SOME OBSERVATIONS Made upon the Banellas, Imported from the INDIES: SHOWING Their Wonderful Virtues in Curing Melancholy and Distraction.  
Written by a Physician in the Country to Dr. Allen, one of the Royal Society at London.  
LONDON, Printed in the Year 1694.   

SOME OBSERVATIONS Made upon the Banellas, SHOWING Their Wonderful Virtues in Curing Melancholy and Distraction.  
SIR,  
I Have a Friend at London, whose Son is under your Care for the Cure of his Melancholy: I am glad he is under the Management of so Experienced a Physician. I hear you have Blooded him several times, and shaved his Head, and Blistered him, and given him many Purges, which I believe are very proper: I beg leave to recommend an Admirable Specific in this Distemper, and that is the Banella's which come to us from the Indies, a Tincture, Spirit and Extract drawn out of them are of excellent Use in this young Man's Case.  
They have been often tried, and found serviceable, when other Means and Methods have failed: They wonderfully cheer the Heart, and relieve the Animal Spirits, when oppressed with Hypocondriacal Fumes from the Spleen. They refine the Blood, and clear the Brain, and disperse Melancholy Winds and black Humours, which if let alone would end in distraction.  
A Minister about Fifty Years of Age, a Grave, Serious and Devout Man, who fell into profound Melancholy, occasioned by hard Study and deep thoughts about the Prophetical part of Scripture, relating unto the future State of the Church. He could remember whole Nights wherein he had not slept, and whole Weeks wherein he had not Dined: He had been let Blood several times in the Jugular Veins with a Lancet, and in the Hemorroide Veins with Leeches; his Head shaved, and Anointed with Cephalick Oils; he had been Vomited and Purged very often, and taken Mineral Waters, but all in vain; at length I gave him the Banella Mixture in Whey for one Month, and he is perfectly Recovered, and Preaches very judiciously and vigorously, to the great Satisfaction of his Auditory.  
A young Gentlewoman who had a very great Respect for a Person whom her Relations had no good Opinion of, being unwilling to Disoblige her Friends, and yet desirous to comply with her own Inclinations, she fell into great Melancholy, and that sowered her Blood, and caused Obstructions, and altered the whole Habit of the Body, and brought her into a Consumptive languishing Condition: Much Advice was taken for her, and many Methods prescribed by Learned Physicians, at length she was told of this Specific Mixture, and took it three Months together in Spaw-Waters, and sometimes in Purging Waters, and she is now in a good State of Health of Body, and enjoys great Tranquillity of Mind.  
A Gentleman of a tender Mind and Religious Disposition, upon the Breach of a Vow and Scruples of Conscience, was attended with great Melancholy, which at length degenerated into a Maniacal Distemper of the Brain, wherein the Spiritous Parts of the Nervous Juice being debased, and the Saline parts exalted, and brought to a Fluor, which which being mixed with Sulphurous Particles, derived from feculent Blood, at length produced delirious Phantasms and depraved Imaginations, which perverted his Understanding, and qualified him for Bedlam every Full Moon; and indeed which made him the more subject to Relapses into his Distemper, was its being somewhat Hereditary on the Mother's side; yet notwithstanding this frequent returns, and great Rage and Disorder of the Animal Spirits, this Person was Cured by the use of the Mixture, and now continues clothed in his right Mind, to the Praise of the Omnipotent Physician.  
An Ancient Gentlewoman, whose Husband fell into a Decay in his Estate, was much disappointed thereby, and hereby her Mind much disturbed, which tottered her Understanding, which at some certain times put her upon very unseemly extravagant Actions and Discourses, very disagreeable unto her former Pious ane Prudent Behaviour, to the great Grief of her Children, and other Relations. Much Advise was taken, and all to no purpose; at length I resolved to give her the Specific Mixture of the Spirit, Tincture and Extract drawn out of the Banellas' Bean; for its shape it resembles a French Bean, and contains a Seed as that doth, and was much used in Chocolate, but being dear, is frequently left out of late, as the Makers of it tell us. I gave this Gentlewoman Morning, Noon and Night 30 Drops of this Mixture at a time, she took it in small Beer six Months, and through God's Mercy it brought her to the free Exercise of her Reason. I could give many more Examples if it were needful.  
FINIS.