CHRONICLES OF PHARMACY

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

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TORONTO

CHRONICLES OF
PHARMACY

BY

A. C. WOOTTON

VOL. II

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1910

Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
bread street hill, e.c., and
bungay, suffolk.

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

VOL. II

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. II

ERRATA

VOL. II

ERRATUM.

The acknowledgment at the foot of page 308, of the source of the symbols illustrated on that page, is incorrect. The symbols in question are reproduced from Mr. C. J. S. Thompson’s book, The Mystery and Romance of Alchemy and Pharmacy, published by the Scientific Press, Ltd.

CHRONICLES OF PHARMACY

XV
ANIMALS IN PHARMACY

Their next business is, from herbs, minerals, gums, oils, shells, salts, juices, sea-weed, excrements, barks of trees, serpents, toads, frogs, spiders, dead men’s flesh and bones, birds, beasts, and fishes, to form a composition for smell and taste the most abominable, nauseous, and detestable they can possibly contrive.—Swift, A Voyage to the Houyhnhms, Chap. VI.

Animal Substances in Pharmacy.

The inclination to find medicinal virtues in parts of animals is not altogether unreasonable in its origin. Savages eat the hearts of lions and tigers to acquire some of the courage and fierceness of those beasts; and a similar instinct would suggest various organs of animals for use in medicine. The employment of foxes’ lungs in asthmatic and bronchial complaints, for example, seems a most natural remedy to try, and as the lohoch, in which form these lungs were generally administered, was made up with other demulcents, it is not surprising that it should have been often found efficacious. In this section illustrations of the extravagant extent to which faith in medicines of this character has been carried will be given.

Officially Recognised Animal Medicines.

Remedies obtained from the animal kingdom were employed by the Egyptian, the Greek, and the Roman physicians. The Arabs, though they introduced musk, kermes, and bezoar into medicine, were not largely interested in animal products in their materia medica. The adoption of revolting preparations of this class developed rapidly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, curiously enough alongside the introduction of the new chemical remedies. The appended list of animals and animal products which were made official in the London Pharmacopœias of the seventeenth century, namely, those of 1618, 1650, and 1677, will serve to demonstrate the diligence which had been exercised by the practitioners of that period in ransacking the world of animal life for possible means of alleviating human ills.

Ambergris, ants.

Bee-glue from entrances and cracks of hives, bezoar stones, blood of badger, bat, bull, cat, dog, frog, goat (he- and she-), goose, hare, man, partridge, pig, pigeon, stag, tortoise; bones of hare (heel-bone), oxen (leg), pigs (ankle), stags (heart and heel; the latter called the astragalus), and the triangular bone of the human skull; brains of hares and sparrows; butter, fresh and salt; buttermilk.

Cantharides, castor, caviare, cheese (old and new), civet, cochineal, cock’s-comb, coral (white and red), crabs’ claws, crabs’ eyes, crayfish, cuttlefish, cygnets.

Eggs of ants, hens, and ostriches; egg-shells; earthworms; excrements of the cow, dog, he-goat, goose, hen, horse, horse (not castrated), man, mouse, peacock, pigeon, sheep, swallow, wolf.

Fat, lard, or grease from the badger, bear, beaver, boar, bull, bull calf, camel, capon, dog, duck, eel, fox, goat, goose, hare, hedgehog, hen, heron, horse, leopard, lion, man, mountain-mouse, pike, pig, rabbit, ram, snake, stork, thymallos (grayling), vulture, wild cat, wolf, and from cut wool; feathers of partridges, fur of the hare, frog’s spawn, and hairs of the silkworm, are among the curious animal products named. Green frogs are specially ordered.

Gall of the bear, bull, cow, he-goat, she-goat, hare, hawk, kite, ox, and pig; grasshoppers.

Ham of pig; heart of bullock, pig, stag, wether; honey and virgin honey; hoof of ass, elk, she-goat, pig; horns of elk, goat, rhinoceros, stag, unicorn.

Isinglass; intestines of wolf and fox; jaw of pike.

Larks, leeches, lynx claws; liver of ass, duck, frog, otter, wild boar, wolf; lungs of bear, fox, lamb, pig.

Marrow from leg of bull, bull calf, calf, cow, dog, she-goat, lamb, ox, sheep, stag; milk of ass, cow, ewe, goat, woman; mole, mummy, musk.

Omentum (bowel membrane) of the calf, lamb, ram, and wether.

Pearls and mother of pearl, perspiration, pickle or sauce from the tunny fish, puppies.

Rennet of calf, hare, horse, kid, lamb.

Saliva of a fasting man; scorpions (land); secundines (afterbirth) of a woman; sexual parts of bull, cock, horse, and stag; silk (raw); silkworms’ cocoons. Inner skin of a hen’s stomach; skinks; skull of a man who has met with a violent death, and moss from that skull; sparrows (house and hedge); spermaceti; spleen of ox; sponge; spiders’ webs; cast-off snake’s skin; sea-shells (various kinds named); swallows’ nests; stone from the heads of carp and perch, from ox-gall, from human bladders (see also bezoar stones and crabs’ eyes); suet of badger, calf, cow, goat, ox, sheep, stag.

Teeth of elephants (ivory), wild boar, sea-horse, tench, toads.

Urine of boar, bull, dog, he-goat, man. In the last-named case the urine of a child not arrived at the age of puberty, and of an adult man, are separately indicated.

Vipers’ flesh.

Wagtails; wax (white, red, and yellow); whelks; whey; woodlice.

In contrast with the list quoted above, representing the animal pharmacy of the seventeenth century may be placed the following fifteen articles which cover the zoology of the British Pharmacopœia of 1898:—Cantharides, cod-liver oil, cochineal, honey, lard, leeches, musk, ox-bile, pepsin, spermaceti, mutton, suet, sugar of milk, thyroid gland, wax, wool fat.

Homo: Man as a Medicine.

Man being the microcosm of the universe (the macrocosm) medicines of human origin figured very prominently in old pharmacopœias. In Lemery’s “Dictionnaire Universelle des Drogues Simples,” which was a standard authority all over Europe, at least until the end of the eighteenth century, the author presents a summary of the medicinal uses to which the various parts of “Homo” were applied. I quote (but slightly abbreviate) from the edition of Lemery’s Dictionary of 1759:—

“All parts of man, his excrescences and excrements, contain oil and sal volatile, combined with phlegm and earth. Skull, brain, and calculus are employed in medicine, and are referred to in their proper places. Burning hair, smelt by patients, will counteract the vapours. Moss of the human skull, human blood, and human urine all have their uses in medicine. The saliva of a robust young man, taken fasting, is an antidote against the bites of serpents and mad dogs. Wax from the ears is good against whitlows. Nails from the fingers and toes, given internally either in substance or infused in wine, make a good emetic. Women’s milk is pectoral, good in phthisis, and useful to apply to inflamed eyes. Fresh urine, two or three glasses drunk in the morning fasting, is good against gout, hysterical vapours, and obstructions. It may also be applied externally in gout and in skin complaints. Excrement of man can be applied to anthrax, plague bubos, and quinsies. Dried and powdered, it is recommended in epilepsy and intermittent fevers. Dose, one scruple to one drachm.”

Bechler, in “Parnassus Medicinalis,” 1663, quoted in Peter’s “History of Pharmacy,” says:—

“Powdered human bone, in red wine, will cure dysentery. The marrow and oil distilled from bone is good for rheumatism. Prepared human skull is a sure cure for the falling sickness (epilepsy). Moss grown on a skull is a hæmostatic. Mummy dissolves coagulated blood, relieves cough and pain in the spleen, and is very beneficial in flatulency and delayed menstruation. Human fat properly rubbed into the skin restores weak limbs. The wearing of a belt of human skin facilitates labour and mitigates its pain. Water distilled from human hair and mixed with honey promotes the growth of hair.”

The Liquor Cranii Humani was a highly-prized remedy. It was prepared from unburied skulls, those of criminals for preference. Pomet (1694) says he had been informed by Moses Charas, who had lived for some time in England, that “The London druggists sell skulls of the dead upon which there has grown a little greenish moss called Usnea, because it resembles the moss which grows on the oak. These skulls mostly come from Ireland, where they frequently let the bodies of criminals hang on the gibbet till they fall to pieces.” The market price of skulls at that time varied in London from 8s. to 11s. each, according to size, but those with plenty of moss made fancy prices. They were largely used for compounding the “Sympathetic Ointment,” described by Crollius in his “Royal Chemist,” and were recommended in epilepsy. Germany was the principal market. The pharmaceutical authorities of that day were very decided about the superior virtue of the skulls of persons who had died violent deaths. Lemery (1738) orders: “To make the Magistry of human skull. Calcine the skull and powder finely.” But he adds the useful comment, “This Magistry is only a dead-head of no virtue unless you employ the skull of a young man who died a violent death.”

In a paper “On the Deaths of some Eminent Persons,” printed by Sir H. Halford in 1835, it is stated that in the last illness of Charles II, when he was suffering from a stroke of apoplexy, one of the prescriptions, signed by four physicians, ordered among other ingredients 25 drops of the spirit drawn from human skulls.

Sir Theodor Mayerne’s famous Powder de Gutteta (anti-epileptic powder) contained amber, crystal, and hartshorn vitriolated, various roots and seeds, and flowers, “human skull, both crude and vitriolated, secundine of a woman,” gold and silver leaf, ambergris, etc. Fifty years later valerian alone was thought to be as effective.

Human fat was regarded as an excellent remedy in rheumatism. Pomet (1694) complains that at that time the business of the apothecaries in this luxury was seriously crippled by the competition of the public executioners. But he points out that the article provided in the pharmacies was incomparably superior to that which came from the scaffolds, because it was prepared with aromatic herbs.

Human excrement and human urine were strongly recommended by many of the chief authorities. Mme. de Sévigné, writing to her daughter on June 13, 1685, says:—“For my vapours I take 8 drops of essence of urine, and contrary to its usual action it has prevented me from sleeping.” There are other references to this delicate remedy in some other of her letters. Apparently she took a special combination of the essence with the Baume Tranquille.

Culpepper says: “That small triangular bone in the skull of a man called Os Triquetum, so absolutely cures the Falling Sickness that it will never come again, saith Paracelsus.” Culpepper also states that “the fat of a man is exceeding good to anoint such limbs as fall away in the flesh.” Lemery explains how to make a plaster from the blood of a healthy young man, after drying it, which was useful in old ulcers.

Paracelsus had a “Primum Ens Sanguinis,” which was fresh blood from a healthy young person. Crollius gives a recipe for an eye salve, which was to divide a human brain into half; mix one half with honey and apply it at night; dry and powder the other half and apply it in the morning.

Cow-Dung as a Medicine.

A female pharmacist is mentioned in Salmon’s “Bate’s Dispensatory” (1694), who, he says, made a fortune of £20,000 by selling a tincture made from cow-dung. Her formula was, cow-dung, fresh gathered in the morning, 12 lbs.; spring or rain water, 30 lb. Digest for twenty-four hours, let it settle, and decant the clear brown tincture. Salmon says it is no doubt a good medicine, and has been much used with success. “It has a pretty kind of sweet scent as if it was perfumed with musk or some other odoriferous thing.” An essence of cow-dung was an old English household remedy for gout, rheumatism, stone, etc. It was from cow-dung gathered in May; digested with a third of its weight in white wine, and distilled. In another old formula cow-dung and snails with their shells, equal parts, are prescribed. The resulting distillate was known as all-flower water, aqua omnium florum, and aqua arthritica. Dr. Rutherford, of Edinburgh, in the eighteenth century strongly recommended cow-dung poultice in rheumatic fever, and asserted that he had known of many cures from its use. It has been for centuries a popular article in the Hindu materia medica. The phosphate of soda and benzoic acid (which are the medicinal constituents of cow-dung) are better suited to modern fastidious patients in the form of laboratory products.

Excrements as Medicines.

It will be observed from the list of the excrements used in medicine officially recognised in the early London Pharmacopœias already given that those from various animals were specified. Excrements as remedies are at least as old as Dioscorides, whose work contains a special chapter devoted to an appreciation of the distinguishing virtues of the various sorts of dungs. Pliny likewise names many sorts, and states what are their particular properties.

It is evident that these substances became very popular as household remedies among the peasantry of European countries. In his treatise “On Salts,” Glauber (about 1650) explains how satisfactorily certain of these chemical products can take the place of the unpleasant remedies in use among the peasantry of his time. He says: “They purge the bodies of boys and girls with mouse dung, horse dung, and goose dung; these dissolved in wine or beer, and strained through linen cloths, they use to cure falling sickness by sweat. In the cure of erysipelas or burns and scalds, they use hogs’ dung; in all kinds of swelling, sheep’s dung; in a quinsy, dogs’ turd or human dung.”

Glauber states that he had known of wonderful cures effected by these remedies. But the reason was simple. Human dung, for example, is nothing but bread and flesh reduced into their first matters, all their bonds being loosened and rendered fit for the exercise of their virtues. The essential constituent is a salt not unlike the sal enixon of Paracelsus.

The mention of this great teacher leads Glauber to relate that once some physicians and noblemen asked Paracelsus to tell them some great secret of medicine. In reply he told them that incredible virtues were hidden in human dung. Whereupon they were very angry and departed, considering that he was mocking them. Paracelsus made a remedy which he called Zebethum Occidentale from human dung, dried and powdered. He also recommended a child’s excrement to be distilled twice, and to use the oily distillate for fistulas, canker, and as an application for premature baldness.

Album Græcum, which was dried white dogs’ turds, was regularly stocked by the apothecaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and was given in colic and dysentery, but more generally applied externally to abscesses, ulcers, and quinsies. In Robert Boyle’s “Collection of Medicines,” 1696, “a homely but experienced medicine for a sore throat,” is said to be one drachm of album græcum made into a linctus with honey of roses.

Pigeons’ dung was reputed to be so violently heating that it was almost a caustic. Applied to the soles of the feet it would draw the humours down, but Quincy remarks there was no reason for believing that it attracted the peccant humours only. Fuller prescribes a poultice containing Venice turpentine, pigeons’ dung, and spiders’ webs to be fastened to the wrists two hours before a fit of ague is expected, to ward it off. Pectoral drinks were much improved medicinally, especially for pleurisies, if some dung of stallions had been steeped in them.

Miscellaneous Animal Remedies.

It is not possible in a short space to exhaust this unsavory topic, but a few of the more notable applications of animals or animal derivatives may be briefly mentioned.

Pigeons were cut in half while they were alive and applied to the feet of patients. Pepys alludes two or three times to this and always as an indication that the case is nearly hopeless. The Queen of Charles II was one of the instances.

Oil of Puppies was made by cutting up two newly born ones and boiling them in a varnished pot for twelve hours with one pound of live earthworms. Very good for strengthening the nerves, for sciatica, and for paralysis, says Lemery. The gall of a black puppy, says Schroder, cures epilepsy to a wonder. It had to be prepared with vinegar. Ambrose Paré says he got a recipe from a famous surgeon at Turin for a balm with which he treated gun-shot wounds with extraordinary success. It was to boil young whelps just born with earthworms, Venice turpentine, and oil of lilies.

Fox lungs were prepared for medicines by first separating them from the blood-vessels, then washing them in white wine in which hyssop and scabious had been boiled. After drying gently the lungs were kept wrapt up in hyssop, wormwood, or horehound.

Swallows, hedgehogs, toads, and frogs were prepared by cutting their throats and leaving the blood to dry on them. They were then baked in a close vessel well covered.

Snails were made into a cough syrup by hanging them in a bag with sugar and catching the droppings.

Earthworms had a great reputation for the relief of lung complaints. They were also administered with great confidence, dried and powdered, to children to drive away internal worms. Woodlice, bruised and digested in Rhine wine, made the Vinum Millepedarum given in dropsy and jaundice. Lice and bugs were also honoured remedies. The latter digested in wine or vinegar had the singular power of expelling leeches which might have been accidentally swallowed.

Culpepper quotes from Mizaldus, perhaps sarcastically, a very wonderful property of earthworms, which is that the powder of them put in a hollow tooth makes it drop out. He gives another way of making a tooth drop out, which was to “fill an earthenware crucible full of emmets, ants, or pismires, call them by which name you will, eggs and all, and when you have burnt them keep the ashes, with which if you touch the tooth it will drop out.”

The same authority offers a drink cure which looks as if it might be effectual. “Eels being put into wine or beer and suffered to die in it, he that drinks it will never endure that sort of liquor again.” He recommends the brain of a hare roasted to help children to breed their teeth; a dead mouse, dried and powdered, one whole one to be taken each morning for three consecutive days, for diabetes; grasshoppers for colic; and hedge-sparrows salted for stone.

Deers’ fat strengthened the nerves, and relieved rheumatism and gout. Hares’ grease applied outwardly ripened swellings. Rabbits’ fat had a dispersing power. The fat of cocks and hens would soften hard swellings. Goose grease was specially good against piles, deafness, and to prevent pitting after the small-pox. Bears’ grease, still sold nominally, could be had in genuine form in this country a hundred years ago. Bears were at that time fattened and killed in this country for their grease, and until even more recent times they were imported from Russia. The principal use of bears’ grease was always to make the hair grow, but it was also used as an emollient for many purposes.

The lion had a high reputation among the Romans for its medicinal value. The fat was used as an ointment in affections of the joints, and combined with oil of roses as the best cosmetic for preserving the delicacy of the complexion. An aqueous tincture of the gall was used for weak eyes, and a mixture of the gall with the fat of the lion taken in small doses was esteemed an excellent remedy for epilepsy. Roasted lion’s heart was given in fevers. It was believed that no wild beast would attack anyone anointed with lions’ fat, and that this same treatment would prevent human treachery. These statements are found in Pliny. The lion rather fell out of use in more modern times. Its fat was prescribed in the P.L. 1618, and in James’s “Dispensatory,” 1747, is said to be successful in anointing limbs numbed with cold, and also to put in the ears for the relief of earache.

The flesh of the tiger is still eaten by the Malays to impart courage and sagacity. Marcellus quotes a prescription by Democritus of Abderos (contemporary with Hippocrates) for nervous diseases. It consisted of the spinal marrow of a hyena mixed with his gall, all boiled together in old oil.

The cat has been largely used in medicine. Galen recommends the head of a black cat to be burned in a glazed vessel, and the ashes to be used in diseases of the eye, including cataract. Pliny says that the fæces of this animal mixed with mustard cured ulcers in the head. Sylvius prescribed cats’ flesh for hæmorrhoids and lumbago. In Lemery’s “Pharmacopœia” a cat ointment is ordered. It was to be made from a newly born kitten cut up into small pieces in a pot varnished with crushed earthworms. Cats’ fæces were employed in the eighteenth century as an application for baldness, and cat’s skin was recommended to be worn over the stomach for strengthening the digestion.

Montaigne states that in his time physicians prescribed as choice remedies the left foot of a tortoise, the liver of a mole, and blood drawn from under the wing of a white pigeon.

Queen Anne’s “Oculist and Operator on the Eyes in Ordinary,” a quack named Read whom she knighted, comments in his writings on the practice of putting a louse in the eye when it is dull and obscure and wanteth humours and spirits. This, he says, “tickleth and pricketh so that it maketh the eye moist and rheumatick and quickeneth the spirits.”

Oil of ants made by pounding two ounces of live ants and macerating them in eight ounces of olive oil for forty days was used as a stimulating liniment. Oil of spiders and earthworms was prescribed by Mindererus for anointing in small-pox and plague. He recommended it as being equal to the oil of scorpions, which was a very complicated combination of drugs devised by Matthiolus. Spiders have been often employed in medicine. A live spider rolled up in butter and swallowed as a pill was a seventeenth century cure for jaundice. Spiders taste like nuts, says Lalande. Galen recommended spiders’ eggs mixed with oil of nard for toothache. Elias Ashmole in his “Diary” (1681) writes: “I took early in the morning a good dose of elixir and hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my ague away. Deo gratias.” Spiders’ webs were frequently used as a febrifuge, and are well-known to be excellent to stop bleeding. Oil of lizards, twelve of them cooked alive in three pounds of nut oil, was esteemed a good application against hernia. Oil of frogs prepared in a similar way was applied to the temples to promote sleep.

Bezoar Stones.

Bezoar stones acquired their fame in the East, and were introduced to European medicine by the Arabs. The name is of Persian origin, Pad-zahr, meaning an expeller of poisons. The earliest reference known to Bezoar stones in Europe is by Avenzoar, an Arab physician who practised in Seville about the year 1000. They were included in the London Pharmacopœias from 1618 to 1746.

There were many kinds of bezoar stones sold. The most esteemed was the lapis bezoar orientale. This came from Persia and was supposed to be obtained from the intestines of the Persian wild goat. It was a calculus which had formed itself by deposits of phosphate of lime round some nucleus, such as hair, or the stone of a fruit. One in the museum of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital has a date stone for nucleus. It was believed that the special virtues of the stone were due to some unknown plant on which the animal fed.

A certain kind of ape also yielded bezoar stones. These were obtained by giving the ape an emetic. There were, besides, the lapis bezoar occidentale, procured from the llamas of Peru; and the bezoar Germanorum got from the chamois of the Swiss mountains. These never commanded the same confidence as those from the East. The latter are stated by Paris and Redwood and other writers to have sold for ten times their weight in gold. No authority, however, is given for that assertion.

In a paper read before the Royal Society of London, in 1714, by Frederick Slare, F.R.C.S., the claims of the bezoar stone to the possession of medical virtues are boldly challenged; and in the course of the paper the author states that the price varied from about £3 to £5 per ounce in London. He mentions that he had asked a London druggist, one “of the upper Size,” how many ounces of bezoar stones he sold yearly. He said about 500 ounces. I presume he was a wholesale druggist. Perhaps this is implied by the expression “of the upper Size.” Mr. Slare uses this fact in support of his suggestion that a large proportion of the imports of these precious commodities, though they came from India or Persia right enough, had never been inside any wild goat, antelope, or ape. He records experiments which go to show this, and also gave letters from medical officers in India, men quite competent to judge, who manifested in this particular a surprising degree of innocence. It would have been strange if the wily oriental had refrained from practising his skill on his confiding Western customers.

Mr. Slare tells us that the stone was only found in about one goat out of seven killed, and that it took some twelve stones to make an ounce, which worked out to nearly 50,000 goats to be slain annually to keep this one London druggist supplied.

The original use of the bezoar was as an antidote to poisons. It came to be the valued remedy for all kinds of fevers, was applied externally in many skin diseases, and had the reputation of being able to cure even leprosy. The dose of the oriental bezoar was from 4 to 16 grains; of the occidental 6 to 30 grains. They were also carried about in gold or silver boxes as amulets. In Portugal in time of plague the stones were let out at about the equivalent of ten shillings a day. Some designed for this use may still be seen in museums. Bezoar stones were required to be of an olive-greenish tint, to be striated, and to yield a musky odour. They were further expected to strike a green colour when rubbed on white paper which had previously been prepared with chalk.

The alchemists prepared a mineral bezoar, by treating butter of antimony with nitric acid. They got antimonious acid. The livers and hearts of vipers dried in the sun furnished the animal bezoar; and a stony concretion sometimes found in cocoa-nuts, and in high repute among the Malays as a medicine was called vegetable bezoar or calatippe.

The importance attached to bezoar stones in the seventeenth century, and, incidentally, their liability to falsification, are illustrated by a minute in the records of the Society of Apothecaries, dated May 25th, 1630, as follows:—

Pretended bezar stones sent by the Lord Mayor to be viewed were found to be false and counterfiet and fitt to be destroyed and the whole table [or as we should say, the Court] certified the same to the Lord Mayor.

A little later, it appears that the case of these stones was tried at the Guildhall, a jury composed partly of druggists and partly of apothecaries being empannelled. This jury confirmed the verdict of the table of apothecaries and the bezoar stones were duly burnt.

Three bezoar stones were sent by the Shah of Persia as a royal gift for his brother the Emperor Napoleon, only a hundred years ago.

Ambrose Paré, who wrote in the later half of the sixteenth century, was one of the few eminent doctors who discredited the alleged medicinal virtue of the bezoards. He was surgeon to Charles IX, and relates that one day, the king being at Clermont, a Spanish nobleman brought him a bezoar stone which he assured him was an antidote against all poisons. The king sent for Paré and asked him if he knew any substance which would annul the effects of any poison. Paré said that could not be, for there were many sorts of poisons which acted in very different ways. The Spanish nobleman, however, maintained that this stone was a universal antidote, and the king was eager to test the question. So the Provost of the Palace was sent for and asked if he had any criminal in his charge condemned to death. He said he had a cook who had stolen two silver dishes, and who was to be hanged the next day. The offer was thereupon made to the cook that he should take a poison, and an alleged antidote immediately afterwards, and if he escaped with his life he should go free. The cook gladly consented, and an apothecary was ordered to prepare a deadly draught and give it, and to follow this with a dose of the bezoar. This was done. The poor wretch lived for about seven hours in terrible agony, which Paré tried in vain to relieve. After his death Paré opened him and showed that the antidote had no effect at all. It was sublimate which had been given. “And the king commanded that the stone should be thrown into the fire; which was done.”

Paré’s authority was considerable, but it was by no means strong enough to destroy public faith in the bezoar. According to Pomet and Lemery the demand for the stones was so great in France more than a century later that it was difficult to get them genuine except at fancy prices. A stone of 4¼ oz. was sold for 2,000 livres (say £75). In Savary’s “Dictionnaire de Commerce” (1741) it is stated that when bezoars arrived at Amsterdam they fetched from 300 to 400 livres apiece. They were bought by rich citizens either to serve as presents, or to be kept in their families.

Gascoyne’s or Gascoign’s Powder.

In the paper by Mr. Slare read before the Royal Society already referred to the author comments with similar severity on the then popular Gascoign’s Powder. As evidence of the fame it possessed he says he had been told that a certain “grandee of the faculty” had got above £50,000 by prescribing this compound. I suppose this meant he had received that amount in fees for prescriptions ordering that medicine. Taking advantage of the reverence in which bezoar was held by that generation, Gascoign’s Powder had assumed as a second title the name of bezoardic powder. It was also known as the Powder of the Black Tops of Crab-claws, from the ingredient in largest quantity. The professed composition of Gascoign’s Powder as given by Mr. Slare was oriental bezoar, white amber, hartshorn in powder, pearls, crabs’ eyes, coral, and black tops of crabs’ claws. Naturally a powder of such costly ingredients was sold at a very high price. Mr. Slare recommends chalk and salt of wormwood as being in all respects as good. The former was cheap enough then; and of the salt he says two pounds could be got for the price of half an ounce of the compound.

Vipers.

Both in ancient and comparatively modern times vipers have been held in the highest esteem for their medicinal virtues, and viper fat, viper broth, and viper wine are used to this day in some remote parts of Britain, and to a still greater extent on the Continent. In some districts of France heads of vipers enclosed in little silk bags are worn by children to preserve them from croup and convulsions.

It was the addition of vipers to the confection of Mithridates that constituted the principal improvement effected by Andromachus in his composition of the electuary which came to be known as theriakon, and subsequently as theriaca. Therion was Greek for a wild beast, but came to mean specially a venomous serpent, and the compound may have been called theriaca either to indicate that vipers were an important ingredient, or that it would cure their bites.

According to Dr. Mead, Antonius Musa, physician to Octavius Cæsar, was one of the first physicians who recommended the flesh of vipers for medicinal use. Pliny states that he quickly cured inveterate ulcers by this remedy. It is possible, however, that Musa acquired his knowledge of this remedy from a Greek physician named Craterus, who had advised that in certain wasting diseases vipers should be eaten, dressed as fish. In Galen’s time vipers had become common medicines, and were probably taken to some extent as a nourishing food.

Moses Charas studied vipers very closely, and wrote a treatise on their use in medicine (1669) which had a great reputation. He adopted the curious view of Van Helmont that the poison of the viper, which was supposed to be contained in the animal’s saliva, was not there normally, but was created as the effect of rage and terror. According to Charas, the head of the viper, grilled and eaten, would cure its bite, or hung to the neck would cure quinsy. The brain similarly hung on the neck of an infant would greatly assist in cutting the teeth. The skin fastened round the right thigh of a woman was an excellent aid to delivery in childbirth; if given to dogs, cooked or raw, it would cure mange. The fat was a valuable application in gout, or for tumours. Those treatments he had verified by his own experience. Other virtues attributed to vipers were mentioned, but he had not proved them, and could not conscientiously guarantee their existence. One was that the person who swallowed the liver of a viper could not be bitten by any kind of serpent during the ensuing six months.

Madame de Sévigné, was a firm believer in the medicinal value of vipers. Writing to her daughter in 1679 she says: “Madame de Lafayette is taking viper broth, which much strengthens her eyesight.” In 1685 she informs her son: “It is to vipers I am indebted for the abundant health I now enjoy. They temper, purify, and refresh the blood. But it is essential to have the vipers themselves, and not the powder, which is heating unless taken in broth, boiled cream, or something refreshing.” Then she goes on to advise him to get M. de Boissy to send him ten dozen vipers from Poitou in a case divided into three or four compartments lined with hay and moss, so that they can be kept at their ease. He is to take two every morning. The heads are to be cut off, the bodies to be scalded and cut into small pieces, and used to stuff a fowl. He is to continue this treatment for a month.

The early London Pharmacopœias gave the following form for the Trochisci Viperum required in the preparation of Theriaca: Remove the skin, entrails, head, fat and tail, and boil the flesh of vipers in 8 oz. of water with dill and a little salt, add 2 oz. of white bread twice toasted, ground and sifted, and make into troches, your hands being anointed with opobalsamum or expressed oil of nutmeg. Dry them on a sieve turned bottom upwards in an open place. Turn them frequently until they are quite dry, and keep them in a well-stopped glass or glazed vessel. They will keep good for a year, but it is better to make the treacle with them as soon after they are made as possible.

Quincy (1724) had great confidence in their virtues. He writes, “That they are Balsamic and greatly Restorative is confirm’d by long Experience; for we have many instances in Physical Histories of Persons arriving at a healthful old age by their frequent use, as well as others who recover’d from deplorable Decays and Weaknesses.” Then he proceeds at considerable length to compare the juices of these animals with those of terebinthous plants, which are mostly evergreens. “Moreover they have been experienc’d to do wonders in cutaneous cases; the Force and Activity of their parts breaking thro’ the little obstructions in the Miliary Glands, which turn into Ichor, Scabs, and Blotches” (those old practitioners knew exactly how their remedies acted); “and by restoring a free perspiration render the skin smooth and beautiful”; and much more on cures of itch, leprosy, and the worst skin eruptions.

Viper wine was a very popular tonic. It was believed to cure barrenness in women. An essence of vipers was believed in as an aphrodisiac, but Dr. James (1747) tells us that what was then advertised and sold in London under that name was tincture of cantharides. This author is sceptical about vipers altogether. He had given the flesh, broth, and salt of vipers in large quantities, but had come to the conclusion that the broths and flesh were no better than the broths and flesh of fowl, veal, or mutton, prepared in the same way, and as to the salt, he was sure that the salt of hartshorn or any other animal salt would answer just as well.

The vipers employed for medicine were the common vipers, which in this country are usually called adders (Vipera communis).

A common recipe for viper broth was to boil together a chicken with a middling-sized viper from which the head, skin, and entrails had been removed. These made a quart of good broth.

Mummies.

The employment of mummies in medicine does not seem to have been very ancient, nor did it become permanent. Who introduced it is not known. Ephraim Chambers in his Cyclopœdia (1738) says, “Mummy is said to have been first brought into use in medicine by the malice of a Jewish physician, who wrote that flesh thus embalmed was good for the cure of divers diseases, and particularly bruises, to prevent the blood’s gathering and coagulating.” Pomet also says that a Jewish physician had written about the medicinal value of mummy, but he does not suggest that he had recommended it out of malice.

The trade in mummies was evidently in the hands of the Jews and Armenians at the time when Pomet wrote, and, according to him, the fading popularity of mummy as a medicine was the result of the rogueries practised by these Jews. He tells of a Guy de la Fontaine, the King’s physician, who, when visiting in Egypt, went to see a Jew in Alexandria who traded in mummies, and after some difficulty was admitted into the Jew’s warehouse, where he saw several bodies piled one upon another. “After a reflection of a quarter of an hour he asked him what druggs he made use of, and what sort of bodies were fit for his service. The Jew answered that as to the dead he took such bodies as he could get, whether they died of a common disease or of some contagion. As to the druggs, they were nothing but a heap of some old druggs mixed together which he applied to the bodies, which after he had dried in an oven he sent into Europe, and was amazed to see the Christians were lovers of such filthiness.” This very frank Jew must have been on the point of retiring from business.

Pomet regrets that he is not able to stop the abuses of the dealers in this commodity, so he has to content himself with advising those who buy mummy to choose what is of a fine shining black, not full of bones and dirt, and of a good smell. He also tells us it is good for contusions, and to prevent the blood from coagulating in the body (1694).

Ambrose Paré, who wrote before Pomet, was even more suspicious. He mentions that it was held by some that the mummies then in use were made and fashioned in France; that they were bodies stolen at night from the gibbets, the brains and entrails removed, and the bodies dried in a furnace, and then dipped in pitch. Paré states that he never prescribes mummy.

Oswald Crollius seems to have had no objection to artificial mummies. In his “Royal Chemist” he gives a process for preparing one. The carcase of a young man (some say a red-haired young man) who had been killed, that is, did not die of disease, and, it is to be presumed, had not been buried, was to lie in cold water in the air for twenty-four hours. The flesh was to be cut in pieces and sprinkled with myrrh and a little aloes. This was then to be soaked in spirit of wine and turpentine for twenty-four hours, hung up for twelve hours, again soaked in the spirit mixture for twenty-four hours, and finally hung up in a dry place to dry.

Mummies were principally recommended for consumption, wasting of flesh, ulcers, and various corruptions.

Nicasius Le Febre, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry to Charles II, in his “Compleat Body of Chymistry,” 1670, says the best mummies for medical use were those of bodies dried up in the hot sands of Lybia, where sometimes whole caravans were overwhelmed by simooms and suffocated. “This sudden suffocation doth concentrate the spirits in all the parts by reason of the fear and sudden surprisal which seizes on the travellers.” Next to these Lybian mummies Le Febre recommends the dried corpse of a young lusty man of about 25 to 30 years of age who has been suffocated or hanged. He gives directions for drying the flesh, smoking it for a philosophical month, and then it is to be given in doses of 1 to 3 grains with some old treacle (theriaca) and vipers’ flesh made into an electuary with spirit of wine. It was specially good against pestilential diseases.

Dippel’s Animal Oil.

Animal oil, oil of harts’ horns, or empyreumatic oil, as it was variously called, or Dippel’s animal oil, which was the original, was highly prized as a medicine in the eighteenth century, and disputed the palm for nastiness with the balsam of sulphur. Dippel made it from harts’ horns, but later formulas directed it to be made from any bones, from blood, or indeed from any animal substance. In distilling the horn some water first came over, and this was rejected. At the end of the operation the distillate consisted of carbonate of ammonia in solution and an empyreumatic oil, very dark and fœtid. The spirit was drawn off by filtration, and the oil which remained in the filter was rectified by as many as twenty distillations, the residue increasing at each operation and the rectified oil becoming paler. As it became brown by exposure to light it was the practice to put it up in 1 drachm bottles, which were buried in sand.

The virtues of this preparation were highly vaunted. Frederick Hoffmann strongly recommended it, especially when fever threatened. Twenty to thirty drops on a lump of sugar, followed by a glass of wine, were said to procure a calm and refreshing sleep, often continuing for twenty hours. It would be almost shorter to enumerate the complaints it was not recommended for than those which its advocates alleged it would cure. Epilepsy, apoplexy, palsy, plague, pleurisy, leprosy, and all skin diseases down to ringworm, fevers, colds, and headaches of all sorts were said to yield to its virtues.

Johann Conrad Dippel, its inventor and medical sponsor, was a strange, shifty, but clever adventurer. Born in 1673, near Darmstadt, his father, a Lutheran minister, hoped to train his son to his own profession. He was sent when quite a youth to Giessen University, where he distinguished himself and soon became an ardent controversialist. At that time the Protestants in Germany were divided into Orthodox and Pietists, the latter seeking to restore the personal spirituality which they considered the orthodox Lutherans were burying in formalities. Young Dippel argued vigorously on the orthodox side, and went to Strasburg to preach his views. There he also practised alchemy and cheiromancy and, besides, got mixed up in broils and disturbances. His inconsistent life compelled him to leave Strasburg, and having spent some time at Landau, Neustadt, and Worms, he returned to Giessen, where he became as ardent a Pietist as he had previously been an Orthodox. He took his degree, and then, having exhausted his father’s funds, took to travelling, and practised medicine and alchemy, occasionally reverting to theology, but now denouncing Protestantism in all its diversities.

Getting to Berlin, and securing the confidence of some wealthy believers, he established a laboratory where he produced this animal oil and, more important still, in trying to imitate a Florentine lake from cochineal, accidentally produced Prussian blue, but did not realise the value of this discovery. He claimed to have succeeded in making gold, and on the strength of his representations was able to get deeply into debt, purchasing, among other luxuries, a castle and estate for fifty thousand florins. In 1707 he was imprisoned for a short time in Berlin, and when he regained his freedom made his way to Amsterdam. He took a medical degree at Leyden, and was acquiring a good medical practice at Amsterdam when his creditors and religious antagonists compelled him to escape from Holland. He went to Altona and then to Hamburg, but was ordered to leave both these cities. Copenhagen was his next home, and there again he suffered imprisonment. He was sent to the Island of Bornholm, where he practised as a physician until he was freed on the instructions of the Queen of Denmark. His medical reputation must have been both wide and high, for in 1727 the King of Sweden who could not get cured of a malady by his own physicians sent for Dippel, who completely succeeded. His troubled life seemed likely now to be exchanged for peace and prosperity, but this was not to be. The king would willingly have kept Dippel near him, but Sweden was a Protestant nation, and the clergy and people did not forget his scoffing attacks on their cherished faith. They would not have him among them, and Dippel had to return to Germany. After residing for a short time at Lauenburg and Celle, he at last found a refuge at the Castle of Wittgenstein, the owner of which, Count Wittgenstein, was one of his adherents. There he lived from 1729 to 1734. The last event recorded of him was characteristic. It had been announced that he was dead. Dippel published an indignant denial, and declared his assurance that he would not die until the year 1808. The prophecy failed, for the next year, 1734, he was found dead in bed at the castle of Wittgenstein.

The story of his discovery of Prussian blue is curious. When he was in Berlin, an artist, named Diesbach, was preparing some Florentine lake from a combination of alum and cochineal, acted on by sulphate of iron and fixed alkali. He asked Dippel for some of the alkali left over in his retort after he had distilled some of his animal oil. This seemed to spoil the product, for it yielded a blue instead of a crimson lake. Dippel tried it himself and got the same result. But he did not appreciate the value of this product, and it was left for Scheele to trace its chemical history.

Spermaceti.

“The sovereign’st thing on earth was parmceti for an inward bruise.”—Henry IV. Part I, Act I, Sc. 3.

Woodall (1639) writing of spermaceti, says, “It is good also against bruises inwardly taken with Mummia.”

Culpepper (1695) says, “Sperma Cœti is well applied outwardly to eating ulcers, and the marks which the small-pox leaves behind; it clears the sight, provokes sweat. Inwardly, it troubles the stomach and belly, helps bruising and stretching the nerves, and therefore is good for women newly delivered.”

Dr. James (1747) describes it as a noble medicine and refers to its chief use for outward application in small-pox to prevent the pitting. It was melted with oil of almonds, and with this mixture the pustules were kept moist when they began to harden. He says, “Although this is but a modern practice in this distemper, yet Schroder takes notice of its use in his time in smoothing and filling up the fissures or cavities made by blotches and scabs.”

Schroder was much puzzled by this substance and was doubtful whether to class it among animal or mineral substances. He decided to include it among minerals. Subsequently it was believed to be the spawn of the whale, and from this belief it acquired its name. Still its origin continued to be discussed. Gesner said it was a milk shed by the whale. Borrichius believed it to be the spinal marrow. Pomet affirms with certainty that spermaceti is the brain of the whale (cachalot). He had not only seen it prepared, but had prepared it himself. He described the process. The brain was melted over a gentle fire, then cast into moulds, cooled, and when the oil had drained off, remelted, moulded again and again until it was very white. Then, with a knife made for the purpose, it was cut into scales or flakes. Lemery says the ancients gave it the name, believing it to be the seed of the whale, which was found floating on the sea. But in (his) modern times this opinion had been rejected, and it was held to be a kind of sea froth driven by the waves to and fro. Quite recently (when he wrote) it had been learnt that it was drawn from the head of the whale.

Our spermaceti ointment was known in earlier pharmacopœias as unguentum album, and at first contained white lead.

Honey

is one of the oldest of food products, and was the only sweetening substance in popular use until quite modern times. Sugar was known in India and was imported into Greece and Rome at very early periods. The name saccharum is of Sanskrit origin, and therefore testifies to its ancient lineage, and allusions to it, likening it to honey, are to be found in the writings of many of the classic naturalists from Herodotus onwards. The Arabs, who had long brought sugar from India to the wealthy West, made great use of it in medicine, and the early apothecaries in England, France, and Germany were the makers of sweetmeats from sugar to royal and aristocratic gourmets. Queen Elizabeth’s apothecaries were in the habit of presenting her with boxes of sweetmeats on her birthdays.

But sugar was a rarity and a luxury for the rich, while honey was always in use. Palestine was a land flowing with milk and honey, and the records of its employment as a food, a fermented beverage, and as a medicine, are traceable in almost all histories. The ancients had curious notions concerning it. They knew that the bees obtained it from flowers, but they thought the flowers had only caught it as it descended from the heavens. Pliny says it is engendered in the air, mostly at the rising of the constellations, and especially when Sirius is shining. He is not sure whether it is the sweat of the heavens, saliva from the stars, or a juice exuding from the air while purifying itself. He admits that its flavour affords an exquisite pleasure, but he wonders what that flavour would be if we could get the pure ethereal substance uncontaminated by the corruption of the air, its absorption by the herbs, and afterwards in the stomachs of the bees. Pliny and Galen both affirm that it was sometimes found where no bees had been, and Galen says in such cases the peasantry exclaimed that Jupiter was raining honey. The honey which came in this way was called Cibus Celestis.

Honey was used in the preparation of all the famous confections and electuaries of old pharmacy, and when these began to lose their reputation there were authorities who attributed their decline in efficacy to the substitution of sugar for honey. Dioscorides had stated that honey counteracted the evil effects of the juice of the poppy. In the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries honey was credited with many medicinal virtues. Applied to the scalp it was a remedy for baldness; better if some dead and dried bees were ground up with it. It wonderfully promoted expectoration. It was also claimed that it would destroy worms if drunk in milk, because the worms took to it so greedily that they killed themselves by excess. Oxymels, too, had at one time a high repute. A compound oxymel, containing a number of aromatic herbs, was handed down from Mesué to the early pharmacopœias, and was esteemed as a stimulant of the liver and kidneys.

An oil of wax was known as the Celestial Medicine. It was made by melting bees’ wax, then wringing it out by hand pressure seven times in sweet wine, and finally distilling it twice. It would kill worms, cure palsy, and greatly assist in childbirth.

XVI
REMINISCENCES OF ANCIENT PHARMACY

At the Renaissance of letters at first everything had to give place to the books of the ancients; nothing was good or true except what was found in Aristotle or Galen. Instead of studying plants as they grew, they were only studied in the works of Pliny and Dioscorides; and nothing is so frequent in the writings of those times than to find the existence of a plant doubted for the simple reason that Dioscorides has not spoken of it.

J. J. Rousseau: Dictionary of Botany.

Precious Stones.

Marvellous virtues were attributed by the ancients to the precious stones known to them, but rather perhaps in their character of amulets than as medicines. One of the so-called hymns of Orpheus, composed probably about 500 B.C., is “On Stones,” and describes the properties of many of these highly esteemed minerals. Four lines (taken from a translation in the Rev. C. W. King’s “Natural History of Precious Stones”) will serve as a sample:—

With its complexion of a lovely boy

The opal fills the hearts of gods with joy;

Whilst by the mild effulgence of its light

Its healing power restores the fading sight.

Coral, according to the same authority, acquired its special properties from Minerva. This substance was much valued by the Romans, who attached pieces of it by ribbons to their children’s necks, in the belief that it would protect them against the designs of sorcerers; and Paracelsus adopted the same view, recommending necklaces of coral to be worn as a preventive of epilepsy, “but such impostures,” says Quincy (1724), “are now deservedly laughed out of the world.” Some old writers insisted that coral worn on the person changed colour, becoming dull and pale when the wearer’s health failed.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries coral and pearls were considerably used in medicine in the form of magisteries, tinctures, syrups, and arcana. Lemery says coral was given to infants in their mothers’ milk as soon as they were born (he does not explain how) to prevent epilepsy, and he names a multitude of other disorders for which it was good. Boyle, too, in his “Collection of Remedies,” recommends it in drachm doses to “sweeten the blood and cure acidity.” The largest and reddest obtainable was to be chosen.

Pearls were used in medicine until the eighteenth century, when it began to be suspected that chalk had the same effect. The tiniest pearls, known as pearl seeds, ground to a fine powder, were prescribed as an absorbent, antacid, and cordial. This powder was also used, says Pomet, “by ladies of quality to give a lustre and beauty to the face.” It was superseded before long by Lemery’s magistery of bismuth, which, however, retained the name of pearl white. Pomet further states that a magistery of pearl was made (apparently by quacks) by combining the ground pearl with acids; an arcanum, spirits, flowers, and tinctures were also prepared and credited with marvellous virtues, “to pick fools’ pockets.”

Pearls, writes Jean de Renou (1607), “are greatly cordial and rejoice the heart. The alchemists consequently make a liquor of pearls, which they pretend is a marvellous cure for many maladies. More often than not, however, their pretended liquor is nothing but smoke, vanity, and quackery. I knew a barber in this city of Paris who was sent for by a patient to apply two leeches, and who had the impudence to demand six crowns of gold for his service. He declared that he had fed those leeches for an entire month on the liquor of pearls.”

It is on record that Pope Clement VII took 40,000 ducats’ worth of pearls and other precious stones with unicorn’s horn within fourteen days. (See Mrs. Henry Cust’s “Gentlemen Errant.”)

Emeralds had a great reputation, especially on account of their moral attributes. They were cold in an extra first degree, so cold that they became emblems of chastity, and curious tales of their powers in controlling the passions were told. Moses Maimonides, a famous Jew who lived in Egypt in the twelfth century, in a treatise he wrote by command of the Caliph as a concise guide in cases of venomous bites or poisons generally, declared that emeralds were the supreme cure. They might be laid on the stomach or held in the mouth or 9 grains of the powdered stone might be taken in wine. But recognising that emeralds were not always handy when the need arose, Moses names a number of more ordinary remedies.

Confection of Hyacinth was a noted compound formulated in all the old pharmacopœias, and regarded as a sovereign cordial, fortifying the heart, the stomach, and the brain; resisting the corruption of the humours and the malignity of the air; and serving for many other medicinal purposes. The original formula ordered besides hyacinths (which were probably amethysts), sapphires, emeralds, topazes, and pearls; silk; gold and silver leaves; musk, ambergris, myrrh, and camphor; sealed earth, coral, and a few vegetable drugs; all made into an electuary with syrup of carnations. A similar compound, but in powder form, was known as “Hungary Powder” and was believed to have been the most esteemed remedy in the Hungary Fever, to which some reference is made in the sketch of Glauber (Vol. I, pp. 260–264). The Emperor Ferdinand’s Plague Powder was another variation of the same compound. The formula given in Lemery’s Pharmacopœia orders about twenty vegetable drugs with bole, hartshorn, ivory, and one scruple each of sapphires, hyacinths, emeralds, rubies, and garnets, in a total bulk of about 4½ ounces. The dose was from ½ scruple to 2 scruples.

Sir William Bulleyn, a famous physician in the reign of Henry VIII, and said to have been of the same family as the Queen, Anne Boleyn, in his “Book of Simples,” which was a work of great renown in its day, gives the following recipe for Electuarium de Gemmis. “Take 2 drachms of white perles; two little peeces of saphyre; jacinthe, corneline, emerauldes, granettes, of each an ounce; setwal, the sweate roote doronike, the rind of pomecitron, mace, basel seede, of each 2 drachms; redde corall, amber, shaving of ivory, of each 2 drachms; rootes both of white and red behen, ginger, long pepper, spicknard, folium indicum, saffron cardamon, of each one drachm; troch diarodon, lignum aloes, of each half a small handful; cinnamon, galinga, zurubeth, which is a kind of setwal, of each 1½ drachm; thin pieces of gold and sylver, of each half a scruple; musk, half a drachm.” The electuary was to be made with “honey emblici, which is the fourth kind of mirobalans with roses, strained, in equall parts, as much as will suffice.” What that may mean I do not know. The medicine, it was said, would heal cold, disease of the brain, heart, and stomach, and Bulleyn adds, “Kings and noble men have used this for their comfort. It causeth them to be bold-spirited, the body to smell well, and ingendreth to the face good colour.”

There was a theory that the engraving of a design or a monogram on a gem increased its medicinal virtues. Galen doubts this, however. He states that the jasper benefits the chest and the mouth of the stomach if laid thereupon, and for complaints of these parts he recommends a necklace of jaspers hung round the neck and reaching down to the affected part. That he knew would do good. But some recommended that a serpent should be engraved on the stones, and Galen had tried this, but could not discover that the engraved stones were any better than the plain ones (Simp. Med., ix).

The idea did not die, however. Mr. King quotes the opinion of Camillo Lionhardo, physician to Cæsar Borgia, to the effect that if precious stones were engraved by a skilful person under a particular influence, that influence would be transmitted to the stone; and if the figure engraved corresponded with the virtue of the stone itself or its natural quality, the virtue of the figure and of the stone would be doubled.

Jerome Cardan and other mystic writers of the sixteenth century gave great prominence to precious stones as remedies; and Culpepper after quoting from several of them intimates that he expects some of his readers may consider the accounts given incredible. They declared that the diamond rendered men fearless, that the ruby took away idle and foolish fancies, that the emerald resisted lust, that the amethyst kept men from drunkenness and too much sleep, and so on. Culpepper’s reply to prospective sceptics is that he has named his authorities, and that he knows nothing to the contrary why it may not be as possible for these stones to have the effects attributed to them as for the sound of a trumpet to incite a man to valour, or a fiddle to dancing. Moreover, said Garcius, if the stones applied externally were so efficacious, how much more so would they be if taken internally.

The Four Officinal Capitals.

This description was applied in old medical books to Mithridatium, Venice Treacle, Philonium, and Diascordium. There were writers who ventured to criticise some of the details of composition, or some of the uses frequently made of these compounds, but the possibility of medicine existing without them was hardly contemplated previous to the eighteenth century. Of the two confections first named much has been said in other chapters; but it may be of interest to present here a conspectus of the ingredients of each, comparing the last formulas prescribed in the London Pharmacopœia with what may be regarded as the original compositions. The first pair of formulas are quoted from Galen, who gives the Mithridatium from Damocrates and the Theriaca from Andromachus. Both were in Greek verses. It is not known whether the prescription of Andromachus was versified by Nero’s physician or by his son.

Antidotus Mithridatica Damocratis.

Root of round birthwort; of valerian; of each 4½ oz.; of sweet flag, 5 oz. 3 drm.; of gentian, 7½ oz.; of Ligusticum meum, 3 oz. 6 drms.; of ginger, 15 oz.; herb of dittany of Crete, 7½ oz.; of pennyroyal, and of scordium, of each 10½ oz.; leaves of laurus cassia, 12 oz.; flowers of St. John’s wort, 3½ oz., of French lavender, 12 oz.; of red lavender, and of roses, of each, 7½ oz.; Celtic nard, 7½ oz.; spikenard, 15 oz.; lemon grass, 13 oz.; seeds of thlaspi, 15 oz.; of seseli, 12 oz.; of carrot, 10½ oz.; of parsley, and fennel, of each, 7½ oz.; of anise, 4½ oz.; juniper berries, 1 oz.; long pepper, 12 oz.; white pepper, and fruit of amyris opobalsamum, of each 10½ oz.; lesser cardamoms, 7½ oz.; saffron, 15 oz.; cinnamon, 15½ oz.; Arabian costus, 12 oz.; cassia lignea, 10½ oz.; trochiscs of agaric, 15 oz.; castor, 12 oz.; scincus marinus, 3½ oz.; myrrh, 16 oz.; olibanum, 15 oz.; bdellium, 10½ oz.; gum Arabic, 7½ oz.

Pulverise, mix, and sift the above. Then dissolve in 8 lb. of wine galbanum and opoponax, of each 12 oz.; sagapenum, 4½ oz.; juice of hypocist, 12 oz.; juice of acacia, 4 oz.; opium, 7½ oz.

Mix this solution with 106 lb. despumated honey, and gradually incorporate the powder. Then pour into the mixture 12 oz. of storax dissolved in 14 oz. of turpentine, and finally add 12 oz. of opobalsamum. Stir for several hours and leave the mixture to ferment in a large vessel.

Electuarium Theriacale Magnum.

Root of Florentine iris, licorice, of each, 12 oz.; of Arabian costus, Pontic rhubarb, cinquefoil, of each 6 oz.; of Ligusticum meum, rhubarb, gentian, of each, 4 oz.; of birthwort, 2 oz.; herb of scordium, 12 oz.; of lemon grass, horehound, dittany of Crete, calamint, of each, 6 oz.; of pennyroyal, ground pine, germander, of each, 4 oz.; leaves of laurus cassia, 4 oz.; flowers of red roses, 12 oz.; of lavender, 6 oz.; of St. John’s wort, 4 oz.; of lesser centaury, 2 oz.; saffron, 6 oz.; fruit of amyris opobalsamum, 4 oz.; cinnamon, 12 oz.; cassia lignea, spikenard, of each, 6 oz.; Celtic nard, 4 oz.; long pepper, 24 oz.; black pepper, ginger, of each 6 oz.; cardamoms, 4 oz.; rape seeds, agaric, of each 12 oz.; seeds of Macedonian parsley, 6 oz.; of anise, fennel, cress, seseli, thlaspi, amomum, sandwort, of each 4 oz.; of carrot, 2 oz.; opium, 24 oz.; opobalsamum, 12 oz.; myrrh, olibanum, turpentine, of each 6 oz.; storax, gum Arabic, sagapenum, of each 4 oz.; asphaltum, opoponax, galbanum, of each 2 oz.; juice of acacia, and of hypocist, of each, 4 oz.; castor, 2 oz.; Lemnian bole, calcined vitriol, of each, 4 oz.; trochiscs of squill, 48 oz.; of vipers, of sweet flag, of each 24 oz.

Triturate the balsams, resins, and gums in a sufficient quantity of wine, to form a thin paste, and incorporate the whole with 960 oz. of honey.

Appended are the formulas for these two confections as given in the P.L. 1746. The drugs named in parentheses are those which the College officially authorised as substitutes.

Confectio Damocratis (Mithridatium).

Cinnamon, 14 drachms, myrrh, 11 drachms; agaric, spikenard, ginger, saffron, thlaspi seeds, frankincense, Chio turpentine, of each, 10 drachms.

Camel’s hay, Arabian costus (zedoary), Indian leaf (mace), French lavender, long pepper, hartwort seeds, juice of rape of cistus, strained storax, opoponax, strained galbanum, balm of Gilead (expressed oil of nutmeg), Russian castor, of each, 1 oz.

Poley mountain, water germander, fruit of balsam tree (cubebs), white pepper, Cretan carrot seeds, strained bdellium, of each 7 drachms.

Celtic nard, gentian root, Cretan dittany leaves, red roses, Macedonian parsley seeds, lesser cardamum seeds, sweet fennel seeds, gum Arabic, strained opium, of each 5 drachms.

Sweet flag root, wild valerian root, aniseed, strained sagapenum, of each 3 drachms.

Spignel, St. John’s wort, juice of acacia (catechu), bellies of seines, of each 2½ drachms.

Clarified honey, three times the weight of all the rest.

Theriaca Andromachi.

Troches of squills, ½ lb.

Long pepper, strained opium, dried vipers, of each, 3 oz.

Cinnamon, balm of Gilead (expressed oil of nutmeg), of each, 2 oz.

Agaric, orris root, scordium, red roses, navew seeds, extract of licorice, of each 1½ ounces.

Spikenard, saffron, greater cardmoms, myrrh, costus (zedoary), camel’s hay, of each 1 oz.

Cinquefoil root, rhubarb, ginger, Indian leaf (mace), Cretan dittany leaves, horehound, calamint, French lavender, black pepper, parsley seeds, olibanum, Chio turpentine, valerian root, of each, 6 drachms.

Gentian root, Celtic nard, spignel, poley mountain, St. John’s wort, ground pine, creeping germander, fruit of balsam tree (cubebs), aniseed, fennel seed, lesser cardamoms, bishop’s weed, hartwort, treacle mustard, juice of rape of cistus, catechu, gum Arabic, storax, sagapenum, Lemnian earth (Armenian bole), calcined green vitriol, of each, ½ oz.

Creeping birthwort, lesser centaury, Cretan carrot seeds, opoponax, strained galbanum, Russian castor, Jews’ pitch (white amber), sweet flag root, of each, 2 drachms.

Clarified honey, three times the weight of all the rest.

Philonium,

a famous antidote invented by Philon of Tarsus, who is supposed to have lived in the early part of the first century (a contemporary probably of Saul of Tarsus). Galen says of it that it had been in great reputation for a long time, and was one of the earliest of the compounds of the kind. Philon gives his formula in Greek verses and in such enigmatic language that it would be impossible to interpret it if Galen himself had not come to the rescue. Philon writes:—

Take of the red and odorous hairs of the young lad whose blood is shed on the fields of Mercury (saffron), as many drachms as we have senses; of the Nauplium Euboic (pyrethrum), 1 drachm; the same quantity of the murderer of the son of Menetius, preserved in sheeps’ bellies (euphorbium); add 20 drachms of white fire (white pepper); the same quantity of the beans of the pigs of Arcadia (henbane); one drachm of the plant which is falsely called a root, and which comes from a country renowned because of Jupiter Pissean (spikenard); write pium, and place at the head of the word the masculine article of the Greeks (opium) 10 drachms; and mix the whole with the work of the daughters of the bull of Athens (Attic honey).

The words in parentheses are the explanations of this rather unwieldy joke as they are provided by Galen. It is conjectured from an obscure passage in Pliny that this antidote was prescribed against a peculiar form of colic which became epidemic at Rome about the time when Philon was practising there.

Philonium was the original of the confection of opium which remained in our pharmacopœias until 1867. In the first London Pharmacopœia the formula was more similar to that which Galen gives; later, a modification by Nicolas Myrepsus was adopted, the most important change being the omission of the euphorbium. Until 1746 it was called Philonium Romanum. In the P.L. 1746, the ingredients were white pepper, ginger, caraway seeds, strained opium, and syrup of poppies (or of meconium, as it was called). This had been substituted for honey in all the English formulas. The name was also changed in 1746 to Philonium Londinense. The proportion of opium in Philonium was 1 grain in 36 grains.

Diascordium,

the last of the four officinal capitals, was a medicinal compilation by Hieronymus Frascatorius, and is given in his book “De Contagio et Morbis Contagiosis.” It was devised as a preventive of plague, but it acquired such popularity that Dr. James in the introduction to his Dispensatory (1747) writing of the conventional esteem in which so many compounds are held, says, “Thus the Venice Treacle invented by Andromachus under the reign of Nero, and the Diascordium of Frascatorius, have been used by almost every physician who has practised since their publication.” The original formula, which was adopted in its integrity in the first P.L., was as follows:—

Cinnamon, Cassia wood, aa ½ oz.; true scordium (water germander) 1 oz.; Cretan dittany, bistort galbanum, gum Arabic, aa ½ oz.; storax, 4½ drachms; opium, seeds of sorrel, aa 1½ drachm; gentian, ½ oz.; Armenian bole, 1½ oz.; sealed earth (Lemnian), ½ oz.; long pepper, ginger, aa 2 drachms; clarified honey, 2½ lb.; generous canary, 8 oz. Make into an electuary, S.A.

In the eighteenth century this compound became a popular household opiate, and was frequently given to children for soothing purposes, especially as the Pharmacopœia had substituted syrup of meconium (poppies) for the honey. As the preparation was rather a strong astringent it was doubly harmful as a frequently taken remedy. In the P.L. 1746 two species of diascordium were prescribed, one with and one without opium; at the same time a “pulvis e bolo compositus” was introduced in which the scordium, the dittany, the sorrel seeds, the storax, the sealed earth, the bistort, and the galbanum, as well as the wine, were omitted. Edinburgh likewise omitted the scordium and other ingredients, and made the preparation still more astringent by the addition of catechu and kino. This was called Confectio Japonica. The mangled remains of the various formulas are represented in the British Pharmacopœia by Pulvis Catechu Compositus.

Theriaca.

Theriaca was invented by Nero’s physician, Andromachus, and was devised as an improvement on Mithridatium which until then was the great antidote in Roman pharmacy. The most important addition which appeared in the new formula was the introduction of vipers. Andromachus named his electuary “Galene,” which meant tranquil, probably to suggest that it was a soothing, anodyne medicine. It soon, however, acquired its permanent name, for it is referred to as Theriaca by Pliny, who would have been a contemporary with Andromachus. Pliny, it may be remarked, was rather contemptuous of the polypharmaceutic compounds which were then becoming so popular. They were devised, he says, “ad ostentationem artis;” just to “show off,” as we should say.

Andromachus (or it may have been his son, a physician of the same name) wrote his formula, and described the virtues of his compound in Greek elegiac verses which he dedicated to Nero, and which Galen has preserved. The object of giving the formula in verse was that it should be less easy to modify it. The enumeration of the medicinal properties of the antidote left very little room for any other remedy. First it would counteract all poisons and bites of venomous animals. Besides, it would relieve all pains, weaknesses of the stomach, asthma, difficulty of breathing, phthisis, colic, jaundice, dropsy, weakness of sight, inflammation of the bladder and of the kidneys, and plague.

Galen, after describing its alexipharmic properties, states that he tested it by causing a number of fowls to be dosed with it. To these he brought others to which no theriaca had been given. The poison was administered to all. The fowls to which the theriaca had been given all survived, and all the others died. Galen’s encomiums on this compound were no doubt largely responsible for the marvellous reputation it enjoyed all through the centuries in which his authority was accepted. He declares that it resists poison and venomous bites, cures inveterate headache, vertigo, deafness, epilepsy, apoplexy, dimness of sight, loss of voice, asthma, coughs of all kinds, spitting of blood, tightness of the breath, colic, the iliac passion, jaundice, hardness of the spleen, stone, urinary complaints, fevers, dropsies, leprosies, the troubles to which women are subject, melancholy, and all pestilences.

Down to the seventeenth century these virtues were almost universally accepted, and many were the learned treatises written to explain its action; how one drug toned down the effect of others, and how the whole formed a sort of harmony in medicine. At the same time most of the old masters in pharmacy fancied they could suggest some improvement, and the original formula was modified in scores of ways.

In addition there arose new electuaries, modelled more or less closely on theriaca, but perhaps devised for some special complaints, and bearing the names of their authors. Many of these also attained to considerable fame.

For some centuries the theriaca made in turn at Constantinople, Cairo, Genoa, and Venice was in such reputation that customers would have it so branded. Ultimately the last-named city secured almost the monopoly of the manufacture. A reference to its production there occurs in Evelyn’s Diary, dated March 23, 1646. Evelyn writes: “Having packed up my purchases of books, pictures, casts, treacle, &c. (the making and extraordinary ceremony whereof I had been curious to observe, for it is extremely pompous and worth seeing), I departed from Venice.”

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth English apothecaries began to claim that they could make the confection as well as their Italian contemporaries. Some curious documents illustrating their confidence were given in an interesting research by Mr. W. G. Piper, published in The Chemist and Druggist, March 15, 1880. He quotes from William Turner, “the learned divine, daring Protestant, and first English botanist,” the title of a work on the virtues and properties of the great Triacle (published in 1568 but not now known), and also a few paragraphs from a later volume on the same subject in which, after describing the method of making the remedy, he says: “Wherefore if there be any Apothecaries in London that dare take in hande to make these noble compositions they may know where to haue them.” It appears that Hugh Morgan, the Queen’s apothecary, accepted the challenge, for in a pamphlet by him (1585) he insists that his product has been compared with other “theriacle” brought from Constantinople and Venice, and has been better commended. “It is very lamentable to consider,” he writes, “that straungers doe dayly send into England a false and naughty kinde of Mithridatium and Threacle in great barrelles more than a thousand weight in a year, and vtter ye same at a lowe price for 3d. and 4d. a pound, to ye great hurt of Her Maiesties subjects and no small game to straungers purses.”

Preparation of Theriaca.

(From Brunschwick’s “Destillir,” Strassburg, 1500.)

Reproduced (by permission) from “The Follies of Science,” by H. Carrington Bolton (Pharmaceutical Review Publishing Co., Milwaukee, U.S.A.)

Mr. Piper also quoted at length from another pamphlet published in 1612 by R. Band (in a subsequent edition, R. Browne), who relates how the Master and Wardens of the Grocers’ Company, having marked that “a filthy and unwholesome baggage composition” was being brought into this Realm as Tryacle of Genoa, “made only of the rotten garble and refuse outcast of all kinds of spices and drugs, hand over head with a little filthy molasses and tarre to worke it up withal,” communicated with the College of Physicians, and induced them to prescribe the proper formula and to superintend the manufacture, which was then entrusted to Mr. William Besse, apothecary in the Poultry. Mr. Besse had to take “a corporall oath” before the Lord Mayor, and every year when he made the confection had to show the ingredients and the product to the College of Physicians. His triacle was sold at not above 2s. 8d. per lb. or 2d. per ounce. It appears from the same pamphlet that nothing was alleged against Venice Treacle except its “excessive dearness.”

Prosper Alpinus, a Paduan physician, wrote an account of his three years’ residence at Cairo (“De Medicina Ægyptorum”) in 1591, and has much to say of the manufacture of Theriaca in that city. It was only allowed to be made in public, and the ceremony was performed once a year in the month of May in the Mosque of Morestan by the chief pharmacist of the city in the presence of all the physicians. The operator would give no information to Albinus, a Christian, about the composition; but he got what he wanted from a famous herbalist who collected all the materials for the compound. Albinus states that at that time Italians, Germans, Poles, Flemings, Englishmen, and Frenchmen came to Cairo to purchase this true Theriaca.

Theriaca (Tyriaca, as he calls it), was among the drugs recommended to Alfred the Great by Helias, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. The manuscript is quoted in “Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms” by the Rev. Oswald Cockayne. (See Vol. I, p. [124], [131].)

Many allusions in old records show how highly the confection was esteemed by those who could afford to take it. According to Buckle (“Miscell. Works,” Vol. II, p. 303) it is first mentioned in English literature by Foucher de Chartres (1124). He had come to know of it in the first crusade. A “Pixis argenti ad Tyriacum” is named in the Close Roll of King John, 1208; in the old romance of Sir Tristrem (about 1250) a man is slain by a dragon; and “His mouth opened thai And pelt treacle in that man”; the “triacle box du pere apelle une Hakette garniz d’or” is mentioned among the precious effects of Henry V; in the Paston letters written in the reign of Edward IV we find allusions to “treacle pottes of Geane (Genoa) as my potecarie swerytht on to me, and moerovyr that they were never undoo syns that they came from Geane.”

In early English books treacle was a term used metaphorically for the divinest blessings. Nothing could better prove the high appreciation in which it was held. Piers Ploughman (about 1370) writes, “Treuthe telleth that love ys tryacle for synne”; Chaucer (1340–1400) has “Crist, which is to every harm triacle”; in Coverdale’s Bible (1535) the sentence in Jeremiah viii, 22 is rendered “Is there no triacle in Gilead?”; Sir Thomas More (1573) writes of “laying up a store of cumfort in your hart as a triacle against the poyson of desperate dread”; and later Milton speaks of “the treacle of sound doctrine”; Jeremy Taylor says, “We kill the Viper and make treacle of him; that is, we not only escape from but get advantage by temptations.”

Laurens Catelan, Master Apothecary of Montpellier, and Apothecary in Ordinary to Monseigneur the Prince de Condé, has left a full report of his discourse on the occasion of his dispensing a batch of Theriaca at Montpellier on September 23, 1628. It is a most interesting lecture, full of curious old facts chiefly about poisonings, and inspired with an unshakable faith in the importance of the operation in which he was engaged. The exordium is explanatory of the ceremony:

“The regulations and statutes under which we live in this city,” says Master Catelan, “require that whenever we prepare either Theriaca, Mithridatium, Confection of Hyacinth, or Confection Alkermes, the compounding shall be done in public, and in the presence of the very illustrious professors of this famous University of Medicine, so that they may have the opportunity of censuring or approving the ingredients, and the public may therefore be assured of the fidelity of these important medicines.

“This is why I have here spread out before you all these drugs which are used in the composition of the great and famous Theriaca.

“But as I am honoured with the attendance of such an august assembly, I ought not, I think, to omit to lay before you some of the singularities associated with the history and composition of this remedy, and I will divide what I have to say on these subjects into three sections, namely—

“(1) The discoverer of this compound; (2) the purpose of the invention; and (3) the reasons why these drugs and no others of the multitude known to us have been chosen for this purpose.”

The lecturer then entered upon a history of Mithridates and his wonderful immunity against poisons; of his defeat by Pompey, of the recovery of his formula, of the additions made to it a hundred years later by Andromachus, and of the preservation of directions for making it which Galen wrote some fifty years after Andromachus had completed his invention.

At this point the book tells us there was an interval, and some music was performed. When the lecturer resumed he proceeded to tell of the risks which princes and nobles ran of being poisoned in those old times, and of the precautions taken against such crimes. Of the rings and amulets they wore, of the tasters they employed, and of the treatment such as Mithridates went through of accustoming his system to poisons to such an extent that they took no effect on him. He quotes in support of the belief in this method of ensuring immunity against poisons two or three stories from the classics which one would have thought would have been too strong even for a professional eulogist of Theriaca.

One case was that of a girl who ate spiders from her childhood, and was so fortified against poisons as not to be afraid to take any of them. A man is alluded to by Galen who would drink a cup of wine in which a live viper had been drowned. We have also the account of a girl whose system had been so saturated with aconite that an Indian king had sent her as a present to Alexander the Great in the hope that he would kiss her, and thus imbibe the poison with which her lips would be charged; but, fortunately, Aristotle saw her first, and recognised by her flaming eyes that she was filled with some sort of poison, and thus the Indian’s purpose was frustrated.

After another interval and some more music, the lecturer came to the third part of his subject, in which he expounded the special virtues of the drugs before him. These were grouped, and it was shown that some were good for the brain, others for the chest, for the stomach, for the kidneys, the heart, and other organs. Others, like the viper’s flesh, were directly sympathetic with poisons, and would go straight for them if they were inside the body, or would lie in wait for them, as it were, if they were only expected. When the subject was exhausted, it was announced that in consequence of the lateness of the hour the weighing of the ingredients would be postponed till the next day. That ceremony was duly performed on the 24th of September, and the drugs were passed on to a “pulveriser.” It was not until the 16th of November that the final mixing was undertaken.

Kermes.

Kermes as a pharmaceutical term reaches us through the Arabic, qirmis, red. But it was not a native Arabic word. It was adopted into that language from the Persian, and was of Sanskrit origin. The word Krimija in Sanskrit meant produced by a worm, and was itself from krimi, a worm; worm is the direct English descendant of krimi. Kermes is responsible in modern English for carmine and crimson, but it need hardly be said that it has no connection with the Flemish kermess though it looks so like it. Kermess is kerkmess, or, in English, church-mass.

The kermes of the Arabs was the kokkos of the Greeks, coccus of the Romans. It was found on a species of oak, now called the Quercus ilex, a low, shrubby, evergreen bush with prickly leaves like the holly. The tree, however, bears acorns. The ancients generally regarded these insects as the fruit of the trees, though they were aware that worms came from them. But these they thought were produced from the corruption of the fruit. The principal use they made of them was in dyeing, and for this purpose they were employed until the superior coccus cacti from Mexico superseded the coccus ilicis. In the middle ages kermes was retained as the medicinal name, but for dyeing the insects were called vermiculi, and the cloth dyed by them was known as vermiculata. From this came the French word vermeil, and from that vermilion was derived.

Medicinally the coccus was principally employed by the Greek and Latin physicians as an application to wounds and for inflamed eyes. It acquired a very high reputation among the Arab doctors as a cordial for internal administration, and the famous Confection of Alkermes, invented by Mesué the younger, who was contemporary with Avicenna, continued in popular favour up to the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, the external application of kermes lingered in the use of scarlet cloth in measles, erysipelas, and other red diseases.

The original Confection of Alkermes contained juice of rennet apples, rose water, silk, kermes, sugar, ambergris, amber, yellow santal, lapis lazuli, pearls, musk, and leaf gold. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries this compound was prepared publicly at Montpellier, and was supplied from that city to all Europe. It was described as good for all maladies proceeding from the melancholic humour, faintings, palpitations, heart weakness, and in slow convalescence. It fortified the stomach, rejoiced the heart, and engendered good spirits. The dose was 1 drachm, or it might be applied externally on a piece of scarlet cloth.

Mel Ægyptiacum

is a very ancient compound used chiefly by veterinarians as an escharotic. Its name suggests Egyptian origin, but it has not been traced further back than to the “Grabadin” of John Mesué, the Arabian author, about the year 800. Scribonius Largus before him gives a similar formula under the name of Hygra. Mesué’s formula was to boil 1 oz. of vinegar with 1 oz. of honey to the consistence of honey and to add 2 drachms of verdigris. This formula was modified in various ways in the different pharmacopœias in which it was adopted; alum was added in some cases, cream of tartar in others. The chemical action varied with the process, but generally the result was to reduce a part of the verdigris to an oxide of copper, metallic copper, and a little basic acetate in different proportions. The compound appeared in the London Pharmacopœia of 1721 as Unguentum Ægyptiacum; in that of 1746 as Mel Ægyptiacum; as Oxymel Æruginis in that of 1788; and as Linimentum Æruginis in the P.L. 1851. In this last edition the formula given was to dissolve 1 oz. of verdigris in 7 oz. of vinegar, and boil this with 14 oz. of honey to a proper consistence. It was not adopted in the British Pharmacopœia. In old veterinary recipes it was often combined with tincture of myrrh to form a detergent liniment, and occasionally in a very diluted form was administered internally as a tonic. On the Continent, where its employment lingered longer than in this country, an Egyptiac of Solleysel, from which the vinegar was omitted, but litharge, sulphate of zinc, and arsenic in small proportions added, was frequently preferred to the original.

An Unguentum Ægyptiacum magis compositum, containing rock alum and sal ammoniac, in addition to the other ingredients mentioned, was included in the London Pharmacopœia 1721. In some foreign pharmacopœias camphor was prescribed as an ingredient, and in one old one theriaca is ordered.

Terra Sigillata.

Various earths were celebrated as medicines in old times, that from the Island of Lemnos especially having been esteemed from the days of Herodotus among the Greeks, and this product retained its reputation in Western Europe down to the seventeenth century. It is still used by the Turks and neighbouring nations. The Lemnian earth is a greasy clay which is dug from a desolate hill in the island and consists of silica, alumina, chalk, and magnesia, with a little oxide of iron which gives it a red tint. It acquired the fame of being an antidote to all poisons, and was given in dysenteries, internal ulcers, and hæmorrhages; also in gonorrhœa, and in pestilential fevers. Externally it was applied to festering wounds. The characteristic of the best Lemnian earth was its greasy feel and freedom from grit.

A sufficient supply of this Lemnian earth is still, and has been certainly from the time of Galen, dug out of the hill only on one day of the year, with considerable ceremony and in the presence of the principal inhabitants of the island. At present the ceremony is largely a religious one, and the day fixed for it is the 6th of August, which in the Greek church calendar is the Fête of the Saviour. Formerly the ceremony was originally associated with the worship of Diana, and the date of the performance was the 6th of May. The particular earth may not be dug by any one on any other day of the year except that formally set apart for the operation. According to Dioscorides the earth was made up into a paste in his time with goats’ blood, but when Galen visited the place 150 years later he could find no evidence of this addition.

Lemnian earth was, and I presume still is, a monopoly of the Sultan of Turkey. Most of the produce of the day’s digging was sent to Constantinople and was made up into round tablets of about half an ounce in weight, which were stamped with designs similar to those shown in the accompanying sketches. At one time it is said the figure of Artemis (Diana) or the goat, which was one of her symbols appeared on the tablets, and it may be from this that the story of the goat’s blood originated.

Many other sealed earths were also more or less used in medicine, and were credited with similar virtues. The Terra Mellitea came from Malta and was alleged to have a special power against the bites of serpents, Malta, vipers, and St. Paul thus associating themselves in the public mind. These cakes bore the effigy of St. Paul, and a popular legend attributed their efficacy to a blessing on the earth of the island when the apostle landed there. There were besides Terra Samia, from the Isle of Samos; Terra Sicula or Fossil Bezoar from Sicily; Terra Portugallica, stamped with the figure of a rose, from Portugal; Terra Strigensis or Germanica from Strigonium in Hungary, stamped with a design, suggesting mountain peaks and cross-keys on them; and Terra Livonica. Naturally the temptation of selling soil at fabulous prices per shovelful appealed to all nations.

The appended formulas from Geoffroy’s Materia Medica (written before 1731) will show how this sealed earth was used. Both are for dysentery.

Lemnian earth, ʒi, syrup of quinces, 1 oz., plantain water, and knot grass water, of each 3 oz. Spoonful doses.

Lemnian earth, conserve of red roses, conserve of hips, of each ½ oz.; syrup of bearberries sufficient to make a soft electuary. Take ʒi morning and evening.

Several so-called “alexipharmic powders” or mixtures much more complex than the preceding were prescribed in small-pox, fevers, and pestilential diseases.

Oil of Bricks.

Oil of Bricks appeared in the earlier London and Edinburgh pharmacopœias and in many foreign formularies. It was long held to be a specially valuable application in gouty and rheumatic pains, and was especially in repute as a cure for deafness. It was also sometimes given as an internal remedy. Among its synonyms were those of oleum philosophorum, oleum sanctum, oleum divinum, and oleum benedictum; but as these names were adopted for selling purposes they may not have meant much. The process given in the P.L. 1746 was to heat bricks red-hot and quench them in olive oil until they had soaked up all the oil. They were then broken into small pieces and put into a retort, and by means of a sand-bath with a gradually increasing heat a distillate of oil and so-called spirit was obtained. The spirit was water impregnated with empyreumatic oil. The oil was nothing but an empyreumatic olive oil.

Arquebusade Water

was the original of many vulnerary waters invented for application to wounds, bruises, and ulcers. It was a weak, spirituous distillate from a large number of herbs and aromatic plants, such as angelica, rosemary balm, hyssop, mint, rue, sage, and wormwood. These would furnish an antiseptic lotion. As the arquebus was displaced by the musket about the end of the sixteenth century it may be supposed that the lotion acquired its name and popularity at that same period; but these evidently lasted for a long time, as we find that a certain John Thomson took out a patent for “a concentrated balsam of arquebusade” in 1786.

Four Thieves Vinegar

is the sub-title of the Antiseptic Vinegar of the French Codex. It is a strong vinegar in which a number of aromatics with camphor and garlic have been macerated. The story of its origin is that in the year 1720 a plague was raging in the city of Toulouse, and that during the period of panic four thieves went about the city plundering the dead and dying. People wondered why they never took the disease, and when they were ultimately brought to justice and convicted, they were offered pardon if they would reveal the secret of their prophylactic. This is the legend as given by Littré, who quotes it from Abbé Lemontey. Other authors make Marseilles the scene of the exploit.

Elixir Proprietatis.

This medicine was very celebrated in all countries for several centuries, and, though not in the British Pharmacopœia, was official under the name which Paracelsus gave it in the P.L. 1724, as Elixir of Aloes in the P.L. 1746, and later as Tinct. Aloes Co. In the Ph. Ed. it was called Tinct. Aloes et Myrrhæ, and this was the most usual name for it until quite recent times, and probably is still. Paracelsus wrote about it and extolled it as a compound which would prolong life to its utmost limits. That he used the same ingredients mainly as his successors is certain, but he never gave any clear formula. His disciple, Oswald Crollius, however, deduced from his writings that it was a tincture of aloes, myrrh, and saffron, with sulphuric acid. Boerhaave substituted vinegar for the sulphuric acid and left most of that behind by distillation. Van Helmont had previously made an Elixir Proprietatis without any acid; and in many continental pharmacopœias the elixir was made alkaline by the addition of carbonate of potash. This also originated with Boerhaave. Other authors added a few spices. The Elixir of Garus which still appears in the French Codex was the same sort of preparation but with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and other ingredients, diluted with syrup of maidenhair. Garus was a grocer, who acquired great popularity under the Regency with his Elixir. St. Simon says he cured the Maréchal de Villars with it, and that he would probably have saved the life of the Duchesse de Berry if the physician Chirac, jealous of his fame, had not administered to her a purgative which killed her (“Mem. de St. Simon,” cxi, pp. 140–228).

Balsam of Sulphur

was a famous medicine up to our own days. It appears now to have dropped out of use. It was highly commended by Van Helmont, Rulandos, Boyle, and indeed by most of the medical experts of the seventeenth century, and was compounded from many different formulæ. The simple balsam was made by boiling one pound of flowers of sulphur with four times its weight of olive oil until the sulphur was dissolved and a thick dark balsamic substance was obtained. This was the formula of the P.L. 1746. But linseed oil and walnut oil were often prescribed in preference to olive oil, and oil of anise, oil of amber, oil of juniper, white wine, Barbadoes tar, turpentine, myrrh, aloes, and saffron; one or more of these substances were combined with the balsam in other receipts. The use of the balsam was generally for coughs, asthmas, and lung diseases. Salmon says, “It is of good use to digest crude humours and undigested matter in any part of the body, being often anointed upon the same.” The terebinthinated balsam was given in stone; a combination with iron, Balsamum Sulphuris Martis, was prescribed in gravel. These balsams were applied externally to ulcers, or taken in doses of from five to forty drops.

XVII
PHARMACOPŒIAS

But here is one prescription out of many:—

Sodæ sulphat. ʒvi, ʒss Mannæ optim.,

Aq. fervent, f℥iss, ʒii Tinct. Sennæ

Haustus (and here the Surgeon came and cupp’d him),

R. Pulv. Com. gr. iii Ipecacuanhæ

(With more besides if Juan had not stopp’d ’em).

Bolus Potassæ Sulphuret sumendus,

Et haustus ter in die capiendus.

Byron: Don Juan, Canto x (41).

The London Pharmacopœia.

The collection of medicinal formulas was a favourite occupation of ancient medical writers. Galen and Avicenna, Mesué and Serapion, Nicholas Prepositus and Nicolas of Salerno were the authors of the dispensatories most esteemed up to the sixteenth century in Europe. The College of Medicine of Florence adopted an Antidotarium in the early part of that century, and in 1524 the Senate of Nuremberg made the Dispensatory of Valerius Cordus official in that city. Augsburg followed the example of Nuremberg, and the Pharmacopea Augustana of 1601 was probably the first work of the kind designated a Pharmacopœia and issued under authoritative sanction. A quasi-official Dispensatorium for the State of Brandenburg, forerunner of the Prussian Pharmacopœia, came next in 1608, and the London Pharmacopœia, which appeared in 1618, was the first really national publication of that character. The first French Codex was published in 1639, and no other work of similar standing was issued until the next century.

The College of Physicians was incorporated by Charter in the reign of Henry VIII, in the year 1518. The idea of preparing an official pharmacopœia was first considered by the College on June 25th, 1585, “but as the matter seemed weighty” (sed quoniam res videbatur operosa), the deliberation on it was postponed and was only resumed on October 10th, 1589. On this occasion ten committees were appointed and to these were assigned the work of selection and compilation distributed thus:—Committee 1 was charged with Syrups, Juleps, and Decoctions; 2 took Oils; 3, Waters; 4, Liniments, Ointments, Cerates, and Plasters; 5, Juices, Conserves, Candies, and Confections; 6, Extracts, Salts, Chemicals, and Metallic Preparations; 7, Powders and Dragees; 8, Pills; 9, Electuaries, Opiates, and Eclegmas (looches); 10, Lozenges and Eye-salves.

The work must have been carried on leisurely, for it is not mentioned in the minutes again until 1614, when eight fellows were appointed to examine certain foreign Antidotarii. In 1616, an editing committee was appointed, and all the collaborators were called upon to send their papers to this body. It then appeared that many which had been prepared had been lost, a misfortune attributed to the carelessness of the recently deceased President, Dr. Forster. His successor, Dr. Atkins, put more energy into the business and consequently the manuscript was completed and in type by the day after Palm Sunday, 1618. Sir Theodore Mayerne was commissioned to write a dedication of the work to King James I, and his Majesty’s proclamation requiring all the apothecaries in the realm to obey this Pharmacopœia and this only, was dated April 26th, 1618. It will be observed that exactly a century intervened between the incorporation of the College and the production of the Pharmacopœia.

The President was evidently a smart man, but the printer was still smarter, for while the former was out of town for a few days the printer rushed the publication through, “surreptitiously and prematurely,” as the College officially declared, with a number of errors and imperfections, on May 7th, 1618. This presumptuous printer was one John Marriot, at the inappropriate sign of the White Lily “in platea vulgo dicta Fleet Street.” On December 7th in the same year the College brought out a corrected edition, to which they appended an epilogue, expressing their opinion of their offending “typographus” in terms which left no excuse for not appreciating their dissatisfaction with him.

The first London Pharmacopœia did not err on the side of condensation. It comprised 1028 simples and 932 preparations and compounds. Among the simples were 31 animals and 60 parts of animals or derivatives from them. The herbs named numbered 271, and there were 138 roots and 138 seeds. Among the preparations were 178 simple and 35 compound waters, 3 medicated wines, 10 medicated vinegars, 1 vulnerary potion, 8 decoctions, 90 syrups, 18 mels and oxymels, 18 juices and linctuses, 115 candies and conserves, 43 species or powders, 58 electuaries, 36 pills, 45 lozenges, 151 oils of various kinds, 53 ointments, 51 plasters and cerates, and 17 chemicals.

The names of the inventors of many of the compounds were duly attached to the formulas, some of which were very elaborate and complicated. Rufus of Ephesus, physician to the Emperor Trajan, the Arabian doctors, Nicolas, Rivierus, Fracastor, Fallopius, and many others are thus quoted. There were 211 preparations with more than ten ingredients in each, and one, the Antidotus Magnus Matthioli, called for 130 substances in its composition, among the 130 being Mithridatium and Theriaca which would have contributed another hundred between them. Medicated waters which had been invented by Arnold de Villa Nova in the 13th century still commanded respect, over 200 different kinds being provided. Worms, swallows, frogs’ spawn, and other animal remedies as well as the whole range of the vegetable kingdom were requisitioned to surrender their virtues to these waters by distillation. Syrups, honeys, oxymels, and lohochs were numerous and included syrups of white and red poppies, rhubarb, violets, marshmallow, coltsfoot, liquorice, oxymel of squills, and mel Egyptiaca. Powders of hot precious stones and of cold precious stones, powders of pearls and spices, and a compound senna powder; troches of various drugs; basilicon ointment and a multitude of plasters are formulated. Neapolitan ointment was our blue ointment, the mercury being killed by fasting spittle. An itch ointment was made with corrosive sublimate. May butter was a favourite ingredient in ointments. It was butter made in May, melted in the sun, strained and kept the year through. Oils was a term of wide significance. Not only were expressed and distilled oils included in the reference, but oils in which things had been infused, as oil of ants, of bricks, of earthworms, of wolves, and oil of vitriol was also in the same classification. Vipers in lozenges were there, lohoch of foxes’ lungs was the great remedy for asthmatic complaints, and a modification of Vigo’s plaster with its live frogs and worms and vipers’ flesh was not omitted. The full list of the animal substances recognised as medicinal in this Pharmacopœia and its two successors has been given in the Section on Animal Medicines.

Title-page of the London Pharmacopœia.

(From the reprint of the First Edition, 1627.)

Chemicals included calomel, turpeth mineral, flowers of sulphur, the mineral acids, preparations of steel and antimony, sugar of lead, and caustic potash. The inclusion of some of these may no doubt be attributed to the influence of Sir Theodore Mayerne.

After the first Pharmacopœia had been several times reprinted a new one appeared in 1650. Notable features of this issue were that the gallon hitherto 9 lb. of water was now fixed at 8 lb.; corrosive sublimate and red and white precipitate were among the additions, but it has to be remarked that the white precipitate of that day was not what we know by name but really a precipitated proto-chloride of mercury. Its true chemical composition was not recognised until some fifty years later by Deidier in his “Chimie Raisonné.” Tinctures formed a new class of preparations, seven of them being formulated, castor, saffron, and strawberries being among these. Syrup of buckthorn was added to the syrups, and Gascoin powder to the powders. Mercury was now killed by turpentine. Mezereon, Winter’s bark, and cochineal were among the new drugs; antimonial wine made from the regulus of antimony was adopted; and the skull of a man killed by violence, and moss from that skull were admitted.

The third Pharmacopœia (1677) did not present many remarkable features, and was apparently rather hastily produced. The most striking new formula it contained was one for “Aqua Vitæ Hibernorum sive Usquebagh.” Burnt alum, flowers of benzoin, balsams of capivi and tolu, contrayerva root, Jesuits’ bark, and resin of jalap were among the new drugs. Steel wine was added.

Sir Hans Sloane presided over the compilation of the P.L. of 1721, the fourth of the series. The preface to this edition claimed that all remedies owing their use to superstition and false philosophy had been thrown out, but perhaps the far-reaching effects of the false philosophy were not fully appreciated. Many of the absurd old formulas were retained, but an approach to greater simplicity is apparent. The transition from the old to the new pharmacy can be traced very easily in this volume. The names of the plants, we are told in the preface, are “not only distinguished by the names known in shops, but also by such as are sometimes used by the more eminent writers in botany.” Tinctures are growing in favour, their number being increased to 18. The number of waters and syrups is largely diminished, and puppies, hedgehogs, wagtails, bread-crust plaster, lapis lazuli pills, and Galen’s unguentum refrigerans are dismissed. The last-named has, however, refused to die to this day. Among new chemical preparations Hepar Sulphuris (pot. sulphuret.), Flores Salis Ammoniaci Martiales (ammonio-chloride of iron), Tinctura Martis cum Spiritu Salis (tinct. ferri perchlor.), Sal Martis (ferri sulphas), Aqua Sapphirina (solution of ammonio-sulphate of copper), Lunar Caustic, Tartar Emetic, Ens Veneris, Aurum Mosaicum, Ethiops Mineral, Spirit of Sal Volatile, Mynsicht’s tincture of steel, Elixir of Vitriol, and Lime Water may be mentioned.

The P.L. 1746 (the fifth) was very different from its predecessors. Among those who took an active part in its preparation were the President of the College, Dr. Plumptre, and Drs. Crowe, Mead, Heberden, and Freind. In the preface to this work the old “inartistic and irregular mixtures” and “the antidotes superstitiously and doatingly derived from oracles, dreams, and astrological fancies” are severely condemned, and the College declares its intention of freeing the book as much as possible from whatever remains of former pedantry. Notwithstanding these good intentions the old pharmacy is still abundantly represented. Crabs’ eyes, coral, bezoar stones, harts’ horns, woodlice, pearls, vipers, and skinks’ bellies continue to figure among the simples, and formulas for Mithridatium with 45 ingredients, and for theriaca with 61 are likewise retained. On the other hand, human fat, unicorn’s horn, mummy, spiders’ webs, moss from the human skull, bone from the stag’s heart, and lac virginale disappear. There are now 34 tinctures, while the medicated waters have been reduced to about 30 and the syrups to about 20. Tinctures of cummin, valerian, and cardamoms, syrup scilliticus, and pilula saponacea (soporific) are new; and lixivium saponarium (liquor potassæ), sal diureticus (potassæ acetas), causticum commune fortius (potassa cum calce), sal catharticus Glauberi, pilulæ mercuriales, and spiritus nitri dulcis make their first appearance.

The sixth P.L. (1788) proceeds on the same lines. The College claims to have paid special attention to the application of the advances of chemistry to pharmacy, and to have provided that very few traces of former superstition should remain. Mithridatium, theriaca, bezoar stones, vipers, and oil of bricks are dismissed, but woodlice remain. Materia medica synonyms are now according to Linnæus. Among the new drugs admitted we find aconite, arnica, cascarilla, calumba, kino, quassia, simarouba, castor oil, senega, and magnesia; and among the new preparations may be named Dover’s powder, James’s powder, Mindererus’s spirit, Rochelle salts, tartrate of iron, oxide of zinc, Huxham’s tincture of bark, ether, Hoffmann’s anodyne, the decoctions of sarsaparilla, tincture of calumba, compound tinctures of benzoin, cardamoms, and lavender, and extract of chamomile. Tincture of opium made with proof spirit deposes the Tinctura Thebaica made with wine, and elixir paregoricum assumes the name of tinct. opii camphorata. A number of other names are changed. It is significant of the declining familiarity of doctors with Latin that for the first time an English translation of the Pharmacopœia is authorised.

The seventh P.L. is dated 1809. The new chemical nomenclature is introduced, and the minim substituted for the drop. Acidum vitriolicum becomes acidum sulphuricum, and ferrum vitriolatum is changed to ferri sulphas. More than a hundred articles are omitted, and nearly that number substituted. Among the new drugs and preparations are arsenic, belladonna, cajeput, cusparia, digitalis, infusions of calumba, rhubarb, and digitalis, compound decoction of aloes, acetum colchici, confections of roses, rue, and almonds, pulv. kino co, pil. cambogiæ co, emp. opii, ung. zinci, Griffiths’ mixture and pills, Plummer’s pills, lin. hydrargyri, cataplasm of yeast. Prepared woodlice, crabs’ claws, tutty ointment, and the electuaries fall out.

The eighth P.L. (1824) recognised bismuth, cubebs, croton oil, and stramonium, and admitted confection of black pepper as a substitute for Ward’s paste, and colchicum wine in imitation of the Eau Medicinale d’Husson. But the conservative College lacked the courage to endorse the claims of morphine, iodine, and quinine, though these were pretty generally established in medical practice at the time.

The Pharmacopœia of 1836 was largely the work of Richard Phillips, a very competent pharmacist, who had mercilessly criticised the edition of 1824. This, the ninth P.L., was brought well up to date with notes indicating the methods of ascertaining the purity of medicines, better methods of preparing chemicals, and the introduction of the most important of the new products. The alkaloids aconitine, morphine, quinine, strychnine, and veratrine found admission. Iodine and bromine and their compounds, hydrocyanic and phosphoric acids, creosote, ergot, and lobelia were also among the novelties. Acetum cantharidum, aqua flor. aurant., aqua sambuci, cataplasma lini, decoct. cinchonæ (2), extract. colchici corm., extract. colchici acet., hydrarg. iodid. and biniodid., inf. krameriæ and inf. lupuli. lin. opii, liquor sodæ chlorinatæ, mist. spt. vini Gall., pil. rhei co. and tinct. colchici were the principal new compounds. Muriatic acid now became hydrochloric acid, subcarbonate of magnesia was advanced to be a carbonate, and tartarised antimony assumed the title of antimonii potassio-tartras.

The tenth and last of the London Pharmacopœias appeared in 1851. Henbane seeds, spigelia, oyster shells, and extract of digitalis were removed after longer or shorter periods of service, together with soda and potash waters, and biniodide of mercury and veratrine ointments, which had only found admission in the preceding edition. Cod-liver oil, chloroform, atropine, gallic and tannic acids, extract of nux vomica, tincture of aconite, tincture and ointment of belladonna, iodide of sulphur, chloride of zinc, and ammonio-citrate of iron, were the principal novelties now made official.

The first Edinburgh Pharmacopœia appeared in 1699 and the last in 1841, while the first Dublin Pharmacopœia was published in 1807 and the last in 1850. The Medical Act of 1858 authorised the fusion of the Pharmacopœias of the three kingdoms, and assigned the task of carrying out this work to the General Medical Council created by that statute. The first British Pharmacopœia was issued in 1864, but it failed to give satisfaction, and was superseded by a second dated 1867. The third and fourth editions were published in 1884 and 1898.

XVIII
SHAKESPEARE’S PHARMACY.

But law and the gospel in Shakespeare we find,

And he gives the best physic for body and mind.