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

xxiv
PREFACE.
Age.
element; the application of vinegar with prussic acid^ for
head ache is practical ; the great fondness for elecampane,
Inula lieleniiiin, is parallel to the frequent employment,
at the present day, of Arnica. But it would be vain to
defend the prescriptions, some are altogether blunders,
and the fashion of medical treatment changes so much
that the prescriptions of Meade and Radcliffe are nowcondemned
as absurd. It suffices that Saxon leeches
endeavoured by searching the medical records of foreign
languages to qualify themselves for their profession.
The character of the writing fixes, as far as I venture
on an opinion, this copy of the work to the former half
of the tenth century ; some learned in MSS., who have
favoured me v/ith an opinion, say the latter half, 960
to 980. My own judgment is chiefly based upon comparison
with books we know to have been written about
900.
KingiElfred. The inquisitiveness of men at that period about the
methods in medicine pursued in foreign countries is
illustrated by the very curious and interesting citation
from Helias, patriarch of Jerusalem.^ The account given
has strong marks of genuineness. We will assume that
King iElfred had sent to Jerusalem requesting from
the patriarch some good recipes ; for it would be not
in the manner of mens ordinary dealings for the head
of the church in the Holy Land to obtrude upon a
distant king any drugs or advice of the kind. He
returns then a recommendation of scamony, which is
the
juice of a Syrian convolvulus, of gutta ammoniaca, a
sort of liquid volatile salts, of spices, of gum dragon,
of aloes, of galbanum, of balsam, of petroleum, of the
famous Greek compound preparation called S>jpajt»j, and
of the magic virtues of alabaster.^ These drugs are good
in themselves, and such as a resident in Syria would
naturally recommend to others. The present author
> Lb. I. i. 10 and 12.
I » On the Phoenician origin of this
2 Lb. p. 290.
I
-(vord, see SSpp. p. 285.