For an uncomb (or sore finger)

Shred one handful of smallage very small, and put to it one spoonful of honey, the yolk of an egg, add a little wheat flower to make it thick; then spread it on a cloth, and lay it to the sore twice a day.

The Queens Closet Opened, W M, 1696

Also called an ‘income’, an ‘uncome’, an ‘ancome’, an ‘uncomb’ was probably originally something that ‘came on’, a visitation. In A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen (1602) it is spelled ‘andcom’, ‘andcome’ and ‘andicome’, of which the OED states ‘The later spellings ancombe, andicomb, show that the word was no longer understood’. The OED ascribes a northern or Scottish origin to the term, but in the sense of ‘something coming on’, a challenge, or something that has to be dealt with, it is closely liked to the very modern, and very southern ‘bring it on’. ‘On’ in the sense of excitement or challenge, beyond just ‘happening’, is seen in ‘game on’, ‘you’re on’ (i.e. ‘I accept your challenge’), perhaps even ‘don’t you know there’s a war on’.

Meanwhile the OED defines an uncomb as ‘An ulcerous swelling rising unexpectedly’ (Wright); a boil; an imposthume; by some later authors applied to a whitlow.’ I wonder how my doctor would react to my complaint that I was suffering from an imposthume or a whitlow. Mind you, a GP friend of mine did refer recently to somebody having a quinsy. It is so easy to believe that the first documented instance of a word can be traced – theoretically you can’t trace the first spoken instance, but the earliest written case has to exist somewhere. But can we ever say that a word – for example, ague, dropsy or flux – has died out? Saying ‘wireless’ in the eighties marked you out as a fogey (I know; I tried it), but we hardly give the word a second thought now.

By the way, smallage was angelica (wild celery) or water parsley, an infusion of which was used to wash and heal ulcers; with the protein of the egg and the antibacterial and antiseptic qualities of honey, this could have been quite helpful.

How to put on a little weight, where necessary

from Artificial Embellishments, Thomas Jeamson, 1665

To make the body or any part thereof plump and fat, that was before too lean

In a contrary extreme to corpulency are those breathing skeletons that carry Lent in their face as a Christmas feast, and look so meagerly that their confessors, since they have nothing left but skin and bones, dare not for fear of a solecism enjoin them penance to mortify the flesh. No part about them thrives so well as their bones, and these look as elastic as if they had eaten up the flesh and were ready to leap off the skin to fall upon others. Truly, Ladies, such leanness is a ravenous guest, and will keep you bare to maintain him; if you have a mind to be rid of his company, observe these prescriptions following, and I dare engage he shall not long disturb you.

Let your chamber in the summer time be kept something cool and moist with violets, lilies, or the like fresh flowers; before you eat, chafe the body till it look red, then walk and stir about some housewife’s employment. When you eat take nothing that is salt or sharp, bitter or too hot, but let your meats be sweet and of good nourishment, such as fresh eggs, mutton, veal, capon, and for three hours after meat take your recreation in dancing, singing, discoursing, etc. use some baths twice a month, and in the mornings this electuary:

Sweet almonds, pistachio nuts, white poppyseed, butter and sugar; beat these up into the form of an electuary [medicinal paste]; take thereof morning and evening the quantity of a walnut; it quickly fattens and gives a good complexion.

The idea of ‘elasticity’ was of something that would spontaneously expand, so the image is of the bones expanding from eating the flesh, and then leaping off to consume flesh elsewhere; bizarre, and quite disturbing, as is the next offered recipe for putting on flesh:

Take twelve or thirteen lizards or newts, cut off their heads and tails, boil them and let the water stand to cool; take off the grease, mix it with wheat flour, feed a hen therewith till she be fat, then kill her and eat her; this often used will make you exceeding fat. Keep it for a rare and true secret.

Tennis balls used as a measure, 1580

A playster for an ague 

Take as much stone pitch to the value of a Tennis bal, and a spoonefull of Tarre, and a penniworth of Treacle and Rosen, to the value of a Tennis ball, and a spoonefull of Hony, boyle it over the fier in a little kettle, and stirre it all togeather till it be well melted, then take a new sheapes skinne, and make holes in it with a bodkin, and spreade the medicine on the fleshye side of the skinne, and lay it to the ache as whot as you may.

An Hospitall for the Diseased, by T C, London 1580

Rosen would be resin, and 'whot' is 'hot'. 'Value' here is presumably used to mean 'size' or 'weight', since the monetary value of what is being measured is explicit - ' a penniworth of treacle and rosen'. This is the earliest example I have come across of an item of specifically sports equipment being used as a non-metaphorical referent outside the field of sport - it's not uncommon to see distances measured by lances or arrows, which would have been used as sporting items, but they are primarily weapons. There's an assumption too in the reference that people dispensing medicine would have a good idea of the size and weight of a tennis ball.

For sinews that be broken in two

Take Wormes while they be knite, and looke that they departe not, and stamp them, and laye it to the sore, and it will knit the sinewes that be broken in two.
from The Good Huswife's Jewell, 1596

There's a mixture here of the doctrine of signatures and curiously possible viable medicine. The worms would be earthworms, 'knite' - that is knitted together, or mating. The instructions say that you must pulverise them before they separate. The intention here is to use two things which are more often separate, but at certain times come together. Mash them and you catch their 'essence of togetherness'. Current research in the west indicates that earthworms have antibacterial properties, though whether these would help to knit together torn sinews is not known. But certainly pulverised earthworm was a much-used ingredient in early modern western medicine, and is still used in the east. A sad end for them in this case, though following the established literary pattern of the lovers united in death.

An Elizabethan scare-cure

A mouse rotted and given to children to eat remedieth pissing the bed.

The Widowes Treasure, 1595

Careful reading makes it clear that the children were given the mouse to eat, not actually directed to eat it. Presumably the intention was to provoke the response - 'No, I honestly won't wet the bed, ever again, Only don't make me eat the rotten mouse.'

However, given the nature of Elizabethan medicine we cannot be sure. People were regularly pouring down their throats water distilled from other people's body parts, oils derived from boiled frogs and toads, powdered snail-shells and fish-bones and glass, and goodness knows what else. It is not unlikely that some brave children took a deep breath and a courageous bite of rotten mouse, and no doubt were very, very ill. And were treated appropriately.

Hiccups, folk etymology, and a treatment for the plague

It was while looking at Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language (1823 edition) during a workshop on change in English that we found ourselves discussing hiccups (we being myself and students and staff from Redborne Upper School).

Walker gives two pronunciations for the word spelt as ‘hiccough’ – hik-kup and hik-kof (his spellings, but without the stress marks or vowel sound indicators). Given that the previous usual words for this were ‘yexing’ and ‘hickit’, which were clearly onomatopoeic, it looks likely that ‘hiccup’ was also onomatopoeic, but given a folk-etymology spelling; this would be on the basis that ‘hiccup’ did not mean anything, but could be thought of as fairly close to ‘hiccough’; and as the phenomenon happened more or less in the throat, ‘cough’ was an extremely plausible word to bring together physical location, sound and spelling. Keep the spelling ‘cough’ and the pronunciation ‘cup’ and all requirements are satisfied.

This seems to be the way that folk etymology works. Generally you have a spoken word to describe something, and the linguistic signifier has no integral connection to the signified thing/action/feeling/whatever. But in some cases there appears some sort of magnetic urge to bring together the received sound and some known word or words to try to make sense of the thing in your hand.

For example, you have something looking like a nut that comes from Spain or France, where it is called castaña or châtaigne, both of which sound vaguely similar to the English words ‘chest’ + ‘nut’; the thing looks enough like a nut (though it is not), to justify creating a word made up from perfectly good English components that we can all understand, though the combination is meaningless, even misleading. The fact that the combined meanings may have little or no sense does not matter at all – asparagus used to be called sparrow-grass, despite there being no basis for any connection between the plant and sparrows; and it is not a grass. Occasionally there occurs a made-up word or phrase in which the vague similarity of sound is reinforced by some other similarity – avocado pears were for some time ‘alligator pears’, the similarity of the skin between animal and fruit urging the usage of ‘alligator’. Its phonic distance from ‘avocado’ isn't so far - two similar vowel sounds in the right place, and the same number of syllables.

My most alarming recent folk-etymology find has been a medical one, in a treatment for the plague. A Joyfull Jewel, T Hill’s translation of Leonardo Fioravanti (1579), recommends dealing with plague buboes thus:

Also you shall open the sores quickly that the matter may come forth, and when they are broken you shall put therein our caustic once only, because it purgeth it divinely.

I have updated the spelling, but the original of ‘caustic’ was ‘cow-stick’. I imagine a printer for whom this was an unknown word (and of course spelling at this time was a free–for-all), working from a mysterious spelling and getting the pronunciation, and from this building a word made from known components. What this led to in terms of possible actual treatment is very scary. I assumed that a cowstick would be a long, pointed stick used for prodding and guiding cows. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cows were not uncommon in city streets, and would need to be guided and herded around – with cow-sticks.

What stopped me at first seeing the folk etymology was the possible scenario in which it would be advisable, when dealing with a bursting bubo, to use a long stick. A bursting bubo sometimes would visibly spray outwards, so it would be natural to want to keep your distance to avoid infection – or at least unpleasantness. Given that most physicians at this time wore long black gowns, broad hats and beaked masks, the use of a cow-stick would have been by no means the most disturbing aspect of treatment. Once again, it’s good to be alive in the twenty-first century.

By the way:

Take thy finger ends, and stop both thine Ears very hard, and the Hickop will surcease immediately.

A Rich Storehouse or Treasurie for the Diseased, 1607

I tried it and it works. Don’t be tempted to use a cow-stick.

Public administration in the time of pestilence

Hereafter I will wright what Magistrats and their officers should doo in time of pestilence, to preserve the people from great ruin.

All Magistrates and their officers when the pestilence doth reign should with all diligence govern and rule their subjects, unto the which there appertaineth five things.

The first is not to put them in such feare, as now a dayes the most parte do, taking them from their houses feafully carrying them unto the Hospitalls, where a number sick of the pestilence are, for the which cause if they were not infected, that terror were enough to kil them, and this is the first thing to be considered.

The second thing is to cause the Phisitions to helpe them, for there is no such cruel disease, but that the Phisitions in short times may finde remedy for it.
The third is to visit them often times and to comfort them with good words and not to let them lack victuals, least that the necessities and feare might cause the infirmitie and death.

The fourth is to let them remaine in their houses and to give them those things that are necessary for them so that they may be cheerful and wel willing.

The fifth and last thing that should be done is to leave their goods, and not to take and burn them, but to preserve them from the other people, and this doing they shall not be afraid, for this is the best way that can be found in the worlde; and therefore happy shall that Cittie be and those people where the Magistrats and officers do use these orders that I have heer prescribed.

From A Joyfull Jewell, Leonardo Fioravanti, trans John Hester, 1579

Fioravanti was working in Bologna in the mid-sixteenth century. What is noteworthy is the need to state these points, with the implication that on occasions they were ignored; so that plague-affected cities must have been left without administration, doctors, and with looting and forcible removal. He has a perhaps naive trust in doctors’ ability to find a cure, but this is an early example of a public health administration programme in a time of crisis.