"Senvey" (the old name of mustard) "healeth smiting of Serpents and overcometh venom of the Scorpions and abateth Toothache and cleanseth the Hair and letteth" (that is, prevents or tends to prevent) "the falling thereof. If it be drunk fasting, it makes the Intellect good." Even in those days the people can scarcely have believed that drinking mustard improved the intellect. Many of the remedies and cures are obviously false, for example the following:-- "A man crowned with Ivy cannot get drunk." "Powder of dry Roses comforteth wagging Teeth that be in point to fall." The fact that the surgeon was also a barber, and also a "face-specialist," appears from the two following:-- "Leaves of Chestnut burnt to powder and tempered with Vinegar and laid to a man's Head plaisterwise maketh Hair increase and keepeth hair from falling." Those whose hair turned grey could employ the following prescription:-- "Leaves of Mulberry sod in rainwater maketh black hair." If a doctor was not quite sure of the endurance of a patient under these heroic remedies, he could easily find out if he would recover, for it was only necessary to try the following:-- "Celandine with the heart of a Mouldwarp" (that is mole, _Scottice_ moudiewort) "laid under the Heade of one that is grievouslie Sicke, if he be in danger of Death, immediately he will cry out with a loud voice or sing; if not, he will weep." In Lightfoot's _Flora Scotica_, there is an interesting account of the Fly Mushroom (_Agaricus muscarius_) which is not very rare in Britain, and which may be easily recognized by the bright red top or cap, with whitish scales scattered over it, and a sort of ring of loose white tissue round the stalk. "It has an acrid and deleterious quality. The inhabitants of Kamschatka prepare a liquor from an infusion of this Agaric which taken in a small quantity exhilarates the spirits, but in a larger dose brings on a trembling of the nerves, intoxication, delirium and melancholy. Linnæus informs us that flies are killed or at least stupefied by an infusion of this fungus in milk and that the expressed juice of it anointed on bedsteads and other places effectually destroys"--what we may describe as certain lively and pertinacious insects with a great affection for man! As a matter of fact the fungus is said to be a deadly poison.[5] [5] Cooke, _British Fungi_. These quotations are enough to show how the real medical knowledge of those times was encrusted with all sorts of faith-curing devices, sheer falsehoods, and superstitions. The most learned men of the Middle Ages were almost invariably monks and hermits, for there was nothing in the world of those strenuous times to attract a studious, sensitive disposition. The spirit of their learning can be judged from the wearisome disquisitions and lengthy volumes written about the Barnacle Goose and Scythian Lamb.