“Take a yonge dogge of redde heare and keep him three days without meate, and then strangle him with a corde, and let him lie dead a quarter of an houre, and in the meane time boyle a kettell of ayle up by the fire, and putte the dogge in whole, or in pieces, it maketh no matter howe, so that he be all there with the skynne and heare; make him seethe so untyl he be almost sodden to pieces, keepying always the kettell close covered: In the meane tyme take scorpions to the number of four score or a hundred, and put them in a basyn on the fyre untyll they be thoroughly bruised. Then putte them in the sayde kettell with the ayle and the dogge, puttinge to it a good dishful of great grounde wormes, well washed, a good handful of Saint John’s Worte, a handful of wylde marshe mallowes, and a handful of wallworte, with an once of saffron. Seethe all these things well to-gether, and then let it ware colde.” The liquid being strained off and certain aromatic gums added, the preparation was complete. The belief that carrying a piece of camphor will ward off infectious diseases, is a relic of the old days of amulets and charms. In 1547 Alexis recommended compounds to carry against the plague and fever, and we find that aromatics were used to perfume clothes in the time of the early Jews, long before the birth of Christ. Among other secrets of Alexis, there is a curious recipe to “_cause mervelous dreames_”. “Take the bloode of a lampwink or black plover, and rubbe your temples with it and so goe to bedde, and you shall see mervelous thinges in your sleepe; or else if you eate at nighte a little of the herbe Solani or Visicaria, or some Mandragora, or elles of the herbe called in Greek Hyoscymus, in Latin hath these names, Altercum, Appolinaris, and Symphonia, and in the English some call it Henbane, and you shall see in the nighte goodly things in your dreame.” The apothecary apparently omits to mention that a heavy meal of very ordinary cheese, combined with the succulent fruit of the cucumber, before you go to bed, will also make you see marvellous and weird things in your sleep. The gifts and wisdom of the apothecaries were according to their writings very wonderful, but none perhaps is more remarkable than the following recipe on a matter which would baffle the scientists of the present day. The chronicler writes: “To make a woman that beareth alwaies daughters to beare also sonnes, it is a thing very easy, and hath good succes, and hathe been divers times proved. Let her eate an herbe in English called mercurie, which hath only two seedes; also the skrapings of an elephant’s tooth.” The name of the originator of the “everlasting pill” has not been handed down to posterity, but whoever he was, he was certainly an economist, and could not be charged with inventing it for his own gain. It consisted of a small globule of metallic antimony, which was believed to have the property of purging as often as it was swallowed.