Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft of early England. Being a ...

LEECH BOOK. T. 79
3. A leechdoin for a leprous body, delve up dock and
silverweed, pound them, then boil them in butter, add
a trifle of salt. For deadness of the body, rub in ale
staithwort, marche, give to the patie7it to drink. For a
leper, boil in urine ^ rind of quickbeam, the netherward
part of elder rind, ash rind, and woad, elm rind, hemlock,
then add butter and honey. For a leper, pound
with lard waybroad, leechwort, leek, mint, maythe,
helenium, sulfur, put of the sulfur two parts to one of
the
worts.
4. For a leper again, take fat of a horse, mingle
Book I.
Ch. xxxii.
thoroughly with salt, smear with that. A bath foia
leper, boil in water ash rind, quickbeam rind, holly
rind, the foultree or black alder rind, rind of spindle
tree, sedge, ploughmans spikenard, hapife, marrubium,
bathe therewith, and rub the body with the hayrife.
Work a salve of marrubium in butter, of worm" meal,
of vipers bugloss, hayrife, take half the salve, mingle
with pounded helenium, smear till it get better, then
smear with the other half. A bath for the mickle
body or elphantiasis, boil in water thoroughly helenium,
broom, ivy, mugwort, enchanters nightshade (), henbane,
mallow, everlasting, pour into a byden, and let
the iKitient sit upon it. Let a man drink against that
disorder this drink ; betony, churmel, hove, agrimony,
springwort, red nettle, lupin, sage, singreen, alexanders,
let it be wrought out of foreign ale, let the sick man
drink it in the bath, and let him not allow the vapour
to reach it. A salve for the mickle leprous body,
helenium, wolfsbane, dock, groundsel, field gentian,
waybroad, everlasting, ontre, hove, comfrey, celandine,
mallow, boil all in butter together, let half the salve
"
Cf. Aetius. I. ii. 108.
- Thus in later times :
" Fair
large Earth-worms gathered in May
when they couple ;
put them into a
Pail of Water at night till the next
morning, so will they have cleansed
themselves, then dry them before
the fire, or in an Oven, which when
through dry, beat into Ponder.'"
Salmon's English Physician, p.
G97, ed. 169.3. He adds the cures.