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

XX
PREFACE.
The maauscript.
mitted that Saxon leeches fell short of the daring skill of
Hellas, or the wondrous success of the leading medical
men of either branch in London or Paris. Notwithstanding
that this is a learned book, it sometimes sinks
to mere driveling, The author almost always rejects
the Greek recipes, and doctors as an herborist. It
will give any one who has the heart of a man in him
a thrill of horror to compare the Saxon dose of brooklime
and pennyi'oyal twice a day, for a mother whose
child is dead -within her,^ with the chapter in Celsus
devoted to this subject, in which we read, as in his
inmost soul, an anxious courageous care, and a sense
of responsibility mixed with determination to do his
utmost, which is, even to a reader, agitating.^
The volume consists of two parts ; a treatise on
medicine in two books, with its proper colophon at
the end, and a third of a somewhat more monkish
character. The book itself probably once belonged to
the abbey of Glastonbury, for a catalogue of the books
of that foundation, cited by Wanley,^ contains the entry
" Medicinale Anglicum," which is rightly interpreted,
" Saxonice scriptum ;" and this book, rebound in 1757,
has preserved on one of the fly leaves an old almost
illegible inscription, " Medicinale Anglicum." Search
has been made for any record of the books, Avhich, on
the dissolution of the monasteries, might have found
their way from Glastonbury to the Royal Library, but
in
vain.
An earlier, the first, owner is pointed out in the
colophon.^
Bald habet hunc librum, Gild quem conscribere iussit.
'
Lb. p. 331.
* Adhibenda curatio est, quce
numerari inter difficillimas potest.
Nam et summam prudentiam moderationemque
desiderat, et maximum
periculum affert. Celsus, VII.
xxix.
=*
Hickes, Tliesaur. Vol. II. Pra;f.
ad Catalogum.
* P. 298.