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Donkey milk knowledge archive · Historical source
Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755): asses’ milk in two illustrative quotations
Samuel Johnson’s English dictionary of 1755 explains words with quotations from literature. Asses’ milk appears twice: as a physician’s remark on dosage under “to agree” and as an image of shallow entertainment under “heady”.
- Author
- Samuel Johnson (1709–1784); quotations from John Arbuthnot (1667–1735) and John Dryden (1631–1700)
- Work
- A Dictionary of the English Language, 2 volumes, folio, London 1755
- Passage
- Vol. 1, headword “To AGREE”, sense 9 “To cause no disturbance in the body” (leaf “AGR”), and headword “HEADY”, sense 2 “Apt to affect the head” (leaf “HEA”); the work has no page numbers
- Time & place
- April 1755 (first edition) · London
- Type of source
- Dictionary (with illustrative quotations)
In the original words
What the original says
I have often thought, that our prescribing asses milk in such small quantities, is injudicious; for, undoubtedly, with such as it agrees with, it would perform much greater and quicker effects, in greater quantities.
I have often thought that it is unwise to prescribe donkey milk in such small quantities; for with those who tolerate it, it would undoubtedly [in the author’s view] act much more strongly and quickly in larger quantities.
Since hearty beef and mutton will not do, / Here’s julep-dance, ptisan of song and show: / Give you strong sense, the liquor is too heady; / You’re come to farce, that’s asses milk, already.
Since hearty beef and mutton will not do, / here is a julep of dance, a barley-water of song and show: / offer you strong sense and the drink is too heady; / you have already come down to farce – and that is asses’ milk.
English rendering: our own translation by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, following the sense of the text.
A look at the original
What the passage looks like
Johnson’s Dictionary, vol. 1 (London 1755), leaf “AGR”: in the left column, under “To AGREE”, sense 9, is the Arbuthnot quotation on asses’ milk (microfilm image).
The page comes from a freely accessible digitised copy. Click to open the passage at the library.
Internet Archive, Sammlung Eighteenth Century (Mikrofilm); Vorlage gemeinfrei
Background
Who, when, what kind of text
Samuel Johnson worked for about nine years on his dictionary, helped by only a few amanuenses. It was published in April 1755 in two large folio volumes by a consortium of London booksellers and remained the standard dictionary of the English language for more than a century. It explains some 42,000 headwords; its pages are not numbered but are ordered by the first letters of the headwords in the running heads.
What sets Johnson’s work apart are the illustrative quotations: for each sense he cites sentences from literature, science and sermons, usually with the author’s name. For medicine and diet he often quotes the physician John Arbuthnot, a friend of Pope and Swift. This is how asses’ milk found its way into the dictionary, although it has no headword of its own.
Content
What the source reports about donkey milk
Under the verb “to agree”, Johnson explains the ninth sense as “to cause no disturbance in the body”, that is, to be well tolerated. As an example he chooses a sentence by Arbuthnot: asses’ milk is prescribed in too small quantities; with people who tolerate it, it would act more strongly in larger quantities. Johnson gives only the name “Arbuthnot”, not the particular work.
Under the adjective “heady” (intoxicating, going to the head), Johnson quotes four lines by Dryden. There asses’ milk stands for the opposite of a strong drink: the audience can no longer take “strong sense” and has come down to farce, as thin as asses’ milk.
Both quotations assume that readers knew asses’ milk: as a mild, light drink for the sick, taken in small amounts. Johnson himself does not comment on it; he chooses the quotations to show the meanings of words.
At a glance
Figures & facts from the source
Timeline
Where this source stands in the history of donkey milk
Each dot is a source from our knowledge archive – from Greek antiquity to the present day.
Critical assessment
How reliable is this source?
Source value
First edition, freely viewable as a microfilm image. The quotations are Johnson’s selection and not always verbatim; Johnson occasionally shortened or smoothed his examples. He does not state the exact origin of the Arbuthnot sentence, so we do not name any particular work by Arbuthnot as its source.
Language history, not medicine
The passages show how naturally “asses milk” belonged to educated English of the time: as an example of something well tolerated and as an image of something thin and harmless. Pope used asses’ milk in a similar way in 1735 to mock Lord Hervey.
Today’s assessment
Arbuthnot’s idea about dosage is a physician’s opinion of the early 18th century, not a recommendation valid today. No effect of donkey milk on illnesses can be inferred from the dictionary.
Our assessment
What we like about Johnson’s dictionary is that asses’ milk appears here not in a pharmacopoeia but in everyday vocabulary: anyone looking up “to agree” or “heady” in 1755 came across it. It shows how familiar the milk of the jenny was in 18th-century England.
References
Sources to check
- Primary sourceSamuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, vol. 1, London 1755 (first edition, folio), leaf with the headwords “AGR…”: “To AGREE”, sense 9; microfilm scan in the Internet Archive (Eighteenth Century collection), image n103
https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-dictionary-of-the-engl_johnson-samuel-lld_1755_1/page/n103/mode/1up - SupplementarySame volume, leaf with the headwords “HEA…”: “HEADY”, sense 2 “Apt to affect the head”, with the Dryden quotation mentioning asses’ milk (image n983)
https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-dictionary-of-the-engl_johnson-samuel-lld_1755_1/page/n983/mode/1up
More sources and studies in the research archive. Summarised by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, as of November 2026.