For ye Bite of a Mad Dog

[DavidP]

I found this attached recipe at the front of the Parish Registers for Croft, North Yorkshire on Find My Past which is quite interesting. There are a couple of words that I cannot make out (it looks like there is a Latin version of the recipe/prescription below the English version if that is of any help).

Here is what I have made out :

"Take Rue (??) clean pick’d from ye Stalks six ounces, Garlick pick’d & bruised, fine English Tin filed or rasp’d, Venice Treacle of each four ounces, Ash coloured Ground Liverwort a large handful. Boil ?? these in five quarts of strong beer over a gentle Fire for an Hour, then strain and keep Liquor for use. To a Man give nine Spoonfulls warm in a Morning fasting & fast two Hours after. To Beasts give it cold. To an Ox or Horse 17 or 18 Spoonfulls, to a Dog four Spoonfulls, & to a Sheep three. All for seven Mornings successively. My Author saies, this has never failed & that it has cured even when ye symptoms of Madness have been commenced.

August 5th 1749"

Can anyone fill in the missing gaps, please?

Mind you I am not advocating that anyone tries the concoction.....

 

[Gillian]

Here's Wikipedia's definition of rue:
Ruta graveolens, commonly known as rue,common rue or herb-of-grace, is a species of Ruta grown as an ornamental plant and as an herb. It is native to the Balkan Peninsula. It is now grown throughout the world in gardens, especially for its bluish leaves, and sometimes for its tolerance of hot and dry soil conditions. It is also cultivated as a medicinal herb, as a condiment, and to a lesser extent as an insect repellent.
Sorry, I can't make out the word between 'Boil' and 'these'.

 

[Tony]

Boil all these?

 

[Gillian]

Yes, I'd wondered if it could be 'all'. It would certainly make good sense.

 

[DavidP]

Thanks for your input. Yes, I found Rue in the dictionary - never heard of it before.

I just wonder why he was so specific about the number of spoonfuls to give when he didn't say what size spoon to use?

 

[Gillian]

Perhaps they only had one size of spoon in those days!!!??? If you google 'medieval' and 'spoonful' you'll find all kinds of esoteric recipes and cures that specify a 'spoonful'.

 

[jorghes]

The y and superscript e is actually a thorn (a letter no longer used which was one of the two "th" sounds) and an e, which translates as "the"; so your first sentence would be "Take Rue clean pick'd from the stalks". I also think there's a second one before Liquor, so I believe it would be "keep the Liquor for use".

Otherwise, I think the rest might be in Latin or something similar (probably Latin looking at the word endings and the Roman numerals). It's possibly the same recipe again?

I had a linguistics professor at University who would love this, she loved old prescriptions and used to study them (and used to quote them in lectures when I was doing historical linguistics).