[90] PAGE 33, LINE 11. Page 33, line 8. _Nicolaus in emplastrum divinum._...--Nicolaus Myrepsus is also known as Præpositas. In his _Liber de compositione medicamentorum_ (Ingoldstat, 1541, 4to) are numerous recipes containing loadstone: for example, Recipe No. 246, called "esdra magna," is a medicine given for inflammation of the stomach and for strangury, compounded of some forty materials including "litho demonis" and "lapis magnetis." The _emplastrum divinum_ does not, however, appear to contain loadstone. In the English tractate, _Præpositas his Practise, a worke ... for the better preservation of the Health of Man. Wherein are ... approved Medicines, Receiptes and Ointmentes. Translated out of Latin in to English by_ L. M. (London, 1588, 4to), we read on p. 35, "An Emplaister of D. N. [Doctor Nicolaus] which the Pothecaries call Divinum." This contains litharge, bdellium, and "green brasse," but no loadstone. Luis de Oviedo in his treatise _Methodo de la Coleccion y reposicion de las Medicinas simples_, edited by Gregorio Gonçalez, Boticario (Madrid, 1622), gives (p. 502) the following: "Emplasto de la madre. _Recibe_: Nuezes moscadas, clauos, cinamono, artemisia, piedraimon. De cada uno dos onças.... Entre otras differencias que ay de piedraiman se hallan dos. Vna que por la parte que mira al Septentrion, atrae el hierro, por lo quel se llama magnes ferrugineus. Y otra que atrae la carne, a la qual llaman magnes creaginus." An "Emplastrum sticticum" containing amber, mummy, loadstone, {29} hæmatite, and twenty other ingredients, and declared to be "vulnerum ulcerumque telo inflictorum sticticum emplastrum præstantissimum," is described on p. 267 of the _Basilica chimica_ of Oswaldus Crollius (Frankfurt, 1612). [91] PAGE 33, LINE 12. Page 33, line 9. _Augustani ... in emplastrum nigrum_....--Amongst the physicians of the Augsburg school the most celebrated were Adolphus Occo, Ambrosio Jung, and Gereone Seyler. This particular reference is to the _Pharmacopoeia Augustana_ ... _a Collegio Medico recognita_, published at Augsburg, and which ran through many editions. The recipe for the "_emplastrum nigrum vulgo Stichpflaster_" will be found on p. 182 of the seventh edition (1621-2). The recipe begins with oil of roses, colophony, wax, and includes some twenty-two ingredients, amongst them mummy, dried earthworms, and two ounces _lapidis magnetis præparati_. The recipe concludes: "Fiat Emplastrum secundùm artem. Perquàm efficax ad recentia vulnera et puncturas, vndè denominationem habet." The volume is a handsome folio not unlike Gilbert's own book, and bears at the end of the prefatory address _ad Lectorem_ identically the same _cul de lampe_ as is found on p. 44 of _De Magnete_. The contradictions as to the alleged medicinal virtues of loadstone are well illustrated by Galen, who in his _De facultatibus_ says that loadstone is like hæmatite, which is astringent, while in his _De simplici medicina_ he says it is purgative.