At a flea market the other day - I found this old book "The Book of Simples" Wow what a find.... Inside cover says "Delirious persons here a cure may find, To stem the phrensy and to calm the mind" I want to share some contents of this lovely book.
Sorry about the fuzzy picture - I haven't figured out how that happens sometimes. Anyway on to the book ....The Copywrite is 1908 and it does not have a library of congress number and was printed in London.
The Introduction states " The original of this little book was found in the library of a distinqished Effex antiquary, the document has no history, but from its appearance it must have been the still-room book of some manor house. The original is a folio composed of entirely vellum. The spellings and wording have been preserved. This book has been submitted to experts who are in the opinion that it spans some fifty years, ending in the middle of the eighteenth century, approximate 1757.
The book is written in the style of little notes, jottings, wisdom to pass on....... I am writing as it is written somethings you must guess at....... 
# 16 ----- To make Biskit 
Take 2 pound of fine sugar beaten and searched then to a pound and a half of it put a pound of the finest wheat flower, take 8 eggs and beat them with 2 spoonfulls of Rose Water, mingle your flower and eggs together, then take an ounce of anyfeeds being a quarter of an hour in white wine and as you beat your biskit put in your Seeds and when the biskit begins to look white put in your plats & Shake some double refined sugar on them.
# 27 Mrs Thorpes for the Mother Fitts.
Take the juice of Tansie and drink it with beer it hath done much good but hurtfull if with child.
# 235 For the wind in the Bladder.
Take 9 bees pound them and put them to a quarter of a pint of ale, Stir it well together, and Strain it sweeten it with honey, give it the afflicted persons to drink they must till it has work'd
I will add more in the coming days, this was a marvelous find..
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