[De epidemia et peste]

making them stay without boiling. Just as if cold water is poured over a boiling pot, the boiling ceases, or if it is poured in little by little before boiling, it will never boil, and it extinguishes the heat. It is useful secondly because it constricts the paths and ducts of the heart and other principal members so that the raised vapor does not reach them, nor does the corrupt exterior air reach the heart and alter it. It is useful thirdly because it consumes the moisture near the heart and dries it out. If, however, one has a weak chest or a cough, remove the vinegar and use wine. The third remedy is to take tyriaca treacle/antidote to the amount of a hazelnut twice a week. And because it heats much, it should be taken with rose water or sorrel water. For tyriaca corroborates and comforts the heart itself by defending it from poison, and this it does by its entire species or property. Therefore Avicenna testifies that he who has used tyriaca before infection will not die of the epidemic, but rather escape from it. And in the fourth [book] of the Canon, regarding those by whom escape from it—that is, the epidemic—is made: it is the administration of tyriaca and metridatum mithridate before it with a good regimen. The fourth remedy is to take metridatum in the manner predicted or with the juice of lemons or bitter oranges, because these counteract poison. The fifth remedy is that of Master Johannes Jacobi, who says that whoever takes one bolus of sorrel in the morning and another in the evening would rarely suffer in a pestilence, and this he proved in himself. The sixth remedy is that every day twice, one should take of the powder of tormentilla tormentil root with water of sorrel or bugloss, melissa, or scabious, or by itself without water, or the root itself may be chewed and eaten, because it defends the heart from poison and poisonous vapors by its property, and it dries without heating. The seventh remedy is to take every day of the seed of bitter orange and of the seed of lemons, three or five, with vinegar syrup or with currant syrup or with water