one pensive," "for the megrums," "for a grief;" and without doubt the lonely colonists often needed them. We know, too, that "things ill for the heart were beans, pease, sadness, onions, anger, evil tidings, and loss of friends,"—a very arbitrary and unjust classification. Melancholy was evidently regarded as a disease, and a much to-be-lamented one. External applications were made to "drive the worms out of the Brain as well as Dross out of the Stomack." Here is "A pretious water to revive the Spirits:" "Take four gallons of strong Ale, five ounces of Aniseeds, Liquorish scraped half a pound, Sweet Mints, Angelica, Eccony, Cowslip flowers, Sage & Rosemary Flowers, sweet Marjoram, of each three handfuls, Palitory of the VVal one handful. After it is fermented two or three dayes, distil it in a Limbeck, and in the water infuse one handful of the flowers aforesaid, Cinnamon and Fennel-seed of each half an ounce, Juniper berries bruised one dram, red Rosebuds, roasted Apples & dates sliced and stoned, of each half a pound; distil it again and sweeten it with some Sugarcandy, and take of Ambergreese, Pearl, Red Coral, Hartshorn pounded, and leaf Gold, of each half a Dram, put them in a fine Linnen bag, and hang them by a thread in a Glasse."
Think of taking all that trouble to make something to cheer the spirits, when the four gallons of strong ale These pages are © Laurel O'Donnell, 2005, all rights reserved
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