Thomas Goulard was a surgeon of Montpellier with rather more than a
local reputation. He was counsellor to the king, perpetual mayor
of the town of Alet, lecturer and demonstrator royal in surgery,
demonstrator royal of anatomy in the College of Physicians, fellow
of the Royal Academies of Sciences in Montpellier, Toulouse, Lyons,
and Nancy, pensioner of the king and of the province of Languedoc for
lithotomy, and surgeon to the Military Hospital of Montpellier. His
treatise on “The Extract of Saturn” was published about the middle of
the eighteenth century, and his name and the preparations he devised
were soon spread all over Europe. White lead and sugar of lead, and
litharge as the basis of plasters had been familiar in medical practice
for centuries; and Galen and other great authorities had highly
commended lead preparations for eye diseases and for general lotions.
The preparation of sugar of lead is indicated in the works attributed
to Basil Valentine. Goulard’s special merit consisted in the care
which he gave to the production of his “Extract of Saturn,” and in his
intelligent experiments with it, and its various preparations in the
treatment of external complaints.
Goulard made his extract of Saturn by boiling together golden litharge
and strong French wine vinegar at a moderate heat for about an hour,
stirring all the while, and after cooling drawing off for use the clear
supernatant liquor. Diluting this extract by adding 100 drops to a
quart of river water with four teaspoonfuls of brandy, made what he
called his Vegeto-Mineral Water, which he used for lotions. His cerate
of Saturn was made by melting 4 oz. of wax in 11 oz. of olive oil, and
incorporating with this 6 lbs. of vegeto-mineral water (containing
4 oz. of extract of Saturn). A cataplasm was made by gently boiling
the vegeto-mineral water with crumb of bread. A pomatum was prepared
by combining 4 oz. of the extract with a cerate composed of 8 oz. of
wax in 18 oz. of rose ointment. This was made stronger or milder as
the case might need. There was another pomatum made with the extract
of Saturn, sulphur, and alum, for the treatment of itch; and several
plasters for rheumatic complaints. Goulard gave full details of the
various uses of these applications in inflammations, bruises, wounds,
abscesses, erysipelas, ophthalmia, ulcers, cancers, whitlows, tetters,
piles, itch, and other complaints. His own experience was supported by
that of other practitioners.
In giving the results of his experience thus freely and completely,
Goulard was aware of the sacrifice he was making. “I flatter myself,”
he says, “that the world is in some measure indebted to me for
publishing this medicine, which, if concealed in my own breast, might
have turned out much more to my private emolument”; at the same time
he did not object to reap some profit from his investigations, if this
could be done. At the end of the English translation of his book,
a copy of a document is printed addressed to his fellow student of
fifty years before, Mr. G. Arnaud, practising as a surgeon in London,
engaging to supply to him, and to him only, a sufficient quantity of
extract of Saturn made by himself, to be distributed by the said Mr.
Arnaud, or by those commissioned by him, over all the dominions of his
British Majesty.