A. C. Wootton

“ 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 mysteries which made up so large a part of the science of alchemy passed from its votaries to the practitioners of physic and pharmacy, and are hardly dead in those professions yet. Pretended solutions of gold, vaunted as universal cures, were sold under the title of solar elixirs; the popular name of nitrate of silver to this day is lunar caustic; a black oxide of iron is called Ethiops martial; a solution of sugar of lead is extract of Saturn; sulphate of copper was once known as vitriol of Venus; muriate of tin was famous for the expulsion of worms under the name of Salt of Jove ”

“ The lion had a high reputation among the Romans for its medicinal value. The fat was used as an [13] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All parts of man, his excrescences and excrements, contain oil and sal volatile, combined with phlegm and [5] 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. ”

“ His followers were as enthusiastic as himself over the virtues of opium, and before long the most serious practitioners were advocating it, and devising formulas for its suitable administration. Platerus of Basle about 1600 strongly recommended it, and Sylvius (de la Boe) a Dutch physician said that without opium he would not practise. Van Helmont about 1640 used opium so frequently that he was called the Doctor Opiatus. Sydenham about 1680 says, “Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.” ”

“ Salmon also tells us that if these drops are distilled from the bones of the skull they are good for apoplexy, vertigo, megrims, &c., but “if you want it for gout of any particular limb it is better to make it from the bones of that limb. The dose is 6 to 12 drops, but it has an evil scent.” You can, however, correct that, and “Elixirate” the preparation, bringing it “even to a Fragrancy” if you add so much Spirit of Nitre as will dissolve the oil, and then mix it with four times its weight of spirit of wine. ”

“ The great chemists who, in the latter part of the eighteenth and in the early years of the nineteenth century, had rescued their science from the superstitious and fantastic theories and conceits which had encumbered it, Lavoisier, Priestley, Scheele, Cavendish, Dalton, Fourcroy, Berzelius, and many others who might be named, distinguished sharply between the products of the mineral kingdom and those which they called organic, that is, substances of vegetable or animal origin, combined, it was agreed, under the influence of what was described as vital force. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lavoisier analysed alcohol, and assigned to it almost the same composition as we know it to be. Its empirical formula is C2H6O; but that does not explain how it is built up. By deductive reasoning it is established that alcohol is ethane with one hydrogen atom in each molecule replaced by hydroxyl (OH) . Ethane is C2H6; alcohol is thus formulated—C2H5OH. That is its “rational formula.” Alcohol is a comparatively simple substance; we shall deal with some formulas of much greater complexity presently. ”

“ In many other cases the physiological effect of the compound was distinctly foreseen, and latterly the relation between chemical constitution and physiological action has become the objective of much research. It may be reasonably anticipated that before many years have passed it will be possible to predict the physiological powers of a substance from a knowledge of its structural formula, just as already many of its more noteworthy physical properties may be so foretold. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Crollius gives a formula for a pill mass, which he designates the laudanum of Paracelsus, which contained one-fourth of its weight of opium, to which were added henbane juice, mummy, salts of pearls and corals, the bone of the heart of a stag, bezoar stone, amber, musk, unicorn, and some species, with a few drops of many of the essential oils. The Anodynum Specificum of Paracelsus was a product obtained by first digesting opium, 4, in a mixture of orange and lemon juices, 180, with distilled frogs’ sperm water, to which cinnamon, 4, cloves, 45, ambergris, 4, and saffron, 45, were added. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [35] 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. ”

“ Castor oil taken with an equal quantity of warm water acts as a purgative upon the bowels. It is said, too, that as a purgative it acts particularly upon the regions of the diaphragm (precordia) . It is useful for diseases of the joints, all kinds of indurations, affections of the uterus and ears, and for burns, employed with the ashes of the murex; it heals itch, scabs, and inflammations of the fundament. It improves the complexion also, and by its fertilising tendencies promotes the growth of the hair. ”

“ In 1777 Robert Grubb patented a medicine called the Frier’s Drops, “for the cure of the venereal disease, scurvy, rheumatism, stranguary and gleets.” It contained calomel, antimony, guaiacum wood, balsam of Peru, hemlock, sugar candy, oil of sassafras, tartaric acid, and gum arabic, with spirit of wine. The particular interest of this is the name which may have been the original of the Friar’s Balsam named in the Medicine Stamp Act. The Friar’s Balsam known to us cannot be traced as a proprietary medicine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”