Prescription to Prevent Fits in Children c1717 (ref: SAY/1)
 This prescription is from a book collected together by Mary Sayer in 1717. Unfortunately we know nothing about her. She may have been the widow of an apothecary or simply the local healer. Each prescription in the book is attributed and interestingly very few come from doctors. This one she attributes to her mother, writing that it ‘never faild’ so some of her knowledge at least was passed down. There is an index at the rear with over hundred cures or treatments from asthma to a ‘wash for the heats’.
The prescription shown here requires ‘pearle and corrall of each ten grains’ mixed with black cherry water. This was to be ‘the first thing the child takes when it is born’ and it will never be troubled with fits.
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