some another.  Cardan and Brassavola both hold that Nullum simplex medicamentum sine noxa, no simple medicine is without hurt or offence; and although Hippocrates, Erasistratus, Diocles of old, in the infancy of this art, were content with ordinary simples:  yet now, saith [4178]Aetius, “necessity compelleth to seek for new remedies, and to make compounds of simples, as well to correct their harms if cold, dry, hot, thick, thin, insipid, noisome to smell, to make them savoury to the palate, pleasant to taste and take, and to preserve them for continuance, by admixtion of sugar, honey, to make them last months and years for several uses.”  In such cases, compound medicines may be approved, and Arnoldus in his 18. aphorism, doth allow of it. [4179]"If simples cannot, necessity compels us to use compounds;” so for receipts and magistrals, dies diem docet, one day teacheth another, and they are as so many words or phrases, Que nunc sunt in honore vocabula si volet usus, ebb and flow with the season, and as wits vary, so they may be infinitely varied. Quisque suum placitum quo capiatur habet. “Every man as he likes, so many men so many minds,” and yet all tending to good purpose, though not the same way.  As arts and sciences, so physic is still perfected amongst the rest; Horae musarum nutrices, and experience teacheth us every day [4180]many things which our predecessors knew not of.  Nature is not effete, as he saith, or so lavish, to bestow all her gifts upon an age, but hath reserved some for posterity, to show her power, that she is still the same, and not old or consumed.  Birds and beasts can cure themselves by nature, [4181]_naturae usu ea plerumque cognoscunt quae homines vix longo labore et doctrina assequuntur_, but “men must use much labour and industry to find it out.”  But I digress.

Compound medicines are inwardly taken, or outwardly applied.  Inwardly taken, be either liquid or solid:  liquid, are fluid or consisting.  Fluid, as wines and syrups.  The wines ordinarily used to this disease are wormwood wine, tamarisk, and buglossatum, wine made of borage and bugloss, the composition of which is specified in Arnoldus Villanovanus, lib. de vinis, of borage, balm, bugloss, cinnamon, &c. and highly commended for its virtues:  [4182]"it drives away leprosy, scabs, clears the blood, recreates the spirits, exhilarates the mind, purgeth the brain of those anxious black melancholy fumes, and cleanseth the whole body of that black humour by urine.  To which I add,” saith Villanovanus, “that it will bring madmen, and such raging bedlamites as are tied in chains, to the use of their reason again.  My conscience bears me witness, that I do not lie, I saw a grave matron helped by this means; she was so choleric, and so furious sometimes, that she was almost mad, and beside herself; she said, and did she knew not what, scolded, beat her maids, and was now ready to be bound till she drank of this borage