Reconstruction of a medicinal plaster
Transcription
<div>
<id>p066v_1</id>
<head>Garder de croistre les tetins<lb/>
<del>d</del>@<add>ou diminuer les trop grands</add></head>
<ab>Ayes de grands <m>pains</m> nouvellement tirés du four & les<lb/>
partes par moictié, & le plus chauld que fere se pourra<lb/>
apliques les dessus <del>& ilz</del>. & faictes cela 3 fois le jour,<lb/>
& continues 4 ou 5 jours. Aprés, faictes emplastre de<lb/>
<m>tourmentine de <pl>Venise</pl></m> ou pour mieulx de <m>tourmentine commune</m>,<lb/>
mesles y du <m>sumach</m>, des <m>prunelles</m> de buissons, de la <m>graine<lb/>
de coings</m>, <m>balaustes</m>, <m>foeilles d’olivier</m>, & semblables<lb/>
decuits, & mesles avecq la <m>tourmentine</m>. Mays j’oublyois<lb/>
qu’il fault aprés avoir apliqué le <m>pain</m> chault qui ramolist,<lb/>
& faict suer, mectre dessus des linges trempés en <m>eau de ruche de<lb/>
miel</m>, c’est à scavoir de <m>miel</m> &<m>cire</m> extraicts tout ensemble du<lb/>
<oc>bornat</oc>.</ab>
</div>
Translation
<div>
<id>p066v_1</id>
<head>Preventing the swelling of breasts <del>d</del> <add>or to make those that became too large smaller</add></head>
<ab>Take large <m>loafs of bread</m> freshly drawn from the oven and cut them in half &, as hot as possible, lay them on <del>& ilz</del> & do this 3 times a day & continue 4 or 5 days. Next, make a plaster with <m><pl>Venice</pl> turpentine</m> or, even better, <m>common turpentine</m>. Mix in <m>sumac</m>, <m>selfe-heale</m> from bushes, <m>quince seeds</m>, <pa>pomegranate flowers</pa>, <m>leaves of olive trees</m>, & the like, cooked & mixed with the <m>turpentine</m>. But, I forgot, one needs, after having laid on the hot <m>bread</m>, which is soggy & makes one sweat, to lay on linens soaked with <m>water from a beehive</m>, which is to say <m>honey</m> and <m>wax</m> extracted all together from the beehive.</ab>
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Preparation and Precautions
- The title of the recipe is a bit confusing. I’m not sure it is used for the breast, or just generally for the swelling of skin. The same confusion also exist in the main body of the recipe. It’s not clear that the plaster was painted on the bread or directly applied on the skin. Generally, plaster in early modern period was always painted on linen and then applied on the body. Those without linen were called salve, ointment, or balsam. In this case, the bread seems playing the role of the linen. So I decided to paint the mixture of turpentine and herbs on the two pieces of bread (whole wheat bread bought from Westside market).
- This recipe contains 5 kinds of herb that need to be identified before the experiment.
- sumach. It’s quite certain that this herb refers to the “sumac”, a medicinal plants widely used in the early modern recipes. However, I face the difficulties to find the right pieces and to decide the right part of the plant used in the recipe. The berries of sumac is and was used as an important spice in the Arabic cuisine both at present and in the past. The leaves and stems of sumac was also used as natural dye and astringent. John Gerarde’s Herball Or Generall Historie of Plantes records a remedy that uses sumac leaves in the making of an ointment or plaster to cure the gangranes (necrotic ulceration of the skin). Furthermore, I identified the next ingredient “prunelle” as leaves of the herb. The recipe requires the “sumach” and “prunelle” from the bushes. So I assume they should be the same type of material, the leaves. Another problem still exists, The local species in southern Europe is rhus coriaria, we cannot find this species from the botanical gardens and markets in NYC. In the end, we decided to use the local species in North America, the rhus glabra which we found in the “bushes” in the Morningside Park near the campus.
- prunelle. This is the most problematic ingredient in the recipe. At first, it was translated as “sloe” according to the Cotgrave. But I didn’t find any sources indicating sloe’s usage in medicinal plasters or its curative effects for the skin illness. Then I looked back into the Cotgrave. It contains more information about the prunelle other than the “sloe”. It says, the prunelle is also “the hearbe called Prunell, or Brunell, Hookeheale, Sicklewort, Carpenters hearb.” By searching all these synonym, I finally found on item in the Herball Or Generall Historie of Plantes, which is called the “selfe-heale”. The herb grows in the fields of Europe. Among its various species, the prunella vulgaris is the most common. It was used as an astringent by early modern physicians, who included it in decoctions for wounds or mouth-related ailments. This is definitely the thing I’m looking for. The self-heal herb used in this experiment was bought from the Flower Power Herbs and Roots, INC.
- The other ingredients in the recipe are relatively easy to identify. I bought quince from the Westside Market near the campus, from which I can get the seeds out. (graine de coings). Olive leaves were bought from Flower Power. Pomegranate flowers (balaustes) were a bit difficult to get as we did the experiment in April. Prof. Smith asked her friends for help. We finally got a box of flowers sent from California.
- Another important ingredient is the turpentine, the binding material in the plaster. The recipe mentioned two kinds of turpentine, the Venice turpentine and common turpentine. We figured the Venice turpentine was made from the resin of larch tree, which the common turpentine from resin of pine tree. I used two kinds of turpentine in the lab inventory for the reconstruction: larch turpentine, and silver fir turpentine balsam. There is another bottle of turpentine labeled as “venice turpentine”, but it should be more appropriate to use the one that is clearly made from larch.
Name: Xiaomeng Liu, Prof. Smith, Ludovic Touze-Peiffer
Date and Time:
2016.05.01, 02:00-03:30 pm
Location:Chandler 260
Subject: making of a medicinal plaster
The experiment starts with buying whole wheat bread from the Westside Market. At first I intended to bake the pain du common by myself based on the previous experience in the bread molding session, as the recipe requires hot bread “freshly drawn from the oven,” but there was not time for this before the experiment. Since I did not plan to really lay the hot bread on the body, the bread bought from the market is a reasonable substitute for holding the plaster. I also bought two quinces in case that the seeds from one quince is not enough. (Note: just bring two pieces of bread and one quince into the lab to avoid wasting food. Leave the rest in the closet at the door. Be aware anything that have been brought into the lab is inedible).
I set up the workstation by gathering the two kinds of turpentine, one hotplate, 2 pots, 2 spoons, 2 measuring beakers in the fume hood; and all the herbs, a set of mortar and pestle, a knife, and a electronic scale on the counter. First I cut up the quince and get the seeds out. The seeds in one quince are approximately 3 grams. As the amount of each ingredient is not specified in the recipe, I decided to use 3 grams of each herb in making the plaster (excluding the pomegranate flower, which I used 4 pieces).
I put all the herbs into the mortar and coarsely ground them up. Then I moved them into fume hood. I planned to used 50ml of each turpentine in the following steps. However, I found the larch turpentine is really vicious and different to pour out from the bottle. If I pouring it out to a measuring beaker before simmering it in a pot, a considerable amount of turpentine will stick on the beaker and thus wasted. In this case, it’s better to skip the measuring step. The larch turpentine left in the bottle is just about one third. So I decided to use all the larch turpentine left in the bottle, and use approximately the same amount of silver fir turpentine, which, of course, was measured by my eyes. It’s not accurate. But accuracy is not required in this experiment. This was also the case in the early modern artisanal work. Most of the measurements were not conducted by accurately designed tools, but through experience, evaluation, analogy, body sensory, or materials used in everyday life.
Then I added each of the two turpentines into two separate pots, separated the ground herbs into two halves, and put each half into one pot of turpentine. The Silver Fir Turpentine is more fluid than the Larch Turpentine, but still, the vicious texture make it hard for me to mix the herbs and turpentine before heating. The recipe does not mentioned the temperature and duration of the cooking process either. I thus drew on a nineteenth-century recipe for making a plaster with turpentine, which indicates the turpentine should be “boiled to a plaster-like consistency”. (Albert H. Buck ed., A Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences: embracing the entire ranges of scientific and practical medicine and allied science, volume VII (New York: William Wood & Company, 1894), 53.) I did not know what is a “a plaster-like consistency”, and hoped the answer would reveal during the process. The flash point of Larch Turpentine is 59℃, and that of silver fir turpentine is 78℃. I need to monitor the temperature during the process in order to avoid over-heating.
I wanted to use to hot plates and heated the two pots simultaneously at first. But then I found it’s safer to heat the two pots one by one to avoid misoperation. After heating to the flash points, both turpentines became more fluid, making them easier to stir and mix with the herbs. I cooked both plasters for ten minutes and then spread the mixtures on two pieces of bread respectively. As the turpentines become viscous again after cooling, it is better to apply them to the bread while they are still hot.
Name: (Also the name of your working partner)
Date and Time:
2016.[Month].[Day], [hh]:[mm][am/pm]
Location:
Subject:
Name: (Also the name of your working partner)
Date and Time:
2016.[Month].[Day], [hh]:[mm][am/pm]
Location:
Subject:
ASPECTS TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN MAKING FIELD NOTES
- note time
- note (changing) conditions in the room
- note temperature of ingredients to be processed (e.g. cold from fridge, room temperature etc.)
- document materials, equipment, and processes in writing and with photographs
- notes on ingredients and equipment (where did you get them? issues of authenticity)
- note precisely the scales and temperatures you used (please indicate how you interpreted imprecise recipe instruction)
- see also our informal template for recipe reconstructions