A Draught for a Catarrh.
Take Colts foot water 6 ounces, white Sugar Candy powder'd 6 drams; Yolks of 2 Eggs: Having beat them up together, and set them over a gentle Fire, stir and mix them well, and give it the Patient just as he goes to Bea.
This Draught usually gives great Relief in a (let me call it) Guttural Rheumatic and Evening Cough, caused by catching Cold, which is pretty quiet all day, but returns at Night, especially when one lies down in Bed, incessantly disturbing, and vexatiously hindring Rest. For by reason of its sweet unctuous Mucilage, it so defends the Larynx, that it feels not the pricking of the sharp irritating Serum, and so staves off the Cough, and dallies away the hour, 'till at length, the time of Coughing is slipp'd, and Sleep steals on.
But in a Pectoral Cough (which comes deep, and arises from Pituitous Blood, pouring our gross Feculencies into the Lungs) a too liberal use of Sugar seems pernicious; For as much as it renders the Mass of Blood more Feculent than it was before, and stuffs up the loaded Bronchia with a fresh income of Filth, and affecteth the Fibres with a purtredinous Disposition.
In the Isle of St. Thomas (saith Garenciers) under the Equator, they grind their Sugar Canes, and when they have pressed out the Juice, they throw the remainder to the Hogs, which grow so fat and tender with it, that they may vie for goodness with the Spanish Capons, and are given to People of weak Stomachs. Hence may be collected, that if Sugar hath a Faculty to produce such a tenderness in Hogs Flesh, which is the grosseth and hardest of all Flesh, for the same reason 'twill promote and hasten Corruption, and a Sphacelus in the Lungs, which are of a soft and spongy substance: And on the contrary, that they may be preserv'd from it, by Stypticks and Astringents.
Thomas Fuller
Pharmacopeia Extemporanea 1710