instance "If one drink a creeping thing in water, let him cut open a sheep instantly and drink the sheep's blood hot"; and "if a man will eat rind which cometh out of Paradise no venom will damage him." The writer considerately adds that such rind is "hard gotten."
The following is apparently adapted from Alexander of Tralles, or some other of the later classical authors.
"Against gout and against the wristdrop; take the wort hermodactylus, by another name titulosa, that is in our own language the great crow leek; take this leek's heads and dry them thoroughly, and take thereof by weight of two and a half pennies, and pyrethrum and Roman rinds, and cummin, and a fourth part of laurel berries, and of the other worts, of by weight of a halfpenny, and six pepper corns, unweighed, and grind all to dust, and add wine two egg-shells full; this is a true leechcraft. Give it to the man to drink till that he be hole."
A few other recipes in the Leechbooks may be quoted:—
For headache take a vessel full of leaves of green rue, and a spoonful of mustard seed, rub together, add the white of an egg, a spoonful, that the salve may be thick. Smear with a feather on the side which is not sore.
For ache of half the head (megrim) take the red nettle of one stalk, bruise it, mingle with vinegar and the white of an egg, put all together, anoint therewith.
For mistiness of the eyes take juice of fennel and of rose and of rue, and of dumbledores' honey; (the dumbledore is apis bombinatrix); and kid's gall,
