a syrup and an electuary, almond emulsion being frequently the
basis, which formerly patients were ordered to suck on a stick of
liquorice cut in the form of a pencil for throat and lung irritation.
Sometimes stronger medicines, like kermes mineral and ipecacuanha,
were administered in this way. The word was of Arabic origin, and was
derived from the verb la’aka, to lick.
Maceration is the digestion of a solid body in a liquid for the purpose
of dissolving its active principles.
Magdaleon. Originally a mass or paste such as crumb of bread (Greek,
magdalia), or it may have been used for pill masses made up with crumb
of bread. The term became limited to plasters in cylindrical form.
Magistery. A word much in favour with the alchemists and old
pharmacists. It had not a very definite meaning, but was understood
to be a substance so converted as to present the virtues of the
material from which it had been made in their most effective form.
Boyle mentions that Paracelsus uses the word to signify many different
things, and Boyle himself has not a clear idea of what he understands
by it, for, he says, “the best notion I know of it is that it is a
preparation whereby there is not an analysis made of the body assigned,
nor an extraction of this or that principle, but the whole or very
near the whole body, by the help of some additament, greater or less,
is turned into a body of another kind.” Boerhaave, however, takes
the pretensions of the makers of magisteries to be that they change
a body into another form, as, for instance, solid gold into liquid,
without any addition. According to Littré, precipitates generally were
considered to possess the properties of the bodies from which they were
obtained, and thus became magisteries. The magistery of bismuth is the
one which has survived the longest with us. Resin of jalap was also
regarded as a magistery.
Magma was the residuum left in the press after pressing out the
menstruum. It was also used to describe other substances of a soft
consistence.
Magnes Arsenicalis was a compound of sulphur, arsenic, and antimony,
which, either in the form of powder or made into a plaster, was applied
to syphilitic sores to draw out the virus. Angelo Sala was the inventor
of the plaster.
Malagmata were substances applied to the skin to soften it, such as
poultices.
Malaxation was the process of making a pill mass or a plaster soft
enough to be worked.
Manica Hypocratis (Sleeve of Hippocrates) was a long linen bag used to
filter pharmaceutical preparations.
Manipulus, a handful, often prescribed as an approximate measure of the
quantity of herbs or flowers to be used in a pharmaceutical process.
Manus Christi was the name of a tablet made of sugar and flavoured with
rose into which some prepared pearl entered.
Manus Dei was the name of an old plaster containing myrrh,
frankincense, ammoniac, and galbanum.
Marmalades were conserves of various fruits, the pulp of which was
preserved in sugar. Said to have been originally the pulp of the quince
(in Portuguese marmelo). Some old medical books say the pharmaceutical
preparations known by this name, which often contained manna, were
derived from the French marc mêlé.
Masticatories. Substances chewed with the object of exciting the
saliva. Sage, betony, pyrethrum, and tobacco have been employed for
this purpose.
Matrass. A round or oval glass vessel used in chemical operations to
digest or evaporate liquids. It was provided with a long straight neck,
and is supposed to owe its name to this, matras or matrat being an old
word for an arrow or javelin.
Mellites were syrups made with honey instead of sugar.
Mensis Philosophicus, a philosophic month, or forty days.
Menstruum. The alchemists used this term much as the word solvent is
now used, and some etymologists think it was adopted to indicate that
a month was necessary for a solvent to exercise its full power. Dr.
Johnson says the idea originated “in some notion of the old chemists
about the influence of the moon in the preparation of dissolvents.”
Sir J. Murray says “Menstruum was a mediæval term used in alchemy to
express belief that the base metal undergoing transmutation into gold
corresponded with the seed within the womb which was being acted upon
by the agency of the menstrual fluid.” It is possible, however, that
the old belief in the extraordinary solvent power of the menstrual
fluid may have better accounted for the adoption of the term in
pharmacy. Dr. C. S. Carrington, of Brooklyn, has quoted from a French
narrative of the conquest and conversion of the natives of the Canary
Islands, published in one of the Hakluyt volumes, a passage written by
two monks giving an account of the Flood. Describing the Ark, they say
it was so perfectly joined by “Betun,” a glue so strong that the pieces
united by it could not be separated by any art “sinon par sang naturel
de fleurs de femmes.”
Moxa. In the middle of the seventeenth century Ten Rhyn and afterwards
Kaempfer, both surgeons in the service of the Dutch East India Company,
described a process of cauterisation largely adopted in China and Japan
in the treatment of various maladies. They used the hairy leaves of the
Chinese artemisia and made it up into a cylindrical shape which they
placed on any part on which they wished to act, and then set fire to
it, allowing it to smoulder slowly down to the skin. It was adopted by
many European surgeons, especially by Van Swieten in gout, rheumatism,
and paralysis, but carded cotton, lint, hemp, or other substances were
employed in the same way. Sydenham mentions this as a cure for gout,
and Larrey designed a little instrument to facilitate the application.
Sometimes chemicals were combined, and the stem of the sunflower cut
into inch lengths, the pith being burnt, was also used. The operation
of course gave great pain, and after a time it was doubted if it did
any good.
Nasalia. See Errhines.
Noctiluca. The name given by Boyle to the phosphorus which he made
before the latter word became general.
Nutrition. A term used in old pharmacy to signify the act of combining
substances in a mortar or by agitation until they acquired the proper
consistence. Unguentum nutritum, for example, was an ointment made by
stirring together in a mortar some lead plaster with oil and vinegar
and generally some belladonna juice.
Nychthemeron meant maceration for a day and night, that is for 24
hours. It appears sometimes in directions for treating herbs and
flowers previous to distillation.
Obolos, a Greek weight equal to half a scruple.
Œnclaion, a mixture of wine and oil.
Œnogala, a mixture of wine and milk.
Œnomeli, a mixture of wine and honey.
Œsypus, the name given by Dioscorides to wool fat.
Ointments among the Greeks and Romans were generally liquids. Anything
used to anoint with, not being oil simply, was an ointment (miron in
Greek, unguentum in Latin). From the Greek word was derived Myrepsus,
which meant an ointment maker.
Opiates were originally electuaries containing opium or some other
narcotic. Gradually, however, the word lost its significance and was
used to indicate any medicinal substance of the same character. It is
sometimes used for tooth pastes.
Oxycroceum was the name of a plaster among the ingredients of which
were vinegar and saffron.
Panchrest. A remedy for all complaints.
Panchymagogon. A medicine to purify all the humours. Pulp of colocynth,
black hellebore, diagrydium, of each 2½ ounces; senna, rhubarb, of each
4 ounces; species of diarrhodon abattis, hermodactils, turbith, agaric,
aloes, of each 1 ounce. Make an extract with cinnamon water, adding the
salt from the fæces. Dose, 20 to 30 grains. Calomel was called “mineral
panchymagogon.”
Pedilavium. A decoction of herbs intended to bathe the feet with to
induce sleep.
Pelican. A glass vessel with a tubular neck and provided with two
beaks, one opposite the other, which conducted the vapour back to the
lower part of the vessel, so that cohobation or redistillation was
continually being carried on.
Periapt. An amulet hung round the neck, or applied to some other part
of the body, to preserve the wearer from contagion, or to drive away
evil spirits.
Pessary, from Greek “pessos,” a little round stone used in a game.
Pessaries were in very common use by the Greek women for every kind of
vaginal complaint. They were little balls of wool or lint which were
medicated in various ways.
Pill. The word “pilula” is first found in Pliny, who says “Pharmaca
illa in globulos conformata vulgo pilulæ nominamus.” See “Katapotia.”
Poison is the same word as “potion.” Both originally meant a draught.
Polychrest. A medicine of many virtues,
Pomatum. Originally an ointment made from the pulp of apples, lard and
rose water, and used as an application for beautifying the face.
Populeum. An ointment made from the buds of the black poplar. It
was prescribed by Nicolas of Salermo as a narcotic and resolvent
application.
Poultice, from the Latin “puls (pult-)” through the Italian “polta,”
meaning pap, pottage, pulse. “Poltos” was the Greek term for pottage.
The intrinsic purport of the word was something beaten. The Latin
“pulsare,” to beat, represents the idea, and it is found in our word
“pulse,” which indicates the heart-beats, and also in such words as
impulse, compulsory, and the like. In old medical books, “poultice” is
generally spelt “pultesse” or “pultass,” and this form was retained
until the eighteenth century. In the first quarto of “Romeo and Juliet”
(Act II., Sc. 5) the Nurse asks Juliet, “Is this the poultesse for my
aking boanes?”
Propomata were drinks made of wine and honey in the proportion of four
to one according to Galen.
Psilothrum. A depilatory.
Salamanders’ Blood. The red vapours of nitrous acid.
Salia. Salt was a term very vaguely applied in old chemistry. Anything
soluble and possessing a marked taste was called a salt. Thus grew the
practice of describing substances as salia acida, salia alkalina, and
salia salsa. Sal fixum was a salt not affected by heat.
Scutum. See Ecusson.
Sinapisms were a form of poultices or cataplasms used by the Romans
as counter irritants. They were generally made with crushed mustard,
sometimes with cantharides and crumb of bread, and often with dried
figs wetted and reduced to a pulp.
Smegma was an application to the skin composed of some active remedy
such as verdigris, alum, sulphur, pepper, hellebore, or stavesacre.
Sparadrap. An adhesive plaster on linen or paper.
Suffumenta or Suffumigia. Gums, aromatics, or other substances burned
and inhaled to fortify the brain.
Supplantalia. Remedies applied to the soles of the feet, believed to
attract the vicious humours. Live pigeons cut in two, and other animals
were sometimes thus applied.
Suppositories are at least as old as Hippocrates, who called them
Prosdita or Balanoi. Suppository is from the Latin sub-ponere, and
is stated by modern etymologists to mean to place under; but older
writers say the meaning was to substitute. That is, the suppository was
employed instead of an enema.
Syrup. An Arabic introduction. The Arabic word is Sharab or Shurab, and
our words sherbet and shrub as well as syrup are derived from it.
Tisanes, formerly Ptisans, are mentioned as favourite forms of
administering the simpler kinds of remedies by Celsus. The word was
derived from “ptissein,” to crush, and was applied first to barley
water, made from crushed barley. In French pharmacy Tisanes, mostly
infusions of herbs, are still very familiar. Celsus uses the term
“sorbitio” for gruel. Apozems were stronger than Tisanes.
Troches, from the Greek trochiscos, a cone. Medicines in a hard form.
Subsequently called in Latin, pastilli, and in English, lozenges. They
were first made in the shape of cones. Trochisci plumbi were compounds
of white lead, camphor, gum, etc., like oat grains, invented by Rhazes
for application to the eyes. Named also trochisci Rhasis, and Arab
soap.
APOTHECARIES’ WEIGHTS AND MEASURES SIGNS.
It is not possible to ascertain with certainty the origin of the
familiar signs ℈, ʒ, ℥, used in formulas and prescriptions to represent
the scruple, drachm, and ounce respectively. A few guesses may be
quoted, but actual historic evidence is not available.
Dr. C. Rice, New York, an accomplished scholar and pharmaceutical
authority, supposed that the scruple sign was a slightly modified
form of the Greek gamma, γ, the first letter of “gramma,” the nearest
Greek equivalent weight, and the original of the modern gramme. The
same author associated the ounce sign with the Greek x, ξ, which was
certainly used in ancient times, often with a tiny ° against it, thus,
ξ°, to represent the “oxybaphon,” or vinegar vessel, which became a
fluid measure equal to about 15 fluid drachms. There is some evidence
that the same sign was used for the later Greek (or Sicilian) ungia,
Latin uncia, the original of our ounce. The oxybaphon, it may be added,
was translated into Latin “acetabulum,” which was also a vinegar vessel
and a measure.
It has been guessed that the scruple sign may have been a slurred Greek
ς, written thus, [symbol] (see Dr. Wall’s “Prescription,” published
at St. Louis, 1888). Apuleius, who wrote in the second century, gives
[symbol] as a sign for an obolus which was equal to about 14 grains.
That symbol could easily have drifted into our ℈. Hermann Schelenz
(“Geschichte der Pharmacie,” 1904, page 153) makes up a table of
medicinal weights and measures from Celsus, Pliny, and Galen, and
quotes the following signs as being then used: ~, sextans or obolus;
℈, gramma or scruple = about 20 grains; <, drachme or Holea = 3
scruples; γο, oungia or uncia = ounce; λι, libra = pound.
The drachm sign in Dr. Wall’s opinion is a reminiscence of an Egyptian
symbol for half, somewhat similar to our figure 3, ʒ. He supposes that
the Greeks adopted this sign to represent the half of the Egyptian
medicinal weight unit, which according to the best authorities was
equivalent to a double drachm. In a treatise by Ebers on the Weights
and Measures of the Ebers Papyrus, he estimates the weight unit at
6·064 grammes (say 103 grains). He explains, however, that the name
of the weight is nowhere given in the Papyrus. I cannot say whether
there is any evidence of the transfer of the Egyptian weights to Greek
pharmacy, but the usual course of the travels of such characters was
from the Egyptian hieratic or demotic writing to the Coptic, and thence
to the Arabic. It appears certain, however, that the Arabic “dirhem”
was adopted from the Greek “drachma.”
The sign [symbol], which frequently occurs in the Ebers Papyrus,
might quite easily and almost inevitably come to be written something
like our ʒ; but Ebers values it at two-thirds of a litre, where it is
named as a fluid measure. He deduces this from the hypothesis that the
[symbol] is the hieratic equivalent of the hieroglyphic [symbol],
dnat, or tenat.
Scribonius Largus, in the first century, and Apuleius in the second,
both give Ζ as the Greek sign for a drachm in medical formulas.
The former says this was equivalent to the Roman denarius, or one
eighty-fourth of a pound.
A writer in the _Lancet_ of August 18, 1906, very confidently
attributed these signs to the abbreviations made by the copyists of
ancient manuscripts in the Middle Ages. One of the old abbreviation
marks is still familiar in the z, which appears in “oz.” and “viz.”
The z was formerly a ʒ, which was largely used to indicate that the
word had been abbreviated; in the cases quoted from onza and videlicet.
Palæontologists say that the ʒ was itself a modification of the mark
“;” which was a common contraction at the end of words ending in bus or
que. Thus, for instance, omnibus and quaque would be written omni; and
qua;. It is alleged that in writing; without removing the pen from the
paper, something like ʒ will result. This is interesting, but it does
not explain how the abbreviation came to signify drachm.
The _Lancet_ writer further stated that the ℥ was a slurred form
of writing oz., and that the scruple sign was a ligature representing
the letters sr.
It may be added that among the old manuscript signs ℈ is often used for
ejus. I am not, however, prepared to suggest any connection between
this word and a scruple.
℞
Paris, in “Pharmacologia,” pages 13 and 14, makes the statement
that “such was the supposed importance of planetary influence that
it was usual to prefix a symbol of the planet under whose reign the
ingredients were to be collected; and it is not perhaps generally
known that the character which we at this day place at the head of our
prescriptions, and which is understood and supposed to mean Recipe, is
a relict of the astrological symbol of Jupiter.”
I have not met with that statement in any earlier writer, but it has
been quoted by scores of compilers since. It is very confidently
asserted, but I think its accuracy is questionable. As an excuse for my
temerity in challenging such an eminent authority it may be mentioned
that on the same page the author informs us that the word “crucible”
was derived from the circumstance that the alchemists were in the habit
of stamping the figure of a cross on the vessel from which they were
to obtain their long sought prize. No modern philologist would endorse
that etymology.
Paris quotes, in support of the Jupiter theory, a few instances of
directions for gathering specific plants “at the rising of the moon,”
“when the dog-star is in the ascendant,” and so on. But these have no
reference to a compound of several ingredients. It would have been of
no use to invoke Jupiter alone for any of the ancient prescriptions.
Every plant, said Paracelsus, has its special star. It would have
stirred up discord in Olympus if any had been neglected.
Pereira adopts Paris’s theory, but makes it almost impossible to
accept it. In “Selecta et Prescriptis,” he says it was usual in old
prescriptions to prefix to the formula a pious invocation such as “D.
J.” (Deo Juvante), “J. J.” (Jesu Juvante), the figure of a cross, or
some similar Christian sign. The suggestion is that we have progressed
from Christian to heathen symbols. It would be particularly interesting
to know when the physicians of Christendom substituted the appeal to
Jupiter for that which their own religion had pressed upon them.
Greek and Roman physicians wrote prescriptions, no doubt; but I am not
aware that any of these have been preserved to us. Our prescriptions
are the direct descendants of the “bills” which the physicians of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries scribbled in coffee houses
when they met their apothecaries. “Physitians bylles not Patients but
Apothecaries know” (Warner, 1612, quoted in “Murray’s Dictionary”). It
is too much to ask us to imagine that these scribes were in the habit
of sketching the symbol of Jupiter at the head of these documents.
PLANETS AND METALS.
There are no historic records of the origin of the association of the
seven metals with the seven planets nor of the connection of either
with the deities of antiquity.
That Greece transmitted the mythological connection to Rome is clear
enough, but it is not so certain whence Greece obtained the idea.
Traces of it can be discovered in both Persia and Egypt, and it is not
unreasonable to suppose that the circle of imagery may have developed
from the worship of the sun. Allowing that heavenly body to have been
the supreme divinity, or at least the residence of such a being, it
would be natural to assign to the moon and the five principal planets
apparently in attendance on the earth similar though lower dignities.
The tendency to group gods and planets and metals into sevens would be
an obvious link between the last two, and the characters of the deities
named would naturally be extended to the materials named after them.
Berthelot considers that Babylon and Chaldea were the localities where
imagination was first most abundantly applied to the elucidation of
science. There and elsewhere in the East the mystic relations of
the number seven came to be recognised. Perhaps it was the regular
appearance of the seven planets, visible to the naked eye, from which
those early notions were based. Then the moon’s phases consisted of
four equal periods of seven days each. The seven stars in the Great
Bear, the seven colours, the seven tones in music, the seven vowels in
the Greek alphabet, the seven sages, and, naturally also, the seven
known metals, were all evidences of this order of the universe. Out
of this correspondence grew the Chaldean and Persian ideas of seven
heavens, each with its gate of a different metal; the first of lead,
the second of tin, the third of brass, the fourth of iron, the fifth of
a copper alloy, the sixth of silver, and the seventh of gold.
The philosophers of Chaldea attributed to the heavenly bodies, or
rather to the deities who had made these their homes, extensive control
over the products of the earth. The sun-god produced gold, the moon-god
silver, and so forth; and this view was prevalent certainly until the
sixteenth century. Naturally all the early investigators had to picture
their fancies more or less crudely, and thus alphabets originated.
The Egyptian ideograms are the most familiar of this ancient poetry
to us, and among these are some which are intelligible to us to-day.
The sun and gold, ☉, are still represented by that sign; water,
[symbol], was so indicated in the papyri and in the alchemical books of
three or four hundred years ago; and the sign still used for the planet
and the metal mercury, ☿, differs but little from the hieroglyph
of Thoth, whom the Greeks called Hermes and the Romans Mercury. Greek
students have imagined that this sign was derived from the caduceus or
winged staff of the god, but some Egyptologists have claimed it as a
picture of the “sacred ibis.”
It need not be supposed that any definite table of the planetary
symbols was ever drawn up and agreed to. These only very gradually
became uniform. Even the association of the planets and the metals
was by no means invariable in different nations. Among the Persians,
for example, copper was assigned to Jupiter; but the Egyptians
dedicated a compound of gold and silver called electron to him, while
in more recent systems Jupiter and tin are allied. Venus controlled
tin according to Persian lore; but the Egyptian attribution of brass
or copper to her has prevailed. Iron belonged to Mercury before
quicksilver was recognised as a metal and at that time Mars was the
god-father of an alloy similar to bronze. The oldest table known is one
given by Olympiodorus in the fifth century, and in that electron is
still associated with Jupiter and tin with Hermes (Mercury).
Berthelot’s laborious researches into the origin of alchemy, and his
reproductions of ancient manuscripts show that while signs were used
by the ancient Greek writers of about the first century of our era,
they were not used by the Latin authors, but seem to have been in full
adoption in the Middle Ages. The manuscript of St. Mark at Venice,
which Berthelot believed was written about the year A.D. 1000, probably
for some prince, contains a multitude of these symbols. A regular
system is followed. Gold, for example, is represented by [symbol];
gold filings by [symbol]; gold leaf, thus [symbol]; and a combination
of gold and silver by [symbol]. A similar modification of the original
symbols is found in connection with the other metals.
There is scarcely any allusion to the symbols in the Arabic
manuscripts, for that race had a holy horror of all forms of Greek
paganism, though it may be noted that their physicians made a
superstition of the practice of bleeding on Tuesdays and Wednesdays
only, unconscious perhaps of the origin of this ritual, which depended
on the fact that Mars, the god of blood and iron, superintended
Tuesday’s operations, and Mercury, who had the management of the
humours, was in charge on Wednesdays. It was really not until the
fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, when the European
alchemists were trying to find a way to transmute the baser metals into
gold, that the code became “conventionalised.”
As already stated, the signs for the seven metals have not been
invariable, but for many centuries they have been distributed thus:--