Part 38

Manus Christi was the name of a tablet made of sugar and flavoured with rose into which some prepared pearl entered.

Manus Dei was the name of an old plaster containing myrrh, frankincense, ammoniac, and galbanum.

Marmalades were conserves of various fruits, the pulp of which was preserved in sugar. Said to have been originally the pulp of the quince (in Portuguese marmelo). Some old medical books say the pharmaceutical preparations known by this name, which often contained manna, were derived from the French marc mêlé.

Masticatories. Substances chewed with the object of exciting the saliva. Sage, betony, pyrethrum, and tobacco have been employed for this purpose.

Matrass. A round or oval glass vessel used in chemical operations to digest or evaporate liquids. It was provided with a long straight neck, and is supposed to owe its name to this, matras or matrat being an old word for an arrow or javelin.

Mellites were syrups made with honey instead of sugar.

Mensis Philosophicus, a philosophic month, or forty days.

Menstruum. The alchemists used this term much as the word solvent is now used, and some etymologists think it was adopted to indicate that a month was necessary for a solvent to exercise its full power. Dr. Johnson says the idea originated “in some notion of the old chemists about the influence of the moon in the preparation of dissolvents.” Sir J. Murray says “Menstruum was a mediæval term used in alchemy to express belief that the base metal undergoing transmutation into gold corresponded with the seed within the womb which was being acted upon by the agency of the menstrual fluid.” It is possible, however, that the old belief in the extraordinary solvent power of the menstrual fluid may have better accounted for the adoption of the term in pharmacy. Dr. C. S. Carrington, of Brooklyn, has quoted from a French narrative of the conquest and conversion of the natives of the Canary Islands, published in one of the Hakluyt volumes, a passage written by two monks giving an account of the Flood. Describing the Ark, they say it was so perfectly joined by “Betun,” a glue so strong that the pieces united by it could not be separated by any art “sinon par sang naturel de fleurs de femmes.”

Moxa. In the middle of the seventeenth century Ten Rhyn and afterwards Kaempfer, both surgeons in the service of the Dutch East India Company, described a process of cauterisation largely adopted in China and Japan in the treatment of various maladies. They used the hairy leaves of the Chinese artemisia and made it up into a cylindrical shape which they placed on any part on which they wished to act, and then set fire to it, allowing it to smoulder slowly down to the skin. It was adopted by many European surgeons, especially by Van Swieten in gout, rheumatism, and paralysis, but carded cotton, lint, hemp, or other substances were employed in the same way. Sydenham mentions this as a cure for gout, and Larrey designed a little instrument to facilitate the application. Sometimes chemicals were combined, and the stem of the sunflower cut into inch lengths, the pith being burnt, was also used. The operation of course gave great pain, and after a time it was doubted if it did any good.

Nasalia. See Errhines.

Noctiluca. The name given by Boyle to the phosphorus which he made before the latter word became general.

Nutrition. A term used in old pharmacy to signify the act of combining substances in a mortar or by agitation until they acquired the proper consistence. Unguentum nutritum, for example, was an ointment made by stirring together in a mortar some lead plaster with oil and vinegar and generally some belladonna juice.

Nychthemeron meant maceration for a day and night, that is for 24 hours. It appears sometimes in directions for treating herbs and flowers previous to distillation.

Obolos, a Greek weight equal to half a scruple.

Œnclaion, a mixture of wine and oil.

Œnogala, a mixture of wine and milk.

Œnomeli, a mixture of wine and honey.

Œsypus, the name given by Dioscorides to wool fat.

Ointments among the Greeks and Romans were generally liquids. Anything used to anoint with, not being oil simply, was an ointment (miron in Greek, unguentum in Latin). From the Greek word was derived Myrepsus, which meant an ointment maker.

Opiates were originally electuaries containing opium or some other narcotic. Gradually, however, the word lost its significance and was used to indicate any medicinal substance of the same character. It is sometimes used for tooth pastes.

Oxycroceum was the name of a plaster among the ingredients of which were vinegar and saffron.

Panchrest. A remedy for all complaints.

Panchymagogon. A medicine to purify all the humours. Pulp of colocynth, black hellebore, diagrydium, of each 2½ ounces; senna, rhubarb, of each 4 ounces; species of diarrhodon abattis, hermodactils, turbith, agaric, aloes, of each 1 ounce. Make an extract with cinnamon water, adding the salt from the fæces. Dose, 20 to 30 grains. Calomel was called “mineral panchymagogon.”

Pedilavium. A decoction of herbs intended to bathe the feet with to induce sleep.

Pelican. A glass vessel with a tubular neck and provided with two beaks, one opposite the other, which conducted the vapour back to the lower part of the vessel, so that cohobation or redistillation was continually being carried on.

Periapt. An amulet hung round the neck, or applied to some other part of the body, to preserve the wearer from contagion, or to drive away evil spirits.

Pessary, from Greek “pessos,” a little round stone used in a game. Pessaries were in very common use by the Greek women for every kind of vaginal complaint. They were little balls of wool or lint which were medicated in various ways.

Pill. The word “pilula” is first found in Pliny, who says “Pharmaca illa in globulos conformata vulgo pilulæ nominamus.” See “Katapotia.”