Part 4

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.