Tag Archives: Mary Doggett

Animals, Beauty, Early Modern, Ingredients, Medicine, Posts, Remedies

The Puppy Water and Other Early Modern Canine Recipes

1 Comment

By Lisa Smith

At first I thought it was a joke when I read a recipe for “The Puppy Water” in a recipe collection compiled by one Mary Doggett in 1682. “Take one Young fatt puppy and put him into a flatt Still Quartered Gutts and all ye Skin upon him”, then distill it along with buttermilk, white wine, pared lemons, herbs, camphire, venus turpentine, red rosewater, fasting spittle, and eighteen pippins.

Mary Doggett, Book of Receipts, British Library MS Add 27466, f. 24r.

Although Mary Doggett’s recipe does not specify purpose, puppy water was a facial treatment – as immortalized by Jonathan Swift in his poem, “The Lady’s Dressing Room” (1732):

There Night-gloves made of Tripsy’s Hide,
Bequeath’d by Tripsy when she dy’d,
With Puppy Water, Beauty’s Help
Distill’d from Tripsy‘s darling Whelp.

Swift also, however, refers to another canine usage: gloves made from dog’s hide. As noted in Nicholas Culpeper’s Pharmacopoeia Londinensis (1718), “little puppy dogs” (and various other animals, such as hedge-hogs, snails, foxes, moles, frogs, or earthworms) “may be made beneficial to your sick bodies”. Robert James’s entry for “Canis” in his Medicinal Dictionary (1743-5) explained that Europeans “generally abstain from Dogs Flesh, till Necessity… obliges them to use it.” But use it they did: the flesh, fat, skin and excrement could all be incorporated into medicines recommended even by renowned medical practitioners.

These remedies ranged from the foul: Culpeper’s Oleum Catellorum (Oil of Whelps) “to bath the Limbs and Muscles that have been weakened by wounds or bruises” or George Bate’s gargle for mouth ulcers and thrush that included a white dog turd (Pharmacopoeia Bateana, 1706). To the cruel: Philip Woodman suggested cutting a live puppy lengthwise through the middle and applying it hot to the head to treat a frenzy (Medicus Novissimus, 1712). To the comforting: for iliac passion (intestinal obstruction), Thomas Sydenham instructed that a live puppy should be laid to the patient’s naked belly for two or three days (Praxis Medica, 1707).

Etched image of a dog nursing three pups.
Nursing dog. Etching by C. Lewis after E. H. Landseer. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

James’ dictionary entry explained the rationale for these treatments. For example, keeping a warm puppy next to one’s colicky belly or gouty leg provided “kindly and cherishing Heat”, but it also worked sympathetically by transferring the disease into the animal instead.[1] Having a dog lick one’s wounds and ulcers could cure them more quickly. The fat of the dog was thought to be better externally than any other animal fat, owing to its penetrating quality, and the drippings could be eaten to treat lung problems or epilepsy. Turned into gloves, the skin of the dog would reflect summer sun; as a piece of leather, it could protect gouty or arthritic legs from cold. Dog dung, being hot and acrid, might treat internal bleeding or toothache.

James did not mention “The Puppy Water” itself. However, for that we might look to the ancient Greeks whom he did discuss. According to Hippocrates, “the Flesh of Dogs is of a heating, drying, and corroborating Nature… whereas that of whelps is of a moistening, lubricating Quality.” The other ingredients in the recipe point to a similar use as the puppy: pippins were moistening and good against inflammation; fumitory and agrimony treated diseases of Saturn (such as old age) and were strengthening and cleansing; plantain firmed the sinews and helped skin problems. Just the thing for a face wash!

[1] The evidence for this is dubious. James recounted the case of a patient in 1742 being salivated (by mercury). When a visitor arrived, the patient put aside his basin filled with his saliva, which his dog proceeded to drink. Within ten hours, the dog suffered from convulsions and died.

This post first appeared at the now-defunct, but much missed, Wonders and Marvels blog in May 2012.

17th Century, British Studies, Early Modern, Female Historical Figures, Herbal Medicine, Recipes and Recipe Books, Women and Gender

Gathering Ingredients For Early Modern Recipes/Herbal Remedies

Leave a comment

By Jennifer Munroe

An entry from Mary Doggett’s receipt book from 1682 in The British Library for a “Water called Rosa Solis” includes a curious set of instructions, curious not so much for the way it explains how to make said water, but rather for the lengthy details about how to gather its ingredients:

“How to make ye Water called Rosa Solis to be gathered in the Month of June or July”:
Take this herb called Rosa Solis it growes in Meadows or Marshy Grounds and in no other places, it is of an herb color and grows very Low and flat to ye ground wth a long stalk in the midst wth six branches, springing out of ye root round about ye stalk, and wth a leaf herb color, and of main bredth and length; and when you gather it take heed in any case you touch no where but ye stalk when you put it up for ye vertue lys in ye leaf, and if you touch it it’s gon; lay it in a very clean basket for ye leaves of this herb is of great strength, vertue and nature…(BL Add 27466 f.2r)

While we might assume that early modern Englishwomen collected their ingredients from their own gardens or from neighboring natural areas, receipt books from the period do not typically say as much. In fact, it would have been entirely possible for women to purchase the ingredients for their receipts. This receipt makes it clear, though, that Doggett’s reader is expected to get them herself.

But what does this receipt tell us about the plant and the woman (or person) collecting it? I find it interesting, first and foremost, that while many receipts in Doggett’s book (and so many others) seem to take for granted that the reader will already know how to acquire and use (and will probably have on hand) key ingredients, this receipt does not. Instead, the reader learns not only where to find it, but also how to identify it once she traipses through the meadow or marsh where it grows. So, either this plant isn’t as common as it might seem, as it appears in countless receipt books in the period without such instruction, or Doggett provides these directions because she assumes that her reader has simply never gathered rosa solis before. After all, the warning about how to handle the plant bespeaks an attention to (critical) detail that one would presumably not require if one had actually picked and used the plant before. Otherwise, would one not already know to “take heed in any case you touch no where but ye stalk when you put it up for ye vertue lys in ye leaf, and if you touch it it’s gon”? Reiterating the restorative powers of the leaf, not the stalk, Doggett’s receipt insists at the end that the reader must lay the leaf ever so carefully in the basket after picking as well, as the “leaves of this herb is of great strength.”

Perhaps this receipt indicates more, though, than something about its user. It may tell us as well about Doggett, about her aspirations as a manuscript compiler of receipts. Doggett’s book is arguably itself an exercise in underscoring the authority and expertise of its author. The book is presented in beautifully rendered italic hand, elaborate in such a way as to mimic the care taken in preparing an illuminated manuscript. It is neatly ordered: first waters, then salves and ointments, followed by plasters, balsams, and then medicines for different parts of the body. What this book tells us is that Doggett was concerned with how it represented her as its knowledegable source. And so, when we read not to touch anywhere but the stalk, we are reminded of the care one should take while gathering, but we are also reminded that Doggett has likely tried this receipt herself, that she too has crossed the meadow or traversed the marsh in search of the rosa solis; and we should be grateful that she has spared us wasting our precious ingredient by not knowing that the virtue lies in the leaf, that she has done the experimenting for us.