it. So every man must consult his own temper, and the experience of others.

A modern French author has writ a peculiar tract of tobacco,.. wherein he commends it in convulsions, in pains, and for bringing on sleep; he extols the oil of it in curing deafness, being injected into the ear in a convenient vehicle; also against gouty and scorbutical pains of the joints, being applied in a liniment. A lixivium of tobacco often prevents the falling off of the hair, and is famous for curing the farcy, or leprosy of cattle.

The use of juniper and elder-berries in our publick-houses.

THESE two berries are so celebrated in many countries, and so high, ly recommended to the world by several famous writers, and practitioners, that they need not desire any varnish or argument from me. The simple decoctions of them, sweetened with a little fine sugar-candy, will afford liquors so pleasant to the eye,so grateful to the palate,and so beneficial to the body, thatI cannot but wonder, after all these charms, they have not as yet been courted,and ushered into our publick-houses. If they should once appear on the stage, Iam confident,thatboth the Whig and Tory would agree about them far better than they have done about the medaland mushroom; nay the very Cynick and Stoick himself would fall in love with the beauty and extraordinary vertues of these berries, which are so common, and cheap, that they may be purchased for little or nothing. One ounce of the berry, well cleansed, bruised, and mashed, will. be enough for almost a pint of water; when they are boiled together, the vessel must be carefully stopped; after the boiling is over, one spoonful of sugar-candy may be put in.

The juniper-tree grows wild upon many hills in Surry and Oxfordshire, and upon Juniper-hill, near Hildersham in Cambridgeshire; besides, in several other parts of England. The berries are most common、 ly gathered about August. The astrological botanists advise us to pull them, when the sun is in Virgo.

The juniper-berry is of so great reputation in the northern nations, that they use it, as we do coffee and thee, especially the Laplanders, who do almost adore it. Simon Pauli, a learned Dane, assures us, that these berries have performed wonders in the stone, which he did not: learn from books, or common fame, but from his own observation and experience; for he produces two very notable examples, that, being tormented with the stone, did find incredible success in the use of these berries; and, if my memory does not fail me, I have heard our most ingenious and famous Dr. Troutbeck commend a medicine prepared of. them in this distemper. Besides, Schroder knew a nobleman of Germany, that freed himself from the intolerable symptoms of the stone by the constant use of these berries. Ask any physician about them, and he will bestow upon them a much finer character than my rude pencil can draw. The learned Mr. Evelyn will tell you what great kindnesses he has done to his poor sick neighbours, with a preparation of juniper

Journal des Scavans, An. 1681.

berries, who is pleased to honour them with the title of the Forester's Panacea; he extols them in the wind cholick, and many other dis tempers. Do but consult Bauhinus and Schroder, the first being the most exact herbal, the other the most faithful and elaborate dispensatory, that ever has been published: and you will find great commendation of these berries in dropsies, gravel, coughs, consumptions, gout, stoppage of the monthly courses, epilepsies, palsies, and lethargies, in which there are often an ill appetite, bad digestions, and obstructions.

Take one spoonful of the spirit of juniper-berries, four grains of the salt of juniper, and three drops of the oil of juniper-berries well rectified: mix them all together, drink them morning and night in a glass of whitewine, and you will have no contemptible medicine in all the afore-mentioned diseases.

Now it is probable, that you have both the spirit, salt, and oil of this berry in a simple decoction of it, provided it be carefully and skilfully managed. If this will not satisfy, do but read Benjamin Scarffius, and John Michael, who have published in Germany two several books of the juniper, and you may meet with far more persuasive arguments, than I can pretend to offer you.

The elder-tree grows almost every where, but it most delights in hedges, orchards, and other shady places, or on the moist banks of rivulets and ditches, into which it is thrust by the gardeners, lest, by its luxury and importunate increase yearly, it should possess all their ground. We write here of the domestick, common elder, not of the mountain, the water, or dwarf elders, ours in figure is like the ash; the leaves resemble those of a walnut-tree, but less; in the top of the branches, and twigs, there spring sweet and crisped umbels, swelling with white odoriferous flowers (in June: before St. John's eve) which by their fall give place to a many-branched grapes, first-green, then ruddy, last of a black, dark purple colour, succulent and tumid with its winish' liquor. Of all the wild plants it is first covered with leaves, and last uncloathed of them. It flourishes in May, June, and July, but the berries are not ripe till August.

As for the qualities and vertues of elder-berries, I need say no more, but that Mr. Ray has given a great encomium of them; our learned Dr. Needham commending them in dropsies, and some fevers; and I have been informed, that the ingenious Dr. Croon has extolled a spirit of elder-berries in an epidemical intermitting fever. Schroder says, they do peculiarly respect some diseases, attributed to the womb. Mr. Evelyn is so bountiful to his poor Forester, as to assure him, that if he' could but learn the medicinal properties of the elder-tree, he might fetch a remedy from every hedge, either for sickness or wounds. The same curious gentleman takes notice, how prevalent these berries are in scorbutick distempers, and for the prolongation of life (so famous is the story of Neander.) I have heard some praise them in bloody fluxes, and other diseases of the bowels; also in several distempers of the head, as the falling-sickness, megrims, palsies, lethargies; they are said likewise to promote the monthly inundations of women, and to destroy the heat of an erysipelas, for which, the flowers themselves are highly celebrated by Simon Pauli, who experimented them upon himself with

wonderful success. I could produce several cases out of the best phy sical writers, as Forestus, Riverius, Rulandus, &c. where these berries have acted their parts, even to admiration; but, if you are curious and inquisitive after the qualities and nature of them, I will recommend a learned German, Martyn Blochwitz, to your reading, where you may entertain yourself with great variety. Yet I have one thing still to take notice of, that the same medicine may be prepared out of the spirit, oil, and salt of this berry, that you have been taught before to make out of the juniper-berry; but you may obtain them all in a simple decoction, if it be well managed.

You have read here the great use of these two berries, that are more universally agreeable to all tempers, palates, and cases, than perhaps any other two simple medicines, which are commonly known amongst us; so that several persons, being under ill habits of body, and upon the frontiers of some lingering diseases, cannot but desire to drink them, when they have occasion to resort to publick-houses. Yet, for all this, my poor advice will certainly meet with that fate, which does attend almost every thing in the world, that is, Laudatur ab his, culpatur ab illis: but it dreads most of all the Turky and East-India merchant, who will condemn it in defence of their coffee and thee, which have the honour of coming from the Levant and China. Besides, I am afraid of a lash, or a frown, from some young ladies, and little sparks, who scorn to eat, drink, or wear any thing, that comes not from France, or the Indies; they fancy poor England is not capable of bringing forth any commodity, that can be agreeable to their grandeur and gallantry, as though nature, and God Almighty, had cursed this island with the productions of such things, as are every way unsuitable to the complexions and necessities of the inhabitants; so we cannot but repartee upon these a-la-mode persons, that, while they worship so much only foreign creatures, they cannot but be wholly ignorant of those at home. His excellency, the most acute and ingenious ambassador from the Emperor of Fez and Morocco (who now resides amongst us) is reported to have advised his attendants to see every thing, but admire nothing, lest they should seem thereby to disparage their own country, and shew themselves ignorant of the great rarities and wonders of Barbary.

Poor contemptible berries, fly hence to Smyrna, Bantam, or Mexico; then the merchants would work through storms and tempests, through fire and water, to purchase you, and, on your arrival here would proclaim your vertues in all publick assemblies; so true is that common saying, A prophet is never valued in his own country. The English soil is certainly influenced by some pestilential star, that blasts the credit of its productions.

The Way of making Mum, with some Remarks upon that Liquor.

IN the first place, I will give some instructions how to make mum, as it, is recorded in the house of Brunswick, and was sent, from thence, to General Monk.

To make a vessel of sixty-three gallons, the water must be first boiled to the consumption of a third part; let it then be brewed, according to art, with seven bushels of wheat-malt, one bushel of oat-malt, and one bushel of ground beans; and, when it is tunned, let not the hogshead be too much filled at first. When it begins to work, put to it of the inner rind of the fir, three pounds; of the tops of fir and birch, of each one pound; of carduus benedictus dried, three handfuls; flowers of rosa solis, two handfuls; of burnet, betony, marjoram, avens, pennyroyal, flowers of elder, wild thyme, of each one handful and an half; : seeds of cardamum bruised, three ounces; bay-berries bruised one ounce; put the seeds into the vessel. When the liquor hath wrought a while, with the herbs, and after they are added, let the liquor work over the vessel as little as may be, fill it up at last, and, when it is stopped, put into the hogshead ten new-laid eggs, the shells not cracked or broken; stop all close, and drink it at two years old; if carried by water it is better. Dr. Ægidius Hoffman added water-cresses, brook-lime, and wild parsley, of each six handfuls, with six handfuls of horse-radish rasped in every hogshead; it was observed that the horse-radish made: the mum drink more quick than that which had none.

By the composition of mum, we may guess at the qualities and properties of it. You find great quantities of the rind, and tops of fir, in it; therefore if the mum-makers at London are so careful and honest, as to prepare this liquor, after the Brunswick fashion, which is the genuine and original way; it cannot but be very powerful against the breeding of stones, and against all scorbutick distempers. When the Swedes carried on a war against the Muscovites, the scurvy did so domineer among them, that their army did languish and moulder away to nothing, till, once incamping near a great number of fir-trees, they began to boil the tops of them in their drink, which recovered the army, even to a miracle; from whence the Swedes call the fir, the scorbutick tree, to this very day. Our most renowned Dr. Walter Needham has observed · the great success of these tops of fir in the scurvy, as Mr. Ray informs us; which is no great wonder, if we consider the balsam or turpentine (with which this tree abounds) which proves so effectual in preserving even dead bodies themselves from putrefaction and corruption. If my memory does not deceive me, I have heard Mr. Boyle (the ornament and glory of our English nation) affirm, that the oil of turpentine preserves bodies from putrefaction much better than the spirit of wine. The fir, being a principal ingredient of this liquor, is so celebrated by some modern writers, that it alone may be sufficient to advance the mum trade among us. Simon Pauli (a learned Dane) tells us the great exploits of the tops of this tree in freeing a great man of Germany from an inveterate scurvy. Every physician will inform you, how proper they are against the breeding of gravel and stones; but then we must be so exact, as to pull these tops in their proper season, when they abound most with turpentine and balsamick parts, and then they may make the mum a proper liquor in gonorrhea's. Besides, the eggs may improve its faculty that way; yet I will not conceal what, I think, the learned Dr. Merret affirms in his observations upon wines, that those liquors,

into which the shavings of fir are put, may be apt to create pains in the head; but still it is to be confessed, that the fir cannot but contribute much to the vigour and preservation of the drink.

By the variety of its malt, and by the ground beans, we may conclude, that mum is a very hearty and strengthening liquor. Some drink it much, because it has no hops, which, they fancy, do spoil our English ales and beers, ushering in infections; nay, plagues amongst us. Tho. Bartholine exclaims so fiercely against hops, that he advises us to mix any thing with our drink, rather than them; he recommends sage, tamarisks, tops of pine, or fir, instead of hops, the daily use of which in our English liquors is said to have been one cause, why the stone is grown such a common disease among us! Englishmen. Yet, Captain Graunt, in his curious observations upon the bills of mortality, observes, that fewer are afflicted with the stone in this present age, than there were in the age before, though far more hops have been used in this city of late than ever.

As for eggs in the composition of mum, they may contribute much to prevent its growing sowre, their shells sweetening vinegar, and destroying acids; for which reason they may be proper in restoring some de cayed liquors, if put whole into the vessel. Dr. Stubbs, in some curious observations made in his voyage to Jamaica, assures us, that eggs, put whole into the vessel, wil preserve many drinks, even to admiration, in long voyages; the shells and whites will be devoured and lost, but the yolks left untouched.

Dr. Willis prescribes mum in several chronical distempers, as scurvies, dropsies, and some sort of consumptions. The Germans, especially the inhabitants of Saxony, have so great a veneration for this liquor, that they fancy their bodies can never decay, or pine away, as long as they are lined and embalmed with so powerful a preserver; and indeed, if we consider the frame and complexions of the Germans in general, they may appear to be living mummies. But to conclude all in a few words; if this drink, called mum, be exactly made according to the foregoing instructions, it must needs be a most excellent alterative medicine: the ingredients of it being very rare and choice simples, there being scarce any one disease in nature against which some of them are not prevalent, as betony, marjoram, thyme, in diseases of the head;. birch, burnet, water-cresses, brook-lime, horse-radish, in the most inveterate scurvies, gravels, coughs, consumptions, and all obstructions. Avens and cardamom-seeds for cold weak stomachs. Carduus benedictus, and elder-flowers, in intermitting fevers. Bay-berries and penny-royal, in distempers attributed to the womb. But it is to be: feared, that several of our Londoners are not so honest and curious, as> to prepare their mum faithfully and truly; if they do, they are so happy as to furnish and stock their country with one of the most useful liquors under the sun, it being so proper and effectual in several lingering istempers, where there is a depravation and weakness of the blood and bowels.

There still remains behind a strong and general objection, that may, perhaps, fall upon this little puny pamphlet, and crush it all to pieces,