HERB - sinus treatments? interpretation of Banckes...

[Jenne Heise]

Ok, so I'm slogging through Banckes and I come on the following
statements:

"The best mastic hath virtue of constraining, comforting, cleansing, and
loosing of humors descending from the head above to the eyes and to the
teeth, and for the disease of the temples made of an ascending wind from
the stomach to the head. Take powder of mastic with white sweet wine and
the wite of an egg and meddle them well together-- if ye will, ye may put
in frankincense-- and plaster it to the temples."

"Also, to cleanse the brain of superfluous humors, take a quantity of
maces and chew them well in thy mouth and hold them there a while, and
that shall loose the fumosity of  humors that rise up in the brain, and
purge the superfluity of it."

" For the toothache that cometh of superfluity of humor from the head and
especially by the veins, make a plaster of the powder of frankincense with
wine and the white of an egg, meddle them together, and plaster them about
the temples. Also, to stop the ways of the veins above, take frankincense
and chew it well in thy mouth, and that shall stop and hinder the flux of
humors coming down to the nostrils."

Am I daft, or is Banckes talking about sinus headaches, sinus congestion,
sinus-induced toothaces, and post-nasal drip here?


Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
"The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother 
	of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, 
	and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest."
				-- Rudyard Kipling, "The Sons of Martha"  

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