HERB - Ointment, Balm, Salve Recipes??

[Rauthulfr]

At 09:59 AM 5/1/00 -0400, you wrote:
>There are some in the 'Elixirs of Nostradamus' but I wouldn't recommend
>them for actual USE... they are a bit dangerous.

I don't know that I would use the phrase "a bit"!  This is Nostradamus 
recipe for "the sublimate:"

Take four small limes and quarter them. Add to or on to each segment a 
crown  or good-sized piece of mercury, distil it in a glass phial or, if 
you are unable to acquire one, take a glass container, chop the segments up 
as finely as possible and fill the glass not more than half full. Next, 
place it in a vessel which has been used for burning roses, half bury it in 
raked or sifted ashes, so that it does not break, and then make a good fire 
and pour the distilled water drop by drop into another glass container, 
which you keep separate. Then take four ounces of mercuric chloride, which 
has not much salt in it, a crown's weight of the best and purest mercury 
and put them both into a marble mortar, but the pestle and spatula must be 
of wood. Pulverize it, then take the said water and slowly moisten or 
sprinkle the mercuric chloride with it for almost a whole day, until it 
becomes completely white. An even better result can be achieved if you 
allow it to stand in the sun for several days, for that is very beneficial 
in such cases. Once it is beautiful and white, grind it to powder using 
well water, let it come to the boil four times in a freshly glazed 
earthenware pot and then let it cool down for four hours. Then strain the 
water and drain it off and pour a second lot over the mixture. Boil that as 
before, let it cool again and drain it off do this four times.
Finally, take half a pound of Venetian white lead, make it into a paste 
with the whites of six eggs, wrap this up in three small white linen 
cloths, which should be delicate, tie the bundle up and boil it in a new 
earthenware vessel. When it froths, lift it off with a white quill or 
silver spoon and, when you have done that, put everything into the glass 
container with the said water prepared from limes. When the mercuric 
chloride is saturated, add that to it, taking care that no water remains in 
the vessel in which it was, mix everything together and when you want to 
apply it to your face, give the contents of the container a good stir, 
moisten a woollen cloth or patch in it and wash your face with it in the 
morning, before you leave your house. For those who now have red, bronzed 
or leprous faces, it will remove the redness in a few days and make the 
complexion appear naturally white, for it consumes the bad or impure blood, 
makes the hair sleek and elegant, without in any way causing injury or harm 
to other parts of the body, and enlivens the complexion to a state of 
perfect harmony.  Even if a man were to search the whole world, he would 
not find a lotion to compare with this one.

Nostradamus: The Elixers of Nostradamus, Edited by Knut Boesner, Bloomsbury 
Publishing Plc, London, 1995


RauthulfR Meistari inn Orthstori (OL, mCE, P-eX, Et Cetera)
or, non-SCA: Michael Wolfe M. A. I. S. AB-
*Practice Random Acts of Chocolate.....

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