Of Ointments

CHAPTER X

1. Various are the ways of making ointments, which authors have left to posterity, which I shall omit, and quote one which is easiest to be made, and therefore most beneficial to people that are ignorant in physic, for whose sake I write this. It is thus done.

Bruise those herbs, flowers, or roots, you will make an ointment of, and to two handfuls of your bruised herbs add a pound of hog's grease dried, or cleansed from the skins, beat them very well together in a stone mortar with a wooden pestle, then put it into a stone pot, (the herb and grease I mean, not the mortar,) cover it with a paper and set it either in the sun, or some other warm place; three, four, or five days, that it may melt; then take it out and boil it a little; then whilst it is hot, strain it out, pressing it out very hard in a press: to this grease add as many more herbs bruised as before;let them stand in like manner as long, then boil them as you did the former. If you think your ointment is not strong enough, you may do it the third and fourth time; yet this I will tell you, the fuller of juice the herbs are, the sooner will your ointment be strong; the last time you boil it, boil it so long till your herbs be crisp, and the juice consumed, then strain it pressing it hard in a press, and to every pound of ointment add two ounces of turpentine, and as much wax, because grease is offensive to wounds, as well as oil.

2. Ointments are vulgarly known to be kept in pots, and will last above a year, some above two years.