- fundatur frequenter et paullatim acetum, et cooperiatur
et moveatur, ut evanescet sal."
Ant's eggs, oil of scorpions, and lion's flesh is his prescription for apoplexy, but he does not explain how the last ingredient was to be obtained in England. Several of his formulas are quoted in the first London Pharmacopœia. For the expulsion of calculi he prescribes the blood of a young goat which has been fed on diuretic herbs such as persil and saxifrage.
Chaucer, whose writings belong to the latter half of the fourteenth century, has left on record a graphic picture of the "Doctour of Phisike" of his day, and the old poet is as gently sarcastic about his pilgrim's "science" as a writer of five hundred years later might have been. "He was grounded in astronomy," we are told, and—
Well could he fortune the ascendant
Of his images for his patient
He knew the cause of every malady
Were it of cold, or hot, or moist, or dry,
And where engendered and of what humour.
He was a very perfect practisour.
His library was a wonderful one considering the rarity of books at that time.
Well knew he the olde Esculapius
And Dioscorides, and eek Rufus
Old Ypocras, Haly, and Galien,
Serapyon, Razis, and Avicen,
Averrois, Damascien, and Constantyn,
Bernard, and Gatesden, and Gilbertyn.
The doctor was careful about his food, "his study was but little on the Bible," he dressed well, but was inclined to save in his expenses.
He kept that he won in the pestilence.
For gold in phisike is a cordialle
There fore he loved gold in special.
