While Pepys exhorted the Bishop of Chester to allow himself to be cut for the stone, Daniel looked about, and was dispirited but not surprised to see several empty bottles from the apothecary shop of Monsieur LeFebure. He gave one a sniff. It was Elixir Proprietalis LeFebure :the same stuff Hooke swallowed when headaches had brought him to the brink of suicide – the fruits of LeFebure's researches into certain remarkable properties of the poppy family. It was hugely popular at Court, even among those not afflicted with headaches or the Stone. But when Daniel saw Wilkins go into a bladder spasm – reducing the Lord Bishop of Chester, and Founder of the Royal Society, to a dumb animal for several minutes, convulsing and howling – he decided perhaps Monsieur LeFebure was not such a sinister fellow after all.