Schurig pronounces it a rubefacient; it was of use in alleviating rheumatic pains, headache, vertigo, pains in side, shoulders, brain, and loins, colic, apoplexy, lethargy; it was supposed to be able to dissolve scrofulous and all other tumors, and was beneficial in the treatment of gout; used internally, it expelled dropsical water through the urine and also dissolved calculi; as a plaster, it was used in the cure of the bites of mad dogs; likewise for scald head; internally, the Austrian midwives employed it in the treatment of hysteria; while, throughout Germany, it was administered in cases of suppression of the menses (p. 809 et seq.).
As to horse-dung, Schurig has to say that either it or the juice extracted from it was drunk to aid in easing the pains of colic, to assist in the expulsion of the placenta, or of a dead fœtus, or in cases of strangulation of the uterus; externally, it was believed to be serviceable in restraining eruptions of the blood. To be of the greatest medicinal value, this dung should be taken from a stallion fed on oats. It was regarded as of great value in developing small-pox pustules upon women and children (p. 812 et seq.).
A rustic remedy which seems to have had a wide dissemination, for the alleviation of the cramp-colic, was composed of the juice expressed from horse-dung, mixed with warm beer, taken internally, while at the same time there was applied to the region of the umbilicus a plaster of warm horse-dung and hot ashes; such a plaster was employed in the cure of pleurisy among the English. In the same disease a mixture of warm horse-dung and beer was taken both internally and externally.
Cat-dung, in wine, formed the remedy in cases of vertigo and epilepsy. While its use was recommended principally in external applications, there were not wanting those who relied upon it mainly in internal application. It was reputed to possess especial efficacy in loss of hair, and supposed to be serviceable in preventing baldness, applied as an unguent. Administered internally, it suppressed immoderate menstrual flow. For the cure of felons, which so many in those days believed to be occasioned by a small worm, it was of certain efficacy, if bound round the afflicted thumb or finger. Paullini is quoted as having had personal experience with felons thus cured. But Paullini himself was of opinion that the dung of the goose was of equal value with that of the cat in this case (p. 815).
Hen-dung was recommended for use in burns. It was regarded as beneficial against magic philters, “in specie ex sanguine menstruo fœmineo.” It was considered good for all those ailments for which dove-dung was prescribed, but was not quite so efficacious. It was excellent for colic, for uterine pangs, yellow jaundice, calculus, suppression of urine, for all pains in the bowels, for strangling of the womb and pains therein, for poison, witchcraft, for seat-worms, etc. Externally, it was applied for all sores in the eyes, ulcers, warts, cicatrices, piles, pains in the feet and arms (pp. 816, 817).
Swallow-dung is mentioned as of internal and external application. It was regarded of great efficacy in the treatment of mad-dog bites, quaternary fevers, colic, inflammation of the kidneys, etc. It was applied as a plaster in cases of headache, angina, inflammation of the tonsils, and as a suppository in relaxation of the rectum. Its efficacy was conceded in dyeing the hair, being invaluable when used frequently as an unguent. Etmuller is quoted as expressing the opinion that they owe their action to the presence of “Armoniacal” salts. The swallow’s nest, with all its contents, was also sometimes ground up into a plaster, and swallow-dung itself was occasionally substituted for “album Græcum” (pp. 817 et seq.).
Lion-dung exerted its potency in cases of difficult labor, and it was the panacea against epilepsy and apoplexy. One of the Grand Dukes of Austria was cured of epilepsy by its use. Preference was given to the excrement of a female lion, except where she had just brought forth young. An anti-epileptic remedy of great repute was composed of burnt crow’s-nest, burnt tortoise, burnt human skulls, linden-tree bark, and lion-dung, made into an infusion by long digestion in spirits of wine (pp. 819, 820).
Leopard’s dung dissolved calculi; was taken as a potion for the cure of dysentery; applied as a plaster for the cure of burns; hernia was cured by a bolus composed of leopard’s dung, human mummy, burnt worms, syrup, and other ingredients. The ashes of the dung, skin, and hair of the leopard, in combination, expelled calculi. This remedy should be drunk, dissolved in wine; it was also a sure remedy for the most obstinate cases of colic. It was applied externally in sciatica, also in constriction of the vulva, and was employed to facilitate conception. In the last-named instance pastilles (trochisci) were likewise made and the parts fumigated. Or a pessary was inserted and kept in place for three days and nights; “et quamvis antea sterilis fuerit, deinceps tamen concipiet.” To prevent falling out of eye-lashes and eye-brows, an ointment was prepared of which the dung of the leopard was an ingredient. Finally, it was in esteem as an aphrodisiac, and to expel wind from the womb (p. 820).
Wolf-dung, drunk in wine, or taken as a powder, in doses of one scruple or more, was used in the treatment of the colic. Paullini is quoted as recommending its use in fevers. The dung of wolves, as of dogs, should, if possible, be that which is white in color, dejected by animals which have been feeding upon bones, and deposited upon rocks, thorns, bushes, or the lower branches of trees, but not on the ground. It was employed internally in pains in the limbs, and administered, also internally, in form of powder, in attacks of vertigo. Desiccated, it was blown into eyes afflicted with cataract. The cavities of carious teeth were filled with wolf-dung, to ease the pains of tooth-ache. For nasal hemorrhage, the smoke of burning wolf-dung was snuffed up into the nostrils; but another prescription was to drink an infusion of wolf-dung in red wine. If sheep detected the odor of wolf-dung about their paddocks, or folds, they would behave as if bewitched, running from side to side, bleating and showing as much terror as if their arch-enemy, the wolf, was himself at hand. Knowing this fact, rascally mountebanks were wont to perpetrate tricks upon the ignorant and unsuspecting rustics, by secreting some of this dung in the stable with the ewes and lambs, frightening them out of their wits, and then persuading their masters that their flocks were suffering from some hidden ailment for the cure of which they would demand a big fee in money or fat sheep.
Schurig recommends the use of mouse-dung, both internally and externally, for various disorders, for constipation in children, for scald head, and dandruff, in which cases it was applied as an ointment, for the elimination of calculi in kidneys and bladder, for all swellings in the fundament, piles, warts, tumors in ano, hemorrhages of the lungs, for the suppression of the menses, and even to excite the growth of the beard. When taken internally, it was administered in broth, milk, or panada; externally, it was made into a plaster with butter and such ingredients. It was at times mixed with the dung of sparrows (p. 823 et seq.).
Sheep-dung figures in medicinal preparations, to be used either internally or externally. Internally, as a decoction, in yellow jaundice, obstructions and constipation of the bowels, and in small pox. Also as a specific in the cure of gonorrhœa, when given in form of pills. For pains in the intestines, for swellings, burns, and ingrowing toe-nails, it was applied as a plaster (p. 826 et seq.).
Peacock-dung, the great specific in all cases of epilepsy and vertigo, was administered in doses of one dram, and in France was held in high repute for such purposes. It should be used from the new to the full moon, and be taken in white wine (p. 828).
This paragraph about the medicinal value of the droppings of the peacock deserves more than a cursory glance; in it we have a strong suggestion of the former association of this bird with moon worship. The peacock, we know, was the bird that drew the car of Juno, and that goddess was as much a lunar deity as Diana.
Pig-dung or swine-dung appears as one of the remedies, of both internal and external application, for nasal hemorrhage, and uterine flux. For nasal hemorrhages, it was dried and reduced to powder, and drawn up into the nostrils as a sort of snuff. Applied, externally, warm, to the vulva, it was regarded as an aid in hemorrhage of the uterus; it was also given internally for the same purpose. It was not used exclusively for such hemorrhages, but had a great repute as a styptic in general, and was applied to wounds of all descriptions. It was therefore used both externally and internally for the suppression of excessive menstrual flow, and taken internally to restrain spitting of blood. It was of general use in the treatment of felons, and was also regarded as an invaluable febrifuge.
For nasal hemorrhage, it was occasionally bound round the temples. Oddly enough, it was believed to be a remedy for fetor of breath. “Alii miscent stercus porcinum exsiccatum, cum pulvere rosarum pro corrigendo fœtore” (p. 830 et seq.).
As an external application for tumors of all kinds, cow-dung had a host of advocates, who likewise extended its use to the cure of scrofulous sores. For scrofulous wens, there was a cataplasm made of a composition of various dungs,—those of the cow, goat, and doves, among others. This was also to be taken internally, in white wine.
A plaster of cow-dung was used in gout of the feet. The dung of grass-fed cows was considered excellent for tumors, etc.; but its efficacy was increased when mixed with cow-urine or the urine of the patient himself; this was also in request for the treatment of œdema. For the stings of bees and wasps, a plaster of cow-dung was frequently used: “Contra apum et vesparum ictus, stercus vaccinum cum aceto utiliter adhibetur” (p. 837). The dung of a black cow, burned and given in scruple doses to a newly born child, preserved it from epilepsy and consumption; it was also employed to mitigate the pains of dentition. The dung of bulls and cows, collected in the month of May, distilled with water, made a panacea for kidney diseases; it also expelled calculi and induced a flow of urine.
“Hæc aqua vocatur aqua omnium florum,” was employed both internally and externally in gangrene, inflammations, rheumatism, spasms, dropsy, suppression of urine, etc., and was used externally to remove freckles and as a general cosmetic.—(“Chylologia,” p. 835 et seq.)
In the “Complete English Physician,” London, 1730, there are recipes which include the dung of geese, dogs, doves, horses, peacocks, hogs, and cows.
In the “Complete English Dispensatory” of John Quincy, London, 1730, p. 307, under the head “Distillation of Urine,” it is alleged that the salts obtained from the urine “of a sound young man, newly made,” was beneficial in rheumatism and arthritis. “Urina hominis,—urine of a man. Some have got a notion of this being good for the scurvy, and drink their own water for that end, but I cannot see with what reason. Some commend it boiled into the consistence of honey, for rheumatic pain, rubbing it onto the part affected; in which case it may do good, because it cannot but be very penetrating.... Urina vaccæ,—cow piss. Some drink this as a purge. It will operate violently, but it is practised only among the ordinary people, and has nothing in its virtues to prefer it to more convenient and cleanly medicines, any more than the former” (pp. 248, 249).
Father Du Halde says of camel’s dung: “When it is dried and reduced to a powder, it will stop bleeding of the nose by being blown into it.”—(Chinese recipes given in Du Halde’s “History of China,” London, 1736, vol. iv. p. 34.)
“The dung (of sheep) is a prevalent medicine against the jaundice, dropsy, cholick, pleurisy, spleen, stone, gravel, scurvy, etc., taken either in powder, tincture, or decoction. The dung, made into a cataplasm with camphire, sal armoniack, and a little wine, opens, digests, attenuates and eases pain. It is excellent in abscesses about the ears and other emunctories, swellings in women’s breasts, pain of the spleen, and gout.”—(Pomet, “History of Drugs,” English translation, London, 1738, p. 256.)
The rare and erudite pamphlet of Samuel Augustus Flemming, “De Remediis ex Corpore Humano desumtis,” Erfurt, 1738, although containing not more than thirty-two pages, is filled with a mass of curious information upon subjects generally disregarded. Flemming remarks that those who could use urine, calculi, and things of that kind in medical practice, should not shrink from the employment of ordure as well. “And it is truly wonderful,” he says, “that a substance, the very aspect and odor of which are sufficient to induce an inevitable nausea, should be regarded not merely as a matter of curiosity and study, but held in the highest repute as a unique and most precious treasure for the preservation of health.”
Yet Paracelsus, and others of his school, knowing the natural repugnance to the acceptance of such medicines, prepared it under the name of “Zibethum Occidentalis,” and administered it in doses of from one to two drams, given in honey or wine, to ward off attacks of fever; by others, it was employed as a plaster in cases of throat-inflammation, being then called “Aureum.” Others again were of the opinion, from an examination of its chemical nature, that it was fairly entitled to a place in the Materia Medica. An oil and water were distilled from it, and used in ocular sores, corrosive ulcers, and all sorts of fistulas; for affections of the scalp, for the ulcers of erysipelas, for ring-worm and tetter, and especially the pains of gout. Finally, it was believed by many to be of exceptional efficacy in the cure of the plague, being taken internally.
“Qui urina, calculi et aliis delectantur, non a stercore ipso abhorrebunt,” etc. The full citation in Latin need not be repeated, as it is expressed in much the same manner as the views of Schurig, Paullini, Etmuller, Beckherius, and others on the same subject. He cites Zacutus Lusitanus Poterus and Johannes Anglicanus, neither of whose writings are to be found in America.
Speaking of human urine, Flemming says that physicians boasted not only of their ability to diagnose disease from urine, but to use the fluid itself in the treatment of disease. It was employed in two ways: either in the raw state, as emitted from the person in due course of nature, or in chemical preparations extracted from it. It was often administered with beneficial results in dropsy as an enema. In difficult labor, a draught of the husband’s urine taken warm brought easy and safe delivery.
A drink of the patient’s own urine was highly commended in hysteria. As an external application for the eradication of dandruff, scab, and other scalp troubles, it was held in high esteem among the common people.
A salt and a spirit were prepared from urine by distillation, and highly spoken of in the treatment of frenzy, mania, and kindred mental infirmities of a grave type.
Flemming quotes from Beckherius, whose writings have already been presented, and from Quercetanus, in “Pharmac. dogmat.,” p. 119.
(“De Remediis ex Corpore Humano desumtis,” Samuel Augustus Flemming, Erfurt, p. 24 et seq.)
In the “Physiological Memoirs of Surgeon-General Hammond, U. S. Army,” New York, 1863, a chapter is devoted to uræmic intoxication, or the exhilaration produced by the entrance into the blood of urine, either injected or abnormally absorbed. This part of the subject should be carefully scrutinized by medical experts, whose determinations may make known whether or not the drunken frenzy of the Zuñi dancers could be attributed to the unnatural beverage exclusively or to that in combination with other intoxicants.
Dunglison says: “Human urine was at one time considered aperient; and was given in jaundice in the dose of one or two ounces. Cow’s urine, urina vaccæ, all-flower water, was once used, warm from the cow, as a purge.”—(“Dunglison’s Medical Dictionary,” Philadelphia, Pa., 1860, article “Urine.”)
In the “Lancet,” October, 1880, p. 56, Mr. G. F. Masterman draws attention to the chemical analysis of beef tea, and shows that it is analogous to urine, excepting that it contains less urea and uric acid. “Many writers have endeavored to impress the public and the profession with the true value of beef tea, viz., that it is not a nutrient but a stimulant, and that it mainly contains excrementitious materials.”—(“Beef Tea, Liebig’s Extract, Extractum Carnis, and Urine,” Richard Neale, M. D., in the “Practitioner,” London, November, 1881, p. 343 et seq.)
“In South America urine is a common vehicle for medicine, and the urine of little boys is spoken highly of as a stimulant in malignant small-pox. Among the Chinese and Malays of Batavia urine is very freely used. One of the worst cases of epistaxis ceased after a pint of fresh urine was drunk, although it had for thirty-six hours or more resisted every form of European medicine. This was by no means an unusual result of the use of urine, as I was informed by many of the natives.... As a stimulant and general pick-up, I have frequently seen a glass of child’s or a young girl’s urine tossed off with great gusto and apparent benefit. The use of urate of ammonia and guano was noticed by Bauer in 1852, who found their external use of value in phthisis, lepra, morphoæ, and other obstinate skin diseases. Dr. Hasting’s report of the value of the excreta of reptiles in 1862, in the treatment of phthisis, will also be fresh in the recollection of the older members of the profession.”—(Idem.)
Some of the tribes of Central Africa use human urine as an invigorant during the fever season, much as Europeans employ quinine.—(Rev. Mr. Chatelain, missionary in Angola, Africa.)
“The people of Angola apply fresh urine to all cuts and bruises.”—(“Muhongo,” African boy from Angola, West Africa, in personal interview with Captain Bourke, translated by Rev. Mr. Chatelain, missionary.)
Excrementitious remedies are still to be met with in the folk-medicine of various countries; indeed, the problem would be to determine in what country of the world at the present day the more ignorant classes do not still use them. The extracts to be now given will show that folk-medicine still retains a hold upon medicaments the use of which is generally believed to have passed away with the centuries.
“I never had an opportunity of seeing the following deed, but it was many times asserted to me by serious persons: In our province, Brittany, when somebody in the peasantry has a cheek swollen by the effects of toothache, a very good remedy is to apply upon the swollen cheek, as a poultice, freshly expelled cow-dung, and even human dung, just expelled and still smoking, which is considered as much more efficient.”—(Personal letter from Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy, Cherbourg, France, July 29, 1888.)
“Dans nos pays, on ne connaît pas, contre les piqûres, de guêpes et autres insectes, venimeux, et contre les brûlures caustiques, de l’Urtica Ureus, de meilleur remède que l’application de l’urine.”—(Personal letter from Dr. Bernard, Cannes, France, August, 1888.)
In describing the medicine of the Samoans, Turner says: “On some occasions mud and even the most unmentionable filth was mixed up and taken as an emetic draught.”—(London, 1884, p. 139, “Samoa.”)
“Maw-wallop. A filthy composition, sufficient to provoke vomiting.”—(Grose, “Dict. of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.)
“In Fayette County an emetic for croup is made by mixing urine and goose-grease, and administering internally, and also rubbing some of the mixture over the throat and breast.”—(“Folk-Lore of the Pennsylvania Germans,” Hoffman, in “Journal of American Folk-Lore,” Cambridge, Mass., January-March, 1889, p. 28.)
For incised wounds use human urine as a lotion; for lacerated wounds apply human excrement.—(Sagen-Märchen, Volksaberglauben, aus Schwaben, Freiburg, 1861, p. 487.)
“Horse-dung and beer” are mentioned as the remedy used in England and France for the cure of “exceeding faintness.”—(See Black, “Folk-Medicine,” London, 1883, pp. 152, 153, quoting Floyer and De La Pryne.)
Among the many quaint recipes preserved in the Materia Medica of English physicians down almost to our own day we find that pigeon’s dung was used “to make a cataplasm against scrophulous and other like hard tumors; ... for an ointment against baldness; ... for a cataplasm to ripen a plague sore; ... to make a powder against the stone.”—(John Mathews Eaton, “Treatise on Breeding Pigeons,” London, pp. 39, 40, quoting Dr. Salmon.)
Wolf-dung recommended in the treatment of colic.—(Black, “Folk-Medicine,” p. 54.)
“A decoction of sheep’s dung and water was used in recent times in Scotland for whooping-cough and in cases of jaundice.”—(Idem, p. 167.)
On the same page Black shows that the same remedy was extensively employed in Ireland in the treatment of the measles.
“In the south of Hampshire a plaster of warm cow-dung is applied to open wounds.”—(Idem, p. 161.)
“Water of cow-dung,” collected in May and June, used as a purge by people in England.—(Southey, “Commonplace Book,” p. 554.)
On the same page he says that “man’s excrement which had been some days discharged, thinned with so much ale,” was given to horses with the blind staggers,—“a common experiment.”—(Idem.)
A poultice of pigeon’s dung and pounded rose-leaves was in use for a stitch in the side.—(Southey, “The Doctor,” London, 1848, p. 59.)
Swine’s dung as a remedy for dysentery in Ireland, alluded to in terms of high approval by Borlase, quoted by Southey in “Commonplace Book,” p. 149.
Hon. E. W. P. Smith, secretary of the United States Legation in the Republic of Colombia, South America, states that among the San Blas Indians of that country, and the lower classes generally, the patient’s own urine is applied warm for sore eyes.
Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, of Cambridge, Mass., has for some years devoted time and intelligent study to the acquisition of data bearing upon the superstitions connected with the human saliva. While making this valuable and curious collection she has also been fortunate enough to encounter much relating to kindred superstitions, and has very generously placed at the disposal of the author of this volume all that related to the employment of human and animal egestæ.
Urine a cure for chapped hands, on Deer Isle.
Urinate into your shoe to keep it from squeaking, on Deer Isle.
Sheep-dung tea, a cure for measles, is extensively used on Deer Isle.
Boys urinate on their legs to prevent cramp. This practice was common in eastern Maine twenty to thirty years ago.
Water standing in the depressions of cow-dung was formerly recommended as a certain cure for pulmonary consumption, in New York.
Oil tried from the penis of the hog and applied to the loins of a child suffering from weakness of kidneys or bladder cured such diseases, in northern parts of the United States and in parts of Nova Scotia.
One’s own urine was administered for gravel in Staffordshire, England, within the past ten years.
A woman in England was given her own urine to drink, after a severe illness, to prevent “fits,” in the present generation. A poultice of fresh, warm cow-dung cured a man of rheumatism in New York. Measles were cured by giving the patient a decoction of lamb’s excrements (locally called “nanny-beads”), in Brunswick, N. Y., about 1825. A newly born child was given a spoonful of woman’s urine as a laxative, in 1814, in St. Albans, Vt. The white, limy part of hen-manure was used for canker-sores in mouth, in Abingdon, Ill. Cow-manure was used for swelled breasts in County Cork, Ireland. Sheep-manure tea was used for measles in County Cork, Ireland, and by the negroes of Chestertown, Md. Sheep-dung tea for measles all over New England, Ohio, and Cape Breton. Cow-dung, as fresh as possible, plastered on inflamed breasts, commonly known as “bealed” breasts, within the last twenty-five years, on Cape Breton.
Similar excrementitious remedies are in use among the Pennsylvania Germans. Cow-dung poultices are applied in the treatment of diphtheria, or as lenitives in cases of sore or gathered breasts. “Tea made of sheep-cherries (Gen. et spec.?) is given for measles.”—(“Folk-Medicine of the Pennsylvania Germans,” in “Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc.,” 1889.)
For reasons not ascertained, the use of these revolting medicaments has nearly always been veiled under the language of euphemism. Sheep-dung is rarely called by its own name, but always, as has been shown in the preceding remarks, “sheep-nanny tea,” etc. In the same manner, the use of human excreta was veiled under the high-sounding designations of “zibethum,” “oriental sulphur,” etc.
This use of sheep-dung in the treatment of measles must be very ancient and wide-spread. Surgeon Washington Matthews notes its existence among the Navajoes, who learned it from the Spaniards.
“Slight wounds are cured” by the application of dirt to the part affected.—(“Nat. trib. of S. Australia,” p. 284, received through the kindness of the Roy. Soc. Sydney, N. S. Wales, T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)
Mr. Chrisfield, of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., states that urine was a remedy for earache among people on eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia; while for the cure of jaundice, in New England, “the spider, and even a more disagreeable remedy, is administered in a spoonful of molasses.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, London, 1883, p. 61, quoting Napier, “Folk-Lore,” p. 95, and “Folk-Lore Record,” vol. i. p. 45.)
“I am impressed to tell you of a custom that prevailed to some extent among the people of this State (Iowa); this was the use of sheep-dung for measles. The dung was made into what the old women denominated ‘tea,’ and was familiarly known as ‘sheep-nanny tea.’ It was believed to be singularly efficacious in bringing out the eruption. The mixture was sweetened with sugar, and thus disguised was given to children. This practice was kept up among certain classes until about twenty years ago; I have not heard of it, at least in recent years. I can trace the custom through the origin of the families in which it was practised here to Indiana and North Carolina.”—(Personal letter from Prof. S. B. Evans, Ottumwa, Iowa, to Captain Bourke, April 16, 1888.)
“I was told by an old person, now dead, that some fifty years since the urine of a cow was given internally as a remedy for chlorosis, in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.”—(Personal letter from Prof. Frank Rede Fowke to Captain Bourke, dated London, England, June 18, 1888.)
“In the country where I was born I have seen several times, when a cow or an ox had one of its horns knocked away by a shock or any other cause, people pissing into the horn before putting it again over its root. This was supposed necessary to cause the horn to stick firmly against the root.”—(Personal letter from Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy, Cherbourg, July 29, 1888.)
“The presence of ammonia in the secretions (whose power of neutralizing acids may have been accidentally discovered) may have had something to do with the repute of the excretions of the kidneys. I remember to have been told as a little boy of the virtues of urine as a relief to chapped hands, also as a counter-irritant for inflamed eyes. In the former case the ammonia would soften as an alkali; in the latter, the salts present would act to reduce congestion, like common salt, by endosmosis.”—(Personal letter from Prof. E. N. Horsford, Harvard University, to Captain Bourke, April 19, 1888.)
“I have been recently informed, by a man who is acquainted with the peculiarities of Parisian life, that there are men who are in the habit of swallowing the scum which they obtain from the street urinals, and that they are known as ‘Les mangeurs du blanc.’” (Prof. Frank Rede Fowke.) According to Parent du Chatelet, a “mangeur du blanc” meant in Paris, until 1810, “a man who lived off the earnings of a strumpet.” The name has since been changed to “paillasson.” (See “La Prostitution,” Paris, 1857, vol. i. p. 138.)
“When I was a boy we had in my father’s house a gang of cats, and I remember that frequently the people of Cherbourg came and asked permission to search in our garrets for cat’s dung, which, they said, mixed and infused in white wine, produced a very efficient drink against periodical fits of fever.”—(Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy.)
“Lye-tea, made of human urine and lime-water, was used for colds by the ‘old people’ in the rural parts of Central New York.”—(Conversation with Colonel Pierce, Dr. Pangborn, and Lieutenant W. G. Elliott, U. S. Army, at San Carlos Agency, Arizona.)
The savages of Australia apply to wounds the resin of the eucalyptus, and also the bark of the same tree, previously steeped in human urine. (Personal letter from John Mathew, Esq., M. A., to Captain Bourke, dated “The Manse,” Coburg, Victoria, November, 1889.) The same thing is referred to in “The Australian Race,” E. M. Curr, Melbourne, 1886, vol. i. p. 256. In regard to the uses of the crust of latrines, in connection with “mangeurs du blanc,” see other pages of this volume.
“Philos.; hermet.; urine du vin, le vinaigre. Urine des jeunes colériques Le Mercure Philosophe.” Dict. National, par M. Bescherelle, aîné, Paris, 1857, sub voc. Urine (p. 1573).
We have already been informed from Marco Polo that the prisoners taken by the Tartars often poisoned themselves; “for which reason the great lords haue dogs’ dung ready, which they force them to swallow, and that forceth them to vomit the poyson” (in Purchas, vol. i. p. 92); and we have also learned, from many sources,—Etmuller, Schurig, Levinus Lemnius, Flemming, Paullini, Beckherius, Lentilius,—of the antidotal powers of the excreta. The existence of the very same belief was detected among the natives of America.
Padre Inamma, whose interesting researches upon rattlesnake bites and their remedies (made in Lower California, some time before the expulsion of the Jesuits, in 1767) are published in Clavigero,[74] says that the most usual and most efficacious antidote was human ordure, fresh and dissolved in water, drunk by the person bitten.
Along the Isthmus of Darien the belief was prevalent among the aborigines that the most efficacious remedy for poisoned arrows was that which required the wounded man to swallow pills of his own excrement.[75]
So in Peru, “when sucking infants were taken ill, especially if their ailment was of a feverish nature, they washed them in urine in the mornings, and when they could get some of the urine of the child, they gave it a drink.”[76]
In Canada, human urine was drunk as a medicine. Father Sagard witnessed a dance of the Hurons in which the young men, women, and girls danced naked around a sick woman, into whose mouth one of the young men urinated, she swallowing the disgusting draught in the hope of being cured.[77]
Analogous medicaments may be hinted at in Smith’s account of the Araucanians of Chili: “Their remedies are principally if not entirely, vegetable matter, though they administer many disgusting compounds of animal matter, which they pretend are endowed with miraculous powers.”—(Smith, “Araucanians,” New York, 1855, p. 234.)
Brand enumerates obsolete recipes, one of which (disease not mentioned) directed the patient to take “five spoonfuls of knave child urine of an innocent.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” London, 1849, vol. iii. p. 282.)
The Crees apply the dung of animals lately killed to sprains.—(See “Mackenzie’s Voyages,” etc., to the Arctic Circle, London, 1800, introd. p. 106.)
Henry M. Stanley says that, for the cure of certain ulcers due to fly-blow, from which his men suffered, “Safeni, my coxswain on the Victoria Nyanza, ... adopted a very singular treatment, which I must confess was also wonderfully successful.... This medicine consisted of a powder of copper and child’s urine, painted over the wound with a feather twice a day.”—(“Through the Dark Continent,” New York, 1878, vol. ii. p. 369.)
“It appeared that the dung of the donkey, rubbed on the skin, was supposed to be a cure for rheumatism, and that this rare specific was brought from a distant country in the East, where such animals exist.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel Baker, Philadelphia, 1869, p. 372.)
“The Mandingoes of Africa dress abscesses with cow’s dung.”—(See Mungo Park’s “Travels in Africa,” in Pinkerton, vol. xvii. p. 877. See, also, the edition of his works, “Travels in Africa,” New York, etc.)
The author has seen cow-manure plastered with soothing effect upon bee-stings in New Jersey.
“Pro remedio, in pluribus morbis urina fœminæ externe applicata, in eximia estimatione habetur.”—(“The Native Tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, introduction, xvi. See, also, Eyre, “Expedition into Central Australia,” London, 1845, ii. 300.)
“Pilgrim’s Salve. A Sir-Reverence; human excrement.”—(Grose, “Dictionary of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.)
“The medicine-men of the Ove-herero, who live south of Angola (which is on the west coast of Africa), urinate over the sick, in order to cure them.”—(“Muhongo,” interpretation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)
The Inuit medicine-man asperses the sick with human urine, “le goupillonne avec de vieilles urines, à l’instar des docteurs à poison bochimans ... les Cambodgiens aspergent également le démon de la petite-vérole avec de l’urine, mais cette urine est celle d’un cheval blanc.”—(Réclus, “Les Primitifs,” p. 98.)
“There are few complaints that the natives do not attempt to cure, either by charms or by specific applications. Of the latter, a very singular one is the application personally of the urine from a female,—a very general remedy, and considered a sovereign one for most disorders.”—(Eyre, “Expedition into Central Australia,” London, 1845, vol. ii. p. 300; contributed by Prof. H. C. Henshaw, Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.)
(See previous references to the therapeutics of the native Australians in this volume.)
“Plasters of mixed grass, butter, and cow-dung were placed on the wounds” of sore-backed animals in Abyssinia.—(“A Visit to Abyssinia,” W. Winstanley, London, 1881, vol. ii. p. 3.)
Cameron employed a native medicine-man, near Lake Tanganyika, to treat one of his men who had injured his eye. “His treatment consisted of a plaster of mud and dirt, and his fee was forty strings of beads.”—(“Across Africa,” London, 1877, vol. i. p. 322. The word “dirt,” as used by Cameron in the above sentence, no doubt means ordure.)
Mr. Stewart Culin, of Philadelphia, Penn., who has been making careful investigations into the Chinese materia medica, states that “frequent directions for the use of urine” are to be seen “among the official remedies in the herbal.” Only a few pages back, reference was had to the use by the Chinese in Batavia of all kinds of excrementitious remedies.[78]
The Reverend Maurice J. Bywater writes from Nassau, Bahamas, that during the seven years he was on missionary duty in the island of Borneo, he witnessed several very curious and remarkable instances of the restorative and stimulating effects of human urine, as used by the Chinese immigrants in cases of accident.
The Coreans use the same system of medicine as the Chinese. Both employ plasters of human excrement for bites, erysipelas, inflammations, etc. They use the urine of a healthy boy as a tonic.—(Dr. H. T. Allen, Secretary of Legation, Corean Embassy, Washington, D. C., 1888.)[79]
Our knowledge of the Thibetans is still so limited that we must not attach too much importance to the little we have so far gained; there is still much to be learned concerning that singular, isolated race.
The strange veneration accorded the excrement of the Grand Lama has been fully discussed, but their sacred books do not show that the employment of stercoraceous medicaments is carried any farther.
According to the translation of the “Pratimoksha Sutra” made by Mr. W. W. Rockhill, sick Buddhist monks were ordered to employ the following remedies: “Le beurre fondu, l’huile, la mélasse, le miel, l’écume de mélasse.”—(“Asiatic Society,” Paris, 1885, p. 22.)
Dr. Francis Parkman, in his “Jesuits in North America,” Boston, 1867, introduction, p. xl., speaks of the “revolting remedies” employed by the Huron, Iroquois, and Algonquin tribes.
The following are among many of the curious recipes given in the “Tragedy of the Gout,” written by Blambeauseant, in 1600:—
“Ther’s the odorous sheep’s dung, given always on the sly.”
“A little blue ointment, mixed with man’s ordure.”
“Virgin’s urine, as a cure for all the men in town.”
(“Medicine in the Middle Ages,” Minor, p. 88.)
Further references can be found in the following list, taken from the “Bibliotheca Scatalogica,” which likewise contains several of those from which citations have already been made.
“Cet emploi des stercora, et en particulier, de ceux de l’homme, pour les usages pharmaceutiques, est très réel. On nommait médecins stercoraires ceux qui les prescrivaient, et on dissimulait l’origine de la substance sous diverses dénominations bizarres ou ridicules (carbon humanum, oletum, sulphur occidentale). Suivant Paracelse, les excréments humains pouvaient par une certaine préparation, acquérir l’odeur du musc et de la civette; de là le nom qu’on leur donnait de civette ou musc occidental.”—(“Bib. Scat.,” p. 29.)
Ganin, De Simplic. Medicament. facultat. lib. x. fol. m. 75, seq. “An stercoris usus licitur? Conceditur.”—(No. 200 of the “Bib. Scat.,” p. 77.)
“202. Gufer, Joh. Medicin. domest. tab. 3, p. 11, et Joh. phil. Gieswein, De Mater. Medic. p. 292, imprimis laudant stercus hominis qui lupinos comedit.”—(Idem, p. 78.)
“203. Helvetius, Joh. Freder, Diribitor. med. p. 112, seq., recommande le stercus humanum recens et adhuc calidum.”—(Idem.)
Hérodote, lib. ii.; Hésïode, “Opera et Dies.”
Sheep-dung, boiled in milk, recommended for the cure of the whooping cough by the Swedish physician Hjoort, as well as by the French doctor Baumer.—(“Bib. Scat.” p. 78.)
Hoffmann, Fred. annot. in Petr. poter, Pharmacop. Spagyric (lib. i. p. 445), dit que excrementa alvina magnam vim possident.
Homère, Odyssée, lib. vi.—(“Bib. Scat.” p. 78.)
Kircher, Podronus Ægypticus, cap. ult.
Laerce (Diogène) in Pythagor.
Langius (Christ.), Oper. Medic., “regarde les médicaments stercoraux ut res indigna et execrabilis, cependant il en permet l’usage contra desperatissimos morbos” (p. 79).
Lotichus, Johan. De casei nequitiæ, Francof. 1640, “sordidi medicastri et σκατοφάγοι excrementis frui solent; sed homo vero cordatus et bonæ mentis se abstinet” (p. 81).
“M. Gustave Brunet a inséré dans sa traduction des propos de table de Martin Luther” (Paris, 1844, p. 377), “quelques pensées du célèbre réformateur qui appartiennent à notre sujet. L’une roule sur la transformation des excréments en nouveaux aliments; l’autre sur les propriétés de la fiente,” etc. (p. 81).
Macrobii Saturnal. lib. iii.; Martialis, Epigrammata, iv. 88; vii. 18; xii. 40, 77, et ailleurs (p. 81).
Mayern, Theodor. de Prax. Medic. syntagm. alter mêle le stercus à la poudre d’œillets (gilly-flowers).
Menangiana. Paris, 1715, 4 vols. in 12 On trouve dans ce livre divers passages relatifs à notre sujet. Voy. t. 1, pp. 9, 180, 222; t. 2, p. 198; t. 3, p. 239.
Clemens d’Alexandrie, Recogn. lib. v. p. 71.
Denne, Ludovic. Pharmac. dissert. l. p. m. 411, seq. “Il blâme l’usage médical des excréments humains” (p. 73).
Diodore de Sicile, lib. i. cap. 8, p. 73.
Damian, P. Opuscula, c. 2, p. 73.
“Praterius, Praxis, lib. iii. p. 330, recommande surtout l’huile et l’eau extraite de stercore humano. Suivant Belleste, Chirurg. d’hôpital, part 3, p. 248, chap. 4, le sel extrait des excréments du malade atteint de dysenterie le guérit.”
Plutarque, Apoph. Laconic., p. 232. Petrus Pharmacop. Spagiric. p. m. 445, regarde le stercus comme pouvant fournir rara et perfecta remedia. Reference is had to the thirteenth chapter of Rabelais “sur les anisterges.” Rivinus (Augustus Quirinus) Censur. Medicament. officinal. cap. 2, p. 10, et seq. et 15 et seq., “strenue contra stercorum usum pugnat.” There are other old medical authorities cited, some fully, others only partially in favor of the medicinal use of the excreta; and one or two in antagonism thereto.—(“Bib. Scat.” p. 38 et seq.).
“On a appelé album nigrum les crottes des souris et des rats, jadis employés comme purgatif par les médecins stercoraires. Merde du diable, stercus diaboli, c’est l’assafœtida, espèce de gomme.” (“Bib. Scat.” p. 128. See also Grose, Dict. of Buckish Slang, Lond. 1811, Assafœt.) On the principle of “lucus a non lucendo,” the works of Swieten, “Commentariorum,” etc., Lyons, 1776, are worthy of special mention; careful examination fails to discover any allusion to the use of excreta, human or animal, in pharmacy or therapeutics, and no mention is made of witchcraft. Therefore the works of this author mark a new stage in the development of scientific and religious thought.
In Warner’s “Topographical Remarks relating to the southwestern parts of Hampshire,” 1793 (vol. ii. p. 131), speaking of the old register of Christ Church, that author tells us, “The same register affords, also, several very curious receipts, or modes of cure in some singular cases of indisposition; they are, apparently, of the beginning of the seventeenth century, and couched in the uncouth phraseology of that time.” I forbear, however, to insert them, from motives of delicacy.—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 306, article “Physical Charms.”)
“A new-born babe was not considered fully prepared for life’s journey until its stomach had been filled and emptied by a potation of molasses diluted with the vesical secretions of the first youngster that could be secured for the purpose.”—(“Professional Reminiscences,” Benjamin Eddy Cutting, M. D., Curator of the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., 1888, p. 40.)
It was not enough that the urine and ordure of men and animals should be employed in pharmacy; everything that could be taken from the bodies of men or animals, wild or domesticated, living or dead, was enlisted to swell the dread list of filth remedies.
Etmuller supplies the following list of remedies; “sumuntur ex corpore vivente:” Hair, nails, saliva, ear-wax, sweat, milk, menses, after-birth, urine, ordure, semen, blood, calculi, worms, lice, caul (of infant), ... and these “ex partibus corporis demortui.” ... The whole corpse, flesh, skin, fat, bones, skull, moss growing on a skull, brain, gall, heart. Gall of animals has been used by the Indians of North America as a stimulant. (See Etmuller, Michaelus, “Opera Omnia,” vol. ii. p. 265, Schrod. “Dil. Zoöl.”)
He also recites that the following parts of domestic kine were used in medical practice: horns, bile, liver, spleen, blood, marrow, tallow, fat, hoofs, urine, ordure, testicles, milk, butter, cheese, phallus, and bones.—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 248 et seq.)
“The first hair cut from an infant’s head will modify the attacks of gout.... The hair of a man torn down from the cross is good for quartan fevers.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap. 7.)
“The smell of a woman’s hair, burnt, will drive away serpents, and hysterical suffocations, it is said, may be dispelled thereby. The ashes of a woman’s hair, burnt in an earthen vessel, will cure eruptions and porrigo of the eyes ... warts and ulcers upon infants ... wounds upon the head ... corrosive ulcers ... inflammatory tumors and gout ... erysipelas and hemorrhages, and itching pimples.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 20.)
Schurig commends the use of human hair in cases of baldness, applied externally in salve, chopped fine or in ashes; for the cure of yellow jaundice, it was powdered and drunk in some suitable menstruum; it was employed in luxation of the joints, for hemorrhage from wounds: “Ad canis morsuum, infantis capilli cum aceto impositu morsum sine tumore sanant et capitis ulcera emendant.”—(Sextus Placitus, art. “De Puello et Puella Virgine.”)
Flemming advised that it be powdered and drunk in wine as a cure for yellow jaundice; woman’s hair, powdered and made into a salve, with lard, was of general efficacy; men’s hair was burned under the nostrils of those suffering from lethargy; and was drunk for “suffocation of the womb.”—(“De Remediis,” etc. p. 8.)
A medicinal oil was distilled from the hair of a full beard, and an ointment made from the same. Powdered human hair was drunk as a potion in a cure for yellow jaundice; the ashes of burnt hair were made into an unguent with mutton tallow, and applied to the nostrils of people in a state of lethargy; in “suffocation of the uterus,” this ointment was applied to the pudenda. The hair of a patient was frequently used in affecting “sympathetic cures,” or in what were called “Cures by Transplantation,” but the names of the diseases are not given by Flemming (p. 21). (But see under “Cures by Transplantation” in this volume.)
In China, the shavings of the hair, which must amount to a considerable quantity, since hundreds of millions of people shave the head close daily, are preserved for manuring the land.—(See “Bingham’s Exped. to China,” London, 1842, vol. ii. p. 7.)
In China, everything connected with the tilling of the fields is still a religious rite. Probably no country in the world of equal advancement has adhered with more tenacity to old usages in all that pertains to the turning-up of the soil; there are ceremonies in which the Emperor himself must lead with a plough. How much all this may have to do with the utilization of a refuse which has been so generally regarded as possessed of “magical” or “medicinal” properties, is, in all likelihood, never to be ascertained; but attention should be attracted to the fact, in the same manner that it was found worth while to make an examination into the history of latrines.
“Among ourselves, it is a Devonshire belief that you can give a neighbor ague by burying a dead man’s hair under his threshold.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, p. 27.)
“In Devonshire and in Scotland alike, when a child has whooping-cough, a hair is taken from its head, put between slices of bread and butter, and given to a dog, and if in eating it the dog cough, as naturally he will, the whooping-cough will be transferred to the animal, and the child will go free.” The same method of cure is practised in Ireland, but the animal selected is an ass.—(Idem, p. 35.)
“Certain oak-trees at Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, were long famous for the cure of ague. The transference was simple, but painful. A lock of hair was pegged into an oak, and then, by a sudden wrench, transferred from the head of the patient to the tree.”—(Idem, p. 39.)
Clippings of hair and rags are offered to holy wells in Ireland, Borneo, Malabar, etc., not merely as offerings to deities, but in order to effect a “transference” of diseases to the people who may take hold of them.—(Idem, pp. 39, 40; quoting from Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” vol. ii., and others.)
“In New England, to cure a child of the rickets, a lock of its hair is buried at cross-roads, and if at full moon, so much the better.”—(Idem, p. 56.)
It is believed in parts of England that the hairs from a donkey’s back, wrapped up in bread, and given to a sick child, will cure the whooping-cough; another remedy of the same kind is to take clippings from the child’s own head, mix them in butter, and give to a dog, which will take the disease from the child; still another was to mount the sufferer upon the back of an ass, and lead him nine times round an oak-tree.—(See Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 288, art. “Physical Charms.”)
The Romans attached certain omens to the manner, time, and place of cutting the nails and hair.—(See Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 5.)
The ancients believed that “no person in a ship must pare his nails, or cut his hair except in a storm.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. iii. p. 239, art. “Omens Among Sailors,” quoting Petronius Arbiter.)
“When a man has his hair cut, he is careful to burn it, or bury it secretly, lest falling into the hands of some one who has an evil eye, or is a witch, it should be used as a charm to afflict him with a headache.”—(Livingston, “Zambesi,” London, 1865, p. 47.)
Etmuller relates that in his time women suffering from retention of the menses were in the habit of plucking the hair growing on the pubis, which would promptly cause their reappearance, but whether by the irritation or by taking the hair internally, is not clear:—“Mulieres suffocatæ ex utero soleant vellicare in pilis pubis, ut citius et felicius ad se redeant.” Finger-nail clippings were drunk as an emetic, especially by soldiers while on campaign:—“Ungues infusi in vinum vel potum cum vehementia cient vomitum et purgant per fecessum ... propinavit pro vomitorio et purgante militibus ungues proprios infusos per noctem in vinum calidum.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 269.)
“The hair and nails are cut at the full moon.”—(Grimm, “Teutonic Mythology,” Stallybrass, London, 1882, vol. ii, p. 712 et seq.)
The Patagonians “all believe that the witches and wizards can injure whom they choose, even to deprivation of life, if they can possess themselves of some part of their intended victim’s body, or that which has proceeded thence, such as hair, pieces of nails, etc.... And this superstition is the more curious from its exact accordance with that so prevalent in Polynesia.”—(“Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle,” London, 1839, vol. ii. p. 163, quoting the Jesuit Faulkner.)
“Which is the most deadly deed whereby a man increases most the baleful strength of the Dævas, as he would by offering them a sacrifice?”
“Ahura Mazda answered:—‘It is when a man here below combing his hair or shaving it off, or paring off his nails, drops them in a hole or in a crack.’”—(Fargard XVII. Avendidad, Zendavesta, Oxford, 1880, p. 186.)
Beckherius states that the clippings of the finger-nails made an excellent emetic. “Vomitorium non inelegans ex iis paratur.”—(“Med. Mic.”)
Flemming goes more into detail; he says that the finely ground clippings of the hoof of the elk, stag, goat, hull, etc., were employed as a vomitory, but in their absence, human finger-nails were substituted; “istam ungulorum speciem quæ ab homine desumitur, substitui.” Human finger-nail clippings were also recommended in “sympathetic” cures.—(Flemming, “De Remediis,” p. 21.)
“He who trims his nails and buries the parings is a pious man; he who burns them is a righteous man; but he who throws them away is a wicked man, for mischance might follow should a female step over them.”—(Paul Isaac Hershon, “Talmudic Miscellany,” Boston, 1880, p. 49; footnote to above, “The orthodox Jews in Poland are to this day careful to bury away or burn their nail-parings.”)
On a fragment of a Chaldean tablet occurs this curious passage:—