Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/124

104 meats, such as that of oxen, goats, horses, camels, and water-fowl, rich fish, pastry, new bread, and old or moist cheese. Let him take moderate exercise before eating and rest entirely after it, and then ride horses or gently-trotting mules, avoiding rapid ascents or descents. Frequent combing of the hair is a great help, especially after sleep, for it assists the evaporation of the humours which ascend to the head."

In the same book there is an elaborate receipt for driving away mice: "Take realgar, salt, pomegranite bark, hellebore root, sulphur, litharge, and shells of shrimps, equal parts, rub together, and sprinkle on hot coals through the house. All mice will flee and will never come back. But do you also avoid that fume, for it is horrible exceedingly!"

One paragraph is specially funny. "In this book," says the author, "I propose with God's help to consider diseases peculiar to women, and since women are, for the most part, poisonous creatures, I shall then proceed to treat of the bites of venomous beasts."

Such, briefly, were the crude ideas surrounding the art of medicine, while surgery was chiefly in the hands of the barbers, when the terrible Black