Letter 0703

John Ray to Hans Sloane – August 27, 1701


Item info

Date: August 27, 1701
Author: John Ray
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4038
Folio: ff. 223-224



Original Page



Transcription

Ray was a theologian and naturalist who collected and catalogued his botanical findings in the much lauded Historia plantarum (1686, 1688) (Scott Mandelbrote, Ray , John (16271705), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23203, accessed 18 June 2013]).




Patient Details

  • Patient info
    Name: N/A John Ray
    Gender:
    Age:74 years old.
  • Description
  • Diagnosis

    Diarrhea; painful leg sores.

  • Treatment
    Previous Treatment:

    A Poor Woman's diet drink; oak bark, ribwort, mouse ear, comfrey, cinquefoil, all boiled in ale. Ray drank this for a week.


    Ongoing Treatment:

    Sir Thomas Millington, believing that no outward applications would help, has prescribed a plum antiscorbutick diet drink, which Ray has taken for two weeks.


    Response:

    The diet drink did not dry up Ray's sores, but it did cure his diarrhoea - the barrel of drink leaked and Ray lost the rest of the dose. He is not upset, believing that while the drink would eventually cure his sores, drinking so much of it would be bad for his health in other ways. Millington's diet drink is having no effect.

  • More information
  • Medical problem reference
    Injuries (includes wounds, sores, bruises), Diarrhoea, Legs, Ulcers, Stomach, Pain, Age, Skin ailments