nd 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 steeped
in wine, which Heurnius accounts sufficient, without any farther
correction.

Aloes by most is said to purge choler, but Aurelianus _lib. 2. c. 6. de
morb. chron._ Arculanus _cap. 6. in 9. Rhasis_ Julius Alexandrinus,
_consil. 185._ Scoltz. Crato _consil 189._ Scoltz. prescribe it to this
disease; as good for the stomach and to open the haemorrhoids, out of
Mesue, Rhasis, Serapio, Avicenna: Menardus _ep. lib. 1. epist. 1._ opposeth
it, aloes [4212]"doth not open the veins," or move the haemorrhoids, which
Leonhartus Fuchsius _paradox. lib. 1._ likewise affirms; but Brassivola and
Dodonaeus defend Mesue out of their experience; let [4213]Valesius end the
controversy.

Lapis armenus and lazuli are much magnified by [4214]Alexander _lib. 1.
cap. 16._ Avicenna, Aetius, and Actuarius, if they be well washed, that the
water be no more coloured, fifty times some say. [4215