The art of curing diseases by expectation with remarks on a supposed great case of apoplectick fits : also most useful observations on coughs, consumptions, stone, dropsies, fevers, and small pox : with a confutation of dispensatories, and other various discourses in physick / by Gideon Harvey ...

CHAP. XIX. (Book 19)

Of the Idleness of Compound Dispensatory Powders. (Book 19)

1. THE Aromaticum Caryophylla∣tum, Pulvis Elect. Rosat. Novel. M••suae, and Rosatum Gabrielis are without all doubt very excel∣lent to dry the Hair, and may be more serviceable for Barbers than Physicians, they scarce using them in weakness of the Stomach once in seven years. The second con∣taining about half a hundred In∣gredients,

and very ill put toge∣ther, may easily be out-done by Zedoary, Cinamon, and red Roses.

Crabs Eyes, or Pearl prepared and used singly and joyntly, I have ever found to equal the Vertues of all the Ingredients in the mixture of Pulvis è chelis cancrorum compo∣su••s. But the addition of tosted raw Silk, the fragments of Sapphir, and Emeralds, and of the bone of a Stags Heart, to the Species Cor∣diales, is a most senseless Super∣stition, never received into the belief of the least rational, except Physicians.

2. The greater and lesser cold Seeds contracting a rancor in a short time, and the subtil smell of the Flowers of Buglos, Water Lillies, and Violets, soon evapo∣rating being powdered, and thence consequently resolved into powder of Post; what folly can be greater, than to expect from them a Cor∣dial vertue in the Pulvis Diamarga∣ritôn frigidus,? Even the white and

yellow Saunders, also Myrtle-ber∣ries in the same Composition, con∣tribute nothing cordial besides bulk. So that these and a hundred more such like jumbles can take place in a Dispens. no otherwise, than Ex∣pectation Medicines.

3. What Sympathy to the Heart can be breath'd from an Elcks hoof, the most abject excrement of that Animal; or from a Stags Heart∣bone, not much differing from any other bone of the same Beast, ex∣cept in the singularity of number; or from an Unicorns horn, a sort of an Ass, which the horn of an Oxe, or Goat may contend with in Vertue, though not in rarity; or from leaf Gold (much less from leaf Silver) which undigested pas∣seth without casting the least ray of its lustre; or from bole armene, ter∣ra lemnia, precious stone Fragments, or Amber, whose weight or sticky∣ness doth impower them to clog and oppress the Stomach; or from Sorrel Seeds, that usually escape the

force of the Pestil, and therefore as they enter whole into any Compo∣sition, so they slide whole through the body when inwardly taken; or from Endive Seeds, and twenty more like the forementioned, and yet all of them in greater or lesser numbers, are added to some Cor∣dial Powder or other in Pharmaco∣p••••a's; as in the Pulvis Bezoarticus, Pulvis confectionis liberantis Augustan. Pulvis pannonicus ruber, species Cardiac. M. Species Card. temp. Augustanorum Diamarg. frig. and several others. Moreover any one of these fore∣named compound supposedly Cor∣dial Powders containing the Vir∣tues and Faculties of all the rest, to what end is the Apothecary needlesly to be charged with the preparation of four or five of them, and his Shop burthen'd with so many Species Glasses? A Cordial properly and per se is that, which hath power suddenly to increase the dissipated and vanquish'd Spi∣rits, or to corroborate the relaxt

languishing texture of the Heart; and can any one, except a Phy∣sician, have so depraved a Phan∣sie, as not to think, there is more of Cordial in a Spoonful of good Broath, or a few drops of Spirits of Wine, than in an ounce of such unproportioned ••op Cordial Pow∣ders? I cannot but repeat, Excepti•• medicis, Grammaticis nihil stultius. That the pretended subduing of malignant or pestilential Steems, and febril Matter, whereby the Heart is singularly reliev'd by these precited Powders, whence they merit the Title of Cordial, is urged as a reply, may be fore∣seen, though easily obviated, by asserting those effects per accidens; and consequently Vomitories and Purgatives may justly be listed in the Roll of Cordials, forasmuch as they remove vitious Humors, which per protopatheiam or deuteropa∣theiam affect and disease the Heart; all which is meer Physick Cant.

4. As for Pulvis diamosc. d. and A••ar. Dianthos Nicholai, and diambra Mesuae do rather weaken, and de∣ject the animal faculty much more than a compound Saxifrage, or a hodg pot mashmallow Powder can be experienced to fail in their ef∣forts against Stone or Gravel; or the Pulvis Antilyssos Palmarii against the bite of a mad Dog, and an Hydrophobia.

5. Among all the rest of those Empirical Dispens. Powders re∣commended me to the Species Diar∣rbodon Abbatis Nicholai Mirepsi for an idle and incongruous Composition; and if you will deduce the vertues of it from its contrary Ingredients, it shall prevail against abundance of Diseases. The Pearl and Stags heart bone do appropriate it to Di∣seases of the Heart, Camphir to the Plague, and the greater cold Seeds to the Kidnies. The Rhapontic speaks its excellency against the Scurvy, Juyce of Liquorish against a Cough, red Roses, Mastick, and the Saun∣ders

against all bleedings, and all sorts of loosnesses, and the Spices against Winds, Faintnesses, Drop∣sies, stoppage of Urine, &c. I dare be bold to say, that a Mountebanck cannot set up with a more cheating Medicine against all Diseases, were not the trouble and extraordinary charge a main impediment to such an undertaking. Great was the Fool that invented it, and far greater Fools are they, that caused it to be recording in their Dispensatories some hundred of years after.

Moibanus upon Dioscorides puts a great cheat on the succeding Ages in recommending pulvis Saxonicus against the Plague, which of all others by the mezereon shall cause a most burning Plagu•• in the Throat; Stomach, and Guts.