Swines-Cresses burnt to blackness, and as much honey as would make the whole of the consistence of a paste. Make this into a ball. This ball was to be sliced and boiled for half an hour in two quarts of soft water, with 1 oz. each of chamomile flowers, sweet fennel, parsley, and burdock leaves. The boiled liquid to be strained and sweetened with honey.
The pills were to be made of equal quantities by measure of snails calcined as before, wild carrot seeds, burdock seeds, ashen-keys, hips and haws, all burnt to blackness, "or which is the same thing, till they have done smoaking." The mixed powders to be passed through a cypress sieve, and a large spoonful or 4 oz. of best alicant soap, and a sufficiency of honey added to make pills; each ounce of the mass to be divided into sixty pills.
One dram (avoirdupois) of the powder was to be taken three times a day in a large teacupful of white wine, cyder, or small punch, and half a pint of the decoction had to be drunk after each dose. If the medicine caused much pain an opiate was to be given. The bowels were to be kept regular with lenitive electuary or some other laxative. The pills were to be given in fits of gravel or suppression of urine, five every hour; or ten or fifteen might be taken daily to prevent formation of gravel stones in constitutions subject to breed them.
Salt meats, red wine, and milk were to be avoided. The patient was to take as few liquids as possible, and to have but little exercise. The object aimed at was that the urine might be impregnated with the medicine, which would then dissolve the calcareous deposits.
Mrs. Stephens died in 1774. The publication of her formula undoubtedly stimulated investigation into the
