| 
|
 |
PITHY QUOTES FROM PAST MASTERS
I had the opportunity lately to make use of millepedes. There was a child here in this town (a citizen’s daughter) of six years of age, troubled exceedingly with sore eyes, especially one of them, which she would not suffer to be touched or opened for eighteen weeks and more, nor could not endure the least light, having a very sharp fretting rheum in it, which did inflame all the cheek on that side, on which it fell. She had been touched for the evil, but received no benefit. I only gave her small beer with millepedes bruised and infused in it, for a fortnight, to drink for her ordinary drink, and one gentle purge before the use of them; and she is as well recovered as ever she was in her life; the rheum is all gone; she hath no blemish at all in them, only a little speck upon the cornea, which since is worn quite off.
The Correspondance of Robert Boyle. Volume 2, "Letter from Lower to Boyle," June 1664