Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/440

Rh good." In consideration of this sad state of things, it was enacted that any subject having knowledge and experience of the nature of herbs, roots, and waters, and of the operation of the same by speculation or practice, might apply to outward sores and wounds, "herbs, ointments, baths, pults, or emplasters," or might give drinks for stone, strangury, or the ague, without penalty, not withstanding anything in the former Act contained.

The law, thus modified, satisfied alike the profession and the public; at least it has remained unaltered more than three centuries, for these Statutes have never been repealed and seem at the present moment to be the law of England and the latest legislative expression of opinion on the merits both of licensed and unlicensed practitioners.

Any law-abiding subject of her Majesty, however, who is minded to obey the will of Parliament, as expressed in the latest of these Acts, is likely to have trouble in identifying by modern names, or descriptions, the diseases mentioned in it. Some of them, not defined in any medical or other dictionary of recent date, are explained in an interesting letter from Dr. Robert Fletcher, U. S. A., of the Surgeon-General's Office, an extract from which, communicated by the kindness of Dr. R. M. Hodges, of Boston, may fitly conclude this chapter of medico-legal history.

1. A "pyn" and the "web in the eye." Both expressions are used separately but much oftener together, as, "a pin and web" or "a web and pin." Sometimes it is "a nail and web." You will find in Richard Banister's Treatise of One Hundred and Thirteene Diseases of the Eye (Guillemeau, the real author), 1622, p. 135: Of the naile of the eye, commonly called "the webbe," in Greeke pterugion, in Latine ungula or angulus. See, also, Shakspeare, Winter's Tale, i. 2. King Lear, iii. 4. Cabell in a note says that "pin" is pterygium, and "web" is pannus. There are a great many allusions to it in the older writers, of which I will only inflict two upon you.

"His eyes, good queene, be great, so are they cleare
 * and graye;

He never yet had pinne or webbe, his sight for to
 * decay."

The second quotation illustrates the personal hygiene of the day.

"For a pin or web in the eye. Take two or three lice out of one's head, and put them alive into the eye that is grieved, and so close it up, and most assuredly the lice will suck out the web in the eye, and will cure it, and come forth without any hurt." Countess of Kent's Choice Manual. Ed. 1676.

There is no doubt in my mind that the proper modern term for pin and web is pterygium.

2. Uncoomes of hands. The term "oncome" or "uncome" is still used in the north of England and in Scotland. It means any swelling that comes on somewhat suddenly, ending in ulceration. "A sair oncome in the breast," is a mammary abscess. It has nearly the same meaning as the English word "gathering," and I should think that "uncoomes of hand" meant chilblains. In Baret's Alvearie, 1586, uncome is defined as "an ulcerous swelling."

3. Saucelin. I am sorry to say, I can throw no light on. It may be a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon Sarcren, pronounced "sarseren," soreness, which is to be found in Cockoyne's Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms.