In the “Newe Iewell of Health, gathered out of the best and most approved Authors by that excellent Doctor Gesnerus,”[107] we find some extraordinary preparations. Most of these are of a botanical nature, but we also have “Oyle holy[108] prepared out of dead men’s bones, Oyle or distilled lycour gotten out of the Gray, Oyle marveylous gotten out of the Beuer, Oyle of frogges ryght profitable to such as are payned of ye gout, Oyle of antes egges,” and many other strange remedies for the ills that the flesh is heir to. Among them, a forerunner of the ideas of Hahnemann, and the notion of like curing like, we find “Oyle of Scorpion’s distilled against Poysons.” Apropos of the oil from dead men’s bones, we may point out the special charm that our ancestors seemed to find in anything associated with the charnel house—thus one favourite remedy was the moss that grew on a dead man’s skull, another was a pill compounded from the brains of a man that had been hanged; powder of mummy in like manner was in high repute, and to those who found pill or powder too nauseous a draught of spring water from the skull of a murdered man was at once refreshing and health-giving. The following recipe[109] for the cure of a wound seems to show that our forefathers had no great fear of blood poisoning: “Take of the moss of the skull of a strangled man two ounces, of the mumia of man’s blood one ounce and a halfe, of earth wormes washed in water or wine and dryed, one ounce and a halfe, of the fatte of a Boare two drams, of oyle of Turpintine two drams: pound them and keepe them in a longe narrow pott, and dippe into the oyntment the yron or wood, or some sallowe sticke made wet with blood in opening the wound.” The medicine and surgery of the Middle Ages must have been a powerful influence in checking redundance of population. Toads were in great repute in sickness. “In time of common contagion,” writes Sir Kenelm Digby in 1660, “men use to carry about with them the powder of a toad, and sometimes a living toad or spider[110] shut up in a box, which draws the contagious air, which otherwise would infect the party,” and many other illustrations of their employment as preventives or remedies might be given. The spider and the toad seem to have been each regarded as most venomous creatures, and in many of the old remedies one or other of them at will are recommended, either alternative being regarded as equally efficacious; thus for whooping cough, if one cannot find a toad to thrust up the chimney, two spiders in a walnut shell will serve equally well.