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noli me tangere literally means 'touch me not' but in this case it refers to the ulceration to which this ointment is to be applied.

This group of recipes (caustic powder, green ointment, tarter water, red water and the glistering caustic powder) were all copied from the same unknown source. They also appear together in Jane Randolph's receipt book, held by the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, where they are attributed to Lady Arundel who supposedly bought the recipes in Germany for 300 pounds. The recipes are also described in J.O. Justamond's book Surgical Tracts, in which he describes seeing the recipes in Volume 15 of Colonel Colepeper's Adversaria in the Harley Collection of the British Library. The extract that he quotes suggests that Elizabeth Fellow (wife of Henry Fellow) gave or sold her father's recipes to the Earl of Arundel in 1638.