Nicholas Culpeper

1. A Syrup is a medicine of a liquid form, composed of infusion, decoction and juice. And, 1. For the more grateful taste. 2. For the better keeping of it: with a certain quantity of honey or sugar, hereafter mentioned, boiled to the thickness of new honey.

2. You see at the first view, That this aphorism divides itself into three branches, which deserve severally to be treated of, viz.

• 1. Syrups made by infusion.
• 2. Syrups made by decoction.
• 3. Syrups made by juice.

Of each of these, (for your instruction-sake, kind countrymen and women) I speak a word or two apart.

1st, Syrups made by infusion, are usually made of flowers, and of such flowers as soon lose their colour and strength by boiling, as roses, violets, peach flowers, &c. They are thus made: Having picked your flowers clean, to every pound of them add three pounds or three pints, which you will (for it is all one) of spring water, made boiling hot; first put your flowers into a pewter-pot, with a cover, and pour the water on them; then shutting the pot, let it stand by the fire, to keep hot twelve hours, and strain it out: (in such syrups as purge, as damask roses, peach flowers, &c. the usual, and indeed the best way, is to repeat this infusion, adding fresh flowers to the same liquor divers times, that so it may be the stronger) having strained it out, put the infusion into a pewter bason, or an earthen one well glazed, and to every pint of it add two pounds of sugar, which being only melted over the fire, without boiling, and scummed, will produce you the syrup you desire.

2dly, Syrups made by decoction are usually made of compounds, yet may any simple herb be thus converted into syrup: Take the herb, root, or flowers you would make into a syrup, and bruise it a little; then boil it in a convenient quantity of spring water; the more water you boil it in, the weaker it will be; a handful of the herb or root is a convenient quantity for a pint of water, boil it till half the water be consumed, then let it stand till it be almost cold, and strain it through a woollen cloth, letting it run out at leisure: without pressing. To every pint of this decoction add one pound of sugar, and boil it over the fire till it come to a syrup, which you may know, if you now and then cool a little of it with a spoon: Scum it all the while it boils, and when it is sufficiently boiled, whilst it is hot, strain it again through a woollen cloth, but press it not. Thus you have the syrup perfected.

3dly, Syrups made of juice, are usually made of such herbs as are full of juice, and indeed they are better made into a syrup this way than any other; the operation is thus: Having beaten the herb in a stone mortar, with a wooden pestle, press out the juice, and clarify it, as you are taught before in the juices; then let the juice boil away till about a quarter of it be consumed; to a pint of this add a pound of sugar, and when it is boiled, strain it through a woollen cloth, as we taught you before, and keep it for your use.

3. If you make a syrup of roots that are any thing hard, as parsley, fennel, and grass roots, &c. when you have bruised them, lay them in steep some time in that water which you intend to boil them in hot, so will the virtue the better come out.

4. Keep your syrups either in glasses or stone pots, and stop them not with cork nor bladder, unless you would have the glass break, and the syrup lost, only bind paper about the mouth.

5. All syrups, if well made, continue a year with some advantage; yet such as are made by infusion, keep shortest.

---

1. Juleps were first invented, as I suppose, in Arabia; and my reason is, because the word Julep is an Arabic word.

2. It signifies only a pleasant potion, as is vulgarly used by such as are sick, and want help, or such as are in health, and want no money to quench thirst.

3. Now-a-day it is commonly used—

• 1. To prepare the body for purgation.
• 2. To open obstructions and the pores.
• 3. To digest tough humours.
• 4. To qualify hot distempers, &c.

4. Simple Juleps, (for I have nothing to say to compounds here) are thus made; Take a pint of such distilled water, as conduces to the cure of your distemper, which this treatise will plentifully furnish you with, to which add two ounces of syrup, conducing to the same effect; (I shall give you rules for it in the next chapter) mix them together, and drink a draught of it at your pleasure. If you love tart things, add ten drops of oil of vitriol to your pint, and shake it together, and it will have a fine grateful taste.

5. All juleps are made for present use; and therefore it is in vain to speak of their duration.

---

1. All the difference between decoctions, and syrups made by decoction, is this; Syrups are made to keep, decoctions only for present use; for you can hardly keep a decoction a week at any time; if the weather be hot, not half so long.

2. Decoctions are made of leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, fruits or barks, conducing to the cure of the disease you make them for; are made in the same manner as we shewed you in syrups.

3. Decoctions made with wine last longer than such as are made with water; and if you take your decoction to cleanse the passages of the urine, or open obstructions, your best way is to make it with white wine instead of water, because this is penetrating.

4. Decoctions are of most use in such diseases as lie in the passages of the body, as the stomach, bowels, kidneys, passages of urine and bladder, because decoctions pass quicker to those places than any other form of medicines.

5. If you will sweeten your decoction with sugar, or any syrup fit for the occasion you take it for, which is better, you may, and no harm.

6. If in a decoction, you boil both roots, herbs, flowers, and seed together, let the roots boil a good while first, because they retain their virtue longest; then the next in order by the same rule, viz. 1. Barks. 2. The herbs. 3. The seeds. 4. The flowers. 5. The spices, if you put any in, because their virtues come soonest out.

7. Such things as by boiling cause sliminess to a decoction, as figs, quince-seed, linseed, &c. your best way is, after you have bruised them, to tie them up in a linen rag, as you tie up calf’s brains, and so boil them.

8. Keep all decoctions in a glass close stopped, and in the cooler place you keep them, the longer they will last ere they be sour.

Lastly, The usual dose to be given at one time, is usually two, three, four, or five ounces, according to the age and strength of the patient, the season of the year, the strength of the medicine, and the quality of the disease.

1. Oil Olive, which is commonly known by the name of Sallad Oil, I suppose, because it is usually eaten with sallads by them that love it, if it be pressed out of ripe olives, according to Galen, is temperate, and exceeds in no one quality.

2. Of oils, some are simple, and some are compound.

3 Simple oils, are such as are made of fruits or seeds by expression, as oil of sweet and bitter almonds, linseed and rape-seed oil, &c. of which see in my Dispensatory.

4. Compound oils, are made of oil of olives, and other simples, imagine herbs, flowers, roots, &c.

5. The way of making them is this: Having bruised the herbs or flowers you would make your oil of, put them into an earthen pot, and to two or three handfuls of them pour a pint of oil, cover the pot with a paper, set it in the sun about a fortnight or so, according as the sun is in hotness; then having warmed it very well by the fire, press out the herb, &c. very hard in a press, and add as many more herbs to the same oil; bruise the herbs (I mean not the oil) in like manner, set them in the sun as before; the oftener you repeat this, the stronger your oil will be; At last when you conceive it strong enough, boil both herbs and oil together, till the juice be consumed, which you may know by its bubbling, and the herbs will be crisp; then strain it while it is hot, and keep it in a stone or glass vessel for your use.

6. As for chymical oils, I have nothing to say here.

7. The general use of these oils, is for pains in the limbs, roughness of the skin, the itch, &c. as also for ointments and plaisters.

8. If you have occasion to use it for wounds or ulcers, in two ounces of oil, dissolve half an ounce of turpentine, the heat of the fire will quickly do it; for oil itself is offensive to wounds, and the turpentine qualifies it.

Physicians make more a quoil than needs by half, about electuaries. I shall prescribe but one general way of making them up; as for ingredients, you may them as you please, and as you find occasion, by the last chapter.

1. That you may make electuaries when you need them, it is requisite that you keep always herbs, roots, flowers, seeds, &c. ready dried in your house, that so you may be in a readiness to beat them into powder when you need them.

2. It is better to keep them whole than beaten; for being beaten, they are more subject to lose their strength; because the air soon penetrates them.

3. If they be not dry enough to beat into powder when you need them, dry them by a gentle fire till they are so.

4. Having beaten them, sift them through a fine tiffany searce, that no great pieces may be found in your electuary.

5. To one ounce of your powder add three ounces of clarified honey; this quantity I hold to be sufficient. If you would make more or less electuary, vary your proportion accordingly.

6. Mix them well together in a mortar, and take this for a truth, you cannot mix them too much.

7. The way to clarify honey, is to set it over the fire in a convenient vessel, till the scum rise, and when the scum is taken off, it is clarified.

8. The usual dose of cordial electuaries, is from half a dram to two drams; of purging electuaries, from half an ounce to an ounce.

9. The manner of keeping them is in a pot.

10. The time of taking them, is either in a morning fasting, and fasting an hour after them; or at night going to bed, three or four hours after supper.

1. The way of making conserves is two-fold, one of herbs and flowers, and the other of fruits.

2. Conserves of herbs and flowers, are thus made: if you make your conserves of herbs, as of scurvy-grass, wormwood, rue, and the like, take only the leaves and tender tops (for you may beat your heart out before you can beat the stalks small) and having beaten them, weigh them, and to every pound of them add three pounds of sugar, you cannot beat them too much.

3. Conserves of fruits, as of barberries, sloes and the like, is thus made: First, Scald the fruit, then rub the pulp through a thick hair sieve made for the purpose, called a pulping sieve; you may do it for a need with the back of a spoon: then take this pulp thus drawn, and add to it its weight of sugar, and no more; put it into a pewter vessel, and over a charcoal fire; stir it up and down till the sugar be melted, and your conserve is made.

4. Thus you have the way of making conserves; the way of keeping them is in earthen pots.

5. The dose is usually the quantity of a nutmeg at a time morning and evening, or (unless they are purging) when you please.

6. Of conserves, some keep many years, as conserves of roses: others but a year, as conserves of Borage, Bugloss, Cowslips and the like.

7. Have a care of the working of some conserves presently after they are made; look to them once a day, and stir them about; conserves of Borage, Bugloss, Wormwood, have got an excellent faculty at that sport.

8. You may know when your conserves are almost spoiled by this; you shall find a hard crust at top with little holes in it, as though worms had been eating there.

Of Preserves are sundry sorts, and the operation of all being somewhat different, we will handle them all apart. These are preserved with sugar:

• 1. Flowers.
• 2. Fruits.
• 3. Roots.
• 4. Barks.

1. Flowers are very seldom preserved; I never saw any that I remember, save only cowslip flowers, and that was a great fashion in Sussex when I was a boy. It is thus done, Take a flat glass, we call them jat glasses; strew on a laying of fine sugar, on that a laying of flowers, and on that another laying of sugar, on that another laying of flowers, so do till your glass be full; then tie it over with a paper, and in a little time, you shall have very excellent and pleasant preserves.

There is another way of preserving flowers; namely, with vinegar and salt, as they pickle capers and broom-buds; but as I have little skill in it myself, I cannot teach you.

2. Fruits, as quinces, and the like, are preserved two ways;

(1.) Boil them well in water, and then pulp them through a sieve, as we shewed you before; then with the like quantity of sugar, boil the water they were boiled in into a syrup, viz. a pound of sugar to a pint of liquor; to every pound of this syrup, add four ounces of the pulp; then boil it with a very gentle fire to their right consistence, which you may easily know if you drop a drop of it upon a trencher; if it be enough, it will not stick to your fingers when it is cold.

(2.) Another way to preserve fruits is this; First, Pare off the rind; then cut them in halves, and take out the core: then boil them in water till they are soft; if you know when beef is boiled enough, you may easily know when they are; Then boil the water with its like weight of sugar into a syrup; put the syrup into a pot, and put the boiled fruit as whole as you left it when you cut it into it, and let it remain until you have occasion to use it.

3. Roots are thus preserved; First, Scrape them very clean, and cleanse them from the pith, if they have any, for some roots have not, as Eringo and the like; Boil them in water till they be soft, as we shewed you before in the fruits; then boil the water you boiled the root in into a syrup, as we shewed you before; then keep the root whole in the syrup till you use them.

4. As for barks, we have but few come to our hands to be done, and of those the few that I can remember, are, oranges, lemons, citrons, and the outer bark of walnuts, which grow without-side the shell, for the shells themselves would make but scurvy preserves; these be they I can remember, if there be any more put them into the number.

The way of preserving these, is not all one in authors, for some are bitter, some are hot; such as are bitter, say authors, must be soaked in warm water, oftentimes changing till their bitter taste be fled; But I like not this way and my reason is this; Because I doubt when their bitterness is gone, so is their virtue also; I shall then prescribe one common way, namely, the same with the former, viz. First, boil them whole till they be soft, then make a syrup with sugar and the liquor you boil them in, and keep the barks in the syrup.

5. They are kept in glasses or in glaz’d pots.

6. The preserved flowers will keep a year, if you can forbear eating of them; the roots and barks much longer.

7. This art was plainly and first invented for delicacy, yet came afterwards to be of excellent use in physic; For,

(1.) Hereby medicines are made pleasant for sick and squeamish stomachs, which else would loath them.

(2.) Hereby they are preserved from decaying a long time.

CHAPTER IX.
Of Lohocks.

1. That which the Arabians call Lohocks, and the Greeks Eclegma, the Latins call Linctus, and in plain English signifies nothing else but a thing to be licked up.

2. They are in body thicker than a syrup, and not so thick as an electuary.

3. The manner of taking them is, often to take a little with a liquorice stick, and let it go down at leisure.

4. They are easily thus made; Make a decoction of pectoral herbs, and the treatise will furnish you with enough, and when you have strained it, with twice its weight of honey or sugar, boil it to a lohock; if you are molested with much phlegm, honey is better than sugar; and if you add a little vinegar to it, you will do well; if not, I hold sugar to be better than honey.

5. It is kept in pots, and may be kept a year and longer.

6. It is excellent for roughness of the wind-pipe, inflammations and ulcers of the lungs, difficulty of breathing, asthmas, coughs, and distillation of humours.

1. Various are the ways of making ointments, which authors have left to posterity, which I shall omit, and quote one which is easiest to be made, and therefore most beneficial to people that are ignorant in physic, for whose sake I write this. It is thus done:

Bruise those herbs, flowers, or roots, you will make an ointment of, and to two handfuls of your bruised herbs add a pound of hog’s grease dried, or cleansed from the skins, beat them very well together in a stone mortar with a wooden pestle, then put it into a stone pot, (the herb and grease I mean, not the mortar,) cover it with a paper and set it either in the sun, or some other warm place; three, four, or five days, that it may melt; then take it out and boil it a little; then whilst it is hot, strain it out, pressing it out very hard in a press: to this grease add as many more herbs bruised as before; let them stand in like manner as long, then boil them as you did the former; If you think your ointment is not strong enough, you may do it the third and fourth time; yet this I will tell you, the fuller of juice the herbs are, the sooner will your ointment be strong; the last time you boil it, boil it so long till your herbs be crisp, and the juice consumed, then strain it pressing it hard in a press, and to every pound of ointment add two ounces of turpentine, and as much wax, because grease is offensive to wounds, as well as oil.

2. Ointments are vulgarly known to be kept in pots, and will last above a year, some above two years.

1. The Greeks made their plaisters of divers simples, and put metals into the most of them, if not all; for having reduced their metals into powder, they mixed them with that fatty substance whereof the rest of the plaister consisted, whilst it was thus hot, continually stirring it up and down, lest it should sink to the bottom; so they continually stirred it till it was stiff; then they made it up in rolls, which when they needed for use, they could melt by the fire again.

2. The Arabians made up theirs with oil and fat, which needed not so long boiling.

3. The Greeks emplaisters consisted of these ingredients, metals, stones, divers sorts of earth, feces, juices, liquors, seeds, roots, herbs, excrements of creatures, wax, rosin, gums.

CHAPTER XII.
Of Poultices.

1. Poultices are those kind of things which the Latins call Cataplasmata, and our learned fellows, that if they can read English, that’s all, call them Cataplasms, because ’tis a crabbed word few understand; it is indeed a very fine kind of medicine to ripen sores.

2. They are made of herbs and roots, fitted for the disease, and members afflicted, being chopped small, and boiled in water almost to a jelly; then by adding a little barleymeal, or meal of lupins, and a little oil, or rough sweet suet, which I hold to be better, spread upon a cloth and apply to the grieved places.

3. Their use is to ease pain, to break sores, to cool inflammations, to dissolve hardness, to ease the spleen, to concoct humours, and dissipate swellings.

4. I beseech you take this caution along with you; Use no poultices (if you can help it) that are of an healing nature, before you have first cleansed the body, because they are subject to draw the humours to them from every part of the body.

1. The Latins call them Placentula, or little cakes, and the Greeks Prochikois, Kukliscoi, and Artiscoi; they are usually little round flat cakes, or you may make them square if you will.

2. Their first invention was, that powders being so kept might resist the intermission of air, and so endure pure the longer.

3. Besides, they are easier carried in the pockets of such as travel; as many a man (for example) is forced to travel whose stomach is too cold, or at least not so hot as it should be, which is most proper, for the stomach is never cold till a man be dead; in such a case, it is better to carry troches of wormwood, or galangal, in a paper in his pocket, than to lay a gallipot along with him.

4. They are made thus; At night when you go to bed, take two drams of fine gum tragacanth; put it into a gallipot, and put half a quarter of a pint of any distilled water fitting for the purpose you would make your troches for to cover it, and the next morning you shall find it in such a jelly as the physicians call mucilage; With this you may (with a little pains taken) make a powder into a paste, and that paste into cakes called troches.

5. Having made them, dry them in the shade, and keep them in a pot for your use.

1. They are called PilulÆ, because they resemble little balls; the Greeks call them Catapotia.

2. It is the opinion of modern physicians, that this way of making medicines, was invented only to deceive the palate, that so by swallowing them down whole, the bitterness of the medicine might not be perceived, or at least it might not be unsufferable: and indeed most of their pills, though not all, are very bitter.

3. I am of a clean contrary opinion to this. I rather think they were done up in this hard form, that so they might be the longer in digesting; and my opinion is grounded upon reason too, not upon fancy, or hearsay. The first invention of pills was to purge the head, now, as I told you before, such infirmities as lie near the passages were best removed by decoctions, because they pass to the grieved part soonest; so here, if the infirmity lies in the head, or any other remote part, the best way is to use pills, because they are longer in digestion, and therefore the better able to call the offending humour to them.

4. If I should tell you here a long tale of medicine working by sympathy and antipathy, you would not understand a word of it: They that are set to make physicians may find it in the treatise. All modern physicians know not what belongs to a sympathetical cure, no more than a cuckow what belongs to flats and sharps in music, but follow the vulgar road, and call it a hidden quality, because ’tis hidden from the eyes of dunces, and indeed none but astrologers can give a reason for it; and physic without reason is like a pudding without fat.

5. The way to make pills is very easy, for with the help of a pestle and mortar, and a little diligence, you may make any powder into pills, either with syrup, or the jelly I told you before.

This being indeed the key of the work, I shall be somewhat the more diligent in it. I shall deliver myself thus;

1. To the Vulgar.

2. To such as study Astrology; or such as study physic astrologically.

1st, To the Vulgar. Kind souls, I am sorry it hath been your hard mishap to have been so long trained in such Egyptian darkness which to your sorrow may be felt; The vulgar road of physic is not my practice, and I am therefore the more unfit to give you advice. I have now published a little book, (Galen’s Art of Physic,) which will fully instruct you, not only in the knowledge of your own bodies, but also in fit medicines to remedy each part of it when afflicted; in the mean season take

1. With the disease, regard the cause, and the part of the body afflicted; for example, suppose a woman be subject to miscarry, through wind, thus do;

(1.) Look Abortion in the table of diseases, and you shall be directed by that, how many herbs prevent miscarriage.

(2.) Look Wind in the same table, and you shall see how many of these herbs expel wind.

These are the herbs medicinal for your grief.

2. In all diseases strengthen the part of the body afflicted.

3. In mix’d diseases there lies some difficulty, for sometimes two parts of the body are afflicted with contrary humours, as sometimes the liver is afflicted with choler and water, as when a man hath both the dropsy and the yellow-jaundice; and this is usually mortal.

In the former, Suppose the brain be too cool and moist, and the liver be too hot and dry; thus do;

1. Keep your head outwardly warm.

2. Accustom yourself to the smell of hot herbs.

3. Take a pill that heats the head at night going to bed.

4. In the morning take a decoction that cools the liver, for that quickly passes the stomach, and is at the liver immediately.

You must not think, courteous people, that I can spend time to give you examples of all diseases; These are enough to let you see so much light as you without art are able to receive; If I should set you to look at the sun, I should dazzle your eyes, and make you blind.

2dly, To such as study Astrology, (who are the only men I know that are fit to study physic, physic without astrology being like a lamp without oil) you are the men I exceedingly respect, and such documents as my brain can give you at present (being absent from my study) I shall give you.

1. Fortify the body with herbs of the nature of the Lord of the Ascendant, ’tis no matter whether he be a Fortune or Infortune in this case.

2. Let your medicine be something antipathetical to the Lord of the sixth.

3. Let your medicine be something of the nature of the sign ascending.

4. If the Lord of the Tenth be strong, make use of his medicines.

5. If this cannot well be, make use of the medicines of the Light of Time.

6. Be sure always to fortify the grieved part of the body by sympathetical remedies.

7. Regard the heart, keep that upon the wheels, because the Sun is the foundation of life, and therefore those universal remedies, Aurum Potabile, and the Philosopher’s Stone, cure all diseases by fortifying the heart.