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Take the juice or powder in distilled water of hog lice and continue it.
Take conserve of comfrey and of hips, of each an ounce and a half; conserve of red roses, three ounces; dragon's blood, a drachm; spices of hyacinths, two scruples; red coral, a drachm; mix and with syrup of poppies make a soft electuary. Take the quantity of a walnut, night and morning.
Take Venice treacle and diascordium, of each half a drachm, in warm ale or water gruel, or what you like best, at night, going to bed.
First take a drachm of powder of rhubarb in a sufficient quantity of conserve of red roses, in the morning early; then at night, take of tornified or roasted rhubarb, half a drachm; diascordium, a drachm and a half; liquid laudanum cyclomated, a scruple: mix and make into a bolus.
Take of cherious water, ten ounces; water of red poppies, three ounces; syrup of poppies, an ounce; pearl prepared, a drachm; make julep, and take six spoonfuls every fourth hour.
Take oil of violets or sweet almonds, an ounce of each, with wax and a little saffron, make an ointment, warm it and bathe it upon the parts affected.
Take sulphur vive in powder, half an ounce, oil of tartar per deliquim, a sufficient quantity, ointment of roses, four ounces; make a liniment, to which add a scruple of rhodium to aromatize, and rub the parts affected with it.
Take two pounds of tar, incorporate it into a thick mass with well-sifted ashes; boil the mass in fountain-water, adding leaves of ground-ivy, white horehound, fumitory roots, sharp-pointed dock and of flocan pan, of each four handfuls; make a bath to be used with care of taking cold.
Take wormseed, half a drachm, flour of sulphur, a drachm; mix and make a powder. Give as much as will lie on a silver threepence, night and morning, in grocer's treacle or honey, or to grown up people, you may add a sufficient quantity of aloe rosatum and so make them up into pills; three or four may be taken every morning.
Take crab-eyes, a drachm, cream of tartar, half a drachm; white sugar-candy finely powdered, weight of both; mix all well together and give as much as will lie on a silver threepence, in a spoonful of barley-water or sack whey.
Take water of green wheat, six ounces, syrup diascordium, three ounces, take two or three spoonfuls going to bed every night or every other night.
Take best rhubarb, one drachm, gum lac, prepared, two drachms, zyloaloes, cinnamon, long birthwort, half an ounce each, best English saffron, half a scruple; with syrup of chicory and rhubarb make an electuary. Take the quantity of a nutmeg or small walnut every morning fasting.
Take roots of chervil and candied eringo roots, half an ounce of each, roots of butcher-broom, two ounces, grass-roots, three ounces, shavings of ivory and hartshorn, two drachms and a half each; boil them in two or three pounds of spring water. Whilst the strained liquor is hot, pour it upon the leaves of watercresses and goose-grass bruised, of each a handful, adding a pint of Rhenish wine. Make a close infusion for two hours, then strain out the liquor again, and add to it three ounces of magirtral water and earth worms and an ounce and a half of the syrup of the five opening roots. Make an apozen, whereof take four ounces twice a day.
Take leaves of plantain and stinging nettles, of each three handfuls, bruise them well and pour on them six ounces of plantain water, afterwards make a strong expression and drink the whole off. Probatum est.
Worthy of Notice.
A red man to be faithful, a tall man to be wise, a fat man to be swift of foot, a lean man to be a fool, a handsome man not to be proud, a poor man not to be envious, a knave to be no liar, an upright man not too bold and hearty to his own loss, one that drawls when he speaks not to be crafty and circumventing, one that winks on another with his eyes not to be false and deceitful, a sailor and hangman to be pitiful, a poor man to build churches, a quack doctor to have a good conscience, a bailiff not to be a merciless villain, an hostess not to over-reckon you, and an usurer to be charitable——
Ye have found a prodigy.
Men acting contrary to the common course of nature.
I have given this Part the title of The Experienced Midwife, because it is chiefly designed for those who profess Midwifery, and contains whatever is necessary for them to know in the practice thereof; and also, because it is the result of many years' experience, and that in the most difficult cases, and is, therefore, the more to be depended upon.
A midwife is the most necessary and honourable office, being indeed a helper of nature; which therefore makes it necessary for her to be well acquainted with all the operations of nature in the work of generation, and instruments with which she works. For she that knows not the operations of nature, nor with what tool she works, must needs be at a loss how to assist therein. And seeing the instruments of operation, both in men and women, are those things by which mankind is produced, it is very necessary that all midwives should be well acquainted with them, that they may better understand their business, and assist nature, as there shall be occasion.
The first thing then necessary as introductory to this treatise, is an anatomical description of the several parts of generation both in men and women; but as in the former part of this work I have treated at large upon these subjects, being desirous to avoid tautology, I shall not here repeat anything of what was then said, but refer the reader thereto, as a necessary introduction to what follows. And though I shall be necessitated to speak plainly so that I may be understood, yet I shall do it with that modesty that none shall have need to blush unless it be from something in themselves, rather than from what they shall find here; having the motto of the royal garter for my defence, which is:—"Honi soit qui mal y pense,"—"Evil be to him that evil thinks."
