If you work in an office you might want to glance through John Arderne's Treatises of Fistula in Ano (London: Early English Text Society, 1910), rather a painful read, but it also tells the exciting story Of the maner of cure of a man whose legge was sodenly bolned, which should be of interest to everyone.

“[A] man in þe day of þe natiuite of our lorde sodenly had his legge gretly bolned fro þe kne to þe anklez, with redenes and gret brennyng, so þat he myht noht stand.”

The problem seems to have been cured with a poultice of marigold:

“And for certayn afor þe cok kraw þe akyng and þe brennyng was cesed and þe pacient rested wele. And within þre daies without any oþer medicyne he was perfitely cured, whar-of many men wondred.”

I'm wondering about it myself.

(Bolnen meant “to swell”, as you can find in the Concise Dictionary of Middle English).

Labels: Civilization