Take two and call me in the morning . . .

An ancient recipe book for medical remedies is up for auction in England.

A handwritten book containing bizarre 17th century medical remedies including pike bones and dragon's blood is to go under the hammer tomorrow after spending more than 100 years buried in an attic.

Written on fragile parchment bound between two pieces of thin card, the manuscript includes medical formulas as well as a variety of traditional recipes.

Outlandish natural ingredients include ragwort, nightshade, venis turpentine, ferne roots, hoggs grease and the bizarrely-named 'earbagrace', which is probably Ambergris, a substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales.

One of the most intriguing potions is for 'Lady Delafountaines strengthining pills'.

It reads: 'Take the Jaw bone of a Pike, dried and beaten to powder. Then take venis turpentine of the bigness of a nutmeg, steep it all night in white vinigar being pricked full of holes and drie it.

'Make it in sugar pills and take three, nine mornings together... Eat not for an hower [hour[ after; the pills must be as big as a hazelnut.'

The 64-page book is expected to fetch around £400 when it's auctioned at Bonhams Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, tomorrow.

(Click the picture for a larger view)

The fascinating compilation is inscribed with the name Thomas Slapp, 1784, but whether or not he is the original author remains a mystery.

Experts believe the book was complied in either the 17th or early 18th century and has passed through at least three generations of the Mulley family.

Other remedies for medical complaints deal with faint sweats, worms, sciatica and 'the sicknefs to take in the morning before you go abroade'.

Part of another recipe for common cold remedy advises: 'Take your Sallet (a type of small onion) Oyle and a pinte of faire water.

'Boyle it with an earthen pott in your wax then shred the herbs very small and the rosemary and planting water into the pott.

'Let it boyle a little then bruise the Dragons blood very small and putt them in letting them boyle a little.

'Then take the turpentine and wash it three times in faire water and the last time in rose water them put it into the pott.'

The author also detailed a radical cure for 'The Paine of Piles' involving an onion and hot embers.

It reads; 'Take a great onion core it and fill it with b[utter] or oyle and roll it in embers until it is soft. Then binde it to the place.'

More at the link.

I thought I'd seen that last recipe for a remedy for 'The Paine Of Piles' somewhere before. Turns out Texans use something like it - except that they use jalapeño peppers instead of onions! Apparently that's why they like to wear high-heeled cowboy boots . . . it keeps the affected portions of anatomy higher off the ground. (Or so I'm told, anyway!)



Peter