Animal Substances in Pharmacy.

The inclination to find medicinal virtues in parts of animals is not altogether unreasonable in its origin. Savages eat the hearts of lions and tigers to acquire some of the courage and fierceness of those beasts; and a similar instinct would suggest various organs of animals for use in medicine. The employment of foxes’ lungs in asthmatic and bronchial complaints, for example, seems a most natural remedy to try, and as the lohoch, in which form these lungs were generally administered, was made up with other demulcents, it is not surprising that it should have been often found efficacious. In this section illustrations of the extravagant extent to which faith in medicines of this character has been carried will be given.

Officially Recognised Animal Medicines.

Remedies obtained from the animal kingdom were employed by the Egyptian, the Greek, and the Roman physicians. The Arabs, though they introduced musk, kermes, and bezoar into medicine, were not largely interested in animal products in their materia medica. The adoption of revolting preparations of this class developed rapidly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, curiously enough alongside the introduction of the new chemical remedies. The appended list of animals and animal products which were made official in the London Pharmacopœias of the seventeenth century, namely, those of 1618, 1650, and 1677, will serve to demonstrate the diligence which had been exercised by the practitioners of that period in ransacking the world of animal life for possible means of alleviating human ills.

Ambergris, ants.

Bee-glue from entrances and cracks of hives, bezoar stones, blood of badger, bat, bull, cat, dog, frog, goat (he- and she-), goose, hare, man, partridge, pig, pigeon, stag, tortoise; bones of hare (heel-bone), oxen (leg), pigs (ankle), stags (heart and heel; the latter called the astragalus), and the triangular bone of the human skull; brains of hares and sparrows; butter, fresh and salt; buttermilk.

Cantharides, castor, caviare, cheese (old and new), civet, cochineal, cock’s-comb, coral (white and red), crabs’ claws, crabs’ eyes, crayfish, cuttlefish, cygnets.

Eggs of ants, hens, and ostriches; egg-shells; earthworms; excrements of the cow, dog, he-goat, goose, hen, horse, horse (not castrated), man, mouse, peacock, pigeon, sheep, swallow, wolf.

Fat, lard, or grease from the badger, bear, beaver, boar, bull, bull calf, camel, capon, dog, duck, eel, fox, goat, goose, hare, hedgehog, hen, heron, horse, leopard, lion, man, mountain-mouse, pike, pig, rabbit, ram, snake, stork, thymallos (grayling), vulture, wild cat, wolf, and from cut wool; feathers of partridges, fur of the hare, frog’s spawn, and hairs of the silkworm, are among the curious animal products named. Green frogs are specially ordered.

Gall of the bear, bull, cow, he-goat, she-goat, hare, hawk, kite, ox, and pig; grasshoppers.

Ham of pig; heart of bullock, pig, stag, wether; honey and virgin honey; hoof of ass, elk, she-goat, pig; horns of elk, goat, rhinoceros, stag, unicorn.

Isinglass; intestines of wolf and fox; jaw of pike.

Larks, leeches, lynx claws; liver of ass, duck, frog, otter, wild boar, wolf; lungs of bear, fox, lamb, pig.

Marrow from leg of bull, bull calf, calf, cow, dog, she-goat, lamb, ox, sheep, stag; milk of ass, cow, ewe, goat, woman; mole, mummy, musk.

Omentum (bowel membrane) of the calf, lamb, ram, and wether.

Pearls and mother of pearl, perspiration, pickle or sauce from the tunny fish, puppies.

Rennet of calf, hare, horse, kid, lamb.

Saliva of a fasting man; scorpions (land); secundines (afterbirth) of a woman; sexual parts of bull, cock, horse, and stag; silk (raw); silkworms’ cocoons. Inner skin of a hen’s stomach; skinks; skull of a man who has met with a violent death, and moss from that skull; sparrows (house and hedge); spermaceti; spleen of ox; sponge; spiders’ webs; cast-off snake’s skin; sea-shells (various kinds named); swallows’ nests; stone from the heads of carp and perch, from ox-gall, from human bladders (see also bezoar stones and crabs’ eyes); suet of badger, calf, cow, goat, ox, sheep, stag.

Teeth of elephants (ivory), wild boar, sea-horse, tench, toads.

Urine of boar, bull, dog, he-goat, man. In the last-named case the urine of a child not arrived at the age of puberty, and of an adult man, are separately indicated.

Vipers’ flesh.

Wagtails; wax (white, red, and yellow); whelks; whey; woodlice.

In contrast with the list quoted above, representing the animal pharmacy of the seventeenth century may be placed the following fifteen articles which cover the zoology of the British Pharmacopœia of 1898:—Cantharides, cod-liver oil, cochineal, honey, lard, leeches, musk, ox-bile, pepsin, spermaceti, mutton, suet, sugar of milk, thyroid gland, wax, wool fat.

Homo: Man as a Medicine.

Man being the microcosm of the universe (the macrocosm) medicines of human origin figured very prominently in old pharmacopœias. In Lemery’s “Dictionnaire Universelle des Drogues Simples,” which was a standard authority all over Europe, at least until the end of the eighteenth century, the author presents a summary of the medicinal uses to which the various parts of “Homo” were applied. I quote (but slightly abbreviate) from the edition of Lemery’s Dictionary of 1759:—

“All parts of man, his excrescences and excrements, contain oil and sal volatile, combined with phlegm and earth. Skull, brain, and calculus are employed in medicine, and are referred to in their proper places. Burning hair, smelt by patients, will counteract the vapours. Moss of the human skull, human blood, and human urine all have their uses in medicine. The saliva of a robust young man, taken fasting, is an antidote against the bites of serpents and mad dogs. Wax from the ears is good against whitlows. Nails from the fingers and toes, given internally either in substance or infused in wine, make a good emetic. Women’s milk is pectoral, good in phthisis, and useful to apply to inflamed eyes. Fresh urine, two or three glasses drunk in the morning fasting, is good against gout, hysterical vapours, and obstructions. It may also be applied externally in gout and in skin complaints. Excrement of man can be applied to anthrax, plague bubos, and quinsies. Dried and powdered, it is recommended in epilepsy and intermittent fevers. Dose, one scruple to one drachm.”

Bechler, in “Parnassus Medicinalis,” 1663, quoted in Peter’s “History of Pharmacy,” says:—

“Powdered human bone, in red wine, will cure dysentery. The marrow and oil distilled from bone is good for rheumatism. Prepared human skull is a sure cure for the falling sickness (epilepsy). Moss grown on a skull is a hæmostatic. Mummy dissolves coagulated blood, relieves cough and pain in the spleen, and is very beneficial in flatulency and delayed menstruation. Human fat properly rubbed into the skin restores weak limbs. The wearing of a belt of human skin facilitates labour and mitigates its pain. Water distilled from human hair and mixed with honey promotes the growth of hair.”

The Liquor Cranii Humani was a highly-prized remedy. It was prepared from unburied skulls, those of criminals for preference. Pomet (1694) says he had been informed by Moses Charas, who had lived for some time in England, that “The London druggists sell skulls of the dead upon which there has grown a little greenish moss called Usnea, because it resembles the moss which grows on the oak. These skulls mostly come from Ireland, where they frequently let the bodies of criminals hang on the gibbet till they fall to pieces.” The market price of skulls at that time varied in London from 8s. to 11s. each, according to size, but those with plenty of moss made fancy prices. They were largely used for compounding the “Sympathetic Ointment,” described by Crollius in his “Royal Chemist,” and were recommended in epilepsy. Germany was the principal market. The pharmaceutical authorities of that day were very decided about the superior virtue of the skulls of persons who had died violent deaths. Lemery (1738) orders: “To make the Magistry of human skull. Calcine the skull and powder finely.” But he adds the useful comment, “This Magistry is only a dead-head of no virtue unless you employ the skull of a young man who died a violent death.”

In a paper “On the Deaths of some Eminent Persons,” printed by Sir H. Halford in 1835, it is stated that in the last illness of Charles II, when he was suffering from a stroke of apoplexy, one of the prescriptions, signed by four physicians, ordered among other ingredients 25 drops of the spirit drawn from human skulls.

Sir Theodor Mayerne’s famous Powder de Gutteta (anti-epileptic powder) contained amber, crystal, and hartshorn vitriolated, various roots and seeds, and flowers, “human skull, both crude and vitriolated, secundine of a woman,” gold and silver leaf, ambergris, etc. Fifty years later valerian alone was thought to be as effective.

Human fat was regarded as an excellent remedy in rheumatism. Pomet (1694) complains that at that time the business of the apothecaries in this luxury was seriously crippled by the competition of the public executioners. But he points out that the article provided in the pharmacies was incomparably superior to that which came from the scaffolds, because it was prepared with aromatic herbs.

Human excrement and human urine were strongly recommended by many of the chief authorities. Mme. de Sévigné, writing to her daughter on June 13, 1685, says:—“For my vapours I take 8 drops of essence of urine, and contrary to its usual action it has prevented me from sleeping.” There are other references to this delicate remedy in some other of her letters. Apparently she took a special combination of the essence with the Baume Tranquille.

Culpepper says: “That small triangular bone in the skull of a man called Os Triquetum, so absolutely cures the Falling Sickness that it will never come again, saith Paracelsus.” Culpepper also states that “the fat of a man is exceeding good to anoint such limbs as fall away in the flesh.” Lemery explains how to make a plaster from the blood of a healthy young man, after drying it, which was useful in old ulcers.

Paracelsus had a “Primum Ens Sanguinis,” which was fresh blood from a healthy young person. Crollius gives a recipe for an eye salve, which was to divide a human brain into half; mix one half with honey and apply it at night; dry and powder the other half and apply it in the morning.

Cow-Dung as a Medicine.

A female pharmacist is mentioned in Salmon’s “Bate’s Dispensatory” (1694), who, he says, made a fortune of £20,000 by selling a tincture made from cow-dung. Her formula was, cow-dung, fresh gathered in the morning, 12 lbs.; spring or rain water, 30 lb. Digest for twenty-four hours, let it settle, and decant the clear brown tincture. Salmon says it is no doubt a good medicine, and has been much used with success. “It has a pretty kind of sweet scent as if it was perfumed with musk or some other odoriferous thing.” An essence of cow-dung was an old English household remedy for gout, rheumatism, stone, etc. It was from cow-dung gathered in May; digested with a third of its weight in white wine, and distilled. In another old formula cow-dung and snails with their shells, equal parts, are prescribed. The resulting distillate was known as all-flower water, aqua omnium florum, and aqua arthritica. Dr. Rutherford, of Edinburgh, in the eighteenth century strongly recommended cow-dung poultice in rheumatic fever, and asserted that he had known of many cures from its use. It has been for centuries a popular article in the Hindu materia medica. The phosphate of soda and benzoic acid (which are the medicinal constituents of cow-dung) are better suited to modern fastidious patients in the form of laboratory products.

Excrements as Medicines.

It will be observed from the list of the excrements used in medicine officially recognised in the early London Pharmacopœias already given that those from various animals were specified. Excrements as remedies are at least as old as Dioscorides, whose work contains a special chapter devoted to an appreciation of the distinguishing virtues of the various sorts of dungs. Pliny likewise names many sorts, and states what are their particular properties.

It is evident that these substances became very popular as household remedies among the peasantry of European countries. In his treatise “On Salts,” Glauber (about 1650) explains how satisfactorily certain of these chemical products can take the place of the unpleasant remedies in use among the peasantry of his time. He says: “They purge the bodies of boys and girls with mouse dung, horse dung, and goose dung; these dissolved in wine or beer, and strained through linen cloths, they use to cure falling sickness by sweat. In the cure of erysipelas or burns and scalds, they use hogs’ dung; in all kinds of swelling, sheep’s dung; in a quinsy, dogs’ turd or human dung.”

Glauber states that he had known of wonderful cures effected by these remedies. But the reason was simple. Human dung, for example, is nothing but bread and flesh reduced into their first matters, all their bonds being loosened and rendered fit for the exercise of their virtues. The essential constituent is a salt not unlike the sal enixon of Paracelsus.

The mention of this great teacher leads Glauber to relate that once some physicians and noblemen asked Paracelsus to tell them some great secret of medicine. In reply he told them that incredible virtues were hidden in human dung. Whereupon they were very angry and departed, considering that he was mocking them. Paracelsus made a remedy which he called Zebethum Occidentale from human dung, dried and powdered. He also recommended a child’s excrement to be distilled twice, and to use the oily distillate for fistulas, canker, and as an application for premature baldness.

Album Græcum, which was dried white dogs’ turds, was regularly stocked by the apothecaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and was given in colic and dysentery, but more generally applied externally to abscesses, ulcers, and quinsies. In Robert Boyle’s “Collection of Medicines,” 1696, “a homely but experienced medicine for a sore throat,” is said to be one drachm of album græcum made into a linctus with honey of roses.

Pigeons’ dung was reputed to be so violently heating that it was almost a caustic. Applied to the soles of the feet it would draw the humours down, but Quincy remarks there was no reason for believing that it attracted the peccant humours only. Fuller prescribes a poultice containing Venice turpentine, pigeons’ dung, and spiders’ webs to be fastened to the wrists two hours before a fit of ague is expected, to ward it off. Pectoral drinks were much improved medicinally, especially for pleurisies, if some dung of stallions had been steeped in them.

Miscellaneous Animal Remedies.

It is not possible in a short space to exhaust this unsavory topic, but a few of the more notable applications of animals or animal derivatives may be briefly mentioned.

Pigeons were cut in half while they were alive and applied to the feet of patients. Pepys alludes two or three times to this and always as an indication that the case is nearly hopeless. The Queen of Charles II was one of the instances.

Oil of Puppies was made by cutting up two newly born ones and boiling them in a varnished pot for twelve hours with one pound of live earthworms. Very good for strengthening the nerves, for sciatica, and for paralysis, says Lemery. The gall of a black puppy, says Schroder, cures epilepsy to a wonder. It had to be prepared with vinegar. Ambrose Paré says he got a recipe from a famous surgeon at Turin for a balm with which he treated gun-shot wounds with extraordinary success. It was to boil young whelps just born with earthworms, Venice turpentine, and oil of lilies.

Fox lungs were prepared for medicines by first separating them from the blood-vessels, then washing them in white wine in which hyssop and scabious had been boiled. After drying gently the lungs were kept wrapt up in hyssop, wormwood, or horehound.

Swallows, hedgehogs, toads, and frogs were prepared by cutting their throats and leaving the blood to dry on them. They were then baked in a close vessel well covered.

Snails were made into a cough syrup by hanging them in a bag with sugar and catching the droppings.

Earthworms had a great reputation for the relief of lung complaints. They were also administered with great confidence, dried and powdered, to children to drive away internal worms. Woodlice, bruised and digested in Rhine wine, made the Vinum Millepedarum given in dropsy and jaundice. Lice and bugs were also honoured remedies. The latter digested in wine or vinegar had the singular power of expelling leeches which might have been accidentally swallowed.

Culpepper quotes from Mizaldus, perhaps sarcastically, a very wonderful property of earthworms, which is that the powder of them put in a hollow tooth makes it drop out. He gives another way of making a tooth drop out, which was to “fill an earthenware crucible full of emmets, ants, or pismires, call them by which name you will, eggs and all, and when you have burnt them keep the ashes, with which if you touch the tooth it will drop out.”

The same authority offers a drink cure which looks as if it might be effectual. “Eels being put into wine or beer and suffered to die in it, he that drinks it will never endure that sort of liquor again.” He recommends the brain of a hare roasted to help children to breed their teeth; a dead mouse, dried and powdered, one whole one to be taken each morning for three consecutive days, for diabetes; grasshoppers for colic; and hedge-sparrows salted for stone.

Deers’ fat strengthened the nerves, and relieved rheumatism and gout. Hares’ grease applied outwardly ripened swellings. Rabbits’ fat had a dispersing power. The fat of cocks and hens would soften hard swellings. Goose grease was specially good against piles, deafness, and to prevent pitting after the small-pox. Bears’ grease, still sold nominally, could be had in genuine form in this country a hundred years ago. Bears were at that time fattened and killed in this country for their grease, and until even more recent times they were imported from Russia. The principal use of bears’ grease was always to make the hair grow, but it was also used as an emollient for many purposes.

The lion had a high reputation among the Romans for its medicinal value. The fat was used as an ointment in affections of the joints, and combined with oil of roses as the best cosmetic for preserving the delicacy of the complexion. An aqueous tincture of the gall was used for weak eyes, and a mixture of the gall with the fat of the lion taken in small doses was esteemed an excellent remedy for epilepsy. Roasted lion’s heart was given in fevers. It was believed that no wild beast would attack anyone anointed with lions’ fat, and that this same treatment would prevent human treachery. These statements are found in Pliny. The lion rather fell out of use in more modern times. Its fat was prescribed in the P.L. 1618, and in James’s “Dispensatory,” 1747, is said to be successful in anointing limbs numbed with cold, and also to put in the ears for the relief of earache.

The flesh of the tiger is still eaten by the Malays to impart courage and sagacity. Marcellus quotes a prescription by Democritus of Abderos (contemporary with Hippocrates) for nervous diseases. It consisted of the spinal marrow of a hyena mixed with his gall, all boiled together in old oil.

The cat has been largely used in medicine. Galen recommends the head of a black cat to be burned in a glazed vessel, and the ashes to be used in diseases of the eye, including cataract. Pliny says that the fæces of this animal mixed with mustard cured ulcers in the head. Sylvius prescribed cats’ flesh for hæmorrhoids and lumbago. In Lemery’s “Pharmacopœia” a cat ointment is ordered. It was to be made from a newly born kitten cut up into small pieces in a pot varnished with crushed earthworms. Cats’ fæces were employed in the eighteenth century as an application for baldness, and cat’s skin was recommended to be worn over the stomach for strengthening the digestion.

Montaigne states that in his time physicians prescribed as choice remedies the left foot of a tortoise, the liver of a mole, and blood drawn from under the wing of a white pigeon.

Queen Anne’s “Oculist and Operator on the Eyes in Ordinary,” a quack named Read whom she knighted, comments in his writings on the practice of putting a louse in the eye when it is dull and obscure and wanteth humours and spirits. This, he says, “tickleth and pricketh so that it maketh the eye moist and rheumatick and quickeneth the spirits.”

Oil of ants made by pounding two ounces of live ants and macerating them in eight ounces of olive oil for forty days was used as a stimulating liniment. Oil of spiders and earthworms was prescribed by Mindererus for anointing in small-pox and plague. He recommended it as being equal to the oil of scorpions, which was a very complicated combination of drugs devised by Matthiolus. Spiders have been often employed in medicine. A live spider rolled up in butter and swallowed as a pill was a seventeenth century cure for jaundice. Spiders taste like nuts, says Lalande. Galen recommended spiders’ eggs mixed with oil of nard for toothache. Elias Ashmole in his “Diary” (1681) writes: “I took early in the morning a good dose of elixir and hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my ague away. Deo gratias.” Spiders’ webs were frequently used as a febrifuge, and are well-known to be excellent to stop bleeding. Oil of lizards, twelve of them cooked alive in three pounds of nut oil, was esteemed a good application against hernia. Oil of frogs prepared in a similar way was applied to the temples to promote sleep.

Bezoar Stones.

Bezoar stones acquired their fame in the East, and were introduced to European medicine by the Arabs. The name is of Persian origin, Pad-zahr, meaning an expeller of poisons. The earliest reference known to Bezoar stones in Europe is by Avenzoar, an Arab physician who practised in Seville about the year 1000. They were included in the London Pharmacopœias from 1618 to 1746.

There were many kinds of bezoar stones sold. The most esteemed was the lapis bezoar orientale. This came from Persia and was supposed to be obtained from the intestines of the Persian wild goat. It was a calculus which had formed itself by deposits of phosphate of lime round some nucleus, such as hair, or the stone of a fruit. One in the museum of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital has a date stone for nucleus. It was believed that the special virtues of the stone were due to some unknown plant on which the animal fed.

A certain kind of ape also yielded bezoar stones. These were obtained by giving the ape an emetic. There were, besides, the lapis bezoar occidentale, procured from the llamas of Peru; and the bezoar Germanorum got from the chamois of the Swiss mountains. These never commanded the same confidence as those from the East. The latter are stated by Paris and Redwood and other writers to have sold for ten times their weight in gold. No authority, however, is given for that assertion.

In a paper read before the Royal Society of London, in 1714, by Frederick Slare, F.R.C.S., the claims of the bezoar stone to the possession of medical virtues are boldly challenged; and in the course of the paper the author states that the price varied from about £3 to £5 per ounce in London. He mentions that he had asked a London druggist, one “of the upper Size,” how many ounces of bezoar stones he sold yearly. He said about 500 ounces. I presume he was a wholesale druggist. Perhaps this is implied by the expression “of the upper Size.” Mr. Slare uses this fact in support of his suggestion that a large proportion of the imports of these precious commodities, though they came from India or Persia right enough, had never been inside any wild goat, antelope, or ape. He records experiments which go to show this, and also gave letters from medical officers in India, men quite competent to judge, who manifested in this particular a surprising degree of innocence. It would have been strange if the wily oriental had refrained from practising his skill on his confiding Western customers.

Mr. Slare tells us that the stone was only found in about one goat out of seven killed, and that it took some twelve stones to make an ounce, which worked out to nearly 50,000 goats to be slain annually to keep this one London druggist supplied.

The original use of the bezoar was as an antidote to poisons. It came to be the valued remedy for all kinds of fevers, was applied externally in many skin diseases, and had the reputation of being able to cure even leprosy. The dose of the oriental bezoar was from 4 to 16 grains; of the occidental 6 to 30 grains. They were also carried about in gold or silver boxes as amulets. In Portugal in time of plague the stones were let out at about the equivalent of ten shillings a day. Some designed for this use may still be seen in museums. Bezoar stones were required to be of an olive-greenish tint, to be striated, and to yield a musky odour. They were further expected to strike a green colour when rubbed on white paper which had previously been prepared with chalk.

The alchemists prepared a mineral bezoar, by treating butter of antimony with nitric acid. They got antimonious acid. The livers and hearts of vipers dried in the sun furnished the animal bezoar; and a stony concretion sometimes found in cocoa-nuts, and in high repute among the Malays as a medicine was called vegetable bezoar or calatippe.

The importance attached to bezoar stones in the seventeenth century, and, incidentally, their liability to falsification, are illustrated by a minute in the records of the Society of Apothecaries, dated May 25th, 1630, as follows:—

A little later, it appears that the case of these stones was tried at the Guildhall, a jury composed partly of druggists and partly of apothecaries being empannelled. This jury confirmed the verdict of the table of apothecaries and the bezoar stones were duly burnt.

Three bezoar stones were sent by the Shah of Persia as a royal gift for his brother the Emperor Napoleon, only a hundred years ago.

Ambrose Paré, who wrote in the later half of the sixteenth century, was one of the few eminent doctors who discredited the alleged medicinal virtue of the bezoards. He was surgeon to Charles IX, and relates that one day, the king being at Clermont, a Spanish nobleman brought him a bezoar stone which he assured him was an antidote against all poisons. The king sent for Paré and asked him if he knew any substance which would annul the effects of any poison. Paré said that could not be, for there were many sorts of poisons which acted in very different ways. The Spanish nobleman, however, maintained that this stone was a universal antidote, and the king was eager to test the question. So the Provost of the Palace was sent for and asked if he had any criminal in his charge condemned to death. He said he had a cook who had stolen two silver dishes, and who was to be hanged the next day. The offer was thereupon made to the cook that he should take a poison, and an alleged antidote immediately afterwards, and if he escaped with his life he should go free. The cook gladly consented, and an apothecary was ordered to prepare a deadly draught and give it, and to follow this with a dose of the bezoar. This was done. The poor wretch lived for about seven hours in terrible agony, which Paré tried in vain to relieve. After his death Paré opened him and showed that the antidote had no effect at all. It was sublimate which had been given. “And the king commanded that the stone should be thrown into the fire; which was done.”

Paré’s authority was considerable, but it was by no means strong enough to destroy public faith in the bezoar. According to Pomet and Lemery the demand for the stones was so great in France more than a century later that it was difficult to get them genuine except at fancy prices. A stone of 4¼ oz. was sold for 2,000 livres (say £75). In Savary’s “Dictionnaire de Commerce” (1741) it is stated that when bezoars arrived at Amsterdam they fetched from 300 to 400 livres apiece. They were bought by rich citizens either to serve as presents, or to be kept in their families.

Gascoyne’s or Gascoign’s Powder.

In the paper by Mr. Slare read before the Royal Society already referred to the author comments with similar severity on the then popular Gascoign’s Powder. As evidence of the fame it possessed he says he had been told that a certain “grandee of the faculty” had got above £50,000 by prescribing this compound. I suppose this meant he had received that amount in fees for prescriptions ordering that medicine. Taking advantage of the reverence in which bezoar was held by that generation, Gascoign’s Powder had assumed as a second title the name of bezoardic powder. It was also known as the Powder of the Black Tops of Crab-claws, from the ingredient in largest quantity. The professed composition of Gascoign’s Powder as given by Mr. Slare was oriental bezoar, white amber, hartshorn in powder, pearls, crabs’ eyes, coral, and black tops of crabs’ claws. Naturally a powder of such costly ingredients was sold at a very high price. Mr. Slare recommends chalk and salt of wormwood as being in all respects as good. The former was cheap enough then; and of the salt he says two pounds could be got for the price of half an ounce of the compound.

Vipers.

Both in ancient and comparatively modern times vipers have been held in the highest esteem for their medicinal virtues, and viper fat, viper broth, and viper wine are used to this day in some remote parts of Britain, and to a still greater extent on the Continent. In some districts of France heads of vipers enclosed in little silk bags are worn by children to preserve them from croup and convulsions.

It was the addition of vipers to the confection of Mithridates that constituted the principal improvement effected by Andromachus in his composition of the electuary which came to be known as theriakon, and subsequently as theriaca. Therion was Greek for a wild beast, but came to mean specially a venomous serpent, and the compound may have been called theriaca either to indicate that vipers were an important ingredient, or that it would cure their bites.

According to Dr. Mead, Antonius Musa, physician to Octavius Cæsar, was one of the first physicians who recommended the flesh of vipers for medicinal use. Pliny states that he quickly cured inveterate ulcers by this remedy. It is possible, however, that Musa acquired his knowledge of this remedy from a Greek physician named Craterus, who had advised that in certain wasting diseases vipers should be eaten, dressed as fish. In Galen’s time vipers had become common medicines, and were probably taken to some extent as a nourishing food.

Moses Charas studied vipers very closely, and wrote a treatise on their use in medicine (1669) which had a great reputation. He adopted the curious view of Van Helmont that the poison of the viper, which was supposed to be contained in the animal’s saliva, was not there normally, but was created as the effect of rage and terror. According to Charas, the head of the viper, grilled and eaten, would cure its bite, or hung to the neck would cure quinsy. The brain similarly hung on the neck of an infant would greatly assist in cutting the teeth. The skin fastened round the right thigh of a woman was an excellent aid to delivery in childbirth; if given to dogs, cooked or raw, it would cure mange. The fat was a valuable application in gout, or for tumours. Those treatments he had verified by his own experience. Other virtues attributed to vipers were mentioned, but he had not proved them, and could not conscientiously guarantee their existence. One was that the person who swallowed the liver of a viper could not be bitten by any kind of serpent during the ensuing six months.

Madame de Sévigné, was a firm believer in the medicinal value of vipers. Writing to her daughter in 1679 she says: “Madame de Lafayette is taking viper broth, which much strengthens her eyesight.” In 1685 she informs her son: “It is to vipers I am indebted for the abundant health I now enjoy. They temper, purify, and refresh the blood. But it is essential to have the vipers themselves, and not the powder, which is heating unless taken in broth, boiled cream, or something refreshing.” Then she goes on to advise him to get M. de Boissy to send him ten dozen vipers from Poitou in a case divided into three or four compartments lined with hay and moss, so that they can be kept at their ease. He is to take two every morning. The heads are to be cut off, the bodies to be scalded and cut into small pieces, and used to stuff a fowl. He is to continue this treatment for a month.

The early London Pharmacopœias gave the following form for the Trochisci Viperum required in the preparation of Theriaca: Remove the skin, entrails, head, fat and tail, and boil the flesh of vipers in 8 oz. of water with dill and a little salt, add 2 oz. of white bread twice toasted, ground and sifted, and make into troches, your hands being anointed with opobalsamum or expressed oil of nutmeg. Dry them on a sieve turned bottom upwards in an open place. Turn them frequently until they are quite dry, and keep them in a well-stopped glass or glazed vessel. They will keep good for a year, but it is better to make the treacle with them as soon after they are made as possible.

Quincy (1724) had great confidence in their virtues. He writes, “That they are Balsamic and greatly Restorative is confirm’d by long Experience; for we have many instances in Physical Histories of Persons arriving at a healthful old age by their frequent use, as well as others who recover’d from deplorable Decays and Weaknesses.” Then he proceeds at considerable length to compare the juices of these animals with those of terebinthous plants, which are mostly evergreens. “Moreover they have been experienc’d to do wonders in cutaneous cases; the Force and Activity of their parts breaking thro’ the little obstructions in the Miliary Glands, which turn into Ichor, Scabs, and Blotches” (those old practitioners knew exactly how their remedies acted); “and by restoring a free perspiration render the skin smooth and beautiful”; and much more on cures of itch, leprosy, and the worst skin eruptions.

Viper wine was a very popular tonic. It was believed to cure barrenness in women. An essence of vipers was believed in as an aphrodisiac, but Dr. James (1747) tells us that what was then advertised and sold in London under that name was tincture of cantharides. This author is sceptical about vipers altogether. He had given the flesh, broth, and salt of vipers in large quantities, but had come to the conclusion that the broths and flesh were no better than the broths and flesh of fowl, veal, or mutton, prepared in the same way, and as to the salt, he was sure that the salt of hartshorn or any other animal salt would answer just as well.

The vipers employed for medicine were the common vipers, which in this country are usually called adders (Vipera communis).

A common recipe for viper broth was to boil together a chicken with a middling-sized viper from which the head, skin, and entrails had been removed. These made a quart of good broth.

Mummies.

The employment of mummies in medicine does not seem to have been very ancient, nor did it become permanent. Who introduced it is not known. Ephraim Chambers in his Cyclopœdia (1738) says, “Mummy is said to have been first brought into use in medicine by the malice of a Jewish physician, who wrote that flesh thus embalmed was good for the cure of divers diseases, and particularly bruises, to prevent the blood’s gathering and coagulating.” Pomet also says that a Jewish physician had written about the medicinal value of mummy, but he does not suggest that he had recommended it out of malice.

The trade in mummies was evidently in the hands of the Jews and Armenians at the time when Pomet wrote, and, according to him, the fading popularity of mummy as a medicine was the result of the rogueries practised by these Jews. He tells of a Guy de la Fontaine, the King’s physician, who, when visiting in Egypt, went to see a Jew in Alexandria who traded in mummies, and after some difficulty was admitted into the Jew’s warehouse, where he saw several bodies piled one upon another. “After a reflection of a quarter of an hour he asked him what druggs he made use of, and what sort of bodies were fit for his service. The Jew answered that as to the dead he took such bodies as he could get, whether they died of a common disease or of some contagion. As to the druggs, they were nothing but a heap of some old druggs mixed together which he applied to the bodies, which after he had dried in an oven he sent into Europe, and was amazed to see the Christians were lovers of such filthiness.” This very frank Jew must have been on the point of retiring from business.

Pomet regrets that he is not able to stop the abuses of the dealers in this commodity, so he has to content himself with advising those who buy mummy to choose what is of a fine shining black, not full of bones and dirt, and of a good smell. He also tells us it is good for contusions, and to prevent the blood from coagulating in the body (1694).

Ambrose Paré, who wrote before Pomet, was even more suspicious. He mentions that it was held by some that the mummies then in use were made and fashioned in France; that they were bodies stolen at night from the gibbets, the brains and entrails removed, and the bodies dried in a furnace, and then dipped in pitch. Paré states that he never prescribes mummy.

Oswald Crollius seems to have had no objection to artificial mummies. In his “Royal Chemist” he gives a process for preparing one. The carcase of a young man (some say a red-haired young man) who had been killed, that is, did not die of disease, and, it is to be presumed, had not been buried, was to lie in cold water in the air for twenty-four hours. The flesh was to be cut in pieces and sprinkled with myrrh and a little aloes. This was then to be soaked in spirit of wine and turpentine for twenty-four hours, hung up for twelve hours, again soaked in the spirit mixture for twenty-four hours, and finally hung up in a dry place to dry.

Mummies were principally recommended for consumption, wasting of flesh, ulcers, and various corruptions.

Nicasius Le Febre, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry to Charles II, in his “Compleat Body of Chymistry,” 1670, says the best mummies for medical use were those of bodies dried up in the hot sands of Lybia, where sometimes whole caravans were overwhelmed by simooms and suffocated. “This sudden suffocation doth concentrate the spirits in all the parts by reason of the fear and sudden surprisal which seizes on the travellers.” Next to these Lybian mummies Le Febre recommends the dried corpse of a young lusty man of about 25 to 30 years of age who has been suffocated or hanged. He gives directions for drying the flesh, smoking it for a philosophical month, and then it is to be given in doses of 1 to 3 grains with some old treacle (theriaca) and vipers’ flesh made into an electuary with spirit of wine. It was specially good against pestilential diseases.

Dippel’s Animal Oil.

Animal oil, oil of harts’ horns, or empyreumatic oil, as it was variously called, or Dippel’s animal oil, which was the original, was highly prized as a medicine in the eighteenth century, and disputed the palm for nastiness with the balsam of sulphur. Dippel made it from harts’ horns, but later formulas directed it to be made from any bones, from blood, or indeed from any animal substance. In distilling the horn some water first came over, and this was rejected. At the end of the operation the distillate consisted of carbonate of ammonia in solution and an empyreumatic oil, very dark and fœtid. The spirit was drawn off by filtration, and the oil which remained in the filter was rectified by as many as twenty distillations, the residue increasing at each operation and the rectified oil becoming paler. As it became brown by exposure to light it was the practice to put it up in 1 drachm bottles, which were buried in sand.

The virtues of this preparation were highly vaunted. Frederick Hoffmann strongly recommended it, especially when fever threatened. Twenty to thirty drops on a lump of sugar, followed by a glass of wine, were said to procure a calm and refreshing sleep, often continuing for twenty hours. It would be almost shorter to enumerate the complaints it was not recommended for than those which its advocates alleged it would cure. Epilepsy, apoplexy, palsy, plague, pleurisy, leprosy, and all skin diseases down to ringworm, fevers, colds, and headaches of all sorts were said to yield to its virtues.

Johann Conrad Dippel, its inventor and medical sponsor, was a strange, shifty, but clever adventurer. Born in 1673, near Darmstadt, his father, a Lutheran minister, hoped to train his son to his own profession. He was sent when quite a youth to Giessen University, where he distinguished himself and soon became an ardent controversialist. At that time the Protestants in Germany were divided into Orthodox and Pietists, the latter seeking to restore the personal spirituality which they considered the orthodox Lutherans were burying in formalities. Young Dippel argued vigorously on the orthodox side, and went to Strasburg to preach his views. There he also practised alchemy and cheiromancy and, besides, got mixed up in broils and disturbances. His inconsistent life compelled him to leave Strasburg, and having spent some time at Landau, Neustadt, and Worms, he returned to Giessen, where he became as ardent a Pietist as he had previously been an Orthodox. He took his degree, and then, having exhausted his father’s funds, took to travelling, and practised medicine and alchemy, occasionally reverting to theology, but now denouncing Protestantism in all its diversities.

Getting to Berlin, and securing the confidence of some wealthy believers, he established a laboratory where he produced this animal oil and, more important still, in trying to imitate a Florentine lake from cochineal, accidentally produced Prussian blue, but did not realise the value of this discovery. He claimed to have succeeded in making gold, and on the strength of his representations was able to get deeply into debt, purchasing, among other luxuries, a castle and estate for fifty thousand florins. In 1707 he was imprisoned for a short time in Berlin, and when he regained his freedom made his way to Amsterdam. He took a medical degree at Leyden, and was acquiring a good medical practice at Amsterdam when his creditors and religious antagonists compelled him to escape from Holland. He went to Altona and then to Hamburg, but was ordered to leave both these cities. Copenhagen was his next home, and there again he suffered imprisonment. He was sent to the Island of Bornholm, where he practised as a physician until he was freed on the instructions of the Queen of Denmark. His medical reputation must have been both wide and high, for in 1727 the King of Sweden who could not get cured of a malady by his own physicians sent for Dippel, who completely succeeded. His troubled life seemed likely now to be exchanged for peace and prosperity, but this was not to be. The king would willingly have kept Dippel near him, but Sweden was a Protestant nation, and the clergy and people did not forget his scoffing attacks on their cherished faith. They would not have him among them, and Dippel had to return to Germany. After residing for a short time at Lauenburg and Celle, he at last found a refuge at the Castle of Wittgenstein, the owner of which, Count Wittgenstein, was one of his adherents. There he lived from 1729 to 1734. The last event recorded of him was characteristic. It had been announced that he was dead. Dippel published an indignant denial, and declared his assurance that he would not die until the year 1808. The prophecy failed, for the next year, 1734, he was found dead in bed at the castle of Wittgenstein.

The story of his discovery of Prussian blue is curious. When he was in Berlin, an artist, named Diesbach, was preparing some Florentine lake from a combination of alum and cochineal, acted on by sulphate of iron and fixed alkali. He asked Dippel for some of the alkali left over in his retort after he had distilled some of his animal oil. This seemed to spoil the product, for it yielded a blue instead of a crimson lake. Dippel tried it himself and got the same result. But he did not appreciate the value of this product, and it was left for Scheele to trace its chemical history.

Spermaceti.