Mother Cornelius’ tub, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Mother Cornelius’ tub n.

also Cornelian tub, Cornelius’ tub

[a presumed actual Mother Cornelius, whether a nurse or a procuress; but note the masc. ‘Cornelius’ in Taylor, ‘Travels to Bohemia’ (1620): ‘Or had Cornelius but this tub, to drench / His clients that had practis’d too much French’ (i.e. venereal disease); poss. ref. to physician Henry Cornelius Agrippa (1496–1535) a leading advocate of hot baths for medicinal purposes; Henke, in Gutter Life and Language (1988), also notes the possible use of a hard dense wood, necessary to withstand the heavy salt brine used in ‘pickling’ patients, known as cornel-wood, ‘the wood of Cornus mascula, celebrated for its hardness and toughness, whence it was anciently in request for javelins, arrows, etc.’ (OED); also poss. puns on cornel and the ‘cornuted’ cuckold or Lat. cornu, a horn; one’s current incapacity is the result of one’s horn n.² (1b)]

the sweating tub used in the cure of venereal disease; many ad hoc vars. and extrapolations exist in cits.

1594		Nashe Unfortunate Traveller in Works V (1883–4) 41: Mother Cornelius tub why it was like hell, he that came into it, neuer came out of it.
1602		Middleton Blurt, Master Constable B: The commodities which are sent out of the Low Countries, (and put in vessels called mother Cornelius’s dry-fats) are most common in France!
1615		T. Overbury New and Choise Characters n.p.: [A Phantastique] A Scholer he pretends himselfe, and saies hee hath sweat for it: but the truth is, hee knowes Cornelius, farre better than Tacitus.
1636		W. Davenant Platonic Lovers III i: scio.: He took the diet, sir, And in that very tub sweat for the French disease. fred.: And some unlearn’d apothcary since, Mistaking’s name, called it Cornelius Tub.
1654		New Brawle 10: That Disease made you to be roasted alive in Old Cornelious his Tub.
1658		R. Brathwait Age for Apes 159: Some Ladies much deform’d of late [...] Which now for modesty I will omit, Because Cornelius-tub produceth it.
1659		J. Howell Paroimiograpsia n.p.: He is no compleat gentleman who hath not made five voyages to Swetland, viz. to Cornelius tub.
1663		‘News from Chelmsford’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) II 738: Psalm sung, As from Cornelius Tub, / The Parson came down, reeking.
1674		T. Duffet Epilogue Spoken by Heccate and Three Witches 33: A health , a health to Mother C--- [...] She puts off rotten new rig’d vessel.
1691		‘A Letany’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 176: From a Lecture to the Zealous, / And from the Tub of old Cornelius, / Libera nos Domine.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Cornelian Tub He has been in the Cornelian Tub or Sweating Tub i.e. he has lately had the Venereal Disease.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: Cornelian Tub The sweating tub, formerly used for the cure of the venereal disease.