A Cephalic Liniment.
Take Oil of Nutmeg by Expression, and Palm Oil, each 1 dram and half; Chymical Oil of Cloves, Rosemary and Sage, each 1 scruple, mix.
It's used externally, for Debility, Pain, Dulness, Phlegmatic, and Catarrhous Affections of the Head.
Now whether outward Applications affect the Meninges and Brain, or not, truly I doubt; for those are so closely and securely shut up in the Cranium (as 'twere in a Bone-Box) that I suspect they can scarce have any Communication with the Pericranium.
But be that as it will. there may yet be sundry Cases, where the Pericranium it self being primarily affected, permits and requires the use of Externals. And tho' the Matter of a Catarrh do not really flow down out of the Brain, yet the Original of Defluxions is commonly from the Sinciput and Vertex, where the Humour is collected on the outside of the Cranium, and under the Skin, and thence distilling through the Pericranium, into the adhering Membrane, falls down into the Eyes, Ears, Cheeks, Neck, Teeth, Uvula, &c.
Neither is it strange, that these thin Humours should be able to descend thus, since there are Passages open enough for the Blood it self (tho' much thicker) when thereabouts suffused into the Parts, by Reason of a Contusion and Rupture of the Vessels. For thus saith Meekren (in his Epistle to Barbette) when we opened the Cranium of P. James, we found Tulpius his Opinion true, That wounds of the Head, the Blood which commonly is seen to run out at the Ear, descends from the upper part of the Head, between the Cranium and Pericranium; and so entering the space that is between the Os Parietale and Petrosum, goes on and strains it self (as through a Sieve) into the Auditory Passage.
Thomas Fuller
Pharmacopeia Extemporanea 1710