Observations . . . Cures Empirical and Historical on Very Eminent Persons in Desperate Disorders." The following, which is Observation 60, is worth quoting for the picture it gives of pharmacy in the Elizabethan age.
"Talbot, the first born of the Countess of Salisbury, aged about one year, being miserably afflicted with a fever and worms, so that death was only expected, was thus cured. There was first injected a clyster of milk and sugar. This gave two stools and brought away four worms. By the mouth was given hartshorn burnt, prepared in the form of a julep. To the pulse was applied Ung Populeon ii mixed with spiders' webs, and a little powder of nutshells. It was put to one pulse of one wrist one day, to the other the next. To the stomach was applied mithridate; to the bowel the emplaster against worms. And thus he became well in three days, for which the Countess returned me many thanks and gave me great reward."
The Apothecary in "Romeo and Juliet"
is a favourite illustration of the scrupulous care which Shakespeare bestowed on the revision of his dramas. The story on which the play is founded is well known to students. It was written by an Italian novelist, Luigi da Porto, of Vicenza, and was entitled "La Giuletta." This author died in 1529. In Girolamo de la Corte's "History of Verona," published at Venice in 1549, it is given and stated to be a true story. An English translation of it in rhyme by Arthur Brooke appeared in 1562, and a prose translation by Painter some time later. The version by Brooke is entitled "The Tragicall Historie of Romeus and Juliet," and it is
