Chronicles of Pharmacy, Vol. 1 (of 2)

XII
ROYAL AND NOBLE PHARMACISTS.

In the “Myths of Pharmacy” it has been shown that some of the most honoured of the deities of the ancient world interested themselves in pharmacy. To a greater or less extent many important personages in the world’s history since have occupied some of their leisure in the endeavour to extract or compound some new and effective remedies.

Classical Legends.

Chin-Nong, Emperor of China, who died 2699 B.C., is reckoned to have been the founder of pharmacy in the Far East. He studied plants and composed a Herbal used to this day. It is related of him that he discovered seventy poisonous plants and an equal number of antidotes to them. He describes how to make extracts and decoctions, what they are good for, and had some notions of analysis. Chin-Nong was the second of the nine sovereigns who preceded the establishment of the Chinese dynasties. To him is also attributed the invention of the plough.

The Emperor Adrian, whose curiosity and literary tastes led him to the study of astrology, magic, and medicine, composed an antidote which was known as Adrianum, and which consisted of more than forty ingredients, of which opium, henbane, and euphorbium were the principal.

Attalus III, the last king of Pergamos in Asia Minor, who died about 134 B.C., bequeathing his kingdom to the Romans who already controlled it, was a worthless and cruel prince, but of some reputation in pharmacy. Having poisoned his uncle, the reigning king, Attalus soon wearied of public affairs, and devoted his time to gardening, and especially to the cultivation of poisonous and medicinal plants. Plutarch expressly mentions henbane, hellebore, hemlock, and lotus as among the herbs which he studied, and Justin reports that he amused himself by sending to his friends presents of fruits, mixing poisonous ones with the others. He is credited with the invention of our white lead ointment and Celsus and Galen mention a plaster and an antidote as among his achievements. Marcellus has preserved a prescription which he says Attalus devised for diseases of the liver and spleen, for dropsy, and for improving a lurid complexion. It consisted of saffron, Indian nard, cassia, cinnamon, myrrh, schœnanthus, and costus, made into an electuary with honey, and kept in a silver box.

Gentius, King of Illyria, discovered the medicinal value of the gentian and introduced it into medical practice. The plant is supposed to have acquired its name from this king. Gentius was induced by Perseus, King of Macedon, to declare war against the Romans, Perseus promising to support him with money and other aid. This he failed to do and Gentius was defeated and taken prisoner by Anicius after a war which lasted only thirty days.

Mithridatium.

Mithridates VI, commonly called “the Great,” King of Pontus in Asia Minor, was born 134 B.C., and succeeded his father on the throne at the age of twelve. Next to Hannibal he was the most troublesome foe the Roman Republic had to deal with. His several wars with that power occupied twenty-six years of his life. Sylla, Lucullus, and Pompey, in succession, led Roman armies against him, and gained battles again and again, but he was only at last completely conquered by the last-named general after long and costly efforts.

Mithridates was a valiant soldier and a skilful general, but a monster of cruelty. He was apparently a learned man, or at least one who took interest in learning. The fable of his medicinal secrets took possession of the imagination of the Romans. They were especially attracted by the stories of his famous antidote. According to some he invented this himself; others say the secret was communicated to him by a Persian physician named Zopyrus. Celsus states that a physician of this name gave a similar secret to one of the Egyptian Ptolemies. This may have been the same Zopyrus, for Mithridates lived in the time of the Ptolemies. The Egyptian antidote was handed down to us under the name of Ambrosia.

When Pompey had finally defeated Mithridates he took possession of a quantity of the tyrant’s papers at Nicopolis, and it was reported that among these were his medicinal formulas. Mithridates meanwhile was seeking help to prosecute the war. But his allies, his own son, and his soldiers were all tired of him. In his despair he poisoned his wife and daughters, and then took poison himself. But according to the legend, propagated perhaps by some clever advertising quacks in Rome, he had so successfully immunised his body to the effects of all poisons that they would now take no effect. Consequently he had to call in the assistance of a Gallic soldier, who despatched his chief with a spear. The story of his defeat and death are historic; the poison story is legend which, however it was originated, was no doubt good value in the drug stores of Rome, where the confection of Mithridates was soon sold. As will be stated immediately there is abundant reason to believe that the alleged formula which Pompey was said to have discovered and to have had translated was devised at home.

In 1745 when a new London Pharmacopœia was nearly ready for issue, a scholarly exposure of the absurdity of the compound which still occupied space in that and in all other official formularies, along with its equally egregious companion, Theriaca, was published by Dr. William Heberden, a leading physician of the day, and though it was too late to cause the deletion of the formulas in the edition of 1746, that was the last time they appeared in the Pharmacopœia, though they had been given in all the issues of that work from 1618 onwards. No better completion of the history of this preparation can be given than that which Dr. Heberden wrote 165 years ago. The King of Pontus, he assumed, like many other ancient royalties, was pleased to affect special skill in the production of medicines, and it is not surprising that his courtiers should have flattered him on this accomplishment. Thus the opinion prevailed among his enemies as well as in his own kingdom that his achievements in pharmacy approached the miraculous. His conqueror, Pompey, apparently shared the popular belief, and took uncommon care in the ransack of his effects, after Mithridates had been compelled to fly from the field, to secure for himself his medical writings. According to Quintus Serenus Samonicus, however, the Roman general was amused at his own credulity when, instead of a vast and precious arcana he found himself in possession of only a few trifling and worthless receipts.

The anticipation of some marvellous secrets was so universal, and the Roman publishers so well disposed to cater for this, that it is not to be wondered at that a confection of Mithridates and stories of its miraculous power soon found their way into literature. A pompous formula, which it was professed had been discovered among the papers of Mithridates captured by Pompey came to be known under the title of Antidotum Mithridatium. It is noteworthy that Plutarch, who in his life of Pompey mentions that certain love letters and documents helping to interpret dreams were among these papers, makes no allusion to the medical recipe; while Samonicus states explicitly that, notwithstanding the many formulæ which had got into circulation pretending to be that of the genuine confection, the only one found in the cabinet of Mithridates was a trivial one for a compound of 20 leaves of rue, 1 grain of salt, 2 nuts, and 2 dried figs. So that, Dr. Heberden remarks, the King of Pontus may have been as much a stranger to the medicine to which his name was attached as many eminent physicians of this day are to medicines associated with their names.

The compound, made from the probably spurious formula, however, acquired an immense fame. Some of the Roman emperors are declared to have compounded it with their own hands. Galen says that whoever took a proper dose in the morning was ensured against poison throughout that day. Great physicians studied it with a view of making it, if possible, more perfect. The most important modification of the formula was made by Andromachus, Nero’s physician, who omitted the scink, added vipers, and increased the proportion of opium. He changed the name to Galene, but this was not retained, and in Trajan’s time the name of Theriaca was the accepted designation, a title which has lasted throughout the subsequent centuries.

Dr. Heberden’s criticism of the composition is as effective now as when he wrote, but it should be remembered that in his day there was a Theriacal party in medicine; to us the comments seem obvious. He points out that in the formula as it then appeared in the Pharmacopœia no regard was had to the known virtues of the simples, nor to the rules of artful composition. There was no foundation for the wonderful stories told concerning it, and the utmost that could then be said of it was that it was a diaphoretic, “which is commonly the virtue of a medicine which has none.”

But even if undesigning chance did happen to hit upon a mixture which possessed such marvellous virtues, what foundation was there, he asked, for believing that any other fortuitous concourse of ingredients would be similarly successful? This preparation had scarcely continued the same for a hundred years at a time. According to Celsus, who first described it, it consisted of thirty-eight simples. Before the time of Nero five of these had been struck out and twenty new ones added. Andromachus omitted six and added twenty-eight; leaving seventy-five net. Aetius in the fifth century, and Myrepsus in the twelfth gave very different accounts of it, and since then the formulas had been constantly fluctuating. Some of the original ingredients were, Dr. Heberden said, utterly unknown in his time; others could only be guessed at. About a century previously a dispute about Balm of Gilead, which was one of the constituents, had been referred to the Pope, who, however, prudently declined to exercise his infallibility on this subject.

Authorities were not agreed whether it was better old or new. Galen said the virtue of the opium was mitigated by keeping; Juncker said it fermented, and by fermentation the power of the opium was exalted three or fourfold.

A Pharmaceutical Pope.

Peter of Spain, a native of Lisbon, was a physician who became Pope under the title of John XXI. He died in 1277. He wrote a treatise on medicine, or rather made a collection of formulas, including most of the absurd ones then current and adding a few of his own. One was to carry about a parchment on which were written the names of Gaspard, Balthasar, and Melchior, the three wise men of the East, as a sure preservative from epilepsy. Another was a method of curing a diarrhœa by filling a human bone with the excrements of a patient, and throwing it into a river. The diarrhœa would cease when the bone was emptied of its contents.

Henry VIII (of England)

was fond of dabbling with medicine. In Brewer’s history of his reign, referring to the years 1516–18, we are told:—

“The amusements of court were diversified by hunting and out-door sports in the morning; in the afternoon by Memo’s music, by the consecration and distribution of cramp rings, or the invention of plasters and compounding of medicines, an occupation in which the King took unusual pleasure.”

In the British Museum among the Sloane MSS. there is one numbered 1047, entitled Dr. Butt’s Diary, which records many of these pharmaceutical achievements of the monarch. Dr. Butt was the King’s physician and was no doubt his guide in these experiments. Dr. Butt, or Butts, is referred to in Strype’s “Life of Cranmer” and in Shakespeare’s “Henry VIII.” Many of the liniments and cataplasms formulated are for excoriations or ulcers in the legs, a disease, as Dr. Brewer notes, “common in those days, and from which the King himself suffered.”

Among the contents of the Diary are “The King’s Majesty’s own Plaster.” It is described as a plaster devised by the king to heal ulcers without pain. It was a compound of pearls and guaiacum wood. There are in the manuscript formulas for other plasters “devised by the King at Greenwich and made at Westminster” to heal excoriations, to heal swellings in the ankles, one for my lady Anne of Cleves “to mollify and resolve, comfort and cease pain of cold and windy causes”; and an ointment to cool and “let” (prevent) inflammations, and take away itch.

Other formulas by Dr. Butt himself, and by other contemporary doctors, are comprised in this Diary.

Sir H. Halford, in an article “On the Deaths of Some Eminent Persons,” printed in 1835, says of Henry VIII, who died of dropsy at the age of 56, that he was “a great dabbler in physic, and offered medical advice on all occasions which presented themselves, and also made up the medicines.”

Queen Elizabeth of England

appears to have been an amateur prescriber. Etmuller states that she sent a formula for a “cephalica-cardiac medicine” to the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, himself a dabbler in various scientific quackeries. It consisted of amber, musk, and civet, dissolved in spirit of roses. It is further on record that the English queen selected doctors and pharmacists for Ivan the Terrible of Russia. In Wadd’s Memorabilia, one of her Majesty’s quarter’s bills from her apothecary, Hugo Morgan, is quoted. It amounted to £83 7s. 8d., and included the following items:—A confection made like manus Christi with bezoar stone and unicorn’s horn, 11s.; a royal sweetmeat with incised rhubarb, 1s. 4d.; rose water for the king of Navarre’s ambassador, 1s.; a conserve of barberries with preserved damascene plums, and other things for Mr. Ralegh, 6s.; sweet scent to be used at the christening of Sir Richard Knightley’s son, 2s.

The Queen of Hungary’s Water.

Rosemary has at times enjoyed a high reputation among medicinal herbs. Arnold of Villa Nova affirms that he had often seen cancers, gangrenes, and fistulas, which would yield to no other medicine, dry up and become perfectly cured by frequently bathing them with a spirituous infusion of rosemary. His disciple, Raymond Lully, extracted the essential oil by distillation.

The name probably assisted the fame of the plant. In the middle ages it was believed to be associated with the Virgin. It was in fact derived from Ros and Maris, meaning Dew of the Sea; probably because it grew near the shores of the Mediterranean.

“Here’s rosemary for you; that’s for remembrance.” So says Ophelia in Hamlet; and many other poets and chroniclers relate how the plant was used at funerals and weddings as a symbol of constancy. It is supposed that this signification arose from the medicinal employment of rosemary to improve the memory. It may easily have happened, however, that the medicinal use followed the emblematical idea.

Old books and some modern ones tell the legend of the Queen of Hungary and her rosemary remedy. It is alleged in pharmaceutical treatises published in the nineteenth century that a document is preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna, dated 1235, and written by Queen Elisabeth of Hungary, thus expressed:—

“I, Elisabeth, Queen of Hungary, being very infirm and much troubled with gout, in the seventy-second year of my age, used for a year this recipe given to me by an ancient hermit, whom I never saw before nor since; and was not only cured but recovered my strength, and appeared to all so remarkably beautiful that the King of Poland asked me in marriage, he being a widower and I a widow. I, however, refused him for the love of my Lord Jesus Christ, from one of whose angels I believe I received the remedy.”

The royal formula is as follows:—“Take aqua vitae, four times distilled, 3 parts; the tops and flowers of rosemary, 2 parts; put these together in a closed vessel, let them stand in a gentle heat fifty hours, and then distil them. Take one teaspoonful of this in the morning once every week, and let your face and diseased limb be washed with it every morning.”

Beckmann investigated this story and came to the conclusion that the name “Eau de La Reine d’Hongrie” had been adopted by some vendors of a spirit of rosemary “in order to give greater consequence and credit to their commodity”; in other words, he suggests that the interesting narrative was only a clever advertisement.

The only Queen Elisabeth of Hungary was the wife of King Charles Robert, and daughter of Ladislaus, King of Poland. She died in 1380, and for more than ten years before that date either her brother, Casimir II, or her son Louis, was the reigning sovereign in Poland, and neither of these can be supposed to have been her suitor. The alleged date of the document quoted would better suit St. Elisabeth of Hungary, and some old writers attribute the formula and the story to her. But she was never queen of Hungary, and moreover she died in 1231 at the age of 25. Beckmann also denies the statement that the document pretended to be in Queen Elisabeth’s writing is preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna. The whole narrative is traced to a German named Hoyer, in 1716, and he apparently copied it from a French medical writer named Prevot, who published it in 1659. Prevot attributes the story to “St. Elisabeth, Queen of Hungary,” and says he copied both the history and the formula from an old breviary in the possession of his friend, Francis Podacather, a Cyprus nobleman, who had inherited it from his ancestors. This is the one little possibility of truth in the record, for it appears that Queen Elisabeth of Hungary did mention two breviaries in her will, and it may have been that one of these was the one which the Cyprus nobleman possessed.

The Royal Touch.—The King’s Evil.

There are several instances in ancient history illustrating the healing virtue residing or alleged to reside in the person of a king. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, according to Plutarch, cured colics and affections of the spleen by laying patients on their backs and passing his great toe over their bodies. Suelin relates that when the Emperor Vespasian was at Alexandria a poor blind man came to him saying that the god Serapis had revealed to him that if he, the Emperor, would touch his eyes with his spittle, his sight would be restored. Vespasian was angry and would have driven the man away, but some of those around him urged him to exercise his power, and at last he consented and cured the poor man of his blindness and some others of lameness. Cœlius Spartianus declares that the Emperor Adrian cured dropsy by touching patients with the tips of his fingers. The Eddas tell how King Olaf healed the wounds of Egill, the Icelandic hero, by laying on of hands and singing proverbs. A legend of the counts of Hapsburg declares that at one time they could cure a sick person by kissing him.

The superstition crystallised itself in the practice of the English and French kings of touching for the cure of scrofula, or king’s evil as the disease consequently came to be named. The term scrofula is itself one of the curiosities of etymology. Scrofula is the diminutive of scrota, a sow, and means a little pig. It is conjectured that the name was adopted from the idea of pigs burrowing under the surface of straw and likening to that the pig’s back sort of shape of the ulcers characteristic of the disease.

The first English king who undertook this treatment, so far as is known, was Edward the Confessor, who reigned from 1042 to 1066. But there is evidence that the French kings had practised it earlier. Robert the Pious (970–1031), son of Hughes Capet, is said to have exercised the miraculous power, and Church legend goes back five hundred years before this, attributing the origin of the gift to the date of the conversion of Clovis, A.D. 496. On that occasion the holy oil for the coronation of the Conqueror was brought direct from heaven in a phial carried by a dove, and the healing faculty was conferred at the same time. Most of the French kings down to Louis XV continued to touch, and it was even suggested that the practice should be resumed by Louis XVIII after the Restoration in 1815, but that monarch’s advisers prudently resolved that it would not do to risk the ridicule of modern France.

The records of Edward the Confessor’s miraculous feats of healing are obtained from William of Malmesbury, who wrote his Chronicles in the first half of the 12th century, about a hundred years after the Confessor’s reign. The earliest printed edition of the Chronicles appeared in 1577, and Shakespeare undoubtedly drew from it the description of the ceremony which is given in Macbeth (Act iv, Sc. 3). Malcolm and Macduff are represented as being in England “in a room of the King’s palace” (Edward the Confessor’s). The doctor tells them

Asked about the nature of the disease the doctor says “’Tis called the evil,” and he adds

There is no evidence that any of the Norman kings performed the rite, but it is on record that Henry II performed cures by touching, and allusions to the practice by Edward II, Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV have been found in old manuscripts. It is probable, too, that the other kings preceding the Tudors followed the fashion when the interval between their wars gave them the necessary leisure. From Henry VII to Queen Anne all our rulers except Cromwell “touched.” Oliver, not being able to claim the virtue by reason of his descent, would certainly not have been trusted, and Dutch William had no sympathy with the superstition. It is recorded of him that once he yielded to importunity and went through the form of touching. “God gave thee better health and more sense” was the unsentimental benediction he pronounced. Queen Anne, as is well known, “touched” Dr. Johnson in his childhood, but it is recorded that in this case no cure was effected. Boswell says that Johnson’s mother in taking the child (who was then between two and three years old) to London for the ceremony was acting on the advice of Sir John Floyer, who was at that time a noted physician at Lichfield. The “touch-piece” presented by Queen Anne to Dr. Johnson is preserved in the British Museum. The Pretender, Charles Edward, touched someone at Holyrood House, Edinburgh, and his partisans said a cure was effected in three weeks. Which proved his right to the throne of England.

The story told by William of Malmesbury about Edward the Confessor is that “a young woman that had a husband about the same age as herself, but no child, was afflicted with overflowing of humours in her neck, which broke out in great nobbs, was commanded in a dream to apply to the King to wash it. To court she goes, and the King being at his Devotions all alone dip’d his fingers in water and dabbel’d the woman’s neck, and he had no sooner taken away his hand than she found herself better.” William goes on to tell that within a week she was well, and that within a year she was brought to bed of twins.

Modern doctors have forgotten and despised the strange story of this royal touch, but two and three centuries ago they very seriously discussed it. Reports of marvellous and numerous cures were confidently related, and the writers who had no faith in the virtue of the performance admitted the genuineness of many of the cases. Sergeant-Surgeon Dickens, Queen Anne’s surgeon, narrated the most curious instance. At the request of one young woman he brought her to the Queen to be touched. After the performance he impressed upon her the importance of never parting with the gold medal which was given to all patients; for it appears that he had reason to expect that she was likely to sell it. She promised always to retain it, and in due course she was cured. In time, thinking all risk had passed, she disposed of the touch-piece; the disease returned; she confessed her fault penitently to Dr. Dickens, and by his aid was touched again, and once more cured. Surgeon Wiseman, chief surgeon in Charles I’s army, and afterwards Sergeant-Surgeon in Charles II’s household, described the cures effected by that monarch. He had been an eye-witness of hundreds of cures, he says. Many other testimonies of the same kind might be quoted, but it is as well to remark that a habit grew up of describing the touching itself as a cure.

Careful and intelligent inquiries into the alleged success of the practice by investigators who were by no means believers in any actual royal virtue, but who yet admitted unhesitatingly the reality of many of the claimed cures, are on record. Among treatises of this character may be mentioned “A Free and Impartial Inquiry into the Antiquity and Efficacy of Touching for the King’s Evil,” by William Beckett, F.R.S., a well known surgeon, 1722, and “Criterion, or Miracles Examined,” by Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, 1754. Both of these writers admit that cures did result from the King’s touch; the Bishop says that he personally knew a man who had been healed. Mr. Beckett deals with these cures with much judgment. He points out how likely it was that the excitement of the visit to the court, both in anticipation and in realisation, and the impressive ceremony there conducted, would in many instances so affect the constitution, causing the blood to course through the veins more quickly, as to effect a cure.

Mr. Beckett also gives extremely good reasons for doubting whether Edward the Confessor ever did “touch” for scrofula. The gift is not mentioned in the Bull of Pope Alexander III by which the Confessor was canonised, nor by several earlier writers than William of Malmesbury, monks only too eager to glorify their benefactor.

Henry VII was the first to surround the ceremony of touching with an imposing religious service, and to give a touch-piece to the patient. Henry VIII does not seem to have followed the practice of his father to any great extent, and there was some disturbance about it in the next few reigns. The Catholics denied that Queen Elizabeth could possess the healing virtue, and when actual cures were cited to them one of their bishops declared that these were due, not to the royal virtue, but to the virtue of the sign of the cross. All the Stuart kings, Charles II particularly, exercised their hereditary powers most diligently. Macaulay states that Charles II touched nearly one hundred thousand persons during his reign. In his record year, 1682, he performed the rite eight thousand five hundred times.

Evelyn gives the following account of the performance, which, as will be seen, was no light duty. He describes it thus:

“Sitting under his state in the Banqueting House, the chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought or led up to the throne, where, they kneeling, ye King strokes their faces and cheeks with both his hands at once, at which instant a chaplaine in his formalities says:—'He put his hands upon them and healed them.’ This he said to every one in particular. When they have been all touched, they come up again in the same order; and the other chaplaine kneeling, and having an angel of gold strung on white ribbon on his arms delivers them one by one to His Majestie, who puts them about the necks of the touched as they passe, while the first chaplaine repeats 'That is ye true light which came into ye world.’ Then follows an epistle (as at first a gospel) with the liturgy, prayers for the sick, with some alteration, and then the Lord Chamberlain and the Comptroller of the Household bring a basin, ewer, and towel, for his Majesty to wash.”

In 1684 Thomas Rosewell, evidently an unrepentant Puritan, was tried before Judge Jeffries on a charge of high treason, the indictment alleging that he had said “the people made a flocking to the king upon pretence of being healed of the king’s evil, which he could not do.” Rosewell had further declared that he and others, being priests and prophets, could do as much as the king. And Rosewell had told how Jeroboam’s hand had dried up when he would have seized the man of God who had prophesied against him, and how the king’s hand had been restored on the prayer of the prophet. In his defence Rosewell had sneered at the Latin of the indictment, which spoke of the “Morbus Regni Anglici,” which, as he said, would mean the disease of the English kingdom, not the king’s evil. Jeffries, having taunted the prisoner and his witnesses with being “snivelling saints,” insisted on a verdict of guilty, and would no doubt have had the mocker’s ears cut off; but it is satisfactory to know that Charles II, who probably had not more faith in his healing power than the accused, ordered him to be pardoned.

The English prayer-book contained a form of service for this ceremony up to the year 1719.

Queen Anne was the last ruler in England to touch. There is no record of any of the Georges attempting the miracle, but the young Pretender, Charles Edward, when claiming to be Prince of Wales, touched a female child at Holyrood House in 1745, and is said to have effected a cure, and after his death in 1780 his brother, Cardinal York, still touched at Rome.

Louis XV was the last King of France who touched. Louis XIV fulfilled the duty on a larger scale, and doubtless with the utmost confidence in his royal virtue. The formula used by the kings of France when they had touched a patient was “Le roi te touche, Dieu te guerisse” (“The king touches thee; may God heal thee”). It is said that Henri of Navarre, when in the thick of the fight at Ivry (1590), as he laid about him with his sword right and left, gaily shouted this familiar expression.

Cramp Rings.

Faith in “cramp rings” corresponds in many respects with the reverential confidence in the royal touch as a cure for scrofula. The former, however, appears to have been of entirely English origin. Legend attributes the first cramp ring to Edward the Confessor.

St. Edward on his death-bed is alleged to have given a ring from his finger to the Abbot of Westminster with the explanation that it had been brought to him not long before by a pilgrim from Jerusalem to whom it had been given by a mysterious stranger, presumably a visitant from the world of spirits, who had bidden him give the ring to the king with the message that his end was near. The ring was preserved as a relic at Westminster for some time, and was found to possess miraculous efficacy for the cure of epilepsy and cramp. It was next heard of at Havering in Essex, the very name of which place, according to Camden, furnished evidence of the accuracy of the tradition. Havering was obviously a contraction of “have the ring.” So at least thought the old etymologists.

When the relic disappeared is not recorded; but the Tudor kings were in the habit of contributing a certain amount of gold and silver as an offering to the Cross every Good Friday, and the metal being made into rings was consecrated by them, in accordance with a form of service which was included in old English prayer books (see Burnett’s History of the Reformation, Part 2, Book 2, No. 25). This was actually used until the reign of Queen Anne. Andrew Boorde, in his “Breviary of Health,” 1557, says: “The kynges of England doth halow every yere cramp rynges ye which rynges worn on one’s finger doth helpe them whyche hath ye cramp.” They seem to have been regarded especially as a protection against epilepsy, and courtiers were much importuned to obtain some for persons afflicted.

The process of hallowing the rings is described in Brand’s “Popular Antiquities.” A crucifix was laid on a cushion in the royal chapel, and a piece of carpet was spread in front of it. The king entered in state, and when he came to the carpet crept on it to the crucifix. There the rings were brought to him in a silver dish, and he blessed them.

In the Harleian Manuscripts (295 f119) a letter is preserved dated the xxi. daie of June, 1518, from Lord Berners (the translator of Froissart), then ambassador to the Emperor Charles V. He writes from Saragoza “to my Lord Cardinall’s grace” (Wolsey), “If your grace remember me with some crampe rynges ye shall doo a thing muche looked for; and I trust to bestowe thaym well with Goddes grace, who evermor preserve and encrease your most reverent astate.”

It does not appear certain that the royal consecration of these rings was continued after the reign of Queen Mary; but cramp rings continued in esteem almost until our own time in some parts of the country. In Brand’s book, and in several numbers of Notes and Queries references to superstitions in connection with these, their production and the wearing of them particularly against epilepsy, are recorded. Sometimes, to be effective, the rings must have been made from coffin handles, or coffin nails, the coffins from which they have been taken having been buried; or rings of silver or gold, manufactured while the story of the Passion of the Saviour was being read, would possess curative power. So would a ring made from silver collected at a Communion service, preferably on Easter Sunday. In Berkshire, a ring made from five sixpences collected from five bachelors, none of whom must know the purpose of the collection, and formed by a bachelor smith into a ring was believed in; and in Suffolk, not very long since, nine bachelors contributed a crooked sixpence each to make a ring for a young woman in the village to wear for the cure of epileptic fits to which she was subject.

The Earl of Warwick’s Powder.

The Earl of Warwick’s Powder is named in many old English, and more frequently still in foreign dispensatories and pharmacopœias, appearing generally under the title of “Pulvis Comitis de Warwick, or Pulvis Warwiciensis,” sometimes also as “Pulvis Cornacchini.” It is the original of our Pulv. Scammon Co, and was given in the P.L. 1721 in its pristine form, thus:—

• Scammony, prepared with the fumes of sulphur, 2 ounces.
• Diaphoretic antimony, 1 ounce.
• Cream of tartar, ½ ounce.

In the P.L. 1746 the pulvis e scammonio compositus, made from four parts of scammony and three parts of burnt hartshorn, was substituted for the above, but neither this nor the modern compound scammony powder, consisting of scammony, jalap, and ginger, can be regarded as representing the original Earl of Warwick’s powder.

The Earl of Warwick from whom the powder acquired its name was Robert Dudley, son of the famous Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, and of Kenilworth notoriety. His mother was the widow of Lord Sheffield, and there was much dispute about the legitimacy of the child, but the evidence goes to show that Leicester married her two days before the birth of the boy. He afterwards abandoned her, but he left his estates to the boy. Young Robert Dudley grew up a singularly handsome and popular youth. He led an adventurous life, voyaging, exploring, and fighting Spanish ships. He failed to establish his claims to his titles and estates in England, and ultimately settled at Florence, where he became a Catholic, and distinguished himself as an engineer and architect. He won the favour of Ferdinand II, Emperor of Austria, who created him Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, and the Pope recognised his nobility. He died in Italy in 1649. The chroniclers of the time refer to a book he is said to have written under the title of Catholicon, which was “in good esteem among physicians.” If it existed it was probably a collection of medical formulæ, but it is not unlikely that this supposed book has been confused with one written by a Dr. Cornacchini, of Pisa, and dedicated to Dudley. In that work, which is known, the powder is described, and its invention is attributed to the Earl. It is alleged to have possessed marvellous medicinal virtues.

Duke of Portland’s Gout Powder.

Under this title a powder had a great reputation about the middle of the eighteenth century, and well on into the nineteenth century. The powder was composed of aristolochia rotunda (birthwort root), gentian root, and the tops and leaves of germander, ground pine, and centaury, of each equal parts. One drachm was to be taken every morning, fasting, for three months, and then ½ drachm for the rest of the year. Particular directions in regard to diet were given with the formula.

The compound was evidently only a slight modification of several to be found in the works of the later Latin authors, Aetius, Alexander of Trailles, and Paul of Egineta. These were entitled Tetrapharmacum, Antidotus Podagrica ex duobus centauriae generibus, Diatesseron, and other names. The “duobus” remedy was an electuary prescribed by Aetius, and a piece the size of a hazel nut had to be taken every morning for a year. Hence it was called medicamentum ad annum. This, or something very like it, was in use in Italy for centuries under the name of Pulvis Principis Mirandolæ, and spread from there to the neighbouring countries. An Englishman long resident in Switzerland had compiled a manuscript collection of medical formulæ, and his son, who became acquainted with the Duke of Portland of the period, persuaded him to give this gout remedy a trial. The result was so satisfactory that the Duke had the formula and the diet directions printed on leaflets, and these were given to anyone who asked for them.

Sir Walter Raleigh’s Great Cordial.

During his twelve years’ imprisonment in the Tower in the earlier part of the reign of James I, Sir Walter Raleigh was allowed a room in which he fitted up a laboratory, and divided his time between chemical experiments and literary labours. It was believed that Raleigh had brought with him from Guiana some wonderful curative balsam, and this opinion, combined with the knowledge that he dabbled largely with retorts and alembics in the Tower, ensured a lively public interest in his “Great Cordial” when it was available.

The Queen, Anne of Denmark, and Prince Henry, were both warm partisans of Raleigh, and did their best to get him released. The Queen was convinced that the “Great Cordial” had saved her life in a serious illness, and Prince Henry took a particular interest in Raleigh’s experiments. When the Prince was on his death-bed Raleigh sent him some of the cordial, declaring, it was reported, that it would certainly cure him provided he had not been poisoned. This unwise suggestion coming to James’s ears greatly incensed him, and darkened Raleigh’s prospects of life and freedom considerably.

No known authentic formula of the cordial exists, but Charles II was curious about it, and his French apothecary, Le Febre, on the king’s command, prepared some of the compound from data then available, and wrote a treatise on it which was afterwards translated into English by Peter Lebon. Evelyn records in his diary the demonstration of the composition given by Le Febre to the Court on September 20, 1662.

The cordial then consisted of forty roots, seeds, herbs, etc., macerated in spirit of wine, and distilled. With the distillate were combined bezoar stones, pearls, coral, deer’s horn, amber, musk, antimony, various earths, sugar, and much besides. Vipers’ flesh, with the heart and liver, and “mineral unicorn” were added later on the suggestion of Sir Kenelm Digby. The official history of this strange concoction is appended.

Confectio Raleighana was first official in the London Pharmacopœia of 1721. The formula was—

Rasurae C. Cervi lb. i.

Carnis viperarum c. cordibus et hepatibus, 6 oz.

Flor. Borag., rosmar., calendulae, roris solis, rosarum rub., sambuci, ana lb. ss.

Herb. scordii, cardui benedicti, melissæ, dictamni cretici, menthæ, majoranæ, betonicæ, ana manipules duodecim.

Succi Kermis, Sem. card. maj., cubebarum, Bacc. junip., macis, nuc. mosch., caryoph., croci, ana 2 oz.

Cinnam. opt., cort. lign. sassaf., cort. flav. malorum citriorum, aurantiorum, ana 3 oz.

Lign. aloes, sassafras, ana 6 oz.

Rad. angelic., valerian, sylvest., fraxinell, seu dictamni alb., serpentar. Virginianæ, Zedoariæ, tormentillæ bistort, Aristoloch. long., Aristoloch. rotund., gentianæ, imperatoriæ, ana 1½ oz.

These were to be cut up or crushed, and a tincture made from them with rectified spirit. The tincture was to be evaporated in a sand-bath, the expressed magma was then to be burned, and the ashes, lixiviated in water, were to be added to the extract.

Then the following powders were to be added to this liquid to form a confection:—Bezoar stone, Eastern and western, of each 1½ oz.; Eastern pearls, 2 oz.; red coral, 3 oz.; Eastern Bole, Terra Sigillata, calcined hartshorn, ambergris, of each 1 oz.; musk, 1½ drachms; powdered sugar, 2 lb.

In the P.L. 1746 Confectio Raleighana appears as Confectio Cardiaca. It is expressly stated that this new name is substituted for the old one. The formula is simplified, but the resemblance to the original can be traced. It runs thus:—Summitatum Rorismar, recent., Bacc, Junip., ana lb. i; Sem. card., min. decort., Zedoariæ, Croci. ana lb. ss. Make a tincture with these with about 1½ gallons of diluted spirit, and afterwards reduce it to 2½ lb. by evaporating at a gentle heat; then add the following, all in the finest powder:—Compound powder of crabs’ shells, 16 oz. This was prepared powder of crab shells, 1 lb.; pearls and red coral, of each 3 oz.; cinnamon and nutmegs, of each 2 oz.; cloves, 1 oz.; sugar, 2 lb. To make a confection.

In the P.L. 1788 the compound is still further simplified, and acquires the name of Confectio Aromatica. The index of that work gives “Confectio Aromatica vice Confectio Cardiaca.” The formula now runs thus:—Zedoaria, coarsely powdered, saffron, of each, ½ lb.; water, 3 lb. Macerate for 24 hours, express and strain. Evaporate the strained liquor to 1½ lb., and add the following, all in fine powder:—compound powder of crabs’ shells, 16 oz.; cinnamon, nutmeg, of each 2 oz.; cloves, 8 oz.; cardamom seeds, ½ oz.; sugar, 2 lb. Make a confection.

In the 1809 P.L. the zedoary is abandoned, the quantity of saffron is reduced to 2 ounces, the pulv. chelis cancrorum co. is described as testarum præp., and there is no maceration of any of the ingredients. The powders are simply mixed, and the water added little by little until the proper consistence is attained.

This formula is retained in the Pharmacopœias of 1824 and 1836, but in that of 1851 the powdered shells became prepared chalk. In the Edinburgh Pharmacopœia of 1841, and in that of Dublin of 1850, the confection was made from aromatic powders of similar composition, made into confections in P.E. with syrup of orange peel, and in P.D. with simple syrup and clarified honey. All that remains of this historic remedy is Pulvis Cretæ Aromaticus B.P., and from this the saffron has been entirely removed.

Raleigh’s Cordial occasionally turns up in histories. In Aubrey’s “Brief Lives,” it is stated that “Sir Walter Raleigh was a great chymist, and amongst some MSS. receipts I have seen some secrets from him. He made an excellent cordiall, good in feavers. Mr. Robert Boyle has the recipe and does great cures by it.”

In Strickland’s “Lives of the Queens of England” (Vol. VIII, p. 122) we are told that, according to the newspapers of the day, William III, in his last illness was kept alive all through his last night by the use of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Cordial.

In Lord John Hervey’s “Memoirs of the Reign of George II” (Vol. III, p. 294), the details of the last illness of Queen Caroline, who died in 1737, are narrated. Snake root and Sir Walter Raleigh’s Cordial were prescribed for her. As the latter took some time to prepare, Ransby, house surgeon to the King, said one cordial was as good as another, and gave her Usquebaugh. She, however, took the other mixture when it came. Afterwards Daffy’s Elixir and mint water were administered.

Tar Water as a Panacea.

George Berkeley was born in 1685 in Kilkenny county, Ireland, but claimed to be of English extraction. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, and became a Fellow of that College. His metaphysical speculations made him famous. He was the originator of the view that the actual existence of matter was not capable of proof. Having been appointed Dean of Derry he was well provided for, but just then he became enthusiastically desirous to convert and civilise the North American Indians. With this object in view he proposed to establish a University at Bermuda to train students for the work. He got some college friends to join him, collected about £5,000 from wealthy supporters, and after long negotiations persuaded the House of Commons to recommend George I. to grant him a contribution of £20,000 which never came. It was during that time that he learned of the medicinal efficacy of tar water from some of the Indian tribes whom he visited. Some time after his return he was made Bishop of Cloyne, and worked indefatigably in his diocese. A terrible winter in 1739–40 caused great distress and was followed by an epidemic of small-pox. It was then that the Bishop remembered his American experiences. He gave tar water as a remedy and tar water as a prophylactic, with the result, as he reported, that those who took the disease had it very mildly if they had taken tar water. Convinced of its value he gave it in other illnesses with such success that with characteristic enthusiasm he came to believe that he had discovered a panacea. Some reports of this treatment had been published in certain magazines, but in the spring of 1744 a little book by the Bishop appeared giving a full account of his experiences. It was entitled “A Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Enquiries concerning the virtues of Tar Water, and divers other subjects connected together and arising one from another.” The treatise was eagerly read and discussed both in Ireland and England. A second edition was required in a few weeks, and to this the author gave the short title “Siris” (Greek for chain).