But it is among the writings of the old beemen with a taste for the quack-doctor’s art that some of the quaintest notions are to be found. We are told that honey, well rubbed into the scalp night and morning, is a sovereign remedy for baldness, and if it was mixed with a few dead bees and a little old comb well pounded, it was still more efficacious. Dead bees, dried and reduced to a powder, form a principal ingredient in all sorts of nostrums of the time. This powder, mixed with water and drunk every morning, is recommended as an unfailing cleanser to the system. And if the heads of a large number of bees are collected, burned, and the ashes compounded with a little honey, it makes an excellent salve for all sorts of eye disorders. There was a famous preparation called Oxymel, which was in great vogue in mediæval times. It seems to have been nothing more than a mixture of honey, water, and vinegar; but it was accredited with extraordinary virtues. It was an infallible cure for sciatica, gout, and kindred ailments; and one writer also tells us that it was “good to gargarize with in a Squinancy.” But honey and dead bees were not the only products of the hives which were pressed into medical service. Wax also was believed to have exceptional curative powers in all sorts of human ills. It had the faculty of curing ulcers, and “if the quantity of a Pease in Wax be swallowed down of Nurces, it doth dissolve the Milke curdled in the paps.” It was also used as an embrocation for stiff joints and aching muscles. The supposed curative value of beeswax in its natural state, however, was as nothing compared to its capabilities when distilled. This preparation, known as Oil of Wax, and famous at the time all the world over, seems to have come nearer the ideal of a panacea—a cure-all—than anything else before or since. The making of Oil of Wax seems to have been a very complicated affair. First the wax had to be melted, poured into sweet wine, and wrung out in the hands. This was done seven times, using fresh wine at each operation. Then the wax was placed in a retort with a quantity of red-brick powder, and carefully distilled. A yellow oil came over into the receiver, and this was distilled a second time, when the “Coelestiall or Divine medicine” was ready. Miraculous portents seem to have accompanied its preparation, for we are told that “in the coming forth of this Oile there appeareth in the Receiver the foure Elements, the Fire, the Aire, the Water, and the Earth, right marvellous to see.” The power to stop immediately the falling out of the hair, heal the most serious wounds in a few days, and cure toothache and pains in the back, can be reckoned only among its minor virtues. Much greater properties were claimed for Oil of Wax, for it not only “killeth worms and cureth palsy and distempered spleens, but it bringeth forth the dead or living child.”