John Hall's Rose Cures

When treating a Captain Bassett, aged 50, who suffered ‘with hypochondriac melancholy and tremor, pricking of the heart with swelling around ankles, and headache’, Hall prescribed a multi-herb concoction which he instructed must be infused ‘for a day and night in 10 pints fumitory water, roots of parsley, bugloss each 1oz, borage, bugloss, violet and rose flowers each 1 handful’ (Hall, Case 34).

This was not the first time poor Captain Bassett had been subject to Hall’s ministrations. In Case 27, we read that he had been ‘seized by a tertian fever’ and was subjected to days of purging which seemed to have cured him until, ‘three months later he fell into a dropsy with swollen feet’. On this occasion also, Bassett was given ‘roses 1 pinch’ and ‘loosening rose syrup’.

In February 1630, we find Hall treating his own wife Susanna for scurvy (case 129). Susanna appears to be in considerable pain, as Hall describes her suffering for a long time from ‘lower backache, convulsions, diseased gums, foul-smelling breath, wind, melancholy, cardiac passion, spontaneous tiredness, difficulty in breathing, fear of choking, binding of the bowel movements, abdominal torment’. He used roses along with chicken fat, sweet almonds, dill and mucilage of marsh-mallow root in a plaster to ease her lumbar pains. As she ‘was tortured by wind’, one and half ounces of damask roses were used to create an electuary, along with flowers of bugloss, clove-gillyflowers, preserved coconut flesh and various other ingredients. Hall was pleased to record that Susanna was cured.

Lady Jenkinson, a ‘good-looking, devout and modest’ woman, who was wife to Sir Robert Jenkinson and mother of ten children, was also suffering from scurvy (case 120). We find Hall using a very similar electuary to the one he used to treat Susanna, including half and ounce pf damask roses, noting that ‘she was much better afterwards’. Lady Jenkinson did seek Hall’s services again in December, this time because she was tortured by toothache. Hall concocted a gargle for her, which included ‘scurvy-grass water 6oz, red rose, plantain waters each 3oz, rose honey, simple diamoschum each 1oz, sufficient spirit of vitriol for a pleasant tartness’. We are told that ‘she was freed from the toothache, and, glory to God, completely freed from all symptoms’.