My dear patients,

It is time i must begin to take my task as your Health Advisor more seriously and provide you with some more accurate and genuine modern remedies our beloved 18th century has to offer.

The next prescription is taken out of a notebook compiled by members of the family of Rev. William Twigge, archdeacon of Limerick from 1705 to 1726. It was probably the work of his wife Diana and daughter Jane (later Pery) and written between 1704 and l71 5. The notebook contains a large number of recipes for baking cakes, preserving fruit and vegetables and making drinks. The remedies show the kinds of illness which were prevalent among the class to which the Twigge family belonged and throw some light on how people thought they could be cured or alleviated.

The Twigges' notebook contains 46 remedies for various ailments. It would be interesting to know whether they have any scientific basis or not, but experimentation is not recommended.

To make the snaile water for the consumsion or
cough of the lungs.

Take 2 quarts of house snails well washt in water and salt
five or six times over, their heads being cut off, one quart
of earth wormes washt as the snailes, chickweed,
mallows, maidenhair, coltisfoot, hysop, aspeckane,
liverwort, white horehound, ground ivey, hartstongue,
wild time and the tops of rosemary, of each one handfull.
Pick and cleanse all these herbs very well and chop them
with the snails and worms. Steep them well cleansed in
red cow's milk for a whole night and let the milk cover
them a hair's breadth. Add to these one pound and a
halfe of the best raisens of the sun stoned and bruised,
one pound and a halfe of the best figgs slit and bruised.
Then add a capon slaid and bruises to mash, two young
pigeons slaid and bruised to mash, 4 ounces of liquorish
scraped and bruised, 2 handfulls of parsly roots sliced
and bruised. Then cover all the above named things ordered
as above in a hand's breadth of red cow's milk jn
your limbeck pot, then put on your limbeck lid and let
them stand and steep some time. Be sure to past your
limbeck head that noe aire come out. Then draw your
water with a pretty quick fire and put white sugar candy
in the mouth of your receiver in a fine cloth for your water
to run through. You must: tak off your limbeck head for
fear of burning. You may draw 5 or 6 quarts of water
from the above quantity. You must put into each bottle of
water an ounce of white sugar candy in powder. You may
drink a glass of this water thus prepared morning and
evening for some time and you will finde effects from it.

At Your Health !!!

Dr. Panacek, War Surgeon.

The Doctor Visiting the Sick Bed , artist unknown (18th century).

updated by @docteur-panacek: 06 Oct 2016 06:13:30AM

Sounds sooo yummy!

but why cutting the snails heads off? it's the best part...

Thanks for the recipe, Pekel!

Yes, I am certain one would find effects from it; namely the condition transforming from the cough of the lungs to the heaving of the stomach ........, for which the cure is ????

Ahhh Lady Candace, next month i will give you the ingredients of the purging ale. No fear, your health is in good hands (errhhhmmm, errhhhmmmm)

Dear Lord Myron, it is a BRITISH recipe, they are not Gourmands like the French or the Flemish...

eeewww....

What? The Signora Panacek does not like the house snails? Does she prefer the yard snails then?

As for the treatment, it could be worse. Ask your good husband the Doctor about standard treatment for resuscitating drowning victims. It involves tobacco, but not at the end you expect.

So true dear Professor. I have planned on writing an nice article on that subject. The history of medicine is a never ending treasure chest.

(my biggest advice on 18th century courtiers: DON'T GET ILL, at any cost avoid contact with the medical professionals... In those days Medicine was VERY bad for your health)

Quite so, Doctor--my favorite example being that of gentlemen who were wounded in combat, and the treatment for the stab or gunshot wound was a bandage and BLEEDING. I take a certain perverse delight in the knowledge that your average 18th century physician would treat someone who had already lost a great deal of blood due to being punctured with an enemy's weapon, by proceeding to TAKE MORE BLOOD from the victim.

assistant: "Oh look the patient's passed out on the floor..."

physician: "Ah, splendid, that means he's getting better! Here, put some more leeches on him while he's holding still like that..."

do you mean leeches or the snails, Signora?

I am deeply troubled, Docteur, that the one creature that produces vast quantities of slime is used in the treatment of removal of the human variant when suffering a heavy cold.

My cough is ratherpersistentand I believe vast quantities of Brandy will cure it, notEscargot.

Ow Mylady, this principle is recently discovered by a very intelligent colleague of mine, Dr. S. Hahnemann.

He just proposed the principle of "like cures like", or the idea that we can stimulate the body to heal itself by administering (very dilute solutions of) ingredients that would cause the symptoms of the ailment. Instead of bringing the unbalanced humors back into balance, like every well educated doctor these days would do, he suggests that disease should be treated by the principle of the Law of Similars.
Because a lot of his patients were complaining about his remedies, he HAD to dilute the ingredients, or he would have lost most of them... So he became a fanatic believer in "the Law of Infinitesimals". This supposes that the smaller a dose of a medication, the more powerful its effect.

So, the conclusion is evident: lets dilute the Escargots in Brandy... That way their power will dilute into the Brandy and we will all be MUCH happier...

Yes, the ways of our modern 18th Century Medicine are truly Miraculous.

"So, the conclusion is evident: lets dilute the Escargots in Brandy... That way their power will dilute into the Brandy and we will all be MUCH happier..."

putting the snails in brandy may also make them happier as well...

I shall order a large dish of them forthwith, soaked in large quantities of Brandy and Garlic and enough to knock out an entire garrison of Chasseurs.