A Receipt to make Surfeet Water
Take 6 handfulls of cardus, 3 handfulls of the best spermint and 3 handfulls of wormewood. Strip all these from the stalkes. Unto these herbs put 2 gallons of n ew milk warm from the cow and let them steep all night. Then putt the milke and the herbs into a cold still and keep under it a soft fire that the milke curdle not and as they still, sometimes stir them that they grow not to the bottom of the still.
The last runing is the weakest and best in a high feaver. Both the first and the last is good against surfeets, feavers, agues, headakes, all distempers and in the stomach proceeding from heate or cold. A good wine glass full is the quantity usually taken.
Rev. William Twigge
Notebook 1715