Household and Medical Recipes

Written by several different hands.

The pages are numbered 1-185, page 1 being folio 1 verso, page 2, folio 2 recto and so on. On folio 1 recto (upside down in relation to the rest of the volume) is a closely written page of 30 lines headed "Out of a sarmon of the Arch Bishope of Yorke," over which is written in large letters "C. C. 18."

The volume contains a large collection of household and cookery receipts, with medical prescriptions interspersed. It is similar in character to other known manuscripts of the same class.

There is no title, name, or date, but these deficiencies can be supplied from internal evidence. Some of the receipts are attributed to "my aunt Giffard," who was Martha, a sister of Sir William Temple. She married in 1662 Sir Thomas Giffard of Meath, and after an early widowhood, resided in her brother's house till her death in 1722, at the age of 84. Other members of the Temple family are mentioned, including Lord Palmerston (Henry Temple, 1st Visct. ob. 1757), as well as names known to be closely associated with the family, either by marriage or friendship, such as Hammond, Osborne, Dixwell, Oxenham and others. The names themselves are only inserted as the sources of the various recipes. As regards date, the book seems to have been in use from the second half of the seventeenth century until towards the middle of the eighteenth. These limits are fixed partly by the handwritings, and partly because in the earlier part of the book (p. 11) there is a prescription for "The Plague Water" of the type that was common about 1665, whilst the later entries bear internal evidence of date, and four are actually dated. These latter are: "an eye water, from Cos. Stapylton Sept. 1730" (p. 41); "to make Veal Glew. Lord Islay's Receipt from Mr. Jn. Marsh Sept. 3, 1725" (p. 97); a recipe for cough linctus "this was out of ye newes paper febr. 1732," and finally a prescription from Paris, dated 1714 (p. 178). The book was not used consecutively, for there are several blank pages (25, 140-150, 152-158), and many prescriptions have been added by a later hand and crowded into the blank spaces left earlier in the book.

The following may be noted as points of special interest:-

1. "Dr. Gower's receipt for Elder Wine" (p. 1). [The Rev. Dr. Foote Gower, M.A., M.D., of Chester, 1660-1730.]

2. "Docter Steevens 1 (In one of my own manuscripts of the time of Elizabeth, there is a detailed account of the preparation and virtues of this compound (Dawson M.S. 19 fo. 12 verso).) Watter" (p. 12).

3. "Lucutellus his Balsom" (p. 21). [Written in a scholarly handwriting that does not occur elsewhere in the book.]

4. "Receipt from Docter Gath of ye bitter drinke" (p. 22). [Sir Samuel Garth, 1661-1719.]

5. "A Lambertiue yt Kyng William tooke for his Cough" (p. 35). [Read "Lambitive."]

6. "This was docter Mead's prescription to bee given in case of great vomitings. This was for Sr. Harry Oxenden" (p. 50). [Dr. Richard Mead, M.D., F.R.S., physician to Queen Anne, in her last illness, 1673-1754; Sir Henry Oxenden, 3rd bart., ob. 1720.]

7. "Docter Robysons prescriptions." [Brian Robison of Dublin.] (p. 51.)

8. "A Poultis of a rupture down, Mr. Barnard the great surgion his receipt." (p. 56). [Charles Bernard, Sargeant-Surgeon to Queen Anne 1650-1711.]

9. "To make steel wine, ye receipt given by Ld. Palmerston to ST B: D: wch I made for him to take." (p. 60). [Sir Basil Dixwell of Broome, Kent, whose daughter Elizabeth (ob. 1704) was the mother of the aforesaid Sir Henry Oxenden.]

10. "Docter Borhavere prescription to Ld Castle Durrow for nervous head acke" |(p. 176). [Hermann Boerhaave of Leiden, 1668-1738.]

11. "For the Piles ... This receipt was from the Hospitall at Paris which quite cured a young gentleman who was in extremity. 1714 from Mrs. Osborne" (p. 178).

12. "A Direction how to dress a Cancer in the Breast when tis broke from Mr. Chistleton the great Surgeon." (p. 182.) [William Cheselden, 1688-1752.]