Inkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul. SUBSECT. II.--_Simples purging Melancholy downward_. Polypody and epithyme are, without all exceptions, gentle purgers of melancholy. Dioscorides will have them void phlegm; but Brassivola out of his experience averreth, that they purge this humour; they are used in decoction, infusion, &c. simple,
mixed, &c. Mirabolanes, all five kinds, are happily [4207]prescribed against melancholy and quartan agues; Brassivola speaks out [4208]"of a thousand" experiences, he gave them in pills, decoctions, &c., look for peculiar receipts in him. Stoechas, fumitory, dodder, herb mercury,
roots of capers, genista or broom, pennyroyal and half-boiled cabbage, I find in this catalogue of purgers of black choler, origan,
featherfew, ammoniac [4209]salt, saltpetre. But these are very gentle; alyppus, dragon root,
centaury, ditany, colutea, which Fuchsius _cap. 168_ and others take for senna, but most distinguish. Senna is in the middle of violent and gentle purgers downward, hot in the second degree, dry in the first. Brassivola calls it [4210]"a wonderful herb against melancholy, it scours the blood,
lightens the spirits, shakes off sorrow, a most profitable medicine," as [4211] Dodonaeus terms it, invented by the Arabians, and not heard of before. It is taken diverse ways, in powder,
infusion, but most commonly in the infusion, with ginger, or some cordial flowers added to correct it. Actuarius commends it sodden in broth, with an old cock, or in whey, which is the common conveyor of all such things as purge black choler; or st
