John Lightfoot on Matthew 12:10

[Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days?] These are not so much the words of inquirers, as deniers. For these were their decisions in that case; "Let not those that are in health use physic on the sabbath day. Let not him that labours under a pain in his loins, anoint the place affected with oil and vinegar; but with oil he may, so it be not oil of roses, &c. He that hath the toothache, let him not swallow vinegar to spit it out again; but he may swallow it, so he swallow it down. He that hath a sore throat, let him not gargle it with oil: but he may swallow down the oil, whence if he receive a cure it is well. Let no man chew mastich, or rub his teeth with spice for a cure; but if he do this to make his mouth sweet, it is allowed. They do not put wine into a sore eye. They do not apply fomentations or oils to the place affected," &c. All which things, however they were not applicable to the cure wrought by Christ (with a word only), yet they afforded them an occasion of cavilling: who, indeed, were sworn together thus to quarrel him; that canon affording them a further pretence, "This certainly obtains, that whatsoever was possible to be done on the sabbath eve driveth not away the sabbath." To which sense he speaks, Luke 13:14.

Let the reader see, if he be at leisure, what diseases they judge dangerous, and what physic is to be used on the sabbath.