There is no doubt that in these prescriptions a distinction was made between persons who were regarded as possessed and those supposed to be lunatics. For the latter, however, the ecclesiastical element came in as well as the medical one. Herbs were prescribed which were to be mixed with foreign ale and holy water, while masses were sung over the patient "Let him drink this drink," say they, "for nine mornings, at every one fresh, and no other liquid that is thick and still; and let him give alms and earnestly pray God for his mercies." The union of ale and holy water forms an amusing, though unintentioned, satire on the jovial monk of the Middle Ages. I may remark that the old Saxon term "_wood_" is applied in these recipes to the frenzied. It survives in the Scotch "wud," _i.e._ mad.[12] Thus for the "wood-heart" it is ordered that "when day and night divide, then sing thou in the Church, litanies, that is, the names of the hallows (or saints) and the Paternoster." This was, as usual, accompanied by the taking of certain herbs and drink. In some instances, a salve was to be smeared on the temples and above the eyes. Medicated baths were not omitted in their prescriptions. Thus for a "wit-sick man," as they call him, they say, "Put a pail full of cold water, drop thrice into it some of the drink, bathe the man in the water, and let him eat hallowed bread and cheese and garlic and cropleek, and drink a cup full of the drink; and when he hath been bathed, smear with the salve thoroughly, and when it is better with him, then work him a strong purgative drink," which is duly particularized. It is unnecessary to give more of these quaint prescriptions, one of which is a drink "against a devil and dementedness" (an illustration, by the way, how the one idea ran into the other); those which I have given will suffice to show the kind of pharmacopœia in use, with the Saxon monk-doctor, for madness. But did their treatment consist of nothing more potent or severe than herbs and salves and baths? It would have been surprising indeed had it not. And so we find the following decidedly stringent application prescribed:--"In case a man be lunatic, take a skin of mere-swine (that is, a sea-pig or porpoise), work it into a whip, and swinge the man therewith; soon he will be well. Amen."[13]