The Great Plague. The Story of London\'s Most Deadly Year

110 • Confusion

offered plague preservatives and cures not too different from those offered by
doctors on the Strand. The odd witch may have died of plague, but no one

accused witches of causing death from this disease.^33
Like the witch, the contemporary doctor believed in the efficacy of the
cures he was offering. The noted chemical physician Dr. George Thomson
offered a special cure for the pestilence derived from an emulsified “Buffo

frog.” Thomson’s treatment called for killing the toad by hanging it by a leg,
drying it, and then grinding it finely. “The venomous Idea of hatred and ter-
ror in the Buffo,” he wrote with total confidence, “annihilates the Image of
the pestilential poison”—another case of “fighting fire with fire”^34 or “like

with like.”
Who in this time of testing was the false physician, the purveyor of useless
magical cures, the outright quack? For that matter, who in the medical mar-
ketplace was in a position to judge?

Wonder Drugs

I am looking out for new quarters, where I may have two roomes, and one for

stills to work in, in the winter, if the lord give life, where I intend to sett up divers

chymical stills, if the lord please, and one furnace amongst the rest for the maine

worke if you can furnish mee with Materia Prima.

—John Allin,Southwark, to Philip Fryth in Rye, September 14 , 1665

As the dog days of summer approached, the devoted alchemist John Allin

was prowling the plague-infested streets of Southwark in search of a rare
plant that he called his prima materia,otherwise known as coelifoliumor
trammels nostoc.This was not the ideal time for such an undertaking. An
open plague pit was visible from his window, and death was “approaching

nearer and nearer.” In case he died, the widower Allin sought care for his
three young children in Rye and also safekeeping of his writings on plague
and other valuables. But his real obsession in these days was distilling his
precious prima materiainto a dark, oily substance that would transform gold

into the ultimate wonder drug, known to the ages as aurum potabile,the se-
cret to long life and health.^35
Allin was following in the footsteps of distinguished herbalists, astrol-
ogers, and alchemists from the previous generation.^36 He was not alone. By

Middle Temple Gate in Fleet Street, one could obtain an ounce of the pre-