Beyond a Cure for Plague

In the event of a plague infection, the Receipt Book of Sarah Longe (V.a.425, c. 1610) recommended a familiar receipt, “A most excellent drink against the Plague”, recounting a well-known mixture of ingredients often referred to as Doctor Burges’ plague water.¹

The combination of muscadine, sage, rue, long pepper, ginger, nutmeg, mithridate, treacle, and angelica water was in wide circulation as a plague cure in early modern English receipt books. After meticulously detailing instructions for its preparation, the manuscript offers further advice as to how this “excellent drink against the Plague” could also be deployed to treat smallpox, sweating sickness, measles, and surfeits:

Early modern citizens turned to a range of receipts to treat their bodily afflictions, with many of these cures prepared in the domestic sphere. In anticipation of my upcoming fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library, addressing “England’s Plague and New England’s Pox: Literary Transactions of Contagious Disease in the Atlantic World, 1550 to 1850”, I wanted to narrow in on moments of intersection between plague and smallpox in two popular plague cures that circulated in early modern English receipt books. My research heretofore has focused on plague writing in early modern England, considering, in part, receipt books; however, plague was but one of the many bodily afflictions endured in this period.

Plague and smallpox were among the causes of death listed in the London bills of mortality – official statistical documents made available to the public that enumerated deaths.³ Plague took up a place of prominence in these bills, with deaths from the disease highlighted against the total number of dead. In the printed collection of London’s weekly plague bills from 1665, London’s Dreadful Visitation (L2926.2), which mapped mortality during the Great Plague of London, the printer included a general bill for the year. The bill, entitled “A generall Bill for this present year, ending the 19 of December 1665. According to the Report made to the KINGS most Excellent Majesty. By the Company of Parish Clerks of London, &c.”, noted that 655 people succumbed to “Flox and Small Pox” during that year, while 68,596 plague deaths were recorded.

Though plague was perhaps the most notorious of the contagious diseases circulating in early modern England, smallpox had a staggering impact in many areas of European colonization. Despite their distinct pathological bases – smallpox is viral and plague bacterial – both diseases marked their path on the skin. Bubonic plague caused swollen lymph nodes, and victims’ bodies became spotted with the tokens described in early modern medical books. Smallpox infection was accompanied by a rash of spots and sores that could permanently scar the skin. Victims of both illnesses suffered high fevers. Though smallpox would eventually be eradicated by way of variolation and later vaccination campaigns, plague, which is treatable in the present-day with antibiotics, continues to fester, with cases reported around the globe each year.

The following instances of plague and smallpox being treated by the same receipt are found in the Folger’s early modern English manuscript receipt books. I have limited my inquiry into those receipts that foreground plague or are known to be primarily cures for plague, as is the case with Dr. Burges’ plague water.

Plague waters circulated widely in early modern English receipt books, recorded alongside culinary receipts and directions to cure other illnesses. A number of plague waters recommended a similar preparation that often included, but was not limited to, rue, egrimony, wormwood, celandine, featherfew, dragons, pimpernel, burnet, sorrel, balm, mugwort, sage, rosemary, marigold, and white wine.  Some variations of this plague water also purported to address further illnesses, including smallpox. Culinary and Medicinal Recipe Book (V.a.685), for example, includes one such receipt, introduced as “A plague water good for the plague small pox Measels or Surfitts”, which instructs the reader to “take 3 or 4 spoonfulls of this water with a little sugar”.

A similar plague water included in the Receipt Book of Catherine Bacon (V.a.621, 1680s-1739), entitled “The Plague water is thus made”, directs the reader to:

Secondary applications for the cure are detailed at the end of Bacon’s receipt: “its good against the Ague the smallpox measles or any other infections”. In each of these examples, the author recommends the plague water for a range of additional diseases without reservation, extending the usefulness of the receipt.

In several versions of Dr Burges’ plague water, too, the medicine is described as treating a variety of afflictions, including smallpox. In one unattributed version of Dr Burges’ plague water found in Receipt Book (V.b.400, late 17^th to early 18^th century), it is introduced as follows: “For the plague small pox Measles surfeets and divers diseases, or any hot Desease”. Referring to humoral imbalance, the title designates the medicine as appropriate to treat “any hot Desease”. Toward the end of the receipt, after noting “Take it alwayes warme morning and evning, a spoonfull or tuo att a tyme if yow be allready deseased sweat upon it if not once a day is sufficient if the party be very weake, Boyle three Drames of leave gold in this Drinyk”, the author details more specifically how it works against different bodily complaints:

Instructions to treat smallpox and other illnesses could also be written into the body of a receipt; for example, the Receipt Book of Penelope Jephson (V.a.396, 1671, 1674/5) includes a receipt for “Docter Burges: his Receite for the Plaugue”, noting toward the end of the receipt: “this is not allso good for the Common plaugue but also for the small pox Measles or any other Infectious pestilent diseases”.

Doctor Burges’ plague water, as these receipts suggest, was a powerful antidote against much more than just plague.

These instances touch on some of the ways in which the plague cures and plague waters popularized in early modern England denoted broader applications against early modern illnesses, including smallpox. In many of these receipts, the combination of ingredients is presented as a cure-all, having the potential to address multiple ailments with a single medicine.⁵ In some receipts, the title designated the usefulness of a medicine in treating a broad range of diseases, while in others the author wove this additional advice into the body of the receipt, guiding the reader to prepare the medicine in specific ways to cure complaints beyond plague. Furthermore, there was a striking economy conveyed in these medicines that could address a range of woes that might torment one’s family. While death and illness were constants in early modern England, the ability to take charge of medical care in the domestic space, and the corresponding advice that circulated to treat a range of diseases and bodily afflictions, gesture to the ways in which citizens managed their health.