Philobiblon

I’ve been reading With Faith and Physic: The Life of a Tudor Gentlewoman Lady Grace Mildmay 1552-1620. She was a highly religious woman, with plenty of things in her life – a thoroughly unpleasant husband, a father who left her almost penniless at the behest of her mother and sister – to encourage her to trust in God, for want of other alternatives.

But it seems the real passion of her life was medicine, and she must have spent a huge percentage of her meagre income on the medications to treat her neighbours and callers, and read everything she could get her hands on medical matters.

One of her favourite treatments was a balm that she made herself containing “24 types of roots, 68 kinds of herbs, 14 types of seeds, 12 sorts of flowers, 10 kinds of spices, 20 types of gum, 6 different purgatives, 5 different cordials”. That’s what you call a recipe.

I’ve pasted it below the fold – read it and think of the labour involved…
(I think the “standing in horse dung” was probably a method of heating – the temperature in a good-size compost heap, such as her household would surely have boasted, was probably pretty constant.)

A most precious and excellent balm.

Roots:
acorns or great galingale 1 ounce, 6d; peony root 1 ounce, 3d; angelica root 1 ounce, 4d; iris 1 ounce. 1d; cormeskill root 1 ounce, 2d; enula campana 1 ounce, 1d; citron rundes & co. 2 ounces, 2s; foleroots 1 ounce, 2d; liquorice 1 ounce, 1/2d; marshmallow roots 1 ounce, 1 1/2d; the bark of caper root 1 ounce, 3d; the inner bark of tamarisk 1 ounce, 4d; saxifrage root 1 ounce, 4d; filipendula root 1 ounce, 3d; resta bovis 1 ounce, 2d; aristolochia rotunda 1 ounce, 4d; male valerian root 1 ounce, 4d; bistort root, 1 ounce, 2d; gentian 1 ounce, 4d; red dock root 1 ounce, 1/2d; fennel root, 1 ounce, ‘/2p; chicory root 1 ounce, 1/2p; setwall root 1 ounce, 6d; wild dragon root 1 ounce, 3d.

Herbs:
sage 1 handful, 1d; betony 1 handful, 1d; sweet marjoram 1 handful, 6d; rue 1 handful, 1d; wild thyme 1 handful, I1/2d; eyebright 1 handful, 2d; fennel 1 handful, 1d; vervain 1 handful, 1d; balm scordion 2 handfuls, 6d; cardus benedictus 2 handfuls, 21/2d; scabious 1 handful, 1d; bugloss 1 handful. 1d; borage 1 handful, 1d; St John’s wort 1 handful. 1d; isop folefoot 1 handful, 1d; maidenhair 1 handful, 4d; wormwood 1 handful, 1d; germander 1 handful, 1d; enula campana 1 handful, [no price]; agrimony 1 handful, 2d; chicory and sowthistle 1 handful, 1d; plus sticados and elder tops, 1 handful each [no price]; monseare 1 handful, 2d; plantain 1 handful, 1d; ceterach 1 handful, 4d; hart’s-tongue 1 handful, 4d; sowbegrass 1 handful, I1/2d; finiterry 1 handful, 1d; speedwell 1 handful, 1d; golden wand or virga aurea 1 handful, 4d; yarrow 1 handful. 1d; knot-grass 1 handful, 1d; pellitory-of-the-wall 1 handful, 2d; mugwort 1 handful, 1d; nep, featherfew, smallage 1 handful, 1d; camapiteos 1 handful, I1/2d; mercury 1 handful, I1/2d; langue-de-boeuf 1 handful, 1/2d; bugle 1 handful, 2d; pimpernel 1 handful, 2d; cinquefoil 1 handful, I1/2d; parsley 1 handful, 1/2d; clove 1 handful, 1 1/2d; sothernwood 1 handful, I’/zd; avyns 1 handful, I1/2d; chickweed 1 handful, I1/2d; camomile 1 handful, I1/2d; lavender 1 handful, 2d; express 1 handful, [no price]; savory 1 handful, I1/2d; lavender-cotton 1 handful, l!/ad; burnet 1 handful, 2d; rosemary 1 handful, [no price]; mallows 1 handful, 1/2d; strawberry leaves 1 handful, 1d; tansy 1 handful, I’/zd; pennyroyal 1 handful. 1d; filipendula 1 handful, I1/2d; endive 1 handful, 1d; dill 1 handful, 1d; maudlin 1 handful, 1d; saxifrage 1 handful, I1/2d; horehound 1 handful, 1d; oculus 1 handful, 1d; orris 1 handful, 1d; red and damask roses 2 ounces, 7d; brook thyme 1 handful, 1d.

Seeds:
lovage 1 ounce, 4d; peony 1 ounce, 2d; aniseeds 2 ounces, 2d; sweet fennel 2 ounces, 4d; basil 1 ounce, 3d; violet 1 ounce, [no price]; plantain 1 ounce, 2d; alkekengie berries 3 ounces, 31/2d; cormwell 3 ounces, 1d; citron 6 ounces, 9d; sorrel 6 ounces, 2d; mather root 3 ounces, 2d; siler montanum 2 ounces, 1d; nigella romana 2 ounces, 1d.

Flowers:
rosemary 1 handful, l0d; sage 1 handful, [no price]; betony 1 handful, 4d; red jelevers 1 handful, 12d; marigold 1 handful, 4d; violet 1 handful, 6d; chicory 1 handful, [no price]; tamarisk 1 handful, 6d; camomile 1 handful, 2d; cowslips 1 handful, 3d; borage 1 handful, 6d; bugloss 1 handful, 6d.

Spices:
cloves 1 ounce, 8d; nutmeg 1 ounce, 6d; ginger 1 ounce, 2d; grains 1 ounce, 2d; cubebs 1 ounce, 20d; cardamoms 1 ounce, 6d; galingale 1 ounce, 8d; cinnamon 1 ounce, 8d; maces 1 ounce, l0d; pepper 1 ounce, 4d.

Gums:
salbam 1 ounce, 4d; ammoniac 1 ounce, 6d; mastic 1 ounce, lOd; myrrh 1 ounce, 16d; adellin 1 ounce, l0d; storax calamita 1 ounce, 12d; spikenard 1 ounce, 20d; caraboe 1 ounce, 8d; tragacanth 1 ounce, 4d; segapinum 1 ounce, 6d; opoponax 1 ounce, 30d; benzoin 1 ounce, 24d; venis turpentine 4 ounces, 12d; sebestens 3 ounces, l0d; junibes 2 ounces, 6d; pine kernels 1 ounce, 4d; saffron 1 handful, 14d; ambergris 1 scruple [no price]; musk 1 scruple, 30d; gum traback [no price]; sack of the strongest 6 gallons, 16s; strong white wine vinegar 2 pints, 12d; oil olive of the best 2 gallons, 6s; sugar of the finest 6
pounds, 7s; Jordan almonds 2 lbs, 2s.

Purgatives:
rhubarb fine 6 ounces, 60s; aloes fine 6 ounces, 6s; agaric fine 6 ounces, 9s; hermodactiles 4 ounces, 6d; turbith fine 4 ounces, 4s; sene alex 4 ounces, ld.

Cordials:
diacurcumen 2 ounces, 6s 8d; diamuskadneses 2 ounces, 8s; diarrhodonebatus 2 ounces, 6s 8d; diatrionsantalon 2 ounces, 6s 8d; nia entrand, 28s

Sum Total £10 10s.
The making of the said balm.
Take all the aforesaid herbs and roots and infuse them in the wine vinegar and oil in a vessel close stopped. And 2 or 3 times a day shake or stir them together and so to stand infused 6 days or the longer the better in horse dung (if you will) or otherwise. Then put all the aforesaid in a body with a limbeck and distil it over, drawing the water from it only, for the oil must remain in the bottom with the herbs. Then put back the water again and let them infuse as before, shaking them together twice or thrice a day. And then distil again as before until 3 times it be distilled over. Then strain it hard and wring all substance from the herbs and then cast away the herbs.

And then put in your spices and gums, infusing them and shaking or stirring them together as before, until the same have been distilled 5 or 6 times over or until small quantities of the water will arise in the stilling, provided that the oil remains on the bottom with the spices as before. And then strain it and wring out hard all substance from the fleece and wash away all the oil clean from the fleece with some of the water.

Then put in your cordials and purgatives, using them in the like manner as before is specified. Then let it stand and settle until it be cold and then with a spoon skim off the oil and reserve it in a glass.

Then boil the residue which remaineth or evapour away the liquid substance and so reserve it as a precious extraction of this balm to be used many ways outward and inward or as iriithridatum with some unicorn horn, bezoar stone or for what other purpose you will. You may make it agreeable for every purpose provided that the aforesaid cordial and purgatives be first prepared with the strongest aqua vitae 4 times distilled before they be put unto the oil and balm, with some other observations as we know [v. 33, ff. 11-21].