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274 OF THE EPILEPSY, OR FALLING SICKNESS*.

This is one particular species of convulsion-fits which commonly goesby the name of St. Vitu's dance, wherein the patient is agitated withstrange motions and gesticulations, which by the common people aregenerally believed to be the effect of wif;„h*raft. Bleed if the patient isplethoric : in almost all cases the patitnt should be repeatedly purgedwith pill of aloes with colocynth; and afterv/ards using the medicinesperscribed above for the epilepsy, viz. the Peruvian bark and snake-root,&c. Chalybeate waters are found to be beneficial in this ease. Thecold bath is likewise of singular service, and ought never to be neglectedwhen the patient can bear it.

The works of Peter Andrew Matthiolus, the commentator on thecelebrated writings of Dioscorides, were printed at Prague anno 1548and 1562; a Latin edition was printed at Venice in 1565, containingnearly 1400 figures of roots, plants, trees, &c. An elegant edition,entitled " Matthioli Compendium de Plantis," issued from the same pressin the year 1571, " for the benefit of students." That small quarto con-tains nearly a thousand figures, reduced in size, but considerably im-proved from those of the folio edition : to a print of the Quercini visciis subjoined, as well as to the rest, an account of its virtues. He says," The mistletoe of the oak (as the best), made into powder, and given indrink to those who have the falling-sickness, doth assuredly heal them;"he had tried and healed many; " but it is fit to use it forty days together."

In 1598, about twenty years after the death of Matthiolus, a splendifledition of the works of Dioscorides was printed in folio, containing up-wards of 1400 prints, with the notes of Matthiolus; it was publishedby Gaspar Bauhinus, who was deemed by Boerhaave " a most learnedbotanist:" this author (Bauhinus) annexed the botanical Materia Medica,or an account of all the simples employed in the practice of physic bothby Dioscorides and his commentator; thence also it appears that Mat-thiolus directed for the cure of the epilepsy, as already mentioned," Quercini visci lignum intenuissimum puluerum redactum & diebusquadraginta potum."

The same year our countryman Gerard published his Herbal; he says," the mistletoe of the oak, far from being poisonous, as some have as-serted, is used in medicine against the falling sickness."

Soon after Gerard had inscribed his botanical work to Sir WilliamCecial, afterwards Lord Burleigh, the best compendium of the practiceof physic that, we believe, had ill then appeared in our language wasdedicated to that illustrious person, now " High Treasurer of England,Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, and one of the Queen'sMajestie's most honourable Privie Council," entitled, " The Method ofPhysick, containing the Causes, Si 6 ns, and Cures of inward Diseases inMau's Body from the Head to the Foote. Whereunto is added the Formand Rule of making Remedies and Medicines wiiich our Physicians com-monly use at this Day, with the Order, Quantity, and Names of eachMedicine. By Philip Barrough;" by son* t asserted to have been greatgrand-father to the late learned Dr. Isaac Barrough.

This author recommends for the cure " of the falling-sicknesse alohoch of fine white sugar and oile of sweet almonds commixed with themiscle of the oke and (powder of) unicorne's horn. Also" (after theuiauner of Galen he directs) " hang about the child's necke roote of