The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one...

College.] Take of the heads of both white and black Poppies, seeds and all, of each fifty drams, Maiden-hair, fifteen drams, Liquorice, five drams, Jujubes, thirty by number, Lettice seeds, forty drams, of the seeds of Mallows and Quinces, (tied up in a thin linen cloth) of each one dram and an half, boil these in eight pints of water till five pints be consumed, when you have strained out the three pints remaining, add to them, Penids and white sugar, of each a pound, boil them into a Syrup according to art.

Culpeper.] All these former Syrups of Poppies provoke sleep, but in that, I desire they may be used with a great deal of caution and wariness: such as these are not fit to be given in the beginning of fevers, nor to such whose bodies are costive, yet to such as are troubled with hot, sharp rheums, you may safely give them: The last is appropriated to the lungs; It prevails against dry coughs, phthisicks, hot and sharp gnawing rheums, and provokes sleep. It is an usual fashion for nurses when they have heated their milk by exercise or strong liquor then run for Syrup of Poppies to make their young ones sleep. I would fain have that fashion left off, therefore I forbear the dose: Let nurses keep their own bodies temperate, and their children will sleep well enough.