Part 10

In the British Museum “Guide” Dr. Budge quotes the following prescription “for driving away wrinkles of the face,” and gives the same in hieroglyphics:--“Ball of incense, wax, fresh oil, and cypress berries, equal parts. Crush, and rub down, and put in new milk, and apply it to the face for six days. Take good heed.” Generally medicines are directed to be taken or applied for four days; the ingredients are very often four; and in many cases incantations are to be four times repeated. The Pythagoreans swore by the number 4, and probably their master acquired his reverence for that figure from Egypt.

A sacred perfume called kyphi is prescribed to perfume the house and clothes for sanitary reasons. It was composed of myrrh, juniper berries, frankincense, cyprus wood, aloes wood, calamus of Asia, mastic, and styrax.

Among the Greek Papyri discovered in the last decade of the 19th century at Oxyrinchus one quoted by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt in their work on these papyri (Vol. II., p. 134) gives about a dozen formulas for applications for the earache. These are believed to have been written in the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. One is:--Dilute some gum with balsam of lilies; add honey and rose-extract. Twist some wool with the oil in it round a probe, warm, and drop in. Onion juice, the gall of an ox, the sap of a fir tree, alum and myrrh, and frankincense in sweet wine, are among the other applications recommended.

III

PHARMACY IN THE BIBLE

Pour bien entendre le Vieux Testament il est absolument nécessaire d’approfondir l’Histoire Naturelle, aussi bien que les mœurs des Orientaux. On y trouve à peu près trois cents noms de végétaux; je ne sais combien de noms tirés du règne animal, et un grand nombre qui désignent des pierres précieuses.--T. D. MICHAELIS, Göttingen, 1790.

To some extent the habits and practices of the Israelites were based on those of the Egyptians. But in the matter of medicines the differences are more notable than the resemblances. In Egypt the practice of medicine was entirely in the hands of the priesthood, and was largely associated with magical arts. It appears, too, that the Egyptian practitioners had acquired experience of a fairly wide range of internal medicines. Among the Israelites the priests did not practise medicine at all. Some of the prophets did, and they were expected to exercise healing powers. Elijah and Elisha were frequently called upon for help in this way, and the prescription of Isaiah of a lump of figs to be laid on Hezekiah’s boil (2 Kings, xx, 7) will be recalled. But among the Israelites physicians formed a distinct profession, though it cannot be said that in all the history covered by the Scriptures they performed the same functions. The physicians of Joseph’s household whom he commanded to embalm his father (Genesis 1, 2) were rather apothecaries. That, of course, was in Egypt. There is a curious allusion to physicians in 2 Chronicles, xvi, 12, where it is said that when Asa was exceedingly ill with a disease in his feet “he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.” Possibly this means that he employed physicians who practised incantations. Some commentators think, however, that the passage has reference to himself, his name signifying a physician. In the apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus physicians are alluded to in language which suggests that at the time it was written there were doubts about the necessity of physicians. Until recently this work was attributed to Joshua or Jesus, the son of Sirach. It so appeared in the Greek manuscripts. But a Hebrew manuscript discovered in 1896 shows that the author was Simon, son of Jeshua, and critics agree that the date of its composition was rather less than 200 years before Christ.

This book, “Ecclesiasticus,” is professedly a collection of the grave and short sentences of wise men. Those relating to medicine and physicians are brought together in the first part of the 38th chapter. They appear to be quoted from different authors, and several of the verses are merely parallels. Thus we have, “Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses which ye may have of him; for the Lord hath created him.” And again, “Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him; let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him.” But the author of a verse inserted between these appears to regard the physician as less essential. He says, “My son, in thy sickness be not negligent; but pray unto the Lord, and He will make thee whole.” The 15th verse is somewhat enigmatic, and may or may not be complimentary. It runs, “He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hand of the physician.” In the recently discovered manuscript is the passage not previously known, “He that sinneth against God will behave arrogantly before his physician.” Probably into this may be read the converse idea that he that behaves arrogantly towards his physician sinneth before God.

In the same chapter we are told that “the Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them.” Possibly this was directed against the Jewish prejudice against bitter flavours. Then the writer asks, “Was not the water made sweet with wood?” and he says “of such” (the medicines) men to whom God hath given skill heal men and take away their pains; and “of such doth the apothecary make a confection.”

The idea that physicians get their skill direct from God is prominent in these passages, and is perhaps truer than we are willing to admit in this age of curricula and examinations.

MEDICINES OF THE JEWS.

The Papyrus Ebers was supposed by its discoverer to have been compiled about the time when Moses was living in Egypt, a century before the Exodus. There is no evidence in the Bible that the Jews brought with them from the land of their captivity any of the medical lore which that and other papyri not much later reveal. It is not certain that in the whole of the Bible there is any distinct reference to a medicine for internal administration. It is assumed that Rachel wanted the mandrakes which Reuben found to make a remedy for sterility, but that is not definitely stated. Nor is it certain that the Hebrew word Dudaim, translated mandrakes, meant the shrub we know by that name. Violets, lilies, jasmin, truffles, mushrooms, citrons, melons, and other fruits have been proposed by various critics. There are three passages in Jeremiah where Balm of Gilead is mentioned in a way which may have meant that it was to be used as an internal remedy. These are c. viii. v. 12, c. xlvi. v. 11, and c. li. v. 8. In two of these the expression “take balm” is used, but it is quite possible to understand this as meaning employ balm, and in all the passages the sense is metaphorical.

The Mishnah, the book of Jewish legends, which forms part of the Talmud, mentions a treatise on medicines believed to have been compiled by Solomon. Hezekiah is said to have “hidden” this work for fear that the people should trust to that wisdom rather than to the Lord. The Talmud also cites a treatise on pharmacology called Megillat-Sammanin, but neither of these works has been preserved. In the Talmud an infusion of onions in wine is mentioned as a means of healing an issue of blood. It was necessary at the same time for someone to say to the patient, “Be healed of thine issue of blood.” This remedy and the formula to be spoken are strongly reminiscent of Egypt.

The Talmud, though it was compiled in the early centuries of our era, undoubtedly reflects the Jewish life and thought of many previous ages, and consequently indicates fairly enough the condition of therapeutics among the ancient Hebrews. Among its miscellaneous items are cautions against the habit of taking medicine constantly also against having teeth extracted needlessly. It advises that patients should be permitted to eat anything they specially crave after. Among its aphorisms are salt after meals, water after wine, onions for worms, peppered wine for stomach disorders, injection of turpentine for stone in the bladder. People may eat more before 40, drink more after 40. Magic is plentifully supplied for the treatment of disease. To cure ague, for instance, you must wait by a cross-road until you see an ant carrying a load. Then you must pick up the ant and its load, place them in a brass tube which you must seal up, saying as you do this, “Oh ant, my load be upon thee, and thy load be upon me.”

Towards the time of Christ the sect of the Essenes, ascetic in their habits and communistic in their principles, cultivated, according to Josephus, the art of medicine, “collecting roots and minerals” for this purpose. Their designation may have been derived from this occupation.

THE APOTHECARY

is, or was, familiar to readers of the Old Testament, but in the revised translation he has partially disappeared. The earliest allusion to him occurs in Exodus xxx., 25, where the holy anointing oil is prescribed to be made “after the art of the apothecary”; and in the same chapter, v. 29, incense is similarly ordered to be made into a confection “after the art of the apothecary, tempered together.” The Revised Version gives in both cases “the art of the perfumer,” and instead of the incense being “tempered together” (c. xxx, v, 35) the instruction is now rendered “seasoned with salt.” A further mention of the art of the apothecary, or in the Revised Version, the perfumer, is found again in connection with the same compounds in Exodus xxxvii., 29. In 2 Chronicles xvi., 14, the apothecaries’ art in the preparation of sweet odours and divers kinds of spices for the burial of King Asa is again alluded to, and this time without any apparent reason the Revised Version retains the old term. The next quotation (Nehemiah, iii, 8) is particularly interesting. The Authorised Version says “Hananiah, the son of one of the apothecaries,” worked on the repair of the walls of Jerusalem by the side of Haraiah of the goldsmiths. In the Revised Version Hananiah is described as “one of the apothecaries.” Hebrew scholars tell us that the idiom employed shows that these men belonged to guilds of apothecaries and goldsmiths respectively; a pretty little insight into ancient Jewish trade history.

In Ecclesiastes, x, 1, we come to the oft quoted parallel, “Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour,” this being likened to a little folly spoiling a reputation for wisdom. The revisers have substituted perfumer for apothecary in this text. They certainly ought to have changed ointment for pomade in the same text to explain their view of the meaning of the passage.

In the passage already quoted from the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 8, “Of such doth the apothecary make a confection,” and in xlix, 1, “The remembrance of Josias is like the composition of the perfume made by the art of the apothecary,” the revisers have not seen fit to alter the trade designation.

The words translated apothecary, compound, ointment, and confection in the passages cited, and in many others in the Hebrew scriptures, are all inflexions of the root verb, Rakach (in which the final ch is a strong aspirate or guttural). Gesenius says of this root, “The primary idea appears to be in making the spices small which are mixed with the oil.” The apothecary, therefore, may be regarded as a crusher, or pounder.

PHARMACY, DISGRACEFUL.

The Greek word, pharmakeia, the original of our “pharmacy,” had a rather mixed history in its native language. It does not seem to have exactly deteriorated, as words in all languages have a habit of doing, for from the earliest times it was used concurrently to describe the preparation of medicines, and also through its association with drugs and poisons and the production of philtres, as equivalent to sorcery and witchcraft. It is in this latter sense that it is employed exclusively in the New Testament. St. Paul, for instance (in Galatians, v, 20), enumerating the works of the flesh names it after idolatry. The word appears as witchcraft in the Authorised, and as sorcery in the Revised Version. Pharmakeia or one of its derivatives also occurs several times in the Book of Revelations (ix, 21; xviii, 23; xxi, 8, and xxii, 15), and is uniformly rendered sorcery or sorcerers in both versions, and is associated with crime. Hippocrates uses the verb Pharmakeuein with the meaning of to purge, but he elsewhere employs the same word with the meaning of to drug a person, to give a stupefying draught. In Homer the word “Pharmaka” appears in the senses of both noxious and healing drugs, and also to represent enchanted potions or philtres. The word “pharmakoi” in later times came to be used for the criminals who were sacrificed for the benefit of the communities, and thus it acquired its lowest stage of signification. It is remarkable and unusual for a word which has once fallen as this one did to recover its respectable position again.

DRUGS NAMED IN THE BIBLE.

BALM OF GILEAD

is now usually identified with the exudation from the Balsamum Gileadense, known as Opobalsamum, a delicately odorous resinous substance of a dark red colour, turning yellow as it solidifies. It is not now used in modern pharmacy, except in the East. The London Pharmacopœia of 1746 authorised the substitution of expressed oil of nutmeg for it in the formula for Theriaca. Some Biblical commentators have preferred to regard mastic as the original Balm of Gilead, and others have thought that styrax has fulfilled the description. At this day the monks of Jericho sell to tourists an oily gum extracted from the Takkum, or Balanites Egyptiaca, as Balm of Gilead. It is put up in tin cases, and is said to be useful in the treatment of sores and wounds; but it cannot be the true Balm of the Bible.

The references to Balm of Gilead in the Old Testament show that it was exported from Arabia to Egypt from very early times. The Ishmaelites “from Gilead” who bought Joseph, were carrying it down to Egypt with other Eastern gums and spices (Genesis, xxxvii, 25). “A little balm” was among the gifts which Jacob told his sons to take to the lord of Egypt (Genesis, xliii, 11). This was the same substance: tsora in Hebrew. The translation “balm” in the Authorised Version is said in the Encyclopedia Biblica to be “an unfortunate inheritance from Coverdale’s Bible.” Why it is unfortunate is not clear, unless it is that the English word suggests the idea of a medicine. In the Genesis references to the substance there is no indication that the tsora was employed as a remedy, but in the Book of Jeremiah it is mentioned three times (viii, 22; xlvi, 11; li, 8), and in all these allusions its healing virtues are emphasised. Wyclif translates tsora in Genesis “sweete gum,” and, in Jeremiah, “resyn.” Coverdale adopts “triacle” in Jeremiah. The Septuagint rendered the Hebrew tsora into the Greek retiné, resin.

The text of the prophetic book leaves it open to doubt whether the balm was for internal or external administration. Probably it was made into an ointment.

Gilead was the country on the East of the Jordan, not very defined in extent, a geographical expression for the mountainous region which the Israelites took from the Amorites. But it is not necessary to suppose that the balsam was produced in that district. Josephus states that the Balsamum Gileadense, the Opobalsamum tree, was grown in the neighbourhood of Jericho; but he also reports the tradition that it was brought to Judea by the Queen of Sheba when she visited Solomon. This is not incompatible with the much earlier record of the Ishmaelites carrying it “from Gilead” to Egypt. For the Sabaeans who inhabited the southern part of Arabia were from very early times the great traders of the East, and they would have supplied the balm to these Ishmaelites in the regular course of commerce. The Sabaeans are believed to have colonised Abyssinia, and the Queen of Sheba may have come from that country. But whether the tree was originally grown in Africa or Arabia, there is no doubt about the esteem in which it was held by many nations. Strabo (B.C. 230) says: “In that most happy land of the Sabaeans grow frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon; and on the coast that is about Saba, the balsam also.” Many later writers allude to its costliness and to its medicinal virtues; Pliny tells us that it was preferred to all other odours. He also states that the tree was only grown in Judea, and there only in two gardens, both belonging to the King.