Of Troches

CHAPTER XIII

1. The Latins call them Placentula, or little cakes, and the Greeks Prochikois, Kukliscoi, and Artiscoi; they are usually little round flat cakes, or you may make them square if you will.

2. Their first invention was, that powders being so kept might resist the intermission of air, and so endure pure the longer.

3. Besides, they are easier carried in the pockets of such as travel; as many a man (for example) is forced to travel whose stomach is too cold, or at least not so hot as it should be, which is most proper, for the stomach is never cold till a man be dead; in such a case, it is better to carry troches of wormwood, or galangal, in a paper in his pocket, than to lay a gallipot along with him.

4. They are made thus: At night when you go to bed, take two drams of fine gum tragacanth; put it into a gallipot, and put half a quarter of a pint of any distilled water fitting for the purpose you would make your troches for to cover it, and the next morning you shall find it in such a jelly as the physicians call mucilage. With this you may (with a little pains taken) make a powder into a paste, and that paste into cakes called troches.

5. Having made them, dry them in the shade, and keep them in a pot for your use.