CHRONICLES OF PHARMACY
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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
CHAPTER PAGE
XV. ANIMALS IN PHARMACY 1
XVI. REMINISCENCES OF ANCIENT PHARMACY 32
XVII. PHARMACOPŒIAS 59
XVIII. SHAKESPEARE’S PHARMACY 70
XIX. SOME NOTED DRUGS 86
XX. FAMILIAR MEDICINES AND SOME NOTES OF THEIR HISTORIES 121
XXI. NOTED NOSTRUMS 161
XXII. POISONS IN HISTORY 220
XXIII. PHARMACY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 243
XXIV. NAMES AND SYMBOLS 276
INDEX 313
ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. II
PAGE
Preparation of Theriaca 45
Lemnian earth seals 54
Title-page of London Pharmacopœia 63
The Apothecary 81
Aloe in Flower 87
Aloe at Chelsea 88
Castor oil plant 90
Dr. Huxham 101
Charles Ledger 107
William Withering, M.D. 110
Preparation of Guaiacum Remedies 113
Dr. James Gregory 137
Dr. Gregory’s Prescription 138
Patrick Anderson, M.D. 168
Dr. James 187
John St. John Long 193
Joshua Ward 209
Horace Wells 250
Sir James Young Simpson, M.D. 253
Friedrich Wöhler 258
August Kekulé 262
A. W. von Hofmann 264
Alchemical symbols 308, 309, 310
ERRATA
VOL. II
Page 31. _Ninth line from top, for_ Clestis _read_ Celestis.
„ 46. _Bottom line, additional reference_: Vol. I., 124.
„ 166. _Seventh line from bottom, for_ Magnetic _read_ Metallic.
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.”