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R. Rad. Raphani rustic. 3iij.
Cort. Ligni Sassafras 3iij.
Rad. jalappæ,

Rad. Mechoacan. a 3ss.
Trium Santal. a 9ij.

Rassuræ Eboris 3ss.

(Crem. Tartari 3j.

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I thinke to have this made ready, but if you please to adde or alter it, it shall not be made up till I hear from you, sir.

R. Conserv. Absynt. vulgaris 3ij. | Limaturæ Chalyb. 3iij.

Conserv. Rosar. Rubrar. 3xij.

Zinzib. condit. iiij.

Cort. Winter. 3j.

Syr. de Quinq. Rad. q. s. m. f. Elec

tuar.

And so it may be a standing medicine, as well as the other. They make use of pills in old coughs and diseases on the lungs, which they call pilule nigræ, which are these,

R. Rad. Enulæ

Rad. Irid. florent.
Sem. Anisi

Sacchari Cadi ā lib. j.
Picis liquidæ q. s. m. f. Massa

but I præscribe more of a strong diacodium they make. Pray, sir, write me word how you make your syrupus de scordio, for it is not knowne in London. Pray, sir, thinke of some good effectual cheape medicines for the hospitall; it will be a piece of charity, which will be beneficiall to the poore, hundred of years after we are all dead and gone. The purging electuary, which is divided into boluses of half an ounce, or six dragmes, as it is ordered, is thus,

R. Electuarii lenitivi 3xij.
Cremor. Tartar. 3iij 3vj.
Jalap. Pulv. 3ijss.

Syr. Rosar. solutivi q. s. m. f. Electuarium.

We make much use of caryocostinum and jalep powdered, which are also often taken in four ounces of the purging decoction, which is made of senna, rhubarb, polypody, sweet fennell seeds, and ginger. Their scurvy grass drinke is good; they allow three barrells every weeke of it, to every barrell they put a pound of horse raddish, four handfulls of common wormwood, fifteen handfulls of scurvy grasse, garden scurvy grasse, fifteen handfulls of brokelime, and fifteen

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handfulls of water cresses, to a barrell of good ale; which the poor people like very well.

St. Thomas Hospitall is larger than ours, and holds forty or fifty persons more; we have divers of the king's soldiers in the hospitall. My wife sent downe the last weeke, a pastborde box, by the waggons, with candlesticks for Mrs. Pooly, and chocolate for my lady Pettus. My duty to my most dear mother, and love to my sister, and Tomy.-Your most obedient sonne, EDWARD BROWNE.

MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE.

Dr. Browne to Dr. Henry Power.

[1647 P]1

Ek Bibliov kubeрvñτa [i. e. statesman from the book] is grown into a proverb; and no less ridiculous are they who think out of book to become physicians. I shall therefore mention such as tend less to ostentation than use, for the directing a novice to observation and experience without which you cannot expect to be other than ἐκ βιβλίου κυβερνήτης. Galen and Hippocrates must be had as fathers and fountains of the faculty. And, indeed, Hippocrates's Aphorisms should be conned for the frequent use which may be made of them. Lay your foundation in anatomy, wherein avrovía must be your fidus Achates. The help that books can afford you may expect, besides what is delivered sparsim from Galen and Hippocrates, Vesalius, Spigelius, and Bartholinus. And be sure you make yourself master of Dr. Harvey's piece De Circul. Sang.; which discovery I prefer to that of Columbus. The knowledge of plants, animals, and minerals, (whence are fetched the Materia Medicamentorum) may be your rapeрyov; and, so far as concerns physic, is attainable in gardens, fields, apothecaries' and druggists' shops. Read Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Matthiolus, Dodonæus, and our English herbalists: Spigelius's Isagoge in rem herbariam will be of use. Wecker's Antidotarium speciale, Renodæus for composition and preparation of medicaments. See what apothecaries do. Read Morelli Formulas medicas, Bauderoni Pharmacopea, Pharmacopaa Augustana. See chymical operations in hospitals, private houses. Read Fallopius, Aquapendente, Paræus, Vigo, &c. Be not a stranger to the useful part of chymistry. See what chymistators do in their officines. Begin with Tirocinium -Chymicum, Crollius, Hartmannus, and so by degrees march on.

1 From a reference in Mr. Smith's letter, p. 360, there seems little doubt that the present (which appears to have been communicated to the world by Dr. Richard Middleton Massey, F.R.S.) was addressed to Dr. Henry Power, of New-Hall, near Ealand, Yorkshire; author of Experimental Philosophy, in Three Books, containing new Experiments, Microscopical Mercurial, and Magnetical, 4to. 1664.

Materia Medicamentorum, surgery and chymistry, may be your
diversions and recreations; physic is your business. Having,
therefore, gained perfection in anatomy, betake yourself to
Sennertus's Institutions, which read with care and dilligence two
or three times over, and assure yourself that when you are a per-
fect master of these institutes you will seldom meet with any
point in physic to which you will not be able to speak like a man.
This done, see how institutes are applicable to practice, by
reading upon diseases in Sennertus, Fernelius, Mercatus, Holle-
rius, Riverius, in particular treatises, in counsels, and consulta-
tions, all which are of singular benefit. But in reading upon
diseases satisfy yourself not so much with the remedies set
down (although I would not have these altogether neglected) as
with the true understanding the nature of the disease, its causes,
and proper indications for cure. For by this knowledge, and
that of the instruments you are to work by, the Materia Medi-
camentorum, you will often conquer with ease those difficulties,
through which books will not be able to bring you; secretum
medicorum est judicium. Thus have I briefly pointed out the
way which, closely pursued, will lead to the highest pitch of the
art you aim at. Although I mention but few books (which, well
digested, will be instar omnium) yet it is not my intent to confine
you. If at one view you would see who hath written, and upon
what diseases, by way of counsel and observation, look upon
Moronus's Directorium Medico-practicum. You may look upon
all, but dwell upon few. I need not tell you the great use of
the Greek tongue in physic; without it nothing can be done to
perfection. The words of art you may learn from Gorreus's
Definitiones Medica. This and many good wishes, From your
loving friend,
THOMAS BRowne.

!

Dr Henry Power to Dr. Browne.-Ch. Coll. Camb. 15th Sept.

1648.

RIGHT WORSHIPFULL,-I cannot but returne you infinite thankes for your excessive paynes in doubling of your last letter to mee, both pages whereof were so exceeding satisfactory to my requests, as that I know not wheather of them may more justly challenge a larger returne of thankes from mee. For the forepage I have traced your commands, and simpled in the woods, meadows, and fields, instead of gardens, which being obvious and in every countrey, I may easyly hereafter bee made a garden herbalist by any shee empirick. I have both Gerard with Johnson's addition, and Parkinson; the former has the cleerer cutt, and outvies the other in an accurate description of a plant; the latter is the better methodist, and has bedded his plants in a

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better ranke and order. I compared, also, Dodonæus with them, who does very well for a short and curt herbalist: yet I shall embrace Gerard above all, because you pleased to honour_him with your approbation. For the back side of your letter, I am extreamely satisfied in your resolves of my quære, I confesse I run into too deepe a beliefe and too strong a conceipt of chymistry, (yet not beyond what some of those artists affirme) of the reproduction of the same plant by ordinary way of vegetation, for (say they) if the salt be taken and transferred to another countrey and there sowed, the plant thereof shall sprout out even from common earth. But it will be satisfaction enough, to the greatest of my desires, to behold the leafes thereof shaddowed in glaciation, of which experiment I hope I shall have the happynesse to be ocularly evinced at some opportunity by you.

Sir, I have a great desire to shift my residence a while, and to live a moneth or two in Norwich by you: where I may have the happynesse of your neighbourhood. Here are such fewe helpes here, that I feare I shall make but a lingering progresse unlesse I have your personall discourse to further and prick forwards my slow endeavours. But I shall determine of nothing till I see you here, in which journey I could wish (were it not to the disadvantage of your affaires) you would prevent our expectations. Sir, I have now by the frequency of living and dead dissections of doggs, run through the whole body of anatomy, insisting upon Spigelius, Bartholinus, Fernelius, Columbus, Veslingius, but especially Harvey's circulation, and the two incomparable authors Des-Cartes and Regius, which, indeed were the only two that answered my doubts and quæres in that art. I have like wise made some little proficiency in herbary, and by going out three or four miles once a weeke have brought home with mee two or three hundred hearbs. I have likewise run through Heurnius, which I very well allow of for a peripateticall author hee is something curt De urina, which I conceive to bee a very necessary piece in physick now the circulation is discovered; for since the urine is channelled all along with the blood, through' almost all the parenchymata of the body, before it come to the kidneys to bee strained and separated, it must needes carry a tincture of any disaffected or diseased part through which it passes. For Sennertus I cannot yet procure him, but 'tis sayd hee is comming out in a new letter, and then I question not but I shall have him. Mr. Smith presents his humble respects to you, and shall bee extreame glad to give you a deserved welcome to Cambridge, who may doe it, perchance, more nobly yet not more heartyly then will-Your most obliged friend and servant, HENRY POWER.

Sir, my father Foxcroft and mother in their last to Cambridge

;

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