when one remembers Wanley's reputation for driving shrewd bargains one
cannot help wondering what he paid for this treasure. Those must have
been halcyon days for collectors, when a man who had been an assistant
in the Bodleian Library with a salary of L12 a year could buy Saxon
manuscripts!

[14] _Herb. Ap._, I.

[15] For "elf-shot" herbal remedies see also _Leech Book_, III. 1, 61,
64.

[16] "The visitation raises again questions which were so anxiously
propounded three years ago. In what manner does an epidemic of this
kind arise? How is it propagated? We are still to a great extent in
the dark in regard to both these points. Indeed, it has recently been
suggested that we do not 'catch' influenza at all, but that certain
climatic or other conditions favour the multiplication on an important
scale of micro-organisms normally present in the human air passages.
It would be foolish to pretend to any opinion on a subject which is at
present almost entirely speculative: yet the theory we have quoted may
serve to show how complicated and difficult are the issues
involved."--_The Times_, January 13, 1922.

[17] Translation from Dr. Charles Singer's _Early English Magic and
Medicine_. Proceedings of the British Academy.

[18] _Leech Book of Bald_, Book II. 64.

[19] _Id._ Book I. 72. For other references to flying venom see _Leech
Book of Bald_, I. 113; II. 65.

[20] _Lacnunga_, 6.

[21] _Cuneiform Texts_, Part XVII. pl. 50.

[22] The directions for the vapour bath are given in such a brief and
yet forceful way that I cannot imagine anyone reading it without
feeling at the end as though he had run breathlessly to collect the
herbs, and then prepared the bath and finally made the ley of alder
ashes to wash the unfortunate patient's head. Like all these cheerful
Saxon prescriptions, this one ends with the comforting assurance "it
will soon be well with him," and one wonders whether in this, as in
many other cases, the patient got well in order to avoid his friends'
ministrations. The prescription for a vapour bath made with herbs runs
thus:--

"Take bramble rind and elm rind, ash rind, sloethorn, rind of apple
tree and ivy, all these from the nether part of the trees, and
cucumber, smear wort, everfern, helenium, enchanters nightshade,
betony, marrubium, radish, agrimony. Scrape the worts into a kettle
and boil strongly. When it hath strongly boiled remove it off the fire
and seat the man over it and wrap the ma