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2008 R.J.PENHEY
http://boar.org.uk/abiwxo1ClayColicWater Latest edit 29 Jul 2008
The
Bourne Archive
Clay
Family Papers
Pharmaceutical advice for Matthew Clay.
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Matthew Clay Mr. Saul Joseph
Waterhouse |
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Date: 17 September 1750.
This document takes the form of a manuscript note on paper
210 x 167 mm, addressed on the back: ‘For Mr. Matthew Clay In
Bourn’
Sepr 17th 1750
The Method made use of by Mr Saul for procuring
the Medicine wch he makes use of for ye Gravil is – virt .
Send a Post Letter To Mr Mitchel a Jeweler, in
Drewry-Lane near Long Acre in London, and desire him to deliver to Mr
Joseph Waterhouse at ye Red Lyon in Aldersgate Street, a Doz: of his
Bottles of Cholick water (Such as Mr Saul of Brothertoft in
Lincolnshire has of him) and ye sd Mr
Waterhouse will pay for them, you may likewise desire him to Send a Direction
how to use ye sd Medicine.
It will be proper to let Mr Waterhouse have
timely Notice of ye same wth an
order for him to pay for it,
The 12 Bottles will cost £1: 4: -
NB. 12 Bottles is accounted a Compleat Quantity to Take.
Commentary.
The abbreviation, virt will be vide-licet, to be read as ‘namely’.
‘Cholic’ means ‘of or pertaining to bile’ (OED)
‘Colic’ is paroxysmal griping pains in the belly (OED)
It is not immediately clear what may have been Matthew’s
trouble. Since his correspondent spelled the word with the ‘ch’ we may assume
he meant the former but at that time, medical theory was based on the humours of the Pythagorean philosophers.
References to the humours are found in Morris’ book, as late as
the 1860s. ‘Cholic’ might therefore, refer to choler, that is, irascibility.
Or, the writer may have been thinking of a bitter taste rising from the stomach
in Bilious
vomiting or of what was then called ‘cholera’, bilious diarrhoea. Since
then, the name ‘cholera’ has been transferred to an apparently similar disease
but one which arises from infection by the bacterium Vibrio
cholerae, which
the English found in India and called originally, ‘Indian’ or ‘Asiatic’ cholera. The
adjective is nowadays, dropped and the old use of the word forgotten.
He may however, have been thinking of ‘colic’, which word
refers to the colon,
the large intestine. This might draw itself to the attention of the patient by
undergoing painful spasms, called ‘colic’. The OED (online edition) first notes
use of the word ‘colic’ in about 1440 while ‘cholic’ is not found until 1846.
Therefore, either the writer in 1750, was well in
advance of his time, or he meant ‘colic’.
Gravel is
mentioned. This is more formally known as urolithiasis, the presence
of small clumps of crystals of urea in the urine, Where
they are large enough to be noticed, they are usually bound together by other
precipitated chemicals such as calcium oxalate and magnesium ammonium phosphate
(Lock & Smith
kidney stone). However, popularly, it also refers to a difficulty in passing
urine, whether the crystals be present or not (OED online:
gravel 4). While reference to the urinary solids can be traced back to about
1400, the freer, popular usage is recorded only as late as 1886. The connection
between on the one hand, recourse to a medicine called ‘colic water’ and on the other, urinary gravel would lie
in renal colic.
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