Iuris Caponum in primis plurimus apud medicos usus est, maxime quod consumptum dicunt, vulgo consumato, alii [351] destillatum, alii aquam carnis. Id enim ad restaurandas {ocyus} <ocius> aegrorum vires satis laudari non potest. Obscurus quidam ex Capi iure mire vires recreari pollicetur, si vel cochlearium parvum inde aegrotus sorbeat. Capum veterem, inquit, para, exentera, totum cum ossibus comminue. Tum in vase bene obturato vitreo, aut stanneo per sex horas bulliat, adiecto etiam auro, ut annulo, vel numismatibus aureis.

Among physicians is very frequent the use first of all of capon's broth, especially that they call worn-out, commonly said consumato in Italian, others call it distilled, others water of flesh. In fact this kind of broth cannot be sufficiently praised for quick restoration of patients’ strength. An unknown author guarantees that with the broth of capon the strength is recovered in a marvelous way even if the patient drinks only a teaspoon of it. Prepare an old capon, disembowel it, cut it entirely into little pieces with its bones. Then it has to boil for six hours in a well-closed glass or tin container, adding also gold, as a ring, or gold coins.

Fieri, inquit Platina[1], ius consumptum, aut ex Phasiano, aut ex Perdice, aut ex capreolo, aut ex Pipionibus, aut ex Columbis sylvaticis potest. Si ex Capo voles, cacabum sumes, qui aquae metretas[2] quatuor contineat. Huic Capum fractis et comminutis ossibus indes cum uncia succidiae macrae, piperis granis triginta, cinnamo pauco, nec nimium tunso, tribus, vel quatuor {caryophillis} <caryophyllis>, salviae lacerae trifariam foliis quinque, lauri duobus. {Sinite} <Sinito>[3] haec efferveant horis septem, vel donec ad duas scutulas, vel minus redigantur. Cave salem indas, aut salita, si aegrotantium causa fiat. Parum aromatum nil vetabit, quo minus aegroto etiam apponatur. Senibus hoc, et valetudinariis, detur. Haec ille.

Platina says: A consommé can be made from pheasant, partridge, roe deer, pigeons, or with wild pigeons. If you wish to make it from a capon take a cauldron which can contain four metretae of water [around 36 l]. Put inside a capon after its bones have been crumbled and broken into bits along with an ounce [27.28 g] of lean lard, thirty grains of pepper, a little cinnamon and not too much crushed, three or four cloves, five leaves of sage torn in three bits, two of laurel. Let these ingredients boil for seven hours, or until they have reduced to two small trays or less. Keep from adding salt or salty things if it is prepared for sick persons. The presence of some spices won't forbid that it is given to a sick person too. It must be given to old people and chronic invalids. Thus far Platina.

Nostrae mulierculae Capum, vel pullastrum simul cum ossibus contundunt, ac tam diu in suo iure decoquunt, donec ad exiguam quantitatem ius redigatur, et cremoris albi veluti substantiam acquirat, idque aegris debilioribus potandum exhibent cum felicissimo successu.

Our women pound down a capon or a young chicken along with their bones and cook it in its broth for such a long time until the broth reduced to a very small quantity and almost acquired the consistence of a white pap, and then give it to drink to more weakened patients with an excellent result.

Sed hunc coquendi modum improbat doctissimus, et admodum Reverendus F. Evangelista Quatramius[4] serenissimi piae memoriae Herculis Ferrariensium Ducis horti praefectus, et in arte distillatoria versatissimus amicus noster veteranus. Vult autem Capum integrum decoqui per aliquod tempus, iusque quod ab eo defluit, dum eximitur, colligi (id enim reliquo alio praestantius iudicat) Capum vero fortiter comprimi, ut humiditatem omnem {a}edat: si vero, ut fit, pulverem cordialem[5] admiscere placeat, eum cum reliquo iure magis aqueo dissolvere iubet.

But the very learned and quite reverend Brother. Evangelista Quattrami, director of the botanical garden of the Most Serene Duke of Ferrara Ercole II of pious memory, and my old fiend most skilled in the art of distillation, disapproves this method of cooking. For he thinks that the whole capon has to cook for a certain time and that the broth coming out when it is removed from the pot has to be collected (for he thinks that this broth is better than that remaining in pot), but that the capon has to be compressed with strength so that it throws the whole liquid out: but if, as it happens, one wishes to mix a cordial powder, he prescribes to dissolve it with the remaining more watered broth.

At licet hunc coctionis modum minime improbarim, probare tamen non possum. Siquidem Caponis integri coctio multum aquae requirit, quae ad parvam quantitatem, quae aegro ex<h>iberi debet, redigi quam cito, ac facile nequit: neque verum etiam esse existimo id ius, quod in exemptione defluit, caetero praestare. Alii vero Capum accipiunt, vel Gallinaceum tenerum, vel Gallinam, decoquunt, contundunt, totum id vase recondunt, igne subiecto per alembicum, vel duplici vase destillant, qui modus quam maxime paratu facillimus. Quod si aeger pestilentia laboret, periti medici simul herbas adijciunt Caponis coctioni instituto suo congruentes, quales sunt melissa, scordium, buglossa, borrago, carduus benedictus, cicoria, endivia, acetosa, scabiosa, tormentilla, flores nynph<a>eae, violarum, buglossae, borraginis.

But although I could not afford to disapprove this method of cooking at all, nevertheless I cannot approve it. Since the cooking of an entire capon requires much water which cannot be reduced rather quickly nor easily to that little quantity which must be given to a patient: and I also think that it is not true that that broth which flows out during the removal from the pot is better than the remaining one. But others take a capon or a tender rooster or a hen, they cook, crush, place the whole in a container, and they distill using an alembic or a container with two compartments with fire underneath, a method which is very easy to make ready. But if a patient is suffering from plague, experienced physicians add herbs fitting for usual cooking of capon, as lemon balm, water germander, bugloss, borage, blessed thistle, chicory, endive, sorrel, devil's bit, common tormentil, flowers of water lily, violets, bugloss and borage.

Andreas a Lacuna[6] circa finem libri de peste, Capo generosus, inquit, in aqua pura discoquitur cum foliis borraginis, et buglossi ana m. 1. conservarum de violis, rosis, bor<r>agine, et buglosso ana unc. ii adijciatur etiam nonnihil de illis, quae cordialia vocant, contritum. Destillatum inde liquorem in diplomate (balneo Mariae) cum pulvere diasantalon[7] mixto propter odoris gratiam, propinabis creberrime.

Andrés de Laguna, toward the end of his book on the plague, says: You have to cook in pure water a plump capon along with leaves of borage and bugloss, a handful of each, two ounces each [around 50 g] of preserve of violets, roses, borage and bugloss, you have to add also a little mush of those substances they call cordials. Then you will give very often to drink the liquid which has been distilled in a vessel with two containers (in bain-marie) mixing powder from three kinds of sandal because of the pleasantness of its scent.

Sunt qui aurum signatum, torques, laminas, sive bracteas auri eiusmodi decoctis adijciant, nec desunt, qui absoluta sublimatione candens {ferruta}[8] <ferrumen> aliquoties extinguant. E quibus quid coctura decerpi possit praeter sordes, aut hydrargyr{i}um[9], non video: sciteque dixit Trincavella olim praeceptor meus, aurum exhilarare spiritus omnes, cum quis in crumena eo abundaverit.

Some people are adding gold coined in coins, necklaces, plates or very thin golden sheets to such decoctions, nor are missing those who sometimes, after the distillation has been completed, extinguish there still incandescent welding material. I don't see what profit the cooking can get except dirt or mercury – or better, silver: and Vettore Trincavella, once my teacher, said: you have to know that the gold cheers all the souls on condition that one has plenty of it in the purse.

Paradigma hoc Florentinis medicis fuit usitatum in eodem casu. Accipe duos pingues Capos, et bene saginatos. Unum coquito ad dissolutionem propemodum, contunde, et exprime vehementer, expressum ius conserva: post accipe secundum Capum, hic unica tantum ebullitione bulliat, ut paulum mollescat, in partes disseca, et contundito. Fundo vasis inijce borraginis manipulos duos, quibus insterne panis similacei albissimi, et levissimi medullam quae totum Capi primi ius absorpserit ante asservatum. Pani superpone secundum Caponem in frustula dissectum, et sic destillationi committe. Attamen satius fuerit cucurbitam vase vitreo figulino conflari, ne aduratur ob liquoris penuriam, gustuique minus voluptatis creet. Cavendum quoque, ne extrema destillationis cum prioribus confundantur, cum ingratissimi saporis sic permixta sint evasura: sed seorsim colligantur.

This method was used by Florentine physicians in an identical case. Take two fat and well fed capons. Cook one until when is almost dissolved, crush it and squeeze it with force, preserve the squeezed juice: then take the second capon, which has to boil only once so that softens a little bit, cut it asunder and crush it. Place on the bottom of a container two handfuls of borage on which you have to lay crumb of very white and light bread of semolina, and the crumb must have absorbed all the broth formerly preserved of the first capon. Place above the bread the second capon cut into pieces and put thus to distill. However it will be preferable to melt a pumpkin together in a container of glass coated with terracotta so that the ingredients don't burn because of shortage of liquid and reduce the pleasure to the palate. We have also to avoid that the ends of the distillation are mixing with fronts, because so mixed they would be of very unpleasant taste: on the contrary they have to be collected separately.

Paradigmata huiusmodi aquarum passim varia apud practicos extant: {collecti} <collecta> simul reperies parte secunda Euonymi Philiatri[10] a Vvolfio publicata, quo lectorem ablegamus. Hac ratione evocatus succus ignea vi concoctionem subit haud ita multo magnoque negotio ob partium tenuitatem, qua facile ita carnibus detractae per se concoquantur{:}<.> Simul ipse ventriculi calore evictus brevi iecoris quoque sanguificam facultatem prompte suscipit succus, ac per quam cito alens sustentat labentes saepe iam vires, idcirco insigniter debilibus datur in morbis magno plerunque usu.

Various methods regarding such distillates are found here and there among stagers: you will find them gathered in the second part of Thesaurus Euonymi Philiatri edited by Caspar Wolf, to which I refer the reader. The liquid drawn in this way, thanks to the energy of the fire, is digested without too much nor great difficulty because of the thinness of the components, because after the latter have been thus separated from flesh they digest easily themselves. At the same time the liquid, overwhelmed by the scanty heat of both stomach and liver, quickly acquires a haemopoietic power, and thanks to this power, in feeding quickly, rallies the strength which by now is often fading, and therefore it is given with very good results in weakening illnesses mostly with a big advantage.