Jean de Renou (circa 1568 – circa 1620) was a
French physician and author. The auction firm Christie’s in 2009 described
Renou as “a French pharmaceutical
authority and chief physician to the French king. In discussing the 1626 Les
Oeuvres Pharmaceutiques, Christie’s pointed out the popularity of such
pharmacopoeias, especially after they were translated from the original Latin
into French and later into English. [http://tinyurl.com/pjzcwdn]
His Dispensatorium
medicum, continents institutionum pharmaceuticarum lib., under the pseudonym Renodœus, was published in 1615 and 1623. The 1623 edition may be
seen through Google Books.
The work was published in London in 1657 as:
A
medicinal dispensatory, containing the vvhole body of physick discovering the
natures, properties, and vertues of vegetables, minerals, & animals: the
manner of compounding medicaments, and the way to administer them. Methodically
digested in five books of philosophical and pharmaceutical institutions; three
books of physical materials galenical and chymical. Together with a most
perfect and absolute pharmacopoea or apothecaries shop.
Accommodated with three useful tables. Composed by the illustrious Renodæus,
chief physician to the monarch of France; and now Englished and revised, by Richard
Tomlinson of London, apothecary.
The English
translation, as noted above, was by Richard Tomlinson. It is described as “Three
books of medicinal materials" and "has separate dated title page and register" with "pagination is more or less continuous.”
It
may be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/mzo9stc
In
the section titled “Of such Medicinal Materials as are requisite for
Compositions made and kept in Apothecaries Shops,” we find the following
descriptions of sugar:
CHAP. V.
Of Sugar.
SUgar was unknown to the Antients; which is now so
copious, that to say a Pharmacopoly without Sugar, were more than an * Irony.
Yet it doth not fall from Heaven like dew, nor is it gathered of Plants leaves,
as some have thought, who look onely at the name: but it is got of an
arundinaceous Plant, which grows not onely in India, but in many places
of Asia and Africa, and now in some Gardens in France; but
it scarcely escapes secure from the Winters tempests.
This sacchariferous Plant is about eight foot high,
very crass, knotty, obduced on every side with long, strait, and twined leaves,
hollow, sappy, and stuffed within with plenty of sweet juice, which will
distill down the cut cane like Amber; whose pith or sap being severed from the
cane by a knife, and co[e or c]ted on the fire, will turn all into Sugar, save
a little Salt at the bottome of the vessel. Its roots emulate the roots of our
Cane, but they are not so ligneous, but more succulent and sweet, from which
some sprigs erupt, which if pulled up, and transplanted in due time, will grow
and flourish. It bears hairy flowers, like our reeds, which one thing is enough
to shew that it is a reed.
The juice extracted from it, and but once co[e or
c]ted, is not sufficiently elaborate, but is red, and thence called brown
Sugar; by some, Sugar-froth; which when it is cocted longer, and more
defecated; will be white, and is called Sugar absolutely. There comes Sugar
from Madara and Canary, which is extraordinary white, which as
much excells the other in worth, as it doth in candour: yet some Negotiators
bring some a little duller, which is as good as the other. But many adulterate
Madarensian Sugar, by washing common Sugar with lixive, cocting it again, and
absterging the nigritude from off it, by which means they make it exceeding
white, but not so sweet, and gratefull. [p 223, showing page 213 in the Google
Books images.]
Sugar-Candy is thus made of common Sugar. Let the
Sugar be melted with a little water, and elixated like a crass syrup, which inject
into an earthen pot, wherein wooden sticks are put lattice-wise, and cross one
over another; set the pot on a board in a hot place, where leave it for the
space of fifteen or twenty dayes, then pour out the syrup that is not
concreted, and pour in a little warm water, to wash off the fatness of the
syrup, which again pour out, and repose the vessel in a hot place; take it on
the morrow, and break it, and you shall finde the sticks laden with
Sugar-Candy, shining like Crystal.
There is another kinde of Sugar not so white, nor
yet so crass as the former, which is partly pulverated, partly redacted to more
crass lumps, which the vulgar call Cassonade, or Castonade; which is not onely
used in Kitchins, but also in Shops.
That which is brought us from far Countryes, is
turbinated pyramidal-wise, and commonly called Sugar-loaf, which is less
cocted, and less obdurate than Candy, and so less calid, and more accommodate
to obdulcorate Condiments, Broths, and other Aliments; for Sugar abates acrity,
retunds acidity, gratifies austerity, and makes all sapours more suave. Whence
not onely Confectioners, but Bakers and Cooks frequently use Sugar, for no
delicate Dish comes on the Table that doth not participate of Sugar; for if
Water, Wine, Fruits, Flesh, Fish, or other Edibles or Potables be nauscated,
the mixture of a little Sugar will make them current.
All Sugar is moderately hot, conducible to the roughness of the tongue,
asperity in the breast, and to the cough; it moves spittle, but hurts the
teeth, for it effects nigritude, mobility, and rubiginy in them. [p 224 but
shown as page 214 in the Google Books images]
The word shown looks like cocted or coeted. It makes sense that it might
be cooked?
Even more interesting are the descriptions of various gums, including
this
description of gum tragacanth.
Page 396
CHAP. IIII.
Of Gumme Tragacanth.
GUm-Tragacanth is pellucid, white,
sweet, light and sincere; which flowes from the vulnerated root of a certain
Plant of the same name, this root adhaeres to the surface of the Earth, and
emitts low and rigid surcles; whereon are many and slender leafes which cover
white, straight, and firm spines: this arbuscle which the Greeks call Tragacantha,
and the Latines Spina herci, growes in Crete and many places in Asia,
which emitts its succe spontaneously, and without incisure, as Theophrastus
asserts contrary to Dioscorides, who saith that this Plant hath no need
of vulneration, which though it be exoticall and seldome seen by our
herbalists, yet I saw it cicurated and florid in the Garden of Jo. Gonnerius
that perite Physitian; yet its coagulated succe, which the Gentiles call Tragacanthum,
and the Apothecaryes Dragaganthum is sufficiently known to all: it
cannot be easily laevigated unlesse the Morter and pestle be hot.
Its use is commended to ocular medicaments, in a liniment with Honey or
Sugar; it emends the roughnesse of the artery, coughs, retusenesse of voice,
and other defluxions.
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