Antimonial Ale.
Take of the best Hungarian Antimony (grosly powder'd, and tied up in a rag) 1 pound, Fumitory and Agrimony, each 4 handfuls; put them into a bag, which hang into 4 gallons of midling Ale, after it hath done working.
I advise it to be put into the Ale after fermentation, upon the account of the Antimony. See Cancer Ale.
It's for ordinary drink against Feculencies of the blood, and cutaneous affections. Mr. Boyle infuseth Cinnaber of Antimony in Rhenish Wine, and attributes to it marvelous virtues in contumacious surgical cases.
Whatever some outlandish men may invidiously say, and others as slavishly believe, midling Ale brew'd of the best malt, boiled, fermented, depurated according to art; that hath no burnt, musty, or otherwise ill smack; that is pale, sparkling fine, fresh, and not upon the fret; and also, is of age just to leave its malty taste, grow winey, and yet not run into any degree of Sourness.
Such liquor is the most comfortable, and coveted Drink the World perhaps ever yet found out, to pacify the loudest of nature's cries, under the tortures of a burning, hot, thirsty stomach.
For beyond all other things, it cools and moistens the parched membranes of the stomach; scoureth salt, acrid, bitter, frothy, slimy filth, from off the villae and glands; turns it over the pylorus; and leaves a balmy, benign litus instead, to keep all supple and easy. Thus, it quencheth that most unsufferable passion of thirst, refresheth the bowels, relieveth the spirits, and proves a true cordial in outragious scalding fevers.
After the good offices in the ventricle, it detergeth and openeth the mouths of the lacteals, that were almost baked up with slime; dilutes and refrigerates the blood, allays the fervent heat, and crispations of the parboil'd fibrillae, repairs all the wasts with nutritious chyme; cleanseth the minutest passages and emunctories; and helpeth the whole mass to circulate freely and duly, to nourish and cherish the parts; and to throw off its recrements by urine, and (where there is an aptitude) by sweat and spittle.
The sweeter, softer and thicker Ale is, the more it suppleth, filleth and nourisheth.
The smarter and staler, the more it openeth and detergeth; and hops (which give it the name of beer) are for that intention such an ingredient (not bad for the stone) and so particular, that nature seems to have put it into the world for this very use, without a fellow: for when the covetous publick brewers have, in dear times, used all their endevours to find out a succedanum to it, never could they light upon any thing that would clarify, relish and preserve beer, as that doth.
Yet in rawness, windiness, weakness, and sourness of the stomach and intestines, occasioning belching, vomiting, looseness, colick: also in pleurisies, catarrhs, vagous pains, dropsies, and such affects as arise from great irritability of the fibres and nerves; and colliquation of the blood and humors: in these cases (and perhaps some more) the best Ale, by reason of its coolness, detergency, smart, pricking, cutting, and springy particles, is not adviseable: but vapid, thick, heavy, fretting, hard, sour, stale, old, strong, etc. are manifestly mischievous.
In truth the dieteticks merit handling anew. If a man of a right genius, leisure and application, were to make true experiments, and rational rules of life, as to the six non-naturals; he'd supply physick with one of its main desiderata; for now (as we have it in books) it's a rich field untill'd, lying all in heaps and generals; and so over-run with first and second qualities, that it produceth little or nothing of fruit in physick. I hope this may pass for an apology, for my stumbling upon a parergon at my first setting out, it being so considerable, and lying so directly in my way, that I could not get by without touching it.
Thomas Fuller
Pharmacopeia Extemporanea 1710