Potion

“ According to Pliny, "if the leaves and flowers of the borage be immersed in wine, and that wine drunken, the potion will make men blithe and merry, and drive away all heavy sadness and dull melancholy." ”

“ It was the effect of the great heat. You never think of putting on your hat when you go in the garden. Yet madame votre mère gave you so many cautions about it.”
Zéphyrine entered, asked about me with much interest and made me promise to take another spoonful of my soothing potion.
“Very well,” said I, although I had no recollection of this potion, “a sick guest is an inconvenience and all I ask is to get well quickly.”
The potion really did me a great deal of good, for I again fell asleep and dreamed of my immortal nymph. ”

“ Nay, some, scared and daunted into the most intolerable horror by the sights that burst upon their eyes at the first draft, have found the potion less powerful to save than the agony and travail of Nature to destroy. To the unprepared the elixir is thus but the deadliest poison. Amidst the dwellers of the threshold is ONE, too, surpassing in malignity and hatred all her tribe,—one whose eyes have paralyzed the bravest, and whose power increases over the spirit precisely in proportion to its fear. Does thy courage falter? ”

“ Cold, miserable, in an agony of fear, his nervousness doubled by the opium and by a need of food of which he was not aware, there was but one remedy within his reach. The sleeping potion had been calculated for one occasion only, and it was all gone. He tried to drain a few drops from the phial, and a drowsy, half-sickening odour rose from it to his nostrils. But there was nothing left, nothing but the brandy, and little more than half a bottle of that. ”

“ The old man, struggling with his asthma, had almost as good an opiate; the feverish child, tossing under its doubled blanket, a potion almost as sudorific, as we should find in any country place to-day. ”

“ Naturally the potion differs according to the kind of animal into which a man is temporarily converted. It would be absurd, for example, to expect that the dose which turns you into an elephant should also be able to turn you into a crocodile ”

“ The effect of the potion on a person in full health is very different; it stimulates and excites, and is altogether prejudicial; and although it would rather do good than harm to a weakly person, its great virtues are only shown when taken by a man in his last moments. ”

“ In order, therefore, to keep life and hope awhile unextinguished, if perchance they could be prolonged until the dawning of day, raising the dying child in her arms, she gave him a few drops of that potion, which, has the power of subduing and even suspending for a time the operations of nature. ”

“ First, the slow-working purple sort is verily cheap, but difficult of administration; for in water it is plainly visible and easy of discernment in tea. Whereas my patent potion, bringing love at first sight, closely resembleth the much-desired whisky. ”

“ I then turned my attention to a receiver, connected by a worm with an alembic on the furnace. On examining it, I found it contained a small quantity of a bright transparent liquid, which, poured forth into a glass, emitted precisely the same odour as the phial. Persuaded this must be the draught of immortality, I raised it to my lips; but apprehension lest it might be poison stayed my hand. Reassured, however, by the thought of the young man's miraculous recovery, I quaffed the potion. ”

“ See “Katapotia.”
Poison is the same word as “potion.” Both originally meant a draught.
Polychrest. A medicine of many virtues,
[298]
Pomatum. Originally an ointment made from the pulp of apples, lard and rose water, and used as an application for beautifying the face.
Populeum. An ointment made from the buds of the black poplar. It was prescribed by Nicolas of Salermo as a narcotic and resolvent application.
Poultice, from the Latin “puls (pult-) ” through the Italian “polta,” meaning pap, pottage, pulse. “Poltos” was the Greek term for pottage. ”

“ For if you pour any warm liquid into them, the vessels becoming hot, to touch them is painful. On the other hand, if you pour in what is cold, the material changes its quality, injuring the mixture, and the rich potion is hurtful. ”

“ But we must go deeper than this; a tone must be given to the whole system by means of the cleansing and rejuvenating of the very centre of our beings, and, for this purpose, we have prepared our wonderful potion." Here Grandpa, with a wry face, was made to swallow a spoonful of the mixture. ”

“ And very often, taking the Cup, as if offering up the Eucharistic prayer, and prolonging to a greater length than usual the word of invocation, he would cause the appearance of a purple, and sometimes of a red mixture, so that his dupes imagined that a certain Grace descended and communicated to the potion a blood-red potency. ”

“ That evening, the 9th of September, 1598, the two women, supping with the old man, mixed some narcotic with his wine so adroitly that, suspicious though he was, he never detected it, and having swallowed the potion, soon fell into a deep sleep. ”

“ MANDRAKE FROM A SAXON HERBAL
(Sloane 1975, folio 49a)
In the treatment of disease we find that the material remedies, by which I mean remedies devoid of any mystic meaning, are with few exceptions entirely herbal. The herb drinks were made up with ale, milk or vinegar, many of the potions were made of herbs mixed with honey, and ointments were made of herbs worked up with butter. The most scientific prescription is that for a vapour bath, [22] and there are suggestions for what may become fashionable once more—herb baths. ”

“ For sighing, which from too much sweat it is born, or [if] from too much sighing sweat and sometimes ever through the nostrils they appear purulent. For this passion this potion will be most apt: Cretan raisin wine a sextarius s, rib — III, hyssop flowers — II, chironian herbs — II, Illyrican iris — II, cinnamon tubes — II, tragacanth gum — II, southernwood — III, arid masculine marrubium — II, green conifer cones — II: having been beaten diligently and with raisin wine having been mixed in pour into the throat. ”

“ Radically, potion = a drink, but it is generally used in the sense of a medicated or poisonous draught. Poison is the same word through the French.
69. Express resemblance of the gods. Comp. Shakespeare: “What a piece of work is man! ... in action how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god!” See also Par. Lost, iii. 44, “human face divine.”
71. ounce. This is the Felis uncia, allied to the panther and the cheetah. Some connect it with the Persian yúz, panther.
72. All other parts, etc. In the Odyssey (see note on l. 52) the bodies of those transformed by Circe were entirely changed ”

“ Legend and amulet, mummy and wax-figure, herb and stone, drug and elixir, incense and ointment, are all but the means, which the strong will of the gifted Master uses in order to influence and finally to control the weaker mind. Thus powerful perfumes, narcotic odors, and anæsthetic salves are employed to produce enervation and often actual and complete loss of self-control; in other cases the neophyte has to turn round and round within the magic circle, from east to west, till he becomes giddy and utterly exhausted. ”

“ Ointment being smooth oil, do you not think that it is calculated to render noble manners effeminate? Certainly. And as we have abandoned luxury in taste, so certainly do we renounce voluptuousness in sights and odours; lest through the senses, as through unwatched doors, we unconsciously give access into the soul to that excess which we have driven away. If, then, we say that the Lord the great High Priest offers to God the incense of sweet fragrance, let us not imagine that this is a sacrifice and sweet fragrance of incense ”

“ When we take a dose of medicine to tonic our nerves, we don’t laugh sceptically, or even give a thought to the wonder of its operation. Yet surely it is mystery itself that distillations from plants, and tinctures drawn from stones, should hold for us the keys of life and death, and exalt or depress our immortal spirits. Have you ever thought on the marvel that an almost infinitesimal quantity of certain juices distilled from some innocent-faced meadow-flower, a mere dewdrop of harmless-looking liquid, can shatter our life out of us like a charge of dynamite?... ”

“ An attack of cold in the head, with copious running from the eyes and nose, may be aborted straightway by giving a dose of the infusion (made with an ounce of the herb to a pint of boiling water) every two hours; as, likewise, for hay fever. A medicinal tincture (H.) is prepared from the whole plant with spirit of wine, of which an admirably useful lotion may be made together with rose water for simple inflammation of the eyes, with a bloodshot condition of their outer coats. ”

“ The idea of the effect to be produced may indeed be precise; but that of the special qualities of the substance used to produce it, and their immediate action, is always obscure. {72} In fact, the idea of things having undefined virtues is always prominent in magic. Salt, blood, saliva, coral, iron, crystals, precious metals, the mountain ash, the birch, the sacred fig-tree, camphor, incense, tobacco are among the many objects which embody general magical powers, capable of all sorts of applications. ”

“ For it is not right that ensnaring garments and unguents should be admitted into the city of truth; but it is highly requisite for the men who belong to us to give forth the odour not of ointments, but of nobleness and goodness. And let woman breathe the odour of the true royal ointment, that of Christ, not of unguents and scented powders; and let her always be anointed with the ambrosial chrism of modesty, and find delight in the holy unguent, the Spirit. This ointment of pleasant fragrance Christ prepares for His disciples, compounding the ointment of celestial aromatic ingredients. ”

“ They used it as a preservative, they used it for the preparation of their chemicals, and above all they used it as a medicine. For during many hundred years this aqua vitæ, water of life as it was almost universally called, was the most valuable medicine in their large but inefficient pharmacopœia. Each alchemist, each physician, prepared his own elixirs, his own cordials, and claimed miraculous results for his own particular nostrums: but the basis of them all was the same—namely, alcohol, sweetened with sugar, and flavored by distillation or infusion with herbs and spices. ”

“ It is the basis for spirits, tinctures and elixirs; spirits being solutions of volatile substances in alcohol; tinctures, solutions of active principles of plants, generally obtained by maceration and percolation. An elixir is a cordial flavored with orange and syrup, used as a vehicle for other remedies and as a stomachic.
Its action is very extensive. It is used extensively in medical preparations. It is a good application to prevent bed-sores. The addition of one dram of alum to a pint makes it more effective. Hot applications relieve pain in face neuralgia, cold in the face or toothache. ”

“ We have the herb for food as in case of hunger, for narcotic as in case of insomnia, for anodyne as in case of paroxysm, for stimulant as when the pulses flag under the weight of disease. The caterer comes and takes the herb and presents it in all styles of delicacy. The physician comes and takes the herb and compounds it for physical recuperation. Millions of people come and take the herb for ruinous physical and intellectual delectation. The herb, which was divinely created, and for good purposes, has often been degraded for bad results. ”

“ And thou shalt make incense compounded by the work of the perfumer, well tempered together, and pure, and most worthy of sanctification.
30:36. And when thou hast beaten all into very small powder, thou shalt set of it before the tabernacle of the testimony, in the place where I will appear to thee. Most holy shall this incense be unto you.
30:37. You shall not make such a composition for your own uses, because it is holy to the Lord.
30:38. What man soever shall make the like, to enjoy the smell thereof, he shall perish out of his people. ”

“ But if you use the caricum in a dry state, you must abstain from these things, and sprinkle the medicine on the sore. The powder from hellebore and sandarach alone answers. Another liquid medicine:-The herb, the leaf of which resembles the arum (wakerobin) in nature, but is white, downy, of the size of the ivy-leaf: this herb is applied with wine, or the substance which forms upon the branches of the ilex, when pounded with wine, is to be applied. Another:-The juice of the grape, the strongest vinegar, the flower of copper, natron, the juice of the wild fig-tree. ”

“ Take of Tobacco leaves bruised, two pounds, steep them a whole night in red Wine, in the morning boil it in fresh Hog’s grease, diligently washed, one pound, till the Wine be consumed, strain it, and add half a pound of juice of Tobacco, Rozin four ounces, boil it to the consumption of the juice, adding towards the end, round Birthwort roots in powder, two ounces, new Wax as much as is sufficient to make it into an ointment according to art. ”

“ The old herbalists used so many herbs and found each one good for so many disorders that one is filled [159] with wonder that patients ever died, till one examines into the prescriptions and methods generally, and then one is more astonished that any of them recovered. I shall not mention any prescriptions here, excepting the celebrated antidote to all poison, Venice Treacle. This included seventy-three ingredients, and was evolved from an earlier and also famous nostrum, the Mithridaticum, originated by Mithridates, King of Pontus. ”

“ The use of ointment for magical purposes is well known, and it was the incautious use of an ointment of this kind which changed Lucius, the hero of Apuleius’ romance, into an ass. The use of ointments which had the property of translating the user to the Witches’ Sabbath frequently occurs in the witch-trials of the Renaissance, and it has been suggested that drugs producing hallucinations were thus applied. The word κοινή often found in these spells seems to point to some ointment or preparation used in all the magic ceremonies described. ”