C. J. S. Thompson

“ Senier, the philosopher, says: “Dig a sepulchre and bury the woman (mercury) with her man (gold) in horse-dung, the fire of the philosopher, until such time as they be conjoined”.
Bacon’s definition of alchemy was: “Alchymie is the art or science teaching how to make or generate a certain kind of medicine which is called the elixir. It teaches how to transmute all kinds of metals, one with another; and this by a proper medicine.” George Ripley, a monk, in 1476, thought that he had discovered the much-coveted stone in pure sulphur. ”

“ What are they but a sect of yesterday, who about the year 1000 did fall in with the writings of those very Greeks, and read them awry, having no concurrent light of their own? for their demi-god and camel-driver, Mahomed, impostor in science as in religion, had strictly forbidden them anatomy, even of the lower animals, the which he who severeth from medicine, tollit solem e mundo, as Tully quoth. Nay, wonder not at my fervour, good youth; where the general weal stands in jeopardy a little warmth is civic, humane, and honourable. ”

“ In later times amulets in civilised countries merged into the wearing of images of saints, or consecrated objects, and the use of scapularies by Roman Catholics at the present time. There is little doubt that the custom of wearing precious stones in rings, and the charms worn as pendants to watch chains, originated in the amulet and talisman. Who can say that the belief in such charms has even yet died out? How many people are there at the present day who do not carry about them some coin, token, or object, to which they would probably be ashamed to confess, they attach some mysterious virtue? ”

“ THE FATHERS OF MEDICINE. Though Æsculapius is said to have lived so near to the time of the Trojan war, yet the Greeks knew very little about him. The superstition of the time gave him a position among the gods, and as he was adored under the character of the genius of physic, it came at last to be doubted whether he was ever a mortal; consequently his priests were obliged for their own sakes to make themselves masters of all the physic that the master could teach, that they might be qualified to give advice to those who applied to them ”

“ He believed the human body to be composed of salt, sulphur, and mercury, and that in these “three fast substances” health and disease consist. To give Paracelsus his due, although empiricism and quackery were the chief elements in his career, he exerted an undoubted influence on the medical practice of his time, and with all his egotism did his best to advance the science and art of medicine. ”

“ The count, who is supposed to have studied the art of medicine in the East, has always a remedy ready for every ill; from his hashis, in which he is a profound believer, to his mysterious stimulating elixir, a liquid, we are told, of the colour of blood, which he always kept in a phial composed of Bohemian glass. ”

“ There are in this city, physicians, or such as call themselves so, who are yoked to the triumphal car of antimony—currus triumphalis antimonii. Truants from the school of Paracelsus, adorers of kermes, accidental curers who make the whole science of medicine consist in knowing how to prepare chymical drugs. What shall I tell you! Everything is turned topsy-turvey in their method. Bleeding at the foot, for example, hitherto so seldom practised, is now almost the only bleeding in use. Those purgatives which were formerly gentle and benign are now changed for emetics and kermes. ”

“ THE EARLY AGE OF GREEK AND ROMAN PHARMACY. Rome at an early period gave birth to several philosophers and practitioners in the art of healing. Cornelius Celsus, who is thought to have been a Roman, was a much esteemed writer of the time, and his works on medicine show the advanced state of surgery and medicine during the Roman Empire. ”

“ AMULETS, TALISMANS AND CHARMS. From very remote times a somewhat curious link has existed between the art of healing and religion, and those who proposed the cure of the body or the soul have ever sought to work upon that uncanny chord we call superstition, which pervades more or less all classes of mankind. The influence of superstition manifested itself in many ways, and among others the belief in amulets, talismans and charms survives even to-day. ”

“ In this age of rapid scientific progress and brilliant research, we are apt to overlook and lose sight of the patient labours of the early pioneers of science, many of whom laid the foundations of discoveries that have since proved of inestimable value to mankind. Hence the history of the past, whether in science or in art, is always worthy of study and attention. ”

“ She prays that as the wanton heifer pursues the steer through woods and glens till at length, worn out with fatigue, she lies down on the oozy reeds by the banks of the stream, and the night dew will not even drive her away, so Daphnis may be led on after her for ever with inextinguishable love. ”

“ Bacon states that sulphur and mercury are the mineral roots and natural principles upon which Nature herself acts and works in the mines and caverns of the earth; the latter metal he believed to be the true elixir of the philosopher’s stone; others, including Rhazes and Merlin, believed it to be an amalgam of gold and mercury, fantastically called the Red man and his White wife. ”

“ Another part of the body used in ancient medicine was the human skull; also a growth called the moss from the human skull, probably of fungoid origin, that appeared on the bone on keeping. An old writer in the seventeenth century says: “You may see in the druggist shops of London some skulls entirely covered with moss, and some that only have the moss growing on some parts. They send these skulls especially to Germany, to put into the composition of the sympathetic ointment which Crollius describes in his Royal Chemist, and which is used for the falling sickness.” ”

“ The antiquity of astrology is very great, it [77] having been originated by the Chaldeans, and was thought by some of the Jews to have been a method by which the Creator could communicate with His people. The art itself was based on astronomy, and, like alchemy, was the beginning of the study of real natural science. The teller of the stars was not only supposed to foretell forthcoming misfortunes to individuals, but also to forecast the destinies of kings and empires. ”

“ MUMMIES AND THEIR USE IN MEDICINE—THE UNICORN. Who first introduced mummies as medicinal agents is not known, but there is something particularly weird and gruesome in the idea of the ancient physician dosing a sick patient, with the remains of a predeceased fellowman, in order to restore him to health. The art of embalming was practised thousands of years before the Christian era, and was regarded as the greatest token of esteem that could be paid by the living to the dead. Pomet says there were two kinds of embalming practised by the ancient Egyptians. ”

“ In the year 1493, Phillipus Theophrastus, Bombast of Hohenheim, afterwards known as Paracelsus, was born near Zurich in Switzerland, a man of extraordinary conceit and boldness, but who wrought a greater change and influence in materia medica than any physician since the time of Galen. He travelled all over Europe, and so obtained an extensive knowledge of chemistry and medicine. ”

“ The majority had two fixed objects in view as the goals of their ambition, one being the discovery of some body that would be capable of transmuting the baser metals into gold and silver; and the other, the discovery of an elixir which would prolong the span of human life to an indefinite period. Both these objects seem to [66] have been sought for by man from prehistoric times, and their origin is lost in antiquity. Berthelot remarks that the term “Philosopher’s Stone” does not occur in writings earlier than the seventh century, although the central idea is much more ancient. ”

“ One assistant, whose hair stands stiff and erect like the quills of the sea-hedgehog or the bristles of a hunted boar, sprinkles the ground with drops from the Avernus, while another, who is reputed to have had the faculty of conjuring the stars and moon down from heaven, assists in other ways. ”

“ In the process of embalming used by the middle class, which cost about £250, the body was syringed with a decoction of herbs and oil of cedar, then put into salt for seventy days, after which it was enveloped in bandages of fine linen, which had been dipped in myrrh and asphaltum, and the designer, who was called the scribe, covered the wrapping with a painted cloth, on which were represented the rites of their religion in hieroglyphics, and the animals which the dead loved most. There was a third process of embalming used by the poorer people, in which a mixture of pitch and bitumen was used. ”

“ And why?’ asked the old man, perfectly unmoved at this charge, and licking with the utmost delight a drop of the fluid which had escaped from the cork of the phial and was trickling down the side.
“‘Why, for that purpose you must kill the child.’
“‘Of course we must kill him; and the handsomer he is the better.’”
But in the end the old man falls a victim to his own infatuation, and at length dies incontinently without discovering the long-looked-for arcana. ”

“ PREFACE. It has been my endeavour in the following pages to sketch, however imperfectly, some phases of the romance and mystery that have surrounded the arts of medicine, alchemy, and pharmacy from the earliest period of which we have record down to the close of the eighteenth century. The influence of the past on the present is greater than we commonly suppose. ”

“ Among the many curious things used, we find that the liver of a mad dog, or a wolf, washed in wine and dried in a stove, was employed as a remedy for hydrophobia. The nimble lizard had a reputation as a sudorific and antisyphilitic. Dried toads and the cast-off skins of snakes and adders, were administered in dropsy as a diuretic.
The horn of rhinoceros was used in epilepsy, and goat’s blood and eel’s liver as a cure for dysentery. The oil of frog’s spawn was celebrated as an application for chilblains. The jawbone of a pike and the spine of a lamprey in powder, were prescribed for leucorrhœa. ”

“ One can thus picture the ancient physician [241] riding his steady jennet, clad in doublet and hose of red and blue, with cloak of sendall, a fine silk material, all lined with taffata. In telling the stars and casting horoscopes he would be learned, as astrology entered very largely into his practice, and brought many big fees. So learned a leech would doubtless have a large practice, and the apothecaries evidently vied with one another in preparing his prescriptions. The names of ancient philosophers with whom he was familiar is quite formidable, nearly all the old authors being enumerated. ”