[Sca-cooks] Leprosy mentions

[Johnna Holloway]

A quick run through English printed books up on EEBO-TCP finds rather little in the medical texts:

A newe booke entituled the gouernement of healthe  By VVilliam Bulleyn.
 [1558] remarks:
Against Leprosy & deafnes. Let bloud the two vaines behind the eartes, and vse the sayde pilles or els pillule Aurea Nicholai or Arabice, or confectio Hameth minor. 

 
The treasure of Euonymus 
by Gesner, Konrad, 1516-1565.
from [1559]
has 9 mentions including "Of quint essence of mans bloud, egges, fleshe, and hony which is said to cure "It healeth diuers diseases, the Leprosy, the Morphew, the Palsy and other, if a man fastyng drynke a droppe of it with whyte wyne. Many boaste muche of mannes bloud sublimated, as a certayne man Bartholomevve de Montaguana, made at Padua, but surely he was ignoraunt howe to prepare it, whiche if thou wylt vse, make [ xxx] it on this wise." page 119.


A breefe aunswere of Iosephus Quercetanus Armeniacus, Doctor of Phisick, to the exposition of Iacobus Aubertus Vindonis, concerning the original, and causes of mettalles . By Iohn Hester, practicioner in the spagericall arte.
Author: Du Chesne, Joseph, ca. 1544-1609. 

calls for gold… "gold a true tyn∣cture to cure the same diseases: and many other incurable greefes, specially the leprosy, canker, and other corrosiue vlcers: and so make thereof a perfect holesome medicine …"

The very late 1698 work Ars chirurgica a compendium of the theory and practice of chirurgery in seven books ... shewing the names, causes, signs, differences, prognosticks, and various intentions of curing all kinds of chirurgick diseases ... : to which is added Pharmacopoeia chirurgica, or, The medical store, Latin and English … by William Salmon probably has the most mentions for elixirs to cure a variety of conditions, including leprosy. "Inwardly, it is sometimes given in the French-Pox, Dropsy, Leprosy, Scabbiness, virulent Gonorrhoea, nocturnal Pains…" 
"CHAP. XXXV. Of the LEPROSY" offers this section regarding snakes--

"XXVII. Let their Drink be Viper or Snake Wine, and let them often eat their Flesh; purging also the Body with the Panchymagogon-vegetable, mixed with Mer∣curius dulcis; and Extract of black Hellebor, mixed with Coloquintida and Salt of Tartar  or, which is better, our Pilulae Panchymagogae, or Catharticae."

*****
As to food and leprosy, there's this remark from: The nature of the drink kauhi, or coffe, and the berry of which it is made described by an Arabian physician.  by Anṭākī, Dāʼūd ibn ʻUmar, d. 1599. Oxford : Printed by Henry Hall, 1659.

"and butter. Some drink it with milk, but it is an error, and such as may bring in danger of the leprosy. / FINIS. …"


Most of the general references are Scriptural, dealing with the New Testament. Such as: The sycke mans salue VVherin the faithfull christians may learne both how to behaue them selues paciently and thankefully, in the tyme of sickenes, and also vertuously to dispose their temporall goodes, and finally to prepare them selues gladly and godly to die. Made and newly recognised by Maister Tho. Becon. 1561.

Hope this helps

Johnnae