I was reading here and there in a book about Elizabethan London (as you do), and came across a little section of treatments for various diseases. The one for asthma involved "the lungs of a fox washed in wine, herb and liquorice." Sadly, the book doesn't tell me what one is supposed to do with them once this has occurred.

I often wonder what the logic is behind these sorts of treatments--this one seems fairly straightforward, actually, in a sympathetic way, though the rationale for fox lungs in particular, and not the lungs of some other animal, could use some explication. Frequently, though, the treatments are just printed in a slightly appalled way: how on earth could they have thought that would help? But there must have been a reason to believe that such treatments could hold out a bit of hope, or were at least worth trying.