spoken by Othello, refer to the manner in which many of the medicinal gums are collected in the East. Small slits or punctures are made in the bark of the tree, through which the semi-liquid gum slowly oozes. It then coagulates in the form of a tear, and is at length scraped off and collected. [15] _Othello_, act v., scene ii. “Set ratsbane by his porridge.”[16] [16] _King Lear_, act iii., scene iv. “I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security.”[17] [17] _Henry IV._, part ii., act i., scene ii. “I would the milk Thy mother gave thee, when thou suck’dst her breast, Had been a little ratsbane for my sake.”[18] [18] _Henry VI._, act v., scene iv. Ratsbane, mentioned in the three preceding quotations, was an old name for arsenic, which in Shakespeare’s time was commonly used for poisoning rats, hence the name. “I have bought the oil, the balsamum, and aqua vitæ,”[19] says Dromio of Syracuse. These were the medical comforts for the barque of Epidamnum, and show that sailing vessels in those days carried a certain amount of medicine. The oil may have been one of the many panaceas of the time for “purging the body of bile or humour,” while balsams there were by the score, of Hungary, and aromatics for “wind and pain”. The _aqua vitæ_ alluded to was probably brandy, which would serve to keep the courage of the voyagers up and the cold out. [19] _Comedy of Errors_, act iv., scene i. Proteus, in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, exclaims:— “When I was sick you gave me bitter pills; And I must minister like to you”.[20] [20] _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act ii., scene iv. In _Lucrece_ the bard shows he knew something of the counteracting effects of certain drugs from the following lines:— “The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted In a pure compound; being so applied, His venom in effect is purified”.[21] [21] _Lucrece_, v., 76. “KING HENRY. The united vessel of their blood, Mingled with venom of suggestion, As, for a purpose, the age will pour it in, Shall never leak, though it do work as strong As aconitum or rash gunpowder.”[22] [22] _King Henry IV._, part ii., act iv., scene iv. The aconite or monkshood, formerly called wolf’s bane, gives us one of the most powerful vegetable poisons, its properties having long been known and employed in medical practice. It was used by the early Greeks and Romans, and is probably even of still greater antiquity. On account of its rapid and deadly action, Shakespeare compares it to gunpowder. Some commentators are of the opinion that aconite was the poison sold by the apothecary to the lovesick Romeo. A curious old tradition is alluded to by Falstaff when speaking of the chamomile, in the following sentence:—