Elizabeth I, and her cure for wind!

A cure for wind prescribed by the Tudor monarch Elizabeth I

Take ginger, cinnamon, galingale ( a plant in the ginger family) of each 

one ounce; aniseeds, caraway seeds, fennel seeds, of each half an ounce; mace 

and nutmegs two dram each; pound together and add one pound of white sugar.

Use this powder after or before meat at any time.

 It comforteth the stomach, helpeth digestion and expels wind greatly.

From the Fairfax Household Book 17th/ 18th century

October is the month for making potions...

The month of harvest and falling leaves is the ideal time to make 

sympathetic and magical potions for the treatment of wounds; these 

as tradition dictates are applied to the weapon that makes the wound 

instead of the wound itself.

"Take the moss on the skull of a strangled man two ounces; of the

 mummia of man's blood an ounce and a half; of earthworms

 washed in wine or water an ounce and a half; of the hemetitis two 

ounces; of the fat of a boar and a boar pig, two drams each; oil of 

turpentine two drams. Pound them and keep them in a narrow pot 

and make this cure when the sun is in Libra. Dip into the ointment 

the iron or wood of the weapon, or if the weapon cannot be had a

 sallow stick made wet with blood in opening the wound. And let the

 patient wash his wound in the morning with his own urine and 

bind it with a clean cloth, always wiping away the matter."

Excerpt from the Fairfax Household Book, 17th/18th century.