Of Electuaries

CHAPTER VI

Physicians make more a quoil than needs by half, about electuaries. I shall prescribe but one general way of making them up; as for ingredients, you may vary them as you please, and as you find occasion, by the last chapter.

1. That you may make electuaries when you need them, it is requisite that you keep always herbs, roots, flowers, seeds, &c. ready dried in your house, that so you may be in a readiness to beat them into powder when you need them.

2. It is better to keep them whole than beaten; for being beaten, they are more subject to lose their strength; because the air soon penetrates them.

3. If they be not dry enough to beat into powder when you need them, dry them by a gentle fire till they are so.

4. Having beaten them, sift them through a fine tiffany searce, that no great pieces may be found in your electuary.

5. To one ounce of your powder add three ounces of clarified honey; this quantity I hold to be sufficient. If you would make more or less electuary, vary your proportion accordingly.

6. Mix them well together in a mortar, and take this for a truth, you cannot mix them too much.

7. The way to clarify honey, is to set it over the fire in a convenient vessel, till the scum rise, and when the scum is taken off, it is clarified.

8. The usual dose of cordial electuaries, is from half a dram to two drams; of purging electuaries, from half an ounce to an ounce.

9. The manner of keeping them is in a pot.

10. The time of taking them, is either in a morning fasting, and fasting an hour after them; or at night going to bed, three or four hours after supper.