Recipe "For the overflowing of them"

In this recipe, pictured and transcribed below, Jane Dawson provides a remedy "For the overflowing of them" which refers to either hemorrhage at childbirth or heavy menstruation. At the end of the recipe, she notes the extraordinary success that one Mrs. Warton had with the remedy.

Links within the transcription below, or at the right, will take you to further information on midwifery, distillation, women's networks, and how women noted the effectiveness of the recipes they shared, copied, and used.

“For the overflowing of them” (1)

Take knotgrass & distill i[t] in a cold still (2) & take a pint of that water & mix with it as much bole-armarick in powder as will lye on a shilling & drink it cold 3 or 4 spoonfuls at a time, then for there drink let it be altogether milk & water boyled together, with a little cinnamon there must be 3 pints of water to one of milk lett it stand till it be cold & drink no other drink nor nothing that is hot, put in as much cinamon in powder as bole. Mrs Warton (3)

She saved a woma[n]s life (4)  with this that was given over for dead.

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