Another ill-favoured trick have physicians got to use to the eye, and that is worse than the needle; which is to take away the films by corroding or gnawing medicine. That I absolutely protest against.
1. Because the tunicles of the eyes are very thin, and therefore soon eaten asunder.
2. The callus or film that they would eat away, is seldom of an equal thickness in every place, and then the tunicle may be eaten asunder in one place, before the film be consumed in another, and so be a readier way to extinguish the sight than to restore it.
It is called Chelidonium, from the Greek word _Chelidon_, which signifies a swallow; because they say, that if you put out the eyes of young swallows when they are in the nest, the old ones will recover their eyes again with this herb. This I am confident, for I have tried it, that if we mar the very apple of their eyes with a needle, she will recover them again; but whether with this herb or not, I know not.
Also I have read (and it seems to be somewhat probable) that the herb, being gathered as I shewed before, and the elements draw apart from it by art of the alchymist, and after they are drawn apart rectified, the earthly quality, still in rectifying them, added to the _Terra damnata_ (as Alchymists call it) or _Terra Sacratisima_ (as some philosophers call it) the elements so rectified are sufficient for the cure of all diseases, the humours offending being known and the contrary element given: It is an experiment worth the trying, and can do no harm.
THE LESSER CELANDINE, USUALLY KNOWN BY THE NAME OF PILEWORT AND FOGWORT.
I WONDER what ailed the ancients to give this the name Celandine, which resembles it neather in nature nor form; it acquired the name of Pilewort from its virtues, and it being no great matter where I set it down, so I set it down at all, I humoured Dr. Tradition so much, as to set him down here.
_Descript._] This Celandine or Pilewort (which you please) doth spread many round pale green leaves, set on weak and trailing branches which lie upon the ground, and are flat, smooth, and somewhat shining, and in some places (though seldom) marked with black spots, each standing on a long foot-stalk, among which rise small yellow flowers, consisting of nine or ten small narrow leaves, upon slender foot-stalks, very like unto Crowsfoot, whereunto the seed also is not unlike being many small kernels like a grain of corn sometimes twice as long as others, of a whitish colour, with fibres at the end of them.