Recipes

Summary

[The following are representative of the kind of recipes which an English doctor of the seventeenth century would collect in the course of his practice. Some may have been given him by other doctors, but some definitely came from his lay friends and neighbours.

Those which are printed here are all written either by Symcotts himself [S], or in contemporary hands, on odd sheets of paper of various sizes.]

An antiscorbutic [S]

Take a peck of sea scurvy-grass, half a peck of water cresses, of brook-lime, liverwort, lungwort, rosemary, scabious, agrimony, red sage (and mountain sage if you can get it), saxifrage, wood betony, horehound, broad plantain, pimpernel, endive, succory, bugloss, burrage, tamarisk, coltsfoot—of each two handfuls; angelica, hartstongue, carduus, of each one handful; (corticis wintera 2 ounces; 2 ounces of madder and as much sarsaparilla; of ashkey kernels, bruised, one handfulⁱ). Two ounces of monks-rhubarb, two ounces of liquorice; of aniseeds, sweet-fennel seeds, nutmegs, ginger, of each an ounce. Four ounces of red dock roots, four ounces of maidenhair.

Bruise the seeds, slice the liquorice, ginger, nutmegs and monks-rhubarb. Put all these herbs into ten gallons of alewort and boil it as you would boil hops; then strain it and work it with yeast; and hang the seeds and spices and liquorice and monks-rhubarb (with the winter bark, madder, sarsaparilla and ashkey kernels) in a bag, and let them hang in the middle of the vessel with a little weight to keep it down. When it is six or seven days old drink it morning fasting, four in the afternoon and to bedwards. Or when you please.

[Added later] Take it for your ordinary beer and put to every draught a spoonful of the clarified juice of scurvygrass with oranges.

A salve to be applied to the temples of the head to stay rheum from falling into the eyes; it serves to heal a wound or sore. [S]

Take half a quarter of a pound of wax; as much resin, as much frankincense, and as much deer suet; a quarter of an ounce of mastic. Boil all these together and then strain them into a pint of white wine, and when you have so done, boil them again for the space of two hours.