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  THE MYSTERY AND ROMANCE

  OF

  ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY




  THE SCIENTIFIC PRESS, LTD.




  THE MYSTERY AND ROMANCE
  OF
  ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY


  BY
  C. J. S. THOMPSON

  AUTHOR OF “POISON ROMANCE AND POISON MYSTERIES,”
  “THE CHEMIST’S COMPENDIUM,” “THE CULT OF BEAUTY,”
  ETC., ETC.


  LONDON
  THE SCIENTIFIC PRESS, LIMITED
  28 & 29 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
  1897




PREFACE.


It has been my endeavour in the following pages to sketch, however
imperfectly, some phases of the romance and mystery that have
surrounded the arts of medicine, alchemy, and pharmacy from the
earliest period of which we have record down to the close of the
eighteenth century. The influence of the past on the present is greater
than we commonly suppose. In this age of rapid scientific progress
and brilliant research, we are apt to overlook and lose sight of the
patient labours of the early pioneers of science, many of whom laid the
foundations of discoveries that have since proved of inestimable value
to mankind. Hence the history of the past, whether in science or in
art, is always worthy of study and attention.

My thanks are due to the Editor of the _Pharmaceutical Journal_ for
permission to reproduce several illustrations which appeared in its
pages together with a portion of this work.

      C. J. S. T

  LIVERPOOL, 1897.




CONTENTS.

  PART I.


  CHAPTER I.

  THE DAWN OF THE ART OF HEALING.

  The foundation of the art of healing—The most ancient record
    of medicine and pharmacy—The _Ebers Papyrus_—Origin of the
    term pharmacist—Drugs used in ancient Egypt—Early Jewish
    medicines—The antiquity of medicine and alchemy in China—The
    Chinese and the Philosopher’s Stone—Ancient Chinese _materia
    medica_—The medical art in ancient Greece—The Grecian temples
    of medicine—Methods of treatment—The oath of Hippocrates
                                                           _pages_ 1-13


  CHAPTER II.

  THE WIZARDS OF EARLY GREECE.

  Tiresias—Abaris—Pythagoras—Epimenides—Empedocles—Aristras—
    Hermotimus                                            _pages_ 14-23


  CHAPTER III.

  THE WIZARDS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

  A Roman sorceress—Virgil’s sorceress—Canidia—A witches’
    incantation                                           _pages_ 24-29


  CHAPTER IV.

  THE FATHERS OF MEDICINE.

  Æsculapius—Hippocrates—Diocles—Praxagoras—Chrysippus—
    Hierphilus—Erasistratus—Serapion—Asclepiades—Galen—His
    system of treatment—Medical practice in the fifth
    century—Alexander of Tralles—The fees of Roman
    practitioners—Votive offerings for health—Roman
    _donaria_—Roman temples of healing                  _pages_ 30-38


  CHAPTER V.

  THE EARLY AGE OF GREEK AND ROMAN PHARMACY.

  Celsus—Roman pharmacy—Methods of administration—Antidotes—Grecian
    remedy for hydrophobia—Chemical bodies and drugs employed
    by the Greeks and Romans—Dioscorides—His work on _materia
    medica_—Ancient method of collecting opium—Preparation of wool
    fat—Drugs used in Pompeii and Herculaneum            _pages_ 39-46


  CHAPTER VI.

  ALCHEMY—THE ALCHEMISTS.

  Origin of the term chemistry—Practice of the hermetic science
    by the Egyptians—Al-Chindus—Geber—Rhazes—Merlin—St.
    Dunstan—Albertus Magnus—Vincent de Beauvais—Raymond
    Lulli—Arnauld de Villeneuve—Roger Bacon—Antonio
    Quainer—Discoveries made by the early alchemists—Eck—John
    Baptist Porta—Cornelius Agrippa—Dr. Dee—Symbols of the
    alchemists                                            _pages_ 47-63


  CHAPTER VII.

  THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.

  Alchemical research—Its objects—Supposed composition of the
    Philosopher’s Stone—Claimants to the discovery—The theories of
    Rhazes, Merlin and Bacon—Bacon’s definition of alchemy—Ripley’s
    process—The Elixir of Life—The theories of Paracelsus—His
    secret elixirs—Elixir Vitæ                           _pages_ 64-71


  CHAPTER VIII.

  THE BLACK ART AND OCCULT SCIENCES.

  The antiquity of magic—Early magicians and wise men—Variety
    of forms practised—Oneiromancy—Theurgy and Goetry—Historic
    dreams—Necromancy—Methods of evocation—Chiromancy—Origin
    of the practice—Astrology—Its antiquity—Famous astrologers
                                                          _pages_ 72-78


  CHAPTER IX.

  THE ART OF FORETELLING.

  Influence of the planets and signs of the Zodiac—Casting
    horoscopes—Methods of divination—Crystal
    gazing—Dactylomancy—Pyromancy                       _pages_ 79-82


  CHAPTER X.

  BLACK MAGIC.

  Practice of magic by the early alchemists—Demonology—Initiation
    of novices—Taking the oath—The ceremonial—Perfumes
    employed—Composition of the incense used—Black magic by
    burning—Witchcraft—Methods of practice—Trial of the Duchess
    of Gloucester—The “evil eye”—Apparitions in the sky—A
    witches’ Sabbath—Appearance of the devil—Origin of the word
    “witch”—Their initiation and pact                    _pages_ 83-89


  CHAPTER XI.

  SUPERSTITION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MEDICINE.

  Origin of incantations and charms—The cure of disease by poetry
    and music—Ancient theory of the cause of disease—Precious
    stones as remedial agents—Influence of the planets on
    herbs—Survival of old superstitious customs—The “coral
    and bells”—Sympathetic powders—Curing by touch—Empirical
    nostrums—The doctrine of Signatories—Ancient superstitious
    practices                                             _pages_ 90-97


  CHAPTER XII.

  LOVE PHILTRES.

  Composition of philtres—Roman love philtres—Law
    against their use—Greek Love philtres—Ingredients
    employed—Botanomancy—“Water of Magnanimity”        _pages_ 98-101


  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE PIONEERS OF PHARMACY AND BOTANY—PHYSIC GARDENS.

  Drugs used by the Arabs—Avicenna—Basil Valentine—Paracelsus—His
    life and teaching—Van Helmont—Monastic
    Gardens—Mesué—Ebor-Taitor—The medical treatment of the
    monks—Hildegarde—Gilbert and Hernicus Arviell—Simon de
    Cordo—Peter de Crescenzi—Bartholomew Glanvil—Advent of
    printing—George Agricola—Conrad Gesner—Jacques Gohory—The
    _Jardin des Plantes_—William Davisson—Matthias of
    Lille—Andrew Cesalpin—The first pharmacopœia—The _London
    Pharmacopœia_—The _Dublin Pharmacopœia_—The _British
    Pharmacopœia_—The Chelsea Physic Garden—Its origin—Thomas
    Dover—The “quicksilver doctor”—His exploits       _pages_ 102-117


  CHAPTER XIV.

  AMULETS, TALISMANS AND CHARMS.

  Their antiquity—Definition—Object of their use—Egyptian
    amulets—Grecian amulets—Roman amulets—Chinese
    amulets—Knightly talismans—Precious stones as
    talismans—Metallic amulets—Written amulets—Amulet
    rings—Curious articles used as amulets—Charms—The “Lee
    Penny”—The “Holy Hand”—Medical Charms—Early British
    charm—Toadstones—Medicinal virtues of the toad—Roman charm for
    prolonging life                                     _pages_ 118-137


  CHAPTER XV.

  MONK PHYSICIANS—ITINERANT DOCTORS—SURGERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

  Monk physicians and their methods of treatment—Early
    hospitals—Their originators—The first school of nurses—Medical
    faculties of the thirteenth century—Examinations for title of
    master physician and surgeon—Barber surgeons—Itinerant barbers
    in France—Credulity of the public—Medical art in the fifteenth
    century—Surgery in the time of the Crusades—Early tests for
    water—Methods of disinfection                      _pages_ 138-146


  CHAPTER XVI.

  PLANT LORE—DRUG CHARMS—FOLK MEDICINE.

  The mystery of dragon’s blood—Charms and superstitious
    practises connected with dragon’s blood—Use of dragon’s
    blood by the ancients—Modern practitioners of magic—Magic
    properties attributed to the walnut—Sage—Rue—Henbane—Moon
    Wort—Solomon’s Seal—Anemone—Trefoil—St. John’s
    Wort—Dill—Thistle—House-leek—Pimpernell—Vervain—Magic
    wreathes—Hawkweed—Mountain Ash—Squill—Mandrake—Method of
    gathering the mandrake—Abrunes—The willow as a symbol of
    sorrow—Almonds—The bachelor’s button—The bean and nut—White
    hawthorn—Ferns and fern seeds—Leaves of peculiar shape—Black
    hellebore—Ceremonial rites observed when collecting the
    root—Peony—Forget-me-not—Elder                   _pages_ 147-165


  CHAPTER XVII.

  MUMMIES AND THEIR USE IN MEDICINE—THE UNICORN.

  The art of embalming and its antiquity—Various processes
    employed—The cost of embalming—The practitioners of the
    art—The drugs and substances employed—Process used for the
    poorer people—The veneration of mummies by the Egyptians—Trade
    in mummies for use in medicine—Fictitious mummies—How to tell
    genuine mummy—The dose and medicinal properties—The price
    in 1685—Varieties of mummies used in medicine—Process for
    preparing artificial mummy—Methods of administration—Human
    fat and its medicinal properties—Human skulls and their
    value—Human bones and other animal substances as remedial
    agents—The Unicorn—Its appearance described—Properties
    attributed to the horn—Where the horn was obtained—The value of
    the horn—A horn presented to King Charles I.—Virtues attributed
    to it                                               _pages_ 166-174


  CHAPTER XVIII.

  ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY OF APOTHECARIES—APOTHECARIES AND THEIR
    PRACTICE—APOTHECARIES AND THEIR BILLS—CURIOUS REMEDIES—A DRUG
    PRICE LIST OF 1685.

  Earliest record of an apothecary in England—Powers granted
    to the College of Physicians—Foundation of the Society of
    Apothecaries—Nicholas Culpepper—History of the Society—Charter
    granted—The first hall and council house—Examinations
    found necessary—The apothecaries and the druggists—The
    glass tax—Rules for the guidance of apothecaries—The sale
    of drugs and poisons restricted in Glasgow—A cavalier’s
    experience of apothecaries and their treatment—His doctor’s
    bill and his opinion on it—Apothecaries’ bills—Favourite
    methods of administration—Animal _materia medica_—Broth
    of viper—Curious remedies employed—Drugs used by the
    physician to King Edward I.—Physicking an ambassador—An
    apothecary’s advertisement—Physicians’ fees—Midwife’s
    fee in the seventeenth century—Ancient pharmaceutical
    preparations and their origin—Mediæval method of improving
    the complexion—Human blood as a remedial agent—Celtic
    recipes—A remedy for drunkenness—Oil of red dog and its
    preparation—Strange recipes—The “everlasting pill”—Cleopatra
    and the asp—Ancient method of changing the colour of the
    hair—The aloe of Scripture—Pharmacy 200 years ago—The cupidity
    of the apothecaries—Denouncing the apothecaries—Herb-women of
    London—The price of bottles in 1656—Popular preparations—A
    drug price-list of 1685                             _pages_ 175-211


  CHAPTER XIX.

  PHARMACY IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

  An apothecary’s shop in the time of Queen Elizabeth—Description
    of the interior—The customers—Apothecaries’
    prescriptions—Apothecaries’ guilds and their injunctions as to
    prayer—The itinerant dentist—Medicaments used in the time of
    Queen Elizabeth                                     _pages_ 212-220


  CHAPTER XX.

  FAMOUS EMPIRICS AND THEIR NOSTRUMS.

  Early methods of introducing a nostrum—The origin of
    quack medicines—The Elixir of Life—The Collyrium
    of Danares—Sympathetic Powder—Hoffman’s Water of
    Magnanimity—Dutch Drops—_Eau Médicinale de Husson_—Dr. James’
    fever powder—Count St. Germain’s tea—Cagliostro’s Balm of
    Life—How the Count was confounded—Count Thün of Leipzig—Dr.
    Brodum and his “Nervous Cordial”—Dr. Solomon and his “Balm of
    Gilead”—How “the doctor” was punished—Perkin’s Tractors—An old
    ballad                                              _pages_ 221-228


  CHAPTER XXI.

  THE ANTIQUITY AND HISTORY OF THE MORTAR.

  The origin of the mortar—Derivation of the name—Primitive
    mortars—Grain crushers—Egyptian mortars—Antiquity
    of the mortar in Africa—A Cingalese mortar—Roman
    mortaria—Manufactories of mortaria in Britain—Stone
    mortars—Wooden querns—Origin of the pestle and mortar
    as a trade sign—Iron mortars—Bell-metal mortars—Brass
    mortars—Copper mortars—Marble mortars—Modern mortars
                                                        _pages_ 229-237


  PART II.

  ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY IN LITERATURE.


  CHAPTER I.
                        PAGES
  Chaucer             239-252

  CHAPTER II.
  Shakespeare         253-277

  CHAPTER III.
  Spenser             278-282

  CHAPTER IV.
  Goethe              283-291

  CHAPTER V.
  Le Sage             292-299

  CHAPTER VI.
  Ben. Jonson         300-302

  CHAPTER VII.
  Sir Walter Scott    303-305

  CHAPTER VIII.
  Dumas               306-311

  CHAPTER IX.
  Reade               312-321

  CHAPTER X.
  Dickens, Thackeray  322-328

  CHAPTER XI.
  Marryat             329-335




ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY:

THEIR MYSTERY AND ROMANCE.




PART I.




CHAPTER I.

THE DAWN OF THE ART OF HEALING.


The birth of the art of healing goes back to a period of great
antiquity. The instinct that first led man to utilise the fruits of the
earth for his bodily sustenance, may perchance have suggested the herbs
which grew around him as a means of alleviating the ills of his flesh.

It is a matter of doubt whether medicine as an art was first practised
in Egypt or China; from recent research probably the former, as at the
time of the writing of the _Ebers Papyrus_, B.C. 1550, the Egyptians
had a considerable knowledge of the use of herbs and other bodies for
medicinal purposes.

The art of medicine had two foundations—empiricism and
superstition—which have influenced it from its birth down to the
present time.

The most ancient record of medicine and pharmacy known was discovered
at Kahun in 1889, near the pyramid of Illahun in the ruins of an
ancient town, which had apparently been inhabited by the builders of
the pyramid. It dates from the twelfth dynasty, B.C. 2700 to 2500, more
than a thousand years before the Exodus.

Besides containing instructions for midwives, it includes numerous
formulæ for the treatment of various complaints, composed of such very
homely articles as beer, cow’s milk, honey, oil, onions, herbs, dates,
and other fruits.

The _Ebers Papyrus_, which was found reposing between the legs of a
mummy, throws a light on ancient Egyptian pharmacy, and was written in
the reign of King Amenhotep I., of the eighteenth dynasty. It commences
as follows: “Beginning of the chapter of applying medicaments to every
part of the patient.

“I have come forth from Heliopolis with the mighty ones of the Temple
of the Sun, the wielders of protection, the princes of eternity.

“Rescuing (?) I have come forth from Sais with the Mothers of the Gods,
who have given me their protection.

“I have magic formulæ made by the Universal Lord to drive out the
stroke of god and goddess, the Male Death and Female Death, _et
cetera_,[1] that is in this my head, in this my neck, in this
my shoulder, in this my flesh, in these my limbs, to punish the
above-named enchanters (?) who introduce disturbance into this my
flesh.”

        [1] Etc. is probably a direction _ad lib._ for the doctor
        speaking the formulæ.

Such formulæ, evidently for recitation during the treatment, continue
for a page and a half. The book has thus no general title, but plunges
at once into the mysteries of the profession.

“Beginning of the mystery of the physician who knows the motion of
the heart. There are vessels in it to every limb. When any physician,
doctor, or amulet-maker puts his fingers upon the top of the head, upon
the occiput, upon the hands, upon the chest, upon the arms, upon the
legs, he communicates (?) with the heart, for its vessels extend to
every limb, wherefore it is called the starting-point of every limb.”

The following may be taken as an example of the recipes given in the
manuscript:—

“A remedy for the belly that is painful: Cummin 1∕64 hin, goose-grease
1∕8 hin, milk 1∕16 hekt; cool, strain, and drink”. The hin is about 29
cubic inches, and the 1∕16 hekt 18 cubic inches; the prescription is
thus roundly 1∕2 cubic inch of cummin, and 4 of goose fat, in half a
pint of milk.

This papyrus contains 110 pages, each page consisting of about
twenty-two lines of bold Hieratic writing. It may be described as an
encyclopædia of medicine as known and practised by the Egyptians of
the eighteenth dynasty, and it contains prescriptions of all kinds of
diseases—some borrowed from Syrian medical lore, and some of such
great antiquity that they are ascribed to the mythological ages,
when the gods yet reigned personally on earth. Among others is given
the recipe for an application whereby Osiris cured Ra of a headache.
In this papyrus is an example of an old Egyptian diagnosis and
therapeutics, as follows: “When thou findest any one with a hardness
in his re-hit (pit of the stomach), and when, after eating, he feels
a pressure on his intestines, his hit is swollen and he feels bad in
walking like one who suffers from heat in his back, then observe him
when he lies stretched out, and if thou findest his intestines hot and
a hardness in his re-hit, say unto thyself, This is a disease of the
liver. Then prepare for thyself according to the secrets of the science
from the plant pa-che-test and dates, mix them, and give in water.”

It also contains numerous recipes for the treatment of diseases, for
internal and external use. Most of the drugs mentioned are derived from
indigenous plants, and such chemical bodies as alum, salt, nitre, and
sulphate of copper are included in some of the prescriptions.

It seems probable that most of the medicines used in these early
times were first tried as foods; and those which when taken in large
quantities or in special conditions influenced the functions of the
body, these and others found to be too strong for dietetic use were
relegated to the books of medicine.

As an instance of this, the leaves and seeds of the castor oil plant
and the astringent sycamore fig are included in many recipes, but
Maspero states that there is little doubt that castor oil was taken
regularly in food in the time of the Pharaohs, and at the present time
it is a favourite adjunct to the salads of the Egyptian fellaheen.
The same writer thinks the Egyptians began by eating every kind of
food which the country produced, and so became acquainted with their
therapeutic properties.

In another papyrus said to have been written about the time of King
Chata of the first dynasty, who reigned B.C. 4000, the following
prescription for promoting the growth of the hair is given:—

  Pad of a dog’s foot                1
  Fruit of date palm                 1
  Ass’s hoof                         1
              Boil together in oil.

Dr. v. Oefele states of pharmacy before the time of Hippocrates, that
although the practice of medicine was not separated from pharmacy among
the Greeks and Romans, there was such a separation among the ancient
Egyptians, from whom the distinction was handed down to the Copts,
and by them to the Arabians; and, in fact, that the term pharmacist
is probably of Egyptian origin, being derived from Ph-ar-maki, which
signifies the preparation of medicine from drugs. The Egyptian pharmaki
who were engaged in that occupation belonged to the higher social
ranks of writers or academically-educated persons, comprising also the
priests, physicians, statesmen, and military commanders.

The Jews were indebted to Egypt for their primary ideas of medicine,
but they cast away the ideas of demonology and magic which clouded
what was good in the practice of Egypt. The Talmud recommends onions
for worms, and wine, pepper, and asafœtida for flatulency. The
Talmudists are responsible for calling the earth, air, fire, and water
elementary bodies. In the middle ages the Jews rendered service to the
healing art, and had a large share in the scientific work connected
with the Arab domination of Spain.

In China the use of drugs goes back to a very remote age, and alchemy
was practised by the Chinese long previous to its being known in
Europe. For two centuries prior to the Christian era, and for four or
more subsequent, the transmutation of the base metals into gold, and
the composition of the elixir of immortality, were questions ardently
studied by the Chinese. It is, moreover, a matter of history that
intercourse between China and Persia was frequent both before and
after the Mahomedan conquest of the latter country; that embassies
from Persia as well as from the Arabs, and even from the Greeks in
Constantinople, visited the court of the Chinese emperor in Shansi;
that Arab traders settled in China, and that there was frequent
intercourse by sea between China and the Persian Gulf; and lastly, that
China had an extensive alchemical literature anterior to the period
when alchemy was studied in the West. All these facts go to prove that
the ancient science known as alchemy was originated by the Chinese, and
not by the disciples of Mahomed, who only acquired the knowledge at
second hand.[2]

        [2] Hanbury’s _Notes on Chinese Materia Medica_.

It is somewhat curious that while the alchemists of the West were
always in doubt as to what constituted the true Philosopher’s Stone,
the Chinese seemingly had no doubt as to its identity. Cinnabar was
regarded by the early alchemists and philosophers of that nation as
the wonderful body which was supposed to have the mysterious power
of converting other metals into gold, and when used as a medicine
would prolong life for an indefinite period. Ko-hung, author of the
_Pau-p’uh-tsi p’ian_, a work of the fourth century, and undoubtedly
genuine, gives various mineral and vegetable productions possessing in
different degrees the properties of an elixir vitæ. In one paragraph of
this work he states: “When vegetable matter is burnt it is destroyed,
but when the Ian-sha (Cinnabar) is subjected to heat it produces
mercury. After passing through other changes it returns to its original
form. It differs widely, therefore, from vegetable substances, and
hence it has the power of making men live for ever and raising them to
the rank of the genii. He who knows the doctrine, is he not far above
common men, etc.?”

In _materia medica_ the knowledge of the Chinese was much in
advance of the nations of the West, and their great herbal, entitled
_Pun-Isaun-Kang-Mûh_, written by Le-she-chin in the middle of the
sixteenth century, shows the discernment possessed by these curious
people. This work consists of forty thin octavo volumes, the first
three of which contain woodcuts of many of the minerals, plants, and
animals referred to in the text. The woodcuts alone number 1100, and
the work itself is divided into fifty-two divisions. The antiquity
of the practice of medicine among the Chinese may be gathered from
the fact that there exists a work entitled _A Treatise from the Heart
on the Small-pox_, which was written during the dynasty of Icheon,
B.C. 1122. In this work the eruption is described, and some kind of
inoculation is also referred to as a remedy.

But it is to Greece that we have to look for the birth of medical art
in the West, its practice by the priests being of great antiquity.
The earliest record of a temple of medicine is of one erected in the
Peloponnesus in the year B.C. 1130, or about fifty years after the fall
of Troy. Other temples or centres of the healing art gradually sprang
up, and round each of those clustered a little school of students.
There were the temple of Health at Pergamus, the temple of Hygeia at
Cytea, and the temples of Æsculapius at Cos and Epidamus, where the
famous statue of Æsculapius stood. The father of ancient medicine,
Hippocrates, graduated as a student of Cos, and Galen is said to have
been at Epidamus.

It was in the temple of Æsculapius at Greece that any record of
medicine was first kept, the names of diseases and their cures being
registered on tablets of marble. The priests and priestesses, who were
the guardians of the temple, prepared the remedies and directed their
application, and thus commenced the practice of physic as a regular
profession.

These official persons were ambitious to pass as the legitimate
descendants of Æsculapius, and therefore assumed the title of
the Asclepiades. The writings of Pausanius, Plutarch, and others
abound with accounts of the artifices of these early practitioners.
Aristophanes mentions the dexterity and promptitude with which they
collected and put into their bags the offerings on the altar.

The patients were wont to repose on the skins of sacrificed rams in
order to procure celestial visions. As soon as they were supposed to
be asleep, a priest, clothed in the dress of Æsculapius, imitating his
manner, and accompanied by the daughters of the god (that is, by young
actresses well up in their parts), entered and solemnly delivered a
medical opinion. The student sat at the feet of the philosopher of his
choice, and after a certain period and course of probation, was granted
the rights of priest and physician to practise as a teacher and healer.

They had their code and ethics of a standard almost equal to those of
to-day, and their knowledge of surgery, and the use of the herbs and
plants which grew around them, was not a little.

Entering on their novitiate at their chosen temple or school, they were
required to make a protestation or oath, of which the following is the
one made by Hippocrates:—

“I, Hippocrates, do now promise and protest to the great god Apollo
and his two daughters Hygeia and Panadie, and also to all the gods and
goddesses, to observe the contents of this oath or tables wherein the
oath is carved, written, or engraved, so far as I can possibly, and so
far as my wit or understanding shall be able to direct me, _viz._, I
yield myself tributary and debtor to the master and doctor, who hath
instructed me and showed me this science and doctrine, even as much
or rather more than to my father who hath begotten me, and that I
shall live and communicate with him, and follow him in all necessities
which I shall know him to have, so far as my power shall permit and
my goods extend. Also that I shall love and cherish his children as
my brother’s, and his progeny as my own. Further, that I shall teach,
show and demonstrate the said science without reward or covenant, and
that I shall give all the canons, rules and precepts freely, truly and
faithfully to my master, his children as to my own, without hiding or
unacting anything, and to all other scholars who shall make the same
oath or protestation, and to no others. Also that in practising and
using my science towards the sick, I shall use only things necessary,
so far as I am able, and as my spirit and good understanding shall
give unto me, and that I shall cure the sick as speedily as I may
without dilating or prolonging the malady, and that I shall not do
anything against equity for hatred, anger, envy or malice to any
person whatsoever. Moreover, that I shall minister no poison, neither
counsel nor teach poison, nor the composing thereof to any. Also that
I shall not give nor cause to be given, nor contend that anything be
applied to a woman breeding, to destroy and make her void her fruit.
But I shall protest to keep my life and science purely, sincerely and
inviolably, without deceit, fraud or guile. And that I shall not cut
or incise any person having the stone, but shall leave the same to
those who are expert in it. And, furthermore, that I shall not enter
into the patient’s house lest with purpose to heal him, and that I
shall patiently sustain the injuries, reproaches, and loathsomeness of
sick men and other base railings, and that I shall eschew, as far as
I may, all venereous lasciviousness. Moreover, I protest, be it man,
woman, or servant who is my patient, to cure them of all things, that
I may see or hear either in mind or manner, and I shall not betray
that which should be concealed or hidden, but keep inviolable with
silence; neither reveal any creature under pain of death. And therefore
I beseech our gods that observing this protestation, promise, and vow
entirely and inviolably, all things in my life, in my art, and science,
may succeed securely, healthfully, and prosperously to me, and in the
end eternal glory.

“And to him that shall violate, transgress, or become perjured, that
the contrary may happen unto him, _viz._, misery, calamities, and
continual maladies.”

We have here principles laid down which would do honour to any medical
body, and which show the highly civilised condition and the excellent
moral teaching of the early Greek philosophers and priests.




CHAPTER II.

THE WIZARDS OF EARLY GREECE.


One of the earliest magicians or soothsayers of which we have record
out of the era of mythology was Tiresias. He lived in the times of
Œdipus and the war of the seven chiefs against Thebes. For having
offended the gods he was visited with blindness, but being repentant,
tradition states they recompensed him for this affliction by endowing
him with the gift of prophecy and the act of divination. He is also
said to have been able to hold communion with the feathered world, and
to have power over the spirits of the dead, whom he could compel to
appear and reply to his inquiries. His incantations and spells were
supposed to be irresistible, and he could foretell future events by
signs from fire, smoke, and other methods of divining.

Abaris, a native of Scythia, was another magician of renown. There is
no exact record of the time in which he lived, but he is represented
by some as having constructed the Palladium which protected Troy from
its enemies for a long time. Other authors declare he was a friend of
Pythagoras, who flourished some 600 years later.

According to Herodotus, he travelled over the world with an arrow,
eating nothing during his journey. By others it is said the arrow was
presented to him by Apollo, and that upon it he rode through the air,
and travelled over lands, seas, mountains, and other inaccessible
places. But from all accounts his repute as a magician and seer is
confirmed. He is said to have foretold earthquakes, allayed storms and
pestilence, cured disease by charms and incantations, and was generally
revered for his power and command over the dwellers in the unseen world.

Pythagoras, one of the most notable magicians in early history, was
born about the year B.C. 586, and lived during the time of Cyrus and
Darius Hystaspes, of Crœsus, of Pisistratus, of Polycrates, and
Amasis King of Egypt. He was renowned not only as a philosopher but as
a leader and politician, and was learned in all branches of science
then known. The early part of his life was spent in Egypt, but he also
travelled in order to gather experience and knowledge until he reached
the age of forty years.

Afterwards he founded a school, where he lectured and instructed
a large number of followers who were attracted by his wisdom and
learning. He divided his pupils into two classes: the neophytes, to
whom were explained the elementary and general principles of his
philosophy, while the advanced were admitted into his entire confidence
and formed a brotherhood, who threw their property into a common stock
and lived together.

During the latter part of his life he is said to have lived in Magna
Græcia, where he carried on his studies and made some of his great
discoveries. He was a profound geometrician, and two great theorems,
one still known as the Pythagorean, are ascribed to him. He propounded
the doctrine that the earth is a planet of spherical form, and the sun
the centre of the planetary system.

His philosophy prescribed and taught a total abstinence from everything
which had animal life, and temperance in all things, together with the
subjection of the appetites of the body. By this strict discipline,
he seems to have obtained almost complete control over the wills and
minds of his followers, from whom he demanded the utmost docility.
Preparatory to entering on his novitiate, the pupil was strictly
examined by the master as to his principles, habits, and intentions.
The tone of his voice, his manner of speaking, his walk, gestures,
and the lines of his face and the expression of his eyes, were all
carefully observed, and only if all these features were satisfactory
was he admitted as a probationer. After this interview the master
withdrew from the sight of the pupil, who could then enter on his
novitiate of three and five, in all eight years, during which time he
was not permitted to look on the master, but only hear him speak from
behind a curtain, and he was enjoined to preserve the strictest silence.

To add to his mystery and authority, Pythagoras is said to have hid
himself during the day from his pupils, and was only visible to them
after the night had come on. He is described as having a most imposing
and majestic appearance, with a grave and awe-inspiring countenance.
When he came forth he appeared in a long garment of the purest white,
with his long beard flowing, and a garland upon his head.

He allowed his followers to believe he was one of the gods, and he is
said to have told Abaris that he resumed human form so that he might
win the confidence of man.

Doubtless, owing to his great attainments and his superiority to
the men of his time, he considered himself more divine than human,
and he claimed to have miraculous endowments. Those who were not of
his followers ascribed the stories related of him to magic, which
probably, like other philosophers, he studied.

Among other stories which tradition has handed down concerning
Pythagoras are the following: He professed to have appeared in
different ages in various human forms—first as Æthalides, the son of
Mercury, and then as Euphorbu, who slew Patroclus at the siege of Troy,
and as other individuals also.

He is said to have tamed a bear by whispering in its ear, and prevailed
on it to feed on vegetables alone. He called also an eagle down from
its flight, causing it to sit on his hand as if quite tame. When Abaris
addressed him as one of the heavenly host, he convinced him that he was
indeed a celestial being by showing him his thigh of gold, which also
he exhibited to sceptical pupils. At another period he absented himself
from his associates in Italy for a year: when he re-appeared he stated
he had been sojourning in the infernal regions, and gave them wonderful
descriptions of the strange things he had seen there.

These and many other fabulous stories are related of this singular man,
which prove him to have been as wily as he was wise.

One curious rule by which he bound his pupils is worth mentioning.
At the end of their novitiate, if it was discovered that their
intellectual faculties were too weak to grapple with the intricacies
of his theories and problems, they were expelled the community; the
double of the property they had contributed to the common stock was
refunded to them; a monument inscribed with their names was placed in
the meeting-place of the community, and they were considered as dead by
the brotherhood.

It is easy to imagine with what feelings these measures would be
regarded by some who were called to submit to them, and so they
eventually proved the cause of the break-up of the Pythagorean school.

Cylon, a man of great wealth of Crotona, conceived a great partiality
for Pythagoras, and became a novice with Perialus, and submitted to
all the severities of the school. They passed through the three years
of probation and five years of silence, and were received into the
familiarity of the master. But after they had delivered their wealth
into the common stock, Pythagoras pronounced them to be deficient in
intellectual power, or for some other reason most probably they were
expelled. A tablet inscribed with their names was set up, and they were
pronounced dead to the school.

Cylon, who was a man of excitable and violent temperament, became
highly incensed at this treatment, and resolved on vengeance.
Collecting a band of followers, which probably included a large number
of rejected students, they surrounded the school of the master and set
it on fire. Forty people are said to have perished in the flames, but
Pythagoras with two of his pupils escaped to Metapontum, where he took
refuge in the Temple of the Muses. The strife fomented by Cylon broke
out afresh, and he was closely besieged in the temple by his enemies.
The rioting continued, and as no provisions could be conveyed to him,
he finally perished with hunger, according to Laertius, after forty
days’ abstinence.

Thus ended Pythagoras, a man of undoubted genius, and in knowledge
much in advance of his time. Although his teachings were mixed up with
considerable artifice and deception, he ranks, as one of the greatest
of the Greek philosophers.

Epimenides was a native of Crete, and probably lived before the time of
Pythagoras. He was credited with marvellous performances from a very
early age, and is said when quite a lad to have retired to a cave and
slept for fifty-seven years. He then returned to his father’s house,
which he found in the possession of a new tenant, and the family
disappeared. At length he came across his brother, who had grown into
an old man, who after some time acknowledged him.

On this story becoming known, he was accounted a favourite of the gods,
and he professed to be endowed with supernatural gifts.

He made it known that he was supplied with food by the nymphs, and that
he was exempt from the usual necessities imposed on the body by Nature.
He boasted that he could separate his soul from his body and recall it
as he thought fit. He professed to have dealings with the unseen world,
and would exorcise evil spirits or work spells. He had great renown as
a seer, and his prophecies were regarded as direct messages from the
gods. But the great act of his life was his delivery of Athens from
a great pestilence after the rebellion of Cylon. The plague, which
had almost decimated the city, could not be stopped, and the Athenian
Senate, after much deliberation, resolved to send for Epimenides,
who was at that time in Crete. A special vessel was placed under the
command of one of the first citizens of the State, who was commissioned
to bring the wise magician.

On his arrival at Athens he at once set to work with solemn rites
and ceremonials. He commanded that a number of black and white sheep
should be led to the Areopagus, then be let loose and allowed to wander
whither they wished. Certain persons were instructed to follow them
and mark the spot where they lay down, on which place the animal was
sacrificed to the local deity. In this manner, it is recorded, the
plague was stayed. According to some writers he also sacrificed human
victims. Although pressed by the Athenian Senate to take a recompense
for his services, Epimenides is said to have refused all gifts,
stipulating only that there should be perpetual peace between the
Athenians and the people of Gnossus, his native city. He died shortly
afterwards, at the reputed age of 157 years.

Empedocles was a distinguished magician, orator, and poet, and was
born in Agrigentum, Sicily. He was a follower of Pythagoras, and
probably received instruction from his successors. He was credited
with miraculous powers, and to have been able to restore the dead to
life. He was skilled in medicine and the use of herbs, and was indeed
a general benefactor to the citizens of his native place, where he was
almost worshipped as a god. Like other philosophers of his time, he was
inordinately vain, but was undoubtedly a man of great intelligence,
and conferred immense benefits on his fellow-creatures. His belief
in the power of magic is shown in the following words he was wont to
address to his students: “By my instructions you shall learn medicines
that are powerful to cure disease and reanimate old age; you shall be
able to calm the savage winds which lay waste the labours of all the
husbandmen, and, when you will, shall send forth the tempest again; you
shall cause the skies to be fair and serene; or, once more, shall draw
down refreshing showers, reanimating the fruits of the earth; nay, you
shall recall the strength of the dead man when he has already become
the victim of Pluto”.

Of himself he said: “I mix with you a god, no longer a mortal, and
am everywhere honoured by you, as is just; crowned with fillets and
fragrant garlands, adorned with which, when I visit populous cities,
I am revered by both men and women, who follow me by ten thousands,
inquiring the road to boundless wealth, seeking the gift of prophecy
and who would learn the marvellous skill to cure all kinds of diseases”.

Of other wizards of early Greece, Herodotus mentions Aristras, a poet
of Proconnesus, who is said to have mysteriously disappeared from
the earth for 340 years, and then appeared again at Metapontum and
commanded the citizens to erect a statue to him. Also Hermotimus, who
was reputed to have the power of separating his soul from his body
at will. But little is known beyond the merest tradition of these
worthies.




CHAPTER III.

THE WIZARDS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.


The Roman philosophers, like the Greeks, claimed to possess occult
powers, and the practitioners of magic and sorcery were numerous
during the time of the Empire. We have a graphic description of the
incantations of a Roman sorceress in the story of Dido. Deserted by
Æneas, she resolves on self-destruction. To delude her sister as to
her secret purpose she sends for a priestess from the gardens of the
Hesperides, pretending that her object is to effect the return of her
lover by means of certain magical incantations. The priestess, who is
invested with magical powers, can call up the spirits of the dead,
cause the solid earth to rock and quake, and the trees of the forest
to descend from the mountains. On the arrival of the sorceress, she
commands that a funeral pyre shall be erected in the interior court of
the palace, and that the arms of Æneas, what remains of his attire, and
the marriage bed in which Dido had received him, shall be placed upon
it. The pyre is to be hung round with garlands and branches of cypress,
and the whole crowned with a picture of Æneas and his sword.

Altars were placed around, and the priestess, with dishevelled hair,
cried aloud with terrible charms upon her three hundred gods, upon
Erebus, Chaos, and the three-faced Hecate. The waters of Avernus were
then sprinkled about, and certain magical herbs that had been cut
by moonlight with a sickle of brass. The priestess had with her the
excrescence which is found upon the forehead of a new-cast foal, of the
size of a dried fig, a talisman of great power.

Dido is then called upon to approach, and, with her robe drawn up
exposing one bare foot, she makes the circle of the altars, embracing
them successively, and breaks over each a consecrated cake. The pyre is
lit, and the charm is supposed to be complete.

But all the power and the elaborate ritual prescribed by the sorceress
were of no avail. Æneas returns not, and the broken-hearted Dido
finally stabs herself and dies.

Many prodigies are interspersed throughout the early history of Rome,
and most of the acts of these people were surrounded with a halo of
superstition natural at the time, and doubtless largely exaggerated.
Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan all allude to the belief in and the
practice of sorcery and magic by the Romans.

In the eighth eclogue of Virgil we have a detailed description of a
Roman sorceress. She is introduced by the poet as giving directions to
her assistant as to the working of certain charms. Her object (a common
one apparently at that time) is to recall Daphnis, whom she calls her
husband, to return once more to her arms. The assistant is directed to
burn vervain and frankincense, and the highest efficacy is ascribed
to a solemn chant, which is capable of calling down the moon from its
sphere or making the cold-blooded snake burst in the field, and was the
means by which Circe turned the companions of Ulysses into beasts. The
image of Daphnis is then ordered to be thrice bound round with fillets
of three colours, the assistant at the same time repeating the words,
“Thus I bind the fillets of Venus,” and then paraded about a prepared
altar.

An image of clay and one of wax are placed before the same fire; and as
the image of clay hardens, so does the heart of Daphnis harden towards
his new mistress; and as the figure of wax softens, so is the heart
of the ex-lover made tender towards the sorceress. A sacred cake is
then broken over the image, and crackling laurels burnt before it.
She prays that as the wanton heifer pursues the steer through woods
and glens till at length, worn out with fatigue, she lies down on the
oozy reeds by the banks of the stream, and the night dew will not
even drive her away, so Daphnis may be led on after her for ever with
inextinguishable love. The relics of his belongings are then buried
beneath the threshold. She bruises poisonous herbs of resistless
virtue, which had been gathered in the kingdom of Pontus, herbs which
enabled him who gave them to turn himself into a hungry wolf prowling
amidst the forests, to call up ghosts from the grave, and to translate
the ripened harvest from the field where it grew to the lands of
another. The ashes of these herbs are cast over her head into the
running stream, while she must not look behind her.

At length the sorceress begins to despair and cries, “Daphnis heeds not
my incantations, heeds not the gods”. She looks again, and perceives
the ashes on the altar are glowing and emitting sparks of fire. Her
faithful house dog barks before the door. “Can these things be,” she
exclaims, “or do lovers dream what they desire? It is not so! The real
Daphnis comes; I hear his steps; he has left the deluding town; he
hastens to my longing arms!”

In the works of Horace an interesting description of a witches’
incantation is also given, the details of which it is instructive to
compare with those given by other writers.

Four sorceresses are assembled in conclave, the chief being Canidia,
with three assistants, in order to work a charm by means of which a
youth named Varus, for whom Canidia had conceived a passion, may be
compelled to reciprocate her affections.

Canidia, with the locks of her dishevelled hair twined round with
venomous and deadly serpents, orders the wild fig tree and the funeral
cypress to be rooted up from the sepulchres on which they grew, and
these, together with the egg of a toad smeared with blood, the plumage
of the screech owl, various herbs brought from Thessaly and Georgia,
and bones torn from the jaws of a famished dog, to be burnt in flames
fed with perfumes from Colchis. One assistant, whose hair stands stiff
and erect like the quills of the sea-hedgehog or the bristles of a
hunted boar, sprinkles the ground with drops from the Avernus, while
another, who is reputed to have had the faculty of conjuring the stars
and moon down from heaven, assists in other ways.

The fourth witch is busy digging a hole with a spade, in which is to
be plunged up to his chin the beardless youth stripped of his purple
robe—the emblem of his noble descent—and naked, that from his marrow,
already dry, and his liver (when at length his eyeballs, long fixed on
the still renovated food which is withheld from his famished jaws, have
no longer the power to discern), may be concreted the love potion from
which the witches promise themselves the most wonderful results.

Canidia, unmoved by his sufferings, works herself into a great
rage, and calls upon the night and the morn to help in her infamous
incantation. But her victim manages to evade destruction by means
of some magical antidote. She then resolves to prepare a still more
powerful charm, exclaiming, “Sooner shall the sky be swallowed up in
the sea and the earth be stretched a covering over both, than thou,
my enemy, shalt not be wrapped in the flames of love as subtle and
tenacious as those of burning pitch”.




CHAPTER IV.

THE FATHERS OF MEDICINE.


Though Æsculapius is said to have lived so near to the time of the
Trojan war, yet the Greeks knew very little about him. The superstition
of the time gave him a position among the gods, and as he was adored
under the character of the genius of physic, it came at last to be
doubted whether he was ever a mortal; consequently his priests were
obliged for their own sakes to make themselves masters of all the
physic that the master could teach, that they might be qualified to
give advice to those who applied to them; their prescriptions passed
for the suggestions of the gods, the cures for the miraculous. But both
diseases and remedies were carefully recorded. Strabo tells us that
from these registers in the temple of Æsculapius at Cos, Hippocrates
formed his plan for a proper diet.

Hippocrates, the wise physician and father of medicine, was according
to Soranus the son of Heraclides and Phænaretes, descended from
Hercules and Æsculapius. He was a Coan by birth, and was first
instructed by his father, and then by Herodicus, and Democritus of
Abdua, the philosopher. He flourished at the time of the Peloponnesian
war, and after being instructed in physic and the arts, left his own
country for Thessaly, where his fame soon became known, even as far
as Persia. He was sent for by Perdiccás, King of Macedonia, who was
then thought to be consumptive, but Hippocrates diagnosed it to be a
disease of the mind, and soon cured the king. He is also said to have
delivered his own country from a war with the Athenians by prevailing
upon the Thessalians to come to their assistance, for which he received
great honours from the Coans. He taught his art with great candour and
liberality to those who were desirous to learn, and at length died full
of honours, it is said, in his ninetieth year, and was buried between
Gyrton and Larissa. A quaint old tradition states that at his tomb a
swarm of bees settled and made their honey for a long time, with which
children troubled with aphthas, anointed by their nurses at the grave,
were easily cured.

He was by no means covetous of money, but grave in his behaviour and a
lover of Greece, as appears from his curing those of that nation with
the utmost diligence, and freeing many of their cities from the plague,
for which he acquired great honours.

At first the art of healing was accounted a branch of philosophy, so
that the cure of diseases and the study of nature owed their rise
to the same persons. Among the many philosophers skilled in the art
the most celebrated were Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and
Hippocrates of Cos. After them came Diodes the Carystian, Praxagoras,
and Chrysippus, with Hierphilus and Erasistratus, many of whom
practised their art in entirely different ways. At this period physic
was divided into three schools; the first cured by diet, the second
by medicines, the third by manual operations. Those who treated by
dietetic methods endeavoured to extend their views farther with the
assistance of natural philosophy. Then came Serapion, the apostle of
practice and experience, and afterwards Asclepiades, who worked a
revolution in medical science as then practised.

The knowledge of both surgery and medicine even in the time of Celsus
is very remarkable, and many of the forms of administration of medicine
are employed at the present day. The enema was largely used by the
ancients, a common one being hydromel, described by Dioscorides as
being made by mixing two parts of water to one of honey; sea-water was
also employed for the same purpose, and Celsus recommends the copious
drinking of hot water as a laxative remedy.

Asclepiades was the originator of massage and friction, and in his
book of general remedies describes his treatment, which is similar to
that performed to-day. Poultices of meal of various descriptions were
commonly employed, linseed or fenugreek being the favourite media.

Asclepiades studied in Alexandria, and after practising in Greece
and Asia Minor, finally settled in Rome in the early part of the
first century B.C. Here he soon met with success, and established
a reputation for great skill. He was the physician and friend of
Cicero, and probably also the instructor of Lucretius in the Epicurean
philosophy, of which he was an enthusiastic advocate.

He believed the body to be composed of atoms or particles, with spaces
between, through which, like a sieve, various atoms of other shapes
were continually passing in and out of the body.

In practice he believed in curing his patients with as little
discomfort as possible, which doubtless helped to make him popular. He
was averse to the employment of violent remedies and the excessive use
of emetics and purgatives so much favoured by his fellow-practitioners.

He advocated the use of music as a soothing agent, and was strongly in
favour of bathing frequently and of massage.

He strongly believed in wine as a remedial agent, which it has been
said may have accounted for his popularity with the Roman ladies, with
whom as a physician he was in great demand. He lived to a very advanced
age, and died it is stated from the effects of a fall.

Galen, born at Pergamus in the year A.D. 131, studied in the school
of Alexandria, which then had a considerable reputation, and there he
formulated his system of treatment founded on his knowledge of anatomy
and on observation. His fame having spread abroad, he travelled to
Rome and became physician to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. According to
Galen, the health of the body depended on an equal and uniform mixture
of solids and liquids, and its sickness arose from their inequality;
consequently, the physician should foresee illness. He was a profound
student of anatomy in his early career, and afterwards turned his
attention to physiology. His views as to inflammation, intermittent
fevers, and his system of antipathies and sympathies, place him very
much above his predecessors.

“In the beginning of the fifth century,” says Lacroix, “the practice of
medicine, like that of surgery, which was not yet a distinct branch,
continued to be free without any authorisation being required. There
were even women who, like the Druidesses of the Gauls, treated the
sick.” Charmers, unconscious, no doubt, of the occult forces which they
set to work, attempted to cure neuralgic pains, country bone-setters to
mend fractured limbs, while oculists and impostors of the worst kind
travelled the country.

It was not until the close of the eighth century that a regular course
of medical instruction was founded, the first of the kind being
organised at Salerno, in the kingdom of Naples.

Alexander of Tralles, a noted physician, flourished in the middle of
the sixth century. No Greek doctor equalled him since the days of
Hippocrates in regard to his knowledge of his art in those primitive
days. He is said to have possessed to a high degree the art of
diagnosis, and he laid down as a principle, that no decision should
be arrived at as to the treatment of a case until the specific causes
of disease had been carefully considered. His depreciation of violent
aperients, his views on melancholia and gout, and his generally
common-sense treatment, stamped him as a man of superior attainments
and ability. He was the first to resort to bleeding from the jugular
vein, and to use iron in certain diseases affecting the blood.

It must not be imagined that the Roman practitioners of medicine were
ill-paid, for it is recorded that Stertimus made some £6500 a year, and
Canie, a surgeon, is said to have received £2000 for one operation,
which contrasts well with fees of modern times. Votive offerings for
health to the Roman deities were frequent, and sometimes consisted of
land, animals, coin, jewellery, and other articles. Other bribes which
have been discovered near ancient shrines are terra-cotta figures of
deities, human beings, animals, and also portions of human anatomy,
such as the liver or stomach. This superstition still exists, and is
practised in many parts of Italy, the peasants making votive offerings
similar to those of two thousand years ago.

The object of offering models of various portions of the body to
special deities, was doubtless to propitiate the god to heal that
special part in which the patient believed his complaint originated.

This custom of making offerings to the gods, called _donaria_ by the
Romans, originated at a very early period. They often took the form
of land, buildings, cattle, tools of trade, jewellery, and cast-off
clothes. Thus the temple of Artemis Brauronia was filled with women’s
clothing. In the temples of the healing gods, instruments of surgery,
pharmaceutical appliances, painted tablets representing miraculous
healings, and great numbers of models of various parts of the human
frame, composed of metal, stone, and terra-cotta, were deposited.

Many of these ancient temples of healing were magnificent buildings
with richly-decorated interiors, while others were simply shrines
or grottos at the source of some hot spring or mineral water, where
hundreds of those afflicted with various ailments flocked to bathe or
drink the water. The priests in charge regulated the use of the waters
and prescribed for the patients. After completing the course it was
customary for the patient to throw an offering into the water, in the
form of a silver cup, a coin, or some terra-cotta model of a limb, and
then drag himself off, muttering a prayer. Others would hang their
gifts on the walls, or deposit them at the feet of the statues of the
gods placed around.

Magnificent offerings, such as goblets of valuable metal with votive
inscriptions, have been occasionally found, and other ornaments of gold
and silver. It is said, however, that _donaria_ of precious metals
were after a time melted down and disposed of by the priests.

Grateful patients or surgeons sometimes offered surgical instruments as
a thanksgiving for a successful surgical operation; thus it is stated
Erostratus offered to Apollo in the Temple of Delphus a forceps of
lead, to show how little he approved of the fingers as a medium for
extracting teeth. Drs. Sambon, Allaire, and others, who have discovered
a large number of _donaria_ of the Etruscan and Roman period, found
among the pottery, invalid feeding-cups and feeding-bottles for
infants. Many of the latter were modelled in the form of the female
breast, and others in the shapes of animals. These articles were often
placed in the tombs of young children who had died in babyhood, instead
of the dishes of various foods which were deposited in the tombs of
adults.

Among other _donaria_ discovered, are models of the limbs and viscera
of the human body in clay, showing upon them the marks of the various
diseases from which the votaries had suffered. Thus the ancient temples
must have presented a curious appearance, festooned on walls and
ceilings with these numerous models, all of which told a tale of human
suffering.




CHAPTER V.

THE EARLY AGE OF GREEK AND ROMAN PHARMACY.


Rome at an early period gave birth to several philosophers and
practitioners in the art of healing. Cornelius Celsus, who is thought
to have been a Roman, was a much esteemed writer of the time, and his
works on medicine show the advanced state of surgery and medicine
during the Roman Empire.

His work on medicine gives a considerable insight into the pharmacy of
the Romans in his day. With reference to their weights, he says: “I
would have it understood that in an ounce is contained the weight of
seven denarii; next, that I divide each denarius into six parts, that
is, sextantes, so that I have the same quantity in the sextans of a
denarius that the Greeks have in their obolus”.

Of the methods of administration employed in early Roman pharmacy,
the malagma was commonly used. It was a kind of soft mass composed of
herbs and grass beaten up to the consistency of a thick paste, and
applied to the skin. Numerous formulæ for malagmas are given, in which
pellitory, myrrh, resin, cardamoms, ammoniacum, galbanum, etc., are
included. Their malagmas corresponded with our ointments. They also
used plasters, of which the basilicon, of galbanum, pitch, resin, and
oil, in an improved form, has survived two thousand years. Troches, for
healing wounds, were composed of dry medicines held in suspension by
some liquid such as wine or oil. Pessaries (vaginal) were originated
by the Greeks, who called them pessi. The ingredients were placed in
a piece of wool, and thus used. Powders and snuffs were also common
methods of administration.

Antidotes for bruises, bites, and poisons were regarded as extremely
important. One was called ambrosia, which Zopyrus is said to have
compounded for the King Ptolemy; another was the celebrated antidote of
King Mithridates.

The Greeks called their embrocations or ointments euchrista. The
catapotia was the method used for internal administration in liquid
form, for which many recipes are given by Celsus. The following will
serve as an example:—

  _Athenio’s Catapotia for a Cough._

  Myrrh, pepper, each         p. ♓ i.
  Castor, poppy tears, each   p. ♓ i.

which are bruised separately and afterwards mixed.

For venomous bites, the treatment of the ancients, if the wound was
severe, was first cupping, or, if slight, the plaster of Diogenes
was applied, or a salt fish bound over the wound. A curious remedy
practised by the Greeks for hydrophobia was to throw the patient
suddenly into a pond, and “if he could not swim let him sink several
times, and thus drink; if he can swim, keep him down at times until he
may be satiated with water, for thus at once,” writes Celsus, “is both
the thirst and the dread of water removed”.

Their antidote for nearly all poisons was warm oil, given in order to
induce vomiting.

The word collyrium, now applied to a lotion for the eyes, was also used
by the ancients; but they gave it a greater latitude, and also employed
it to describe a composition of powders wrought to a pasty consistence
with a liquid, and formed into something like a tent for insertion into
cavities.

Of the chemical bodies and drugs known both to the Greeks and the
Romans, the number is not a few.

Cinnabar, which seems to have been known from a very remote period, was
the name applied to the red sulphide of mercury, and also to dragon’s
blood. It is doubtless of the latter Pliny says “he believed to be the
gore of a dragon crushed by the weight of a dying elephant, with a
mixture of the blood of these animals”. Copperas, lead, alum, copper,
and iron were used as styptics.

Myrrh, frankincense, cardamoms, linseed, isinglass, and cobwebs were
used as astringents.

Galbanum, storax, bitumen, are recommended for promoting suppuration,
while pennyroyal, sulphur, pellitory, stavesacre, ox-gall, scammony,
rue, and opium were all included in their medical recipes.

Dioscorides was the first to attempt to record in anything like a
methodical manner the many drugs and chemical substances used by the
early Greeks.

Pedacion Dioscorides, born in Anazaba in Cilicia, was a Greek
physician, who lived in or about the second century. He gathered a
great portion of his information on _materia medica_ during his travels
with the Roman army, which he accompanied on several expeditions in the
capacity of physician. Afterwards he wrote his great work _Peri Hules
Iatrikes_ (about _materia medica_), which for fifteen centuries or
more remained one of the chief authorities on that science. It treats
of all the medicines then in use, with their preparations and action
as then known. The work of this early physician first appeared in a
Latin translation in 1478; the first Greek edition being published in
1499. The work was afterwards translated into Spanish, Italian, French,
German, and Arabic.

[Illustration: PEDACION DIOSCORIDES.

From a drawing, 1598.]

In describing the _Papaver sativum_ and its virtues in this work, he
says: “It is not improper to subjoin the method in which the opus or
juice of it is collected. Some, then, cutting the poppy heads with the
leaves, squeeze them through a press, and rubbing them in a mortar,
form them into troches. This is called meconium, and is weaker than the
opus. But whoever desires to gather the juice must proceed thus: After
the heads are moistened with dew, let him cut round the * (asterisk)
with a knife, but not penetrate through them, and from the sides cut
straight lines in the surface, and draw off the tear that flows with
his finger into a shell. And come again, not long after, for it will
be found standing upon it; and the day following it will be found in
the same manner.” Hence the old name poppy tears. Dioscorides was also
learned in the preparation of wool fat, which he calls œsypum, known
to modern pharmacists as lanoline. He says: “Œsypum is the oily part
collected from sordid wool, thus: The wool was washed in warm water
and all its sordes expressed; the fat floated with a froth, and upon
throwing in some sea-water it subsided; and when all the œsypum was
obtained from it in this manner, it was purified by repeated affusions
of water. When pure it had no sharp taste, and was in some degree
astringent and appeared white, and was emollient and filled up ulcers.”

Recent excavations made at Pompeii and Herculaneum have thrown some
further light on various articles of _materia medica_ as it existed in
the days just preceding the destruction of those cities. Aloe seems to
have been held in high esteem by the practitioners of the time, and was
employed, we learn from the historian, in twenty-nine diseases. It was
prescribed in doses from 1 to 111 drachmas (about 68 grains), and mixed
with wine was employed to stimulate the growth of the hair. Aconite, we
find, was used in four diseases; and was supposed to be an antidote to
any poison which might exist in the system. Other remedies mentioned
include gum acacia, colocynth, elaterium, gold, silver, copper, and
elecampane. It is further recorded of the latter drug, that Julia
Augusta, daughter of Augustus Cæsar, used to eat the root daily.

Of the vegetable remedies about 150 are enumerated, and of these the
cabbage seems to have held a prominent place. Other favourite medicines
were rye, garlic, anise, mallow, rose, and lily.

In the animal kingdom, the remedies contributed were numerous, being
mainly the various parts of man and beast. Among some of the least
disgusting, hair, blood, and saliva may be mentioned.

Scrapings from the bodies of athletes, mixed with the oil with which
they anointed themselves, were used as a tonic. The hair of a man
torn from the cross was used as a remedy for quartan fever. The hyæna
was employed as a medicinal agent in seventy-nine diseases; and the
crocodile, chameleon, lion, elephant, camel, and the hippopotamus all
contributed certain curative agents. Wool fat was held in great esteem.

Of minerals, iron, lead, nitrum, salt, gold, tin, silver, realgar,
copper, and misy (a combination of the sulphates of copper and iron)
are enumerated. Most of these articles are mentioned by the second
Pliny, who was killed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which
buried Pompeii.




CHAPTER VI.

ALCHEMY—THE ALCHEMISTS.


The word chemistry was used for the first time by Suidas, a
lexicographer of the tenth century, and at that time meant an alloy
of gold and silver. It is alluded to in connection with the Emperor
Diocletian, of whom it is said, that irritated by a revolt of the
Egyptians against the laws of the empire, he had all their books of
chemistry committed to the flames, so as to punish them for their
rebellion by preventing them from carrying on the lucrative business
arising out of the melting and working of precious metals. There is
little doubt the Egyptians and Greeks were acquainted with certain
chemical operations, or what was termed the hermetic science, which was
afterwards called alchemy in the first century of the Christian era.

The first two great lights that appeared were Al-Chindus, and Geber
who discovered the red oxide and bichloride of mercury, nitric acid,
hydrochloric acid, and nitrate of silver. Geber’s _Summa Perfectionis_
and _Liber Philisophorum_ embody his researches on the purification
and malleability of metals. In the ninth century, the Arab alchemist
Rhazes flourished. In his great work entitled _El Hharvi_, he
alludes to realgar, orpiment, borax, mixtures of sulphur and iron
with copper, and of mercury with acids, and arsenic. He further
recommends physicians to use alcoholic preparations and animal oils,
etc. He states: “The secret art of chemistry is nearer possible than
impossible; the mysteries do not reveal themselves except by force of
labour and perseverance. But what a triumph it is when man can raise
a corner of the veil which conceals the works of God!” The knowledge
displayed of chemistry and its application to the arts at that early
period is wonderful, but books were few. The chief evidence of this
knowledge is exhibited in the many specimens and art monuments in the
museums of Spain, showing the skill of the Saracens and of the Moors.

A little later Mesué states, “certain principles had been recognised as
to the analytical classification of the bodies which compose organic
matter”.

Of the ancient necromancers who have figured in history and romance,
Merlin was perhaps the most extraordinary. The earliest mention of
his name is in records of the eleventh century, although he appears to
have flourished about the time of the Saxon invasion of Britain, in the
latter part of the fifth century.

He is first mentioned in connection with the fortune of Vortigern,
who is represented by Geoffrey of Monmouth, as at that time King of
England. Vortigern having lost all his strongholds in his struggle
with the Saxons, at length consulted his magicians as to how he was
to defend himself from his troublesome foe. They advised him to build
an impregnable tower, and chose a suitable site for its erection. The
builders set to work with might and main, but were astonished to find,
that as fast as they built in one day, the next morning the earth had
swallowed it up, and not a vestige remained. So the king called the
wise men together again, when they arrived at the conclusion that the
only way to remedy the matter was to cement the walls of the tower with
the blood of a human being who was born of no human father.

Vortigern at once sent forth emissaries to scour the country in search
of this _rara avis_, and at length by good fortune they came across
Merlin, near the town of Caermarthen in Wales, who claimed that his
mother was the daughter of a king but his father was an angelic being.
The king’s emissaries evidently took his word for it, as they speedily
carried him before Vortigern. A great meeting of the magicians was
called, at which the king presided, and Merlin, instead of being
condemned as the victim, confounded the wise men, and told the king
the ground they had chosen for his tower had a lake beneath it, at
the bottom of which, on being drained, they would find two dragons of
inextinguishable hostility. Under the form of dragons he appears to
have figured the Britons and Saxons in his speech, “all of which,” the
historian tells us, “proved to be true”.

But the greatest exploit with which Merlin is credited, according to
tradition, is the erection of Stonehenge as a lasting monument to the
300 British nobles massacred by the Saxons. It is supposed that these
mighty stones had been originally set up in Africa, and from thence
were transported to Ireland. Merlin commanded that they should be
carried over the sea, and erected on Salisbury Plain; but no workman
could be found to move them. He therefore brought his magical power to
bear on the huge stones, and by this means they were caused to take the
form in which they now stand.

Of the other wonderful stories which romance has woven round the career
of this strange individual, we can only say they are interesting, if
not exactly true. As 600 years elapsed between the time of Merlin and
the earliest known records of his achievements, it is impossible to
pronounce on their veracity.

Among the more famous of the early alchemists was St. Dunstan, who
flourished in the tenth century; but, if tradition speaks truly, he
was anything but a saint in character. He is said to have been a man
of distinguished birth, who in his young days lived a life of great
self-indulgence, even for that period of peculiar morality. At length,
he was seized with a dangerous illness which threatened to terminate
his career; but at the last extremity an angel appeared, bringing
a medicine which speedily restored him to health. Hastening to the
nearest church to return thanks, he was stopped by the devil with a
pack of black dogs, whom however he speedily put to flight. In order to
expiate his former irregularities, he now secluded himself in the abbey
of Glastonbury, where he occupied a cell in which he could neither
stand upright nor stretch his limbs in repose, and mortified his flesh
exceedingly. Here he studied alchemy and magic, in which arts he soon
became well versed. While in this cell, he is said to have had the most
extraordinary visitations, and among others the devil was constantly
thrusting his head in at the window and taunting the saint, while
immersed in his studies. At length, one day, wearied out, Dunstan lost
all patience, and seizing his red-hot tongs from the little furnace in
which he conducted his chemical operations, caught the devil by the
nose, and held him firmly, “while the bellowings of Satan,” says the
historian, “filled the whole neighbourhood for many miles round”. This
incident is frequently represented in ancient carvings.

Dunstan was a Benedictine monk, and next came forth and took a
prominent part in political and religious matters. He seems to have
been the king-maker of his time, and took a prominent part in the
ruling of the kingdom during the reigns of Edwy and Edgar.

In the accompanying illustration the alchemist, with uplifted torch, is
repeating the specified incantation over the still, under which he has
just kindled a fire, having commenced the preparation of the “Elixir of
Life”.

[Illustration: AN ALCHEMIST.

From an engraving dated 1576.]

In the year A.D. 1260, Albertus Magnus, formerly a Dominican monk, was
made master of the sacred palace at the court of Rome, and afterwards
Bishop of Ratisbon. This great philosophical student was learned in
all the then known arts of chemistry, and his manuscripts and works
were copied by the thousand. All kinds of extraordinary powers were
attributed to him, and it was commonly stated that he could make gold,
and that he was a magician. Accused of “having dealings” with the evil
one, he resigned his high position and returned to his cloistered cell
to carry on his favourite researches and end his days. Next we come to
Vincent de Beauvais, often called the Pliny of the middle ages. He,
too, was accused of sorcery, and it is said that “at midnight people
would creep along the quays of the Seine towards his laboratory in St.
Chapelle yard, to see if they could get a glimpse reflected in the
river of the magic furnaces in which De Beauvais was supposed to evoke
his familiar spirit”.

About the same time Raymond Lulli became known to fame. He also
was a monk, and born in the island of Majorca, but having a roving
disposition he wandered over Europe. He wrote several works on alchemy,
among others _Libilli Aliquot Chemici_, etc. Fabulous stories are
related of his adventures; and he was cruelly stoned to death by
the populace in Tunis, in 1315. He left behind him a following of
believers, who called themselves Lullists and spread all over Europe.
The genius of the West at this time was Arnauld de Villeneuve, who
made several important discoveries in chemistry. His researches were
particularly directed to the relation of chemistry to medicine. He is
credited with having discovered sulphuric and other acids, and is said
to have been the first to distil alcohol or spirit of wine.

Contemporary with these men of learning was our own Roger Bacon, whose
love for his art nearly cost him his life, besides many years in
prison. The discoverer of gunpowder and the telescope spent most of his
life in experimental researches, with the result that he revolutionised
the art of war, and gave to astronomers the power of exploring the
heavens. He was a man of great ability, never justly appreciated by his
contemporaries, and has been rightly named the father of experimental
physics. He described most of the laws which regulate matter, and the
regular motion of the planets. Although a man of undoubted knowledge
and great power of conception, he was bitten with the mania of
endeavouring to discover the philosopher’s stone, his views respecting
which he set forth in his work entitled _Radix Mundi_. Following Bacon
came Antonio Quainer, of Pavia, who was the first to manufacture
artificial mineral waters.

It has been said by some that the discoveries made by the alchemists
were mainly the result of chance, and they were mostly ignorant
charlatans; but although they had little method in their research,
and a great deal of their knowledge was wrapped up in absurd and
superstitious theories, when we look at the result of their discoveries
up to the fifteenth century, the most prejudiced must admit that
their labours were not spent entirely in vain. They demonstrated the
existence of bismuth, liver of sulphur, and regulus of antimony, the
distillation of alcohol, volatilisation of mercury, and preparation of
aqua regia, sulphuric and other mineral acids, and the purification
of alkalies. They had the scarlet dye for cloth, the secret of which
has now been lost and cannot be equalled, and their processes of
glass-staining cannot be approached by those employed at the present
day. It is said that Eck, a German alchemist of Sultzbach, ascertained
the existence of oxygen 300 years before it was demonstrated by
Priestly. For these and other discoveries we have to thank the early
alchemists.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries alchemy began to shake
itself free from the wild theories and absurd practices which had
impeded its progress. Henry VII. issued a severe edict against
alchemical practices, which put a stop to the impositions of a number
of charlatans. About this period John Baptist Porta discovered the
means of reducing the metallic oxides and of colouring silver, and
Isaac and Jean Hollandus made great improvements in enamelling, and
demonstrated the manufacture of artificial gems.

From the time of Paracelsus and the introduction of printing, the
science received a fresh impetus, and a new order of chemists came into
being, whose conflict with the old order for many years is a matter of
history.

The old theories of the alchemists were gradually exploded and
superseded, and many were driven to the most flagrant quackery to earn
a living.

Cornelius Agrippa, who was one of the leaders of the new order, says:
“It would take too much time to recount all the follies, the idle
secrets, and the enigmas of this trade, of the green lion, the fugitive
stag, the flying eagle, the inflated toad, the crow’s head of the black
blacker than the black, of the seal of Mercury, of the mud of wisdom,
and other countless absurdities of the time. Many of them travelled
from fair to fair in order to make a little money by the sale of white
lead, vermilion, antimony, and other drugs used by women for painting
the face, and drugs which the Scripture calls ointments of lust.”
Meanwhile the efforts of the practical workers were encouraged by
administrators and princes, with the result that the application of
chemistry and the technical arts became predominant, and metallurgy the
leading spirit of the science.

A notable character in the time of Queen Elizabeth was Dr. Dee,
alchemist and astrologer. The career of this man, who was more a
charlatan than aught else, was one of extraordinary vicissitude. A
Welshman by birth, he was educated at Oxford, and then travelled
throughout Europe, claiming that he had discovered the elixir of life
and the philosopher’s stone. He was a man of overweening ambition,
and delighted to hear himself called “Most Excellent”. In company
with a man named Kelly, it is said he discovered a quantity of the
elixir in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey; this they at once annexed
and carried off to Poland, accompanied by a nobleman of that country.
After travelling from one Court to another, where he is said to have
performed wonderful feats with his elixir, he returned to England and
settled at Mortlake, where Elizabeth often visited him to consult him
on astrology, and he even ventured to predict her death.[3] He was a
great favourite at Court in 1595, and the Queen made him Chancellor of
Paul’s and Warden of Manchester, but he died in great poverty.

        [3] Lilly’s _Autobiography_, 1774.

[Illustration: AN ALCHEMIST.

From an engraving dated 1576.]

The illustration represents an alchemist of the sixteenth century in
an ante-room of his laboratory, engaged in fixing a portion of his
apparatus. On the table is his luting box and knife. Through one window
a view of the laboratory with stills of varied size is obtained, while
through the other the sun looks with becoming gravity on the operation.


THE SYMBOLS OF THE ALCHEMISTS.

As in modern science chemists write their formulæ and work out their
processes by means of symbols, so the alchemists used signs and
hieroglyphics to represent the then known elements, metals, and other
articles in common use. The so-called elements—fire, air, water,
earth—were represented by special symbols, here represented. The
metals were supposed to be influenced by the planets to a certain
degree, and were represented by their corresponding signs. Various
other articles also had their symbols, which served as a means of
shorthand at a period when caligraphy was little known or employed.

[Illustration: Symbols for: Fire. Air. Water. Earth. Lead. Tin. Iron.
Gold. Copper. Mercury. Silver. Antimony. Arsenic. Aqua Vitæ. Borax.
To Purify. Cinnabar. Caput Mortuum. An Oil. Saltpetre. A Magnet. Sal
Ammoniac. Sulphur. Tartar. A Covered Pot. To Sublime. To Precipitate.]

[Illustration: Symbols for: Spirit of Wine. Roman Symbol for Denarius.
To Digest. To Distil. Aqua Fortis. Aqua Regalis. A Brick. To Calcine.
Camphire. Ashes. Cerusse. Lime. Quicklime. Cinnabar. Wax. Hartshorn.
A Crucible. Crystal. A Gum. Oil. Steel Filings. Litharge.]

[Illustration: Symbols for: To Lute. Sublimated Mercury. Precipitated
Mercury. Nitre. Realgar. Sand. Soap. Sal Alkali. Sal Ammoniac. Salt.
Talc. Vinegar. Verdigris. Vitriol. Urine. Day. Night.]




CHAPTER VII.

THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.


The dominating ambition of the early alchemists was to discover the
unknown. In the same spirit the modern worker in science gropes
onward, and dreams of discovering some contribution towards solving
the elixir of life, in the form, it may be, of conquering at least one
fell disease. The ancient workers in alchemy confined their researches
almost exclusively to metals; they believed that all natural things
were composed of four elements, which they termed Fire, Air, Earth, and
Water. “When these four elements are conjoined,” says Roger Bacon, in
his _Radix Mundi_, “they become another thing, whereas it is evident
that all things in Nature are composed of the said elements being
altered and changed.”

But the patient researches of the alchemists were not so much due to a
love for scientific investigation as to the overwhelming desire to gain
wealth.

[Illustration: A STILL FOR DYSTILLING THE WATER OF LYFE.

1576.]

The majority had two fixed objects in view as the goals of their
ambition, one being the discovery of some body that would be capable of
transmuting the baser metals into gold and silver; and the other, the
discovery of an elixir which would prolong the span of human life to
an indefinite period. Both these objects seem to have been sought for
by man from prehistoric times, and their origin is lost in antiquity.
Berthelot remarks that the term “Philosopher’s Stone” does not occur in
writings earlier than the seventh century, although the central idea is
much more ancient.

The philosopher’s stone was sought for by the Chinese philosophers at a
very remote period, afterwards by the Greeks, Arabs, and others down to
the seventeenth century.

Men of undoubted ability and genius wasted both their lives and
their fortunes over the search for this illusive chimera, and others
condescended to fraud and trickery of the meanest description in
its pursuit. Apparently no alchemist of any repute thought it right
to die until he had at least claimed to have solved one of these
great problems. Thus claimants to the discovery were numerous. The
descriptions given of the various processes in ancient manuscripts
and works for producing the philosopher’s stone are usually of a very
elaborate description, and couched in the most fantastic language.

Failure to produce the desired result was invariably accounted for by
the omission to carry out some minute detail. Some who professed to
have discovered the secret demanded large sums of money to reveal it,
and several visited the various courts of Europe to demonstrate it by
means of trickery and conjuring.

The notorious Dr. Dee, who flourished in the time of Queen Elizabeth,
was one of the last claimants to the discovery, and is said to have
received immense sums of money from dupes for imparting the coveted
secret, which he demonstrated by means of an ingenious trick.

Realgar, mercury, sulphur, and many other substances were credited with
the magical property of transmutation.

In the illustration (p. 65), which is taken from an authentic
engraving of the sixteenth century, we have a figure of the apparatus
used for distilling the “Water of Life,” the process for which is
described by Gesnerus in the _Newe Jewell of Health_, printed in 1576.
The alchemist, arrayed in his imposing robes, is depicted giving
instructions to his assistant as to certain precautions to be taken in
conducting the process.

Bacon states that sulphur and mercury are the mineral roots and natural
principles upon which Nature herself acts and works in the mines and
caverns of the earth; the latter metal he believed to be the true
elixir of the philosopher’s stone; others, including Rhazes and Merlin,
believed it to be an amalgam of gold and mercury, fantastically called
the Red man and his White wife.

Concerning the vessels for producing this “Citrine body,” as Bacon
calls it, the most exact precautions were taken. Special apparatus was
used, and a special heat, which was not to exceed the heat of the body.
For this purpose horse-dung was employed. Senier, the philosopher,
says: “Dig a sepulchre and bury the woman (mercury) with her man (gold)
in horse-dung, the fire of the philosopher, until such time as they be
conjoined”.

Bacon’s definition of alchemy was: “Alchymie is the art or science
teaching how to make or generate a certain kind of medicine which is
called the elixir. It teaches how to transmute all kinds of metals, one
with another; and this by a proper medicine.” George Ripley, a monk,
in 1476, thought that he had discovered the much-coveted stone in pure
sulphur. He says: “Let the two sulphurs, _viz._, the white and the red,
be mingled with the oil of the white elixir that they may work the more
strongly, and you shall have the highest medicine in the world to heal
and cure human bodies, and to transmute the bodies of metals into the
most pure fine gold and silver”. Berthelot, who has made an exhaustive
study of the subject, comes to the conclusion that the doctrines of
alchemy concerning the transmutation of metals, did not originate in
the philosophical views of the constitution of matter as generally
supposed, but in the practical experiments of goldsmiths occupied in
making fraudulent substitutes for the precious metals. One cannot but
think with pity of the immense labour expended and lost in the attempt
made by many of these pioneers of science in their pursuit after this
chemical chimera.

Paracelsus, as well as his predecessors, laboured studiously to
discover some method for prolonging life. Like Bacon and Verulam, he
maintained that the human body could be rejuvenated to a certain extent
by a fresh supply of vitality, and it was his aim to find means by
which such a supply could be obtained. In one of his works he gives the
following reasons for this belief: “Metals may be preserved from rust
and wood may be protected against rot. Blood may be preserved a long
time if the air is excluded. Egyptian mummies have kept their form for
centuries without undergoing putrefaction. Animals awaken from their
winter sleep, and flies having become torpid from cold become nimble
again when they are warmed. Therefore, if inanimate objects can be kept
from destruction, why should there be no possibility to preserve the
life-essence of animate forms?” For this purpose he prepared a remedy
he called _Primum Ens Melissæ_, which was made by dissolving pure
carbonate of potass, and macerating in the liquid the fresh leaves of
the _melissa_ plant. On this absolute alcohol was poured several times
in successive portions to absorb the colouring matter, after which it
was collected, distilled, and evaporated to the thickness of a syrup.
The second great secret elixir of Paracelsus was his _Primum Ens
Sanguinis_. This was prepared by mixing blood from the medium vein of a
healthy young person, and digesting it in a warm place with twice its
quantity of _alcahest_, after which the red fluid was to be separated
from the sediment, filtered, and preserved.

The alcahest was his celebrated universal medicine, and was considered
the greatest mystery of all. It was made with freshly prepared caustic
lime and absolute alcohol. These were distilled together ten times. The
residue left in the retort was mixed with pure carbonate of potass and
dried. This was again distilled with alcohol. It was then placed in a
dish and set on fire, and the residue that remained was the alcahest.

The following lines were found inscribed on the fly-leaf of an old work
on alchemy, printed in 1550, and signed “PHILO VERITAS”:—


ELIXIR VITÆ.

    When fire and water, earth and air
    In love’s true bond united are,
    For all diseases then be sure
    You have a safe and certain cure.
    I will affirm it’s here alone
    Exists the Philosophic Stone.
    This is fair nature’s virgin root,
    Thrice blest are they who reap the fruit:
    But oh! where one true adept’s found,
    Ten thousand thousand cheats abound.

In an ancient work in the library of York Minster, the writer came
across the following in manuscript, signed “RAYMUND LULLI”:—

    Remember man that is the most noble creature in composition that
        ever God wrought;
    In whom be four elements proportioned by nature,
    A neutral mercuriallyte which costeth right naught,
    Out of his monie by manie it is bought;
    And our monie be not all but our oxtalle towe,
    Of the sun and the moon; which Raymund Said So.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE BLACK ART AND OCCULT SCIENCES.


To make a thorough analysis of this interesting subject, and trace
the origin of magic, would take much more space than we have at our
command; and we can only mention a few of the many forms which may be
grouped under the head of the occult sciences, and those especially
which had any connection with the alchemists. There is little doubt
that most of the alchemists were students, if not practitioners, of
magic or some of its branches.

The antiquity of magic is very great; and we have record of magicians
and wise men in early Jewish times, as well as the magic formulæ of the
Vedas in India, as handed down to us in the religion of the Hindoos.
Moreover, magic was practised by the Chaldeans, of whom a certain tribe
devoted their energies to studying the occult sciences. Pliny tells us
of the dealings in the supernatural in the time of Homer, and other
writers record that magic was also known to the Etruscans and Assyrians
at a very early period. As time rolled on, the different forms of
magic practised became specialised, according to their several natures.
For instance, there were Astrology and Oneiromancy, which comprised the
various forms of divination; Theurgy and Goetry, the art of evoking
good or evil spirits; Necromancy, by means of which communication was
held with the dead; and Sorcery, which exercised its power by the
influence of dreams.

The longings after the supernatural and unknown felt by the great
ignorant masses brought forth individuals in plenty to take advantage
of their credulity. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the
occult sciences were openly taught in the universities and schools,
and 200 years later reached the zenith of their influence; and
practitioners of astrology and the black arts abounded and flourished
throughout Europe.

The professors of Oneiromancy were those who divined or interpreted
dreams, and founded their traditions in the art from its being in
accordance with the Scriptures. The explanation of dreams also did
not go counter to the doctrines of the Church, and so the cult found
many believers among all classes of society. It was denounced by Pope
Gregory II. as a detestable practice; but this did not prevent it being
largely employed in forecasting the future.

Arnauld de Villeneuve, who wrote a work on the subject in the
thirteenth century, gives a certain code by which those who practised
it worked.

Whoever dreamt that his hair was thick and carefully curled would
soon become wealthy. If anything was wrong with the hair, evil was
betokened. It also foreshadowed harm if a wreath was worn composed of
flowers that were not in season. Other codes signified that to dream
of the eyes, related to children; the head, to a father; the arms, to
brothers; the feet, to servants; the right hand, to the mother, to
sons, and to friends; and the left hand, to the wife and daughter.
Another method was founded on the theory that whatever was dreamt of,
the antithesis or opposite would follow in life. From this we have
probably the saying common to-day, “dream of a wedding and it is a sign
of a funeral”. According to many old writers there was scarcely any
important event in the middle ages which was not announced by a dream.

The day before Henry II. was struck by the blow of a lance during a
tournament, Catherine de Medicis, his wife, dreamt that she saw him
lose one of his eyes. Three days before he fell by the knife of Jacques
Clément, Henry III. dreamt he saw the royal insignia stained with
blood and trodden under foot by monks and people of the lower orders.

Henry IV. also, before he was murdered by Raveillac, it is said, heard
during the night his wife Marie de Medicis say to herself as she woke,
“Dreams are but falsehoods!” and when he asked her what she had dreamt,
she replied, “That you were stabbed upon the steps of the little
Louvre!” “Thank God it is but a dream,” rejoined the king.

The necromancers, who were supposed to be able to conjure up spirits
and raise the dead, were accounted on a somewhat higher plane than the
interpreters of dreams. They also based their authority on the Old
Testament. The nature of the art was gruesome and awe-inspiring, and
there is little doubt many dark deeds were perpetrated by those who
practised it. One method of evocation was to kill a child and place
its head upon a dish surrounded by lighted candles; the desired spirit
was supposed to enter this ghastly object and speak through its mouth.
Sometimes the spirit simply consisted of some muttered words from
behind a curtain in a dark cellar; another method was to cause the
appearance of a sepulchral figure out of smoke or vapour, which would
indicate by gesture and reply to questions asked. To evoke a dead
man’s spirit, it was necessary to go to the grave at midnight with a
companion who bore a candle in the left hand and a crystal stone in the
right, the conjurer holding a hazel wand with the name of God written
on it, and repeating the words:—

“Tetragrammaton + Adonai + Agla + Craton +”

Then striking three times on the ground, with a prayer he commanded the
spirit into the stone, when it appeared in the shape of a child.

The conjurer often wore a girdle of lion’s skin with the name of God
written on it, and the Solomon’s circle he described with a bright
knife, on the blade of which were written certain mystic words.
Necromancy gradually merged into sorcery, which has occasionally come
to the surface in comparatively recent years.

Chiromancy, the art of divining or foretelling future events from
marks on the palm of the hand, was also practised in antiquity,
but in mediæval times it was strongly opposed by the Church. The
practice is supposed to have been brought into Europe from the East
by the Bohemians in the early part of the fifteenth century. This art
eventually merged into astrology, which exerted the greatest influence
of all the occult sciences.

The antiquity of astrology is very great, it having been originated
by the Chaldeans, and was thought by some of the Jews to have been a
method by which the Creator could communicate with His people. The art
itself was based on astronomy, and, like alchemy, was the beginning of
the study of real natural science. The teller of the stars was not only
supposed to foretell forthcoming misfortunes to individuals, but also
to forecast the destinies of kings and empires.

The belief in its power was so great that it became the fashion among
royal personages of the sixteenth century to keep their own special
astrologers, who were lodged easy of access and loaded with honours and
wealth. These men were mostly astute Jews well versed in the science
of their time, and by means of their supposed powers they often played
a very important part in the political affairs of the nation. Thus in
the fifteenth century Rovigo, an astrologer of eminence, who is said
to have perfected the astrolabe, was attached to the Court of King
John II. of Portugal; and Simon Pharès figured at the Court of France
in the time of Charles VIII. We must not forget to mention Cosmo
Ruggieri, the Florentine astrologer and the confidant of Catherine
de Medicis; also the celebrated Nostradamus, astrologer and trusted
adviser of Charles IX. This extraordinary man played a prominent part
in the history of his time, and was supposed to practise magic and
alchemy as well as the healing art. He was consulted by the king in all
positions of difficulty, and it is said became immensely wealthy. He
died in 1566 at Salon, after having written several notable works.




CHAPTER IX.

THE ART OF FORETELLING.


The early theory of the art of foretelling by means of the stars, and
casting horoscopes, was as follows: The seven planets then known,
including the Sun, with the twelve figures of the Zodiac, comprised
the astrological system. Each unit or body or nation was supposed to
be governed or influenced by a certain star or constellation, and this
power extended to all things connected with the person or nation.
Thus, Saturn was supposed to influence life, sciences, and buildings;
Jupiter—honour, wishes, and wealth; Mars—wars, persons, marriages,
and quarrels; the Sun—hope, gain, and happiness; Venus—love
and friendship; Mercury—fear, disease, debts, and commerce; the
Moon—robberies, wounds, and dreams. The intrinsic quality was denoted
by the planet. The Sun was regarded as favourable; Saturn, cold;
Jupiter, temperate; Mars, ardent; Venus, fruitful; Mercury, inconstant;
the Moon, melancholy. The days, colours, and metals also came under
the same influences.

In casting a horoscope, the astronomer had first to observe if the time
was propitious, and what planet was dominant in the heavens. Then, by
means of calculations and diagrams, he would deduce the consequences
from the position and bearing of the stars. The day was divided into
four equal parts—the ascendant of the sun, the middle of the sky,
the descending of the sun, and the lower part of the sky. These four
parts of the day were subdivided into twelve distinct parts, which
were called the twelve houses of the sun. It was of the greatest
importance in drawing a horoscope to tell exactly in which “house” the
star appeared. One can easily trace the connection of the influence
attributed to the planets with the old Egyptian and Greek mythologies,
and it can hardly be wondered at that the same system should have been
brought to bear on medicine.

A favourite method of divination, especially with the sorcerers, was
that of gazing into a beryl or crystal. For the proper performance of
this ceremony a pure virgin or equally pure youth should be the gazer.
The sorcerer, having repeated the necessary charms and adjurations,
with the invocation suitable to the spirits he wished to consult,
looked into a large beryl or crystal, wherein he saw the answer
represented either by types or by figures, and sometimes it is said he
might hear the spirit speak to him.

Vallancey states that in the Highlands of Scotland large crystals of
somewhat oval shape were kept by the priests to work charms with,
and that water poured on them was given to cattle as a preventive of
disease. Dr. Dee was a famous conjurer with the crystal in the time of
Queen Elizabeth.

Lilly describes these crystals as being the size of an orange, set in
silver, surmounted with a cross, and engraved all round with the names
of the angels—Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel.

Among other charms practised was Dactylomancy, which was performed by
means of a ring suspended by a thread in the centre of an earthenware
or metal pitcher. The ring, which was supposed to have been made under
the influence of a certain constellation, was swung from side to
side of the vessel, and the sounds it made on touching were taken as
predictions and oracles.

The art of divination by fire was called Pyromancy, and was performed
by allowing a certain body to burn, the smoke from which, by its
density and colour, forecast the future. A favourite medium for
consulting this oracle was a donkey’s head roasted on hot coals.

Popular belief in mediæval times attributed anything unusual or
beyond its understanding, to magic; so most of the early alchemists
were believed to be magicians. Both Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon
were accused of dealing in the black arts, one having to resign his
bishopric of Cologne and retire to a monastery, and the other to the
Franciscan cells in Paris, to free themselves from the charges of their
accusers.




CHAPTER X.

BLACK MAGIC.


Geber, an alchemist of great repute in Arabia, was believed to possess
the power of creating gold by magic. He was a man of undoubted learning
and a skilful practitioner of his time, yet he was dubbed a sorcerer.
He was said to possess all kinds of extraordinary implements; among
others, a book of black magic which gave him full power over demons,
and a brass idol which spoke oracles. On the day of his death, in
1003, the Evil One is supposed to have carried him off. James Iodoc,
an Englishman, achieved considerable notoriety by claiming that he had
succeeded in setting the demon in a magic ring. These men should not be
confounded with the host of impostors and charlatans who simply preyed
on the credulity of the people, but in those days all were judged
alike. Most of the great mediæval alchemists dabbled in magic, and all
agreed that to obtain the intervention of Satan in human affairs it was
necessary to enter into a pact with him. Those who went to this length
and became exponents of demonology, or the black art, were initiated
with much solemnity.


TAKING THE OATH.

The oath to the demon had to be pronounced in the centre of a circle
traced upon the ground, accompanied by the offer of some pledge, such
as a garment of the noviciate. The edge of the circle was supposed to
establish a mark which the demon could not cross. Heavy perfumes such
as vervain, with burning incense and lighted tapers, always formed part
of the ceremonial. The smoking brazier, which entered largely into
the ritual, was believed to act upon the demons, and was constantly
fed with all kinds of mysterious vegetable and animal substances,
those that would produce most smoke being preferred. It is said that
belladonna and opium were always used as ingredients in the incense, in
order to produce a state of semi-stupor and influence the imagination.

The perfumes employed by the professors of the art had each a special
significance, and were offered to some planet to form a link with the
earth. A mixture of saffron, amber, musk, cloves and incense, together
with the brain of an eagle and the blood of a cock, was offered to the
Sun.

The white poppy and camphor burnt in the head of a frog, with the eyes
of a bull and the blood of a goose, were dedicated to the Moon; while
to Mars, sulphur was mixed with hellebore and euphorbium, together with
the blood of a black cat and the brain of a crow, and then burnt.

One can imagine the horrible odour that would be caused by burning
such articles as these; and, as the columns of smoke ascended, the
half-stupefied and scared spectator fancied he saw the forms of
writhing demons in the air.

Very curious properties were attributed to certain articles when thrown
on live coals. Thus, if thunder and rain were required, the liver of
a chameleon was said to produce it; while the gall of a cuttle-fish
burnt with roses and aloes-wood was all that was necessary to induce an
earthquake.

By burning coriander, parsley, hemlock, liquor of black poppy, giant
fennel, red sandal-wood and henbane, almost any number of demons could
be raised. Sorcerers of this class were called tempest-raisers.

With the witchcraft practised largely by women in mediæval times, we
have not much to do; although belief in its influence was widespread
during the middle ages. To bewitch an individual was to cause him
gradually to die a mysterious death.

The process commenced at first with great secrecy, by modelling a
figure of the intended victim in wax or clay. This having been done,
a swallow was killed, and the heart placed under the right arm of
the figure and the liver under the left. The effigy was next pricked
all over with new needles, each prick being accompanied by the most
terrible imprecations against the victim.

Another method was to make the figure of earth taken from a graveyard
and mixed with dead bones. Certain mystic signs were then inscribed on
it, which were said eventually to cause the death of the victim. So
general did the practice of witchcraft become that no class of society
was safe from accusation and suspicion, thousands perishing by the
faggot and torture.

From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, supernatural beliefs
exerted a great influence on the people. One of the most celebrated
trials of the time was that of the Duchess of Gloucester, who was
accused of bewitching Henry VI. It transpired at the trial that she
had instructed a priest, named Bolingbroke who practised necromancy,
to bewitch the king; a sorceress named Marie Gardimain being also
implicated. An effigy of the king in wax was discovered half-melted in
front of a fire of dry plants, which had been gathered by moonlight in
a graveyard. Bolingbroke the necromancer was hanged, Gardimain burnt,
and the Duchess of Gloucester condemned to imprisonment for life.

The “evil eye” was another form of witchcraft, mostly practised by
women. Visions or apparitions in the sky, foretelling some war or
disaster, were firmly believed in by the Church, and caused great
consternation. Fiery dragons appearing in the heavens were said to
predict civil war; and we also read of pigs bearing royal crowns, and
gory stars, all of which were doubtless caused by ordinary phenomena
not understood at that time.

The appearance of the devil presiding at a sabbath or meeting of
sorcerers is thus described by De Lancre: “He is seated in a black
chair with a crown of black horns, two horns in his neck, and one on
the forehead, which sheds light on the assembly; the hair bristling,
the face pale and exhibiting signs of uneasiness, the eyes round,
large, and fully opened, inflamed and hideous, with a goat’s beard. The
neck and the rest of the body deformed, and in the shape of a man and
a goat; the hands and the feet of a human being.”

The word witch is thought by some authorities to be derived from
_chausaph_, which means a user of pharmaceutic enchantments, or an
applier of drugs to magical purposes.

Witches sent storms and barrenness, drowned children, brought on ague,
could kill with evil eye, slay with lightning, pass through key-holes,
ride through the air on broom-sticks, and perform many other weird and
wondrous things.

“They were generally old, blear-eyed, wrinkled dames,” says Scott,
“ugly and crippled, frequently papists, and sometimes atheists; of
cross-grained tempers and cynical dispositions.” They were often
poisoners, and generally monomaniacs. Epilepsy and all diseases not
understood by the physicians were set down to the influence of witches.
They were said to make two covenants with the devil, one public and
one private. Then the novices were presented to the devil in person,
and instructed to renounce the Christian faith, tread on the Cross,
break the fasts, joining hands with Satan, paying him homage, and
yielding him body and soul. Some witches sold themselves for a term of
years, and some for ever; then they kissed the devil, and signed their
bond with blood, and a banquet ended the meeting; their dances being
accompanied with shouts of “Ha, ha! devil, devil! Dance here, dance
here! Play here, play here! Sabbath, sabbath!” Before they departed
the devil was said to give them philtres and amulets. These women were
usually hypochondriacs, often driven by despair and misfortune to
confess any charge made against them.




CHAPTER XI.

SUPERSTITION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MEDICINE.


Superstition is a belief in what is wholly opposite to the laws of
the physical and moral world, and yet supposed to be attainable by
supernatural agency.

The words incantation and charm seem to have been derived from the
ancient practice of curing diseases by poetry and music. Democritus
says that many diseases are capable of being cured by the sound of a
flute when properly played. Marianus Capellus assures us also that
fevers may be cured by suitable songs. Galen believed the sound of the
flute efficacious in gout and epilepsy. Asclepiades actually employed
the trumpet for the relief of sciatica, and tells us it is to be
continued until the fibres of the part begin to palpitate, when the
pain will vanish. What terrible visions might be conjured up if such
remedies were used to-day.

The influence of superstition on medicine may be accounted for by
the fact, that from the very first, ideas with regard to the action
of drugs must have been combined with those concerning supernatural
agencies, for the phenomena of nature in very early times were
attributed to spirits. Diseases were supposed to be due to an evil
spirit, therefore to cast the disease out was equivalent to curing
it, and the methods used for this purpose were by no means always
ineffective in curing disease.

Incantations and spells were generally used in addition to a real
remedial agent, but the incantations usually got the credit for
effecting the cure.

In early times superstition played an important part in the cure of
disease, and it prevails to a certain extent to-day. “In the opinion of
the ignorant multitude,” says Lord Bacon, “witches and impostors have
always held a competition with physicians.”

There has ever been a peculiar propensity in the human mind to foster a
belief in the supernatural, and perhaps more especially in respect to
medicine on account of the obscurity and ignorance with which it was
once surrounded. In early times almost every disease was attributed to
punishment for evil-doing, the working of some demon, or the influence
of the stars; hence the use of any article that was strange or rare as
a remedy.

“The employment of precious stones for medicinal purposes,” writes
De Boot, “arises from an Arab superstition which supposed them to be
the residence of spirits.” They were first used as amulets, and then
gradually came to be administered inwardly for various ailments.

“Mystery is the very soul of empiricism,” says Paris; “withdraw
the veil, and the confidence of the patient instantly languishes.”
A propensity to attribute every ordinary and natural effect
to extraordinary and unnatural causes, is one of the striking
characteristics of medical superstition.

The properties that herbs possessed were attributed by the old
physicians to the planets which were supposed to influence them, and
our medical men to this day head their prescriptions with a sign
that originally meant an invocation to Jupiter, which is a surviving
relic of this old superstitious practice. Another very curious fact
with respect to medical superstition is, that many of the greatest
philosophers were firm believers in it. Lord Bacon is said to have
believed in the existence of a panacea that would prolong life beyond
its natural term. He considered that the principal cause of death
was the action of the external air in drying and exhausting the
body, which he thought might be prevented by nitre; but although he
took three grains of his favourite salt every morning for the last
thirty years of his life, he died at the age of sixty-six. We have
many customs at the present day which are a survival of the days of
superstition, and few have any idea of their origin. The mother, when
she hangs round the neck of her child the plaything known as a coral
and bells, little imagines she is perpetuating an ancient superstitious
practice. The soothsayers attributed many mystic properties to coral,
and it was believed to ward off the evil eye, and drive away devils and
evil spirits. For this purpose it was suspended from a child’s neck
as an amulet. Pliny and Dioscorides greatly esteemed the medicinal
properties of coral, and Paracelsus recommends that it should be worn
around the necks of infants to keep away fits, sorcery, charms, and to
serve as an antidote to poisons. The bells usually suspended to it were
originally intended to frighten away evil spirits, and not to amuse the
child alone.

Paris mentions a curious circumstance, _viz._, that the same
superstitious belief should exist among the negroes of the West Indies,
who affirm that the colour of coral is always affected by the state of
health of the wearer, it becoming paler in disease.

But all the remedies that originated in superstition were not entirely
useless. Some, whether by accident or not, had a natural power of
efficacy, and led to discoveries of importance. In the time of
James I., a powder known as the sympathetic powder of Sir Kenelm Digby
had a great reputation for healing wounds. Whenever a wound had been
inflicted, this powder was applied to the weapon which had caused it,
which was also smeared with ointment and dressed two or three times a
day. The wound itself was directed to be brought together and carefully
bound up with clean linen rags, but above all to be let alone for seven
days, at the end of which time it was generally found to be healed.
This was, of course, said to be due to the wonderful properties of
the sympathetic powder, instead of the fact of excluding the air from
the part and not interfering with nature’s own healing powers. The
mysterious sympathetic healing powder was afterwards said to be simply
calcined green vitriol. The rust of the spear of Telephus, alluded to
by Homer as a cure for the wounds which that weapon inflicted, was
probably verdigris, and led to the discovery of its use as a surgical
dressing.

The cures supposed to be performed by royal touch show the power
of faith over desire, or mind over matter. The royal surgeons who
introduced the patients to be touched for scrofula, doubtless took care
to choose those who had a tendency to recover, and who, if left to
nature, would probably have gradually recovered. Boswell says that Dr.
Johnson, when thirty months old, was taken by his mother to London to
be touched by Queen Anne, on the advice of Sir John Floyer, a physician
of Lichfield.

From time immemorial the ignorant have had the most unbounded
confidence in nauseous remedies, and it would seem as if the nastier
and more disgusting the medicines were, the greater faith they had in
them. The larger the price asked, the more implicit the faith seemed to
be. The Collyrium of Danares, a famous quack eye lotion, was sold at
Constantinople for £9 a bottle, and the elixirs sold by Paracelsus and
Van Helmont brought extortionate prices. The doctrine of Signatories,
as it was called, is of very great antiquity. It implied that every
natural substance which possesses any medicinal virtues, indicates, by
an obvious and well-marked external character, the disease for which it
is a remedy. Thus the bloodstone was used to stop bleeding, on account
of its marks resembling drops of blood. The root of the mandrake, on
account of its resemblance to the human form, was used as a remedy
for sterility. Turmeric was administered for jaundice, and poppies
for diseases of the head. Another belief of the ancients was that all
poisonous bodies possessed a powerful attraction for one another, and
that “like would cure like”. The hair of a mad dog was worn as a charm
to prevent hydrophobia, and the foot of the ape was used as a remedy
for its bite. On the same principle we are solemnly assured that three
scruples of the ashes of a witch, after she has been well and carefully
burnt at the stake, is a sure protection against the evil effects of
witchcraft.

Many ancient superstitions are so deeply rooted that they find
believers among the educated at the present day. Take, for instance,
the belief that many people have in the efficacy of red flannel. For
sore throat, rheumatism, or swelling, they believe it will cure when
flannel of no other colour will. This belief may be traced to the
colour of the cloth often used in incantations, which was always red.

In some parts of the country a wedding-ring is still believed to be a
universal cure for sore eyes.

A curious superstition is still practised in some parts of Wales for
the cure of the complaint called shingles. The term for shingles in
Welsh means “The Eagle.” It was supposed in ancient times that if
a person ate of the flesh of the eagle he would never suffer from
shingles, and his direct descendants down to the ninth generation could
not contract it, and furthermore had the power transmitted to them of
curing others so afflicted by blowing on them.




CHAPTER XII.

LOVE PHILTRES.


Love Philtres were administered for the purpose of inspiring affection
or hatred. In very early times they were frequently used, concocted,
and sold by the magicians or sorcerers, who often obtained large sums
of money in exchange, from amorously-inclined gallants and maidens.
They were composed of various extraordinary ingredients used in
medicine at the time, and were either in the form of a powder, which
was to be surreptitiously slipped into an article of food to be
swallowed, or in a liquid for anointing the clothes or hands, and by
things to be held in the mouth.

It is recorded that some sorcerers even used the Host, upon which
they traced letters of blood. The following were also used in the
preparation of philtres: the entrails of animals, feathers of birds,
scales of fishes, parings of nails, powdered loadstones, and human
blood.

It is little wonder they excited hatred. The _poculum amatorium_ or
love philtre of the Romans, and the _philtron_ of the Greeks, were
venerated with superstitious awe in early times. They became used to
such an extent by the former nation under the first emperors, that
a decree was promulgated under the Roman criminal law whereby love
philtres were deemed as poison, and the punishment inflicted on those
using them was very severe. Hairs from a wolf’s tail, the bones of the
left side of a toad which had been eaten by ants (those of the right
side were used to cause hatred), the blood of pigeons, skeletons of
snakes, the entrails of animals, and other equally disgusting things,
were included as ingredients in Roman love philtres.

Pliny states, that there were also philtres for quenching love. Thus,
“if a nest of young swallows is placed in a box and buried, on being
dug up after a few days it will be found that some of the birds have
died with their beaks closed, while others die as if gasping for
breath”. The latter were used for exciting love, and the former for
producing the opposite effect.

Horace recommends a bone torn from a hungry and voracious dog, and
Virgil describes a complete apparatus wherewith a maiden seeks to
recover the affections of a faithless lover.

The early Greek and Roman magicians used “hippomanes,” which was
the lump of flesh found in the head of a colt newly foaled, as an
ingredient in their philtres.

About the sixteenth century philtres came to be compounded and sold
by the apothecaries, who doubtless derived from them a lucrative
profit. Favourite ingredients with these later practitioners were
mandragora, cantharides, and vervain, which were supposed to have
Satanic properties. They were mixed with other herbs said to have an
aphrodisiac effect; also man’s gall, the eyes of a black cat, and the
blood of a lapwing, bat, or goat.

In Gay’s _Shepherds’ Week_ reference is thus made to love philtres:—

    “Strait to the ’pothecary’s shop I went,
    And in love powder all my money spent;
    Behap what will next Sunday after prayers
    When to the alehouse Lubberkin repairs,
    These flies into his mug I’ll throw,
    And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow”.

“Botanomancy,” Ferrand states, “which is done by the noise or crackling
that kneeholme, box, or bay leaves make when they are crushed betwixt
one’s hands or cast into the fire, was of old in use among the pagans,
who were wont to bruise poppy flowers betwixt their hands, and by this
means thinking to know their loves.”


A CHARME OR AN ALLAY FOR LOVE.

    “If so be a toad be laid
    In a sheepskin newly flaid,
    And that ty’d to man ’twill sever
    Him and his affections ever.”—Herrick’s _Hesperides_.

The winged ant was another favourite ingredient in love philtres, and
was first used by Rhazes, who prepared the winged ant in the form
of tincture by maceration in alcohol. This tincture, dropped in the
homœopathic manner into wine or mixed with food, was supposed to have
a wonderful action in producing symptoms of the tender passion in the
coldest hearts. The winged ants alone were used in this preparation,
which enjoyed a long reputation, and was subsequently known as
“Hoffmann’s Water of Magnanimity,” and largely used in the seventeenth
century as an aphrodisiac.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE PIONEERS OF PHARMACY AND BOTANY—PHYSIC GARDENS.


The operation of distillation was unknown to the ancient Greeks and
Romans, although Dioscorides and Pliny describe a process which may
be considered that of distillation in its infancy. The process was
not known in England until the time of Henry II. To the Arabs we are
indebted for the discovery of manna, cassia, senna, and rhubarb, also
aromatics, such as musk, nutmeg, mace, and cloves. Blisters were known
and used by the Arabs, who are the first also on record to mention
sugar extracted from the cane, and sugar-candy, which they called honey
of cane.

Rhazes and Avicenna were the first physicians to introduce improvements
in pharmaceutical preparations. The latter was the first to mention
the three mineral acids, and distinguish between vegetable and mineral
alkalies.

In the year 1226, Roger Bacon, a native of Ilchester, in Somersetshire,
and a Franciscan monk, may be said to have laid the foundation of
chemical science in Europe. He was excommunicated by Pope Nicholas,
and imprisoned for ten years for supposed dealings with the devil.
He professed to have discovered an elixir of life, which he affirmed
prevented corruption of any constitution and the infirmities of age for
many years. Following Bacon, at the end of the thirteenth century, came
Arnoldas de Villa Nova, or Villeneuve, who was the first to recommend
the distilled spirit of wine impregnated with certain herbs, from which
we date our use of tinctures in medicine.

Basil Valentine followed as a pioneer in the administration of metallic
medicines; he made volatile alkali from sal-ammoniac, and noticed the
production of ether from alcohol.

In the year 1493, Phillipus Theophrastus, Bombast of Hohenheim,
afterwards known as Paracelsus, was born near Zurich in Switzerland, a
man of extraordinary conceit and boldness, but who wrought a greater
change and influence in _materia medica_ than any physician since
the time of Galen. He travelled all over Europe, and so obtained an
extensive knowledge of chemistry and medicine.

This genius of science and quackery, for such Paracelsus must be
termed, who scoffed at all the doctrines believed in since the time of
Hippocrates, professed to have received his knowledge from the Divine
Being Himself. His sheer impudence carried the sympathies of the public
with him, and they kissed the skirts of his gown as he passed through
the streets, whilst he had among his followers many princes and nobles.

He denounced the apothecaries, who, he said, “could only compose
insipid syrups and repulsive concoctions, when they have ready to hand
at the bottom of their stills, extracts and dyes derived from the best
vegetables and minerals”. He disagreed with the doctors also, whose
prescriptions he stigmatised as barbarous, and was much against the
use of correctives being added to pharmaceutical recipes when they
had no natural relation to the preparation itself. He believed in the
existence of an active principle in plants, which he termed the “Ether
of Aristotle,” that could be isolated and used to avert the various
disorders of the human body—an idea which is now the leading spirit
in pharmaceutical research. His labours did much to stimulate the
practical side of chemistry, though his language was mysterious, as,
like other alchemists, he wrapped up all his wisdom and his ignorance
in the garb of allegory. He was reported to carry about a familiar
spirit in the pommel of a long sword that always hung at his side.

Paracelsus is said to have been the first to use mercury internally;
he also employed opium, antimony, and lead largely in his treatment;
and devised a process for the preparation of red oxide of mercury. He
was sent for to many of the European Courts, and by the interest of
Erasmus was made Professor of Chemistry at Bale, the first chair that
was established in Europe. It was here while seated in his chair, that
with arrogant impudence he burnt with great solemnity the writings of
Galen and Avicenna, saying that “if God would not impart the secrets of
physic, it was not only allowable, but was justifiable, to consult the
devil”.

He had the greatest contempt for his fellow physicians, and said he had
more knowledge in the very down on his bald pate than was in all their
writings, and in the buckles of his shoes there was more learning than
in Galen and Avicenna, and in his beard more experience than all their
universities. The man was a mass of conceit and egotism, yet feared and
liked by the people for his boldness.

Latterly he took to drinking heavily, seldom taking off his clothes for
many nights together. At length he broke down, and the end came at
the age of forty-eight, when this singular man died after a few hours’
illness at Saltzburg, in Austria, a bottle of his boasted panacea for
all ills being found in his pocket. He believed the human body to be
composed of salt, sulphur, and mercury, and that in these “three fast
substances” health and disease consist. To give Paracelsus his due,
although empiricism and quackery were the chief elements in his career,
he exerted an undoubted influence on the medical practice of his time,
and with all his egotism did his best to advance the science and art of
medicine.

The next pioneer was Van Helmont, who flourished some hundred years
later. He was the first to notice the existence of gases, also to
use alum in uterine hæmorrhage, through which he acquired a great
reputation.

Little was known of _materia medica_ by the nations of the West from
the eighth to the tenth century. The chief cultivation of medicinal
herbs took place in the monasteries, each having its own botanical
garden, which contributed much to the progress of medicine. At this
time the knowledge of the medicinal value of herbs and roots was
much more advanced in the East, and we find that during the reign
of Almansour, in the eighth century, a large school was founded at
Bagdad, which became a refuge for scientists when exiled from Athens
and Alexandria. The works of Aristotle and Galen were translated into
Syriac, and the greatest generosity and encouragement were shown to
_savants_ who settled there. Before this the Arabs had considerable
knowledge of the use of plants in medicine, and had made some valuable
discoveries. Their physicians recommended the use of senna, tamarinds,
and cassia in place of the violent purgatives used by the Greek
physicians, and a number of new plants were introduced by Rhazes from
India, Persia, and Syria. Mesué wrote his treatise on medicine (_De
Remedica_), which, on being translated into Latin, was used as a manual
in all the schools up to the Renaissance.

Constantine was the first to introduce the most noted Arabic works
into Europe, himself a writer of no little repute. Then several Arab
travellers added to the store of knowledge; among these, Ebor-Taitor,
a native of Malaga, travelled in Asia to study plants, and eventually
became minister of the Caliph at Cairo.

Otho, of Cremona, in a poem of 1500 lines, contributed his knowledge
of plants, and John of Milan, in his _Code of the School of Salerno_,
compiled the discoveries of a century in medical botany.

Coming to the twelfth century, scientific progress was not so rapid,
yet all the investigation that was made originated in the study of
medicine. Most of the monasteries and convents besides their botanical
gardens, had collections of minerals and animals, which were carefully
watched and tended, and the monks and nuns would not only administer
to the sick of their own orders, but also to the suffering who claimed
their charity. Once lodged there, the treatment was good and wholesome,
and consisted mostly of decoctions of simples, backed up by good
kitchen medicine, quietness, and rest. One or two monks who had a
special knowledge of herbs were usually allotted to this department.
It can then hardly be wondered at, that during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries most of the records we have of medicine are from
works by the brethren of the monasteries. An excellent collection of
recipes, comprising also a summary of plants, animals, and minerals was
compiled by Hildegarde, Abbess of Bingen, and called the _Jardin de
Santé_.

This good lady, like many other abbesses of her time, was much
interested in the art of healing. She cultivated her own medicinal
plants, and carefully noted down their properties for the use of
others, and thus left a valuable record.

In the thirteenth century an advance was made in _materia medica_ by
Gilbert and Hernicus Arviell, two Englishmen who travelled through Asia
to study plants and their uses. Simon de Cordo, called Simon of Genoa,
also took a botanising exploration into Sicily and the islands of the
Archipelago, and afterwards wrote a botanic dictionary.

Another eminent botanist of this period was Peter de Crescenzi, a man
of good birth and fortune, who was born at Bologna in 1330, and who
greatly interested himself in botany and horticulture. His great work,
which was translated into several languages, was called _Opus Rubarium
Commodorum_. Contemporary with Peter were three names we must not omit,
_viz._, Vincent de Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, and Arnaud de Villeneuve,
who professed a knowledge of alchemy, astrology, and physic. Vincent
de Beauvais was a Dominican monk, and his great work, the _Speculum
Naturale_, is saturated with the superstition of the time. In this book
he states, “the mandragora is of the same shape as the human body; the
winged dragon is capable of carrying off an ox, and devouring the same
whilst flying”. He also describes the scythion lamb, a sort of animal
plant which had roots and grew in the ground, and other fearsome
creatures, and declared that “in Scotland the fruits of certain trees,
when they fall into the water, produce the birds called black divers”.
Villeneuve wrote many treatises on plants and animals, and eventually
became teacher of medicine and botany at the University of Paris. He
was undoubtedly a man in advance of his time, and boldly declared “that
the most solemn mysteries of the Catholic faith could be explained by
the teachings of natural history and experimental physics”.

He was therefore accused by the magistrates of sorcery and magic, but
escaped through the special protection of Charles of Anjou into Italy,
where he settled for a long time.

The fourteenth century saw little advance in the medical art, but it
was enriched by one or two great works. One of these, written in Latin
by Bartholomew Glanvil, an English monk, was a kind of encyclopædia of
immense size, and was called _Liber de Proprietatibus Rerum_, and had a
great reputation for centuries afterwards.

The advent of printing about the middle of the fifteenth century
rapidly spread the knowledge of more recent discoveries throughout
Europe, and many large works on botany and herbalism, illustrated
with woodcuts, were published at Mayence and Louvain. At Venice
many of the works of the old Arab physicians, Avicenna, Mesué, and
others, were printed and eagerly purchased. The discovery of America
in 1492 heralded the introduction of numerous fresh additions to
_materia medica_, which were brought to this country by explorers and
naturalists.

In the sixteenth century, by the labours and researches of George
Agricola, a German, and Conrad Gesner, a Swiss, a considerable advance
was made in the knowledge of what was called chemical medicine and
botany. Agricola, who was the greatest mineralogist the world had then
seen, explored and spent much time in the mines of Bohemia and Saxony,
and thus obtained a practical knowledge of the then known methods of
the working of metals. His contemporary, Conrad Gesner, born at Zurich
in 1516, has been called the originator of scientific botany, as he was
the first to discover a method of recognising each genus and kind by
examining the organs of fructification, and in this way discovered 1800
new varieties. A famous physic garden was planted in Paris in the early
part of the seventeenth century by Jacques Gohory, an enthusiastic
pharmacist, and this garden eventually became part of the _Jardin des
Plantes_. In connection with this garden a school of medicine was
founded, the first occupant of the chair of chemistry being William
Davisson, a Scotchman, and predecessor to Lefebvre, who afterwards
became a chemist at St. James’s.

The practice of the teachers of this time was to dictate to their
students, and in order to save themselves the trouble of dictating
and the students the trouble of writing, which was a very laborious
matter in those days, the lecturer would write a book. Thus Jean Beguin
wrote a chemical text-book in 1612, which passed through no fewer than
fifty-three editions.

We must not omit to mention two other pioneers of this period, who
made important discoveries in botany; they were Matthias of Lille,
who eventually settled in England, and Andrew Cesalpin, professor of
botany at Pisa. The former first formulated the true principles of
classification of plants and arrangement into families, such as the
orchids, palms, and mosses; and to the latter belongs the honour of
having devised the first system of botany. Having compared the process
of generation in animals to the seeds of plants, he distinguished male
plants by their stamens, and those which yielded seed as female.

The next era is marked by the publication of the first pharmacopœia
at Nuremberg in 1542. “For this act,” says Paris, “we are indebted
to Valerius Cordus, a young student, who, during a transient visit at
that place, accidentally produced a collection of medical receipts
which he had selected from the works of the past esteemed writers, and
with which the physicians of Nuremberg were so highly pleased that
they urged him to print it for the benefit of the apothecaries, and
obtained the sanction of the Senate to the undertaking.” To this slight
circumstance we owe the institution of pharmacopœias. The first
_London Pharmacopœia_ was, however, not published until the reign
of James I., in 1618, of which there were twelve subsequent editions,
the last being in 1841. The _Dublin Pharmacopœia_ first appeared
in 1807, the last edition being published in 1850. Until the Medical
Act passed in 1858, the right of publishing the _Pharmacopœia_ for
England, Scotland, and Ireland was vested in the College of Physicians
of London, Edinburgh, and Ireland respectively; and as these books
contained several preparations similar in name and different in
strength, such obvious danger arose for travellers that the _British
Pharmacopœia_, published in 1864, became, by Act of Parliament, the
standard for Great Britain and Ireland.

The Chelsea Physic Garden is the oldest public botanical garden in
Great Britain, but there were private ones of older date, such as that
of Gerard, the author of _The Herbal_, which was situated in Holborn,
and that of Tradescant, the famous Dutch traveller, gardener to
James I., who had an extensive garden of exotic plants in Lambeth.

The founders of the Chelsea Garden were the members of the Society of
Apothecaries, who have maintained it for over two centuries entirely
for scientific purposes, as was stipulated in the deed of gift,
executed by Sir Hans Sloane, in which the growing or cultivation of
plants for purely pharmaceutical purposes, or for trade, was strictly
forbidden. The origin of this so-called Physic Garden was somewhat
amusing, and anything but scientific. The ground was first fixed upon
as an eligible spot for building a boathouse for the state barge of
the Apothecaries’ Company. This ground was walled in about 1674, and
planted with trees in 1678, and herbs were grown in it for use in the
company’s laboratories, some of these plants being from time to time
exchanged for others from the University of Leyden. Sir Hans (then Dr.)
Sloane bought the estate in 1712; and, as might have been expected of
a man of his parts, a pupil of the chemist Stahl and of the botanist
Tournefort, and a friend of the great Ray, a new era of usefulness was
begun in the Chelsea Garden. In 1722 he handed over the land to the
Apothecaries’ Society, at a yearly rental of £5, and an undertaking
that fifty specimens of fifty species of distinct plants, well dried
and mounted as herbarium specimens and properly named, should be
handed over to the Royal Society each year until 2000 had been duly
delivered. In a catalogue issued in 1730, written by Miller, the head
gardener, are enumerated 499 plants, mostly medicinal, so one may judge
of the extent of the gardens at that time. Exotics were cultivated in
hothouses in 1732, and in 1736 Linnæus paid a visit to the garden.

Thomas Dover, the originator of Dover’s powder, was born in England in
the year 1660. He settled and practised medicine for a time in Bristol;
left there for a period, and returned again. He lived with, and was
contemporaneous with Sydenham. He gained much professional reputation
on the occasion of a severe epidemic of fever. This may have suggested
to him the use of ipecacuanha and opium in a compound.

In Dover’s day and time, the apothecaries were in the ascendancy, being
the medical practitioners, whilst the physicians were chiefly called in
to attend in childbirth and protracted illness. Indeed, it is naïvely
stated that the apothecary surgeons rode in their chaises, while the
doctors _walked_, and that the former were generally first consulted
when the choice of a family physician was to be made. Mercury had
at this time an unrestrained use—perhaps _abuse_ would be a better
word,—and much severe public stricture was made upon the fact. Crude
quicksilver was administered, and Dover was a warm advocate of its
use—in fact, he was called the _quicksilver doctor_. One Captain
Henry Coit, a patient of Dover’s, took an ounce and a quarter of crude
mercury daily, until he had used more than two pounds weight! Dover
professed to believe that mercury freed the patient from all vermicular
diseases, opened all obstructions, and made a pure balsam of the blood.

The doctors and apothecaries were at loggerheads. Dover said the best
way to affront the latter was to order too little physic—each patient
being deemed to be worth a certain sum to the dispenser.

In 1708 Dover joined the company of a group of Bristol merchants
in a scheme to fit out two vessels for privateering in the South
Seas. Dover, it seems, went as captain, and the voyage was eminently
successful in booty. They took in various reprisals from the
Spaniards—the hoards of treasure and gold which they in turn had
obtained from the native Indians—the principle of _might_ applied to
_right_. The expedition returned to Britain enriched with spoil, the
treasure amounting to £170,000 sterling. It was during this memorable
voyage that Dover, landing with some of his crew on the island of Juan
Fernandez, discovered the existence of Alexander Selkirk—Robinson
Crusoe—in his dreary solitude on this desert shore.




CHAPTER XIV.

AMULETS, TALISMANS AND CHARMS.


From very remote times a somewhat curious link has existed between the
art of healing and religion, and those who proposed the cure of the
body or the soul have ever sought to work upon that uncanny chord we
call superstition, which pervades more or less all classes of mankind.
The influence of superstition manifested itself in many ways, and
among others the belief in amulets, talismans and charms survives even
to-day. Two thousand years ago they were dispensed by the priests, and
afterwards by those who practised medicine, alchemy, and astrology,
during the middle ages, when medical practice was mainly composed of a
mixture of white magic, witchcraft, and religion.

An amulet consisted of an object in wood, stone, or metal, carved or
painted; also certain words or signs, written or spoken, which were
supposed to possess some mysterious virtue or hidden property, and
avert disease and death from the wearer. The word means something
that is suspended from the neck, or bound round a part of the body,
to strengthen it; to drive off disease or poison, bringing about
certain results of a peculiar character, and invested with supernatural
virtues. Portions of animals and herbs were also used for this purpose.
Talismans were objects, usually of metal or one of the precious stones,
worn about the person to ward off danger, ill-luck, or the evil eye, as
well as for their supposed medicinal virtues.

By their means it was thought possible to hold commune with the world
of spirits. Their origin is lost in antiquity, but they were used by
the Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, and Jews hundreds of years before
the Christian era, and afterwards by the Greeks and Romans. It is
probable the Jews learned the use of amulets from the Egyptians at
the time of the captivity, by whom they were very generally worn.
Egyptian amulets were mostly composed of stone or porcelain objects,
fashioned in various forms. Some were emblematic of deities, such as
the nilometer, which was a symbol of Osiris, while others represented
human heads or the figures of animals. Many were engraved with zodiacal
symbols which had special significance. The crab was worn to ward off
fevers, the bull to guard against the evil-doing of others, fishes
kept away gout and kindred diseases, and the scorpion rendered the
wearer invulnerable to the bites or stings of venomous reptiles. It was
customary with the Egyptians to attach certain amulets to the bodies
of the dead to protect them from evil spirits, and they are frequently
found suspended from the necks of mummies. Amulets are worn in Egypt
to-day, and also in most Mohammedan countries. They usually take the
form of a small strip of parchment, on which is written some cabalistic
sign or a few lines from the Koran, the whole being enclosed in a small
leather or tin case, and hung around the neck. Amulets were also known
and much used by the early Greeks. Pliny mentions their virtue, while
Galen, Dioscorides, Cardamus, and other ancient writers on medicine,
speak of their value in warding off disease. Galen tells us that the
Egyptian king, Nechepsus, who lived 630 years B.C., wore a green
jasper cut into the form of a dragon, surrounded with rays, which,
applied externally to the region of the digestive organs, was said to
wonderfully strengthen that part. The Romans were also great believers
in the power of the amulet, and in the declining era of the great
empire the custom of wearing them became so general that the Emperor
Caracalla made a public edict, that no man should wear an amulet about
his person, under heavy penalties.

Amulets have been known to that curious nation the Chinese from the
earliest period of their history, and are still worn by them. They are
sold by the priests in the form of small pieces of metal, chains, or
characters written on a piece of skin or parchment, and worn as a charm
against accident, sickness, etc.

To enumerate all the extraordinary objects used as amulets in early
times, and the wonderful virtues attached to them, would fill a volume,
so we must be content to mention a few of the most curious.

The amulets and talismans probably held in the highest esteem were
those in the form of precious stones. They were supposed to be
influenced in some mysterious way by the planets, and to be the abode
of spirits. Five or six hundred years ago a lady would present her
knight with a talisman on his departure on some adventurous or warlike
expedition; this often took the form of a jewel set in the hilt of his
sword. The diamond was thus supposed to endow the wearer with courage,
and make him more fearless than careful. A jacinth had the reputation
of being able to strengthen the heart, and was often worn close to
the region of that organ, fashioned into the form of some animal or
saint. The sapphire was supposed to possess a Divine gift of sharpening
the intellect, and was also worn as a preventive against the bites of
venomous animals. A wearer of this stone was also said to have the
power of resisting “necromantick apparitions”. The emerald was worn
in a ring to prevent giddiness and strengthen the memory. Garcious
quaintly states: “It takes away vain and foolish fears as of devils
and hobgoblins, folly and anger, and causeth good conditions; if it do
so being worn about one, reason will tell him, that being beaten into
powder and taken inwardly it will do much more”. Great faith was placed
in the ruby as an amulet to ward off plagues and pestilences. Cardamus
says: “It has the power of making the wearer cheerful, and banishing
idle and foolish thoughts”. The amethyst was supposed to promote
temperance and sobriety, and cause the wearer to abstain from strong
drinks and from taking too much sleep. By other writers it is also
said to quicken the wit and repel vapours from the head—altogether
a very useful kind of amulet to have about. The chrysolite was said
to ward off fevers; while the onyx, worn round the neck, was supposed
to prevent an attack of epilepsy. The opal was believed to cure weak
eyes, and the topaz to cure inflammation and keep the wearer from
sleep-walking. Lapis-lazuli, worn as a jewel, was said to make the
wearer fortunate and rich, while amulets of jasper resisted fevers
and dropsy. Ancient warriors often carried an amulet composed of
bloodstone, which was supposed to stop bleeding when applied to a
wound. The old Egyptian amulets were mostly carved in stone, porcelain,
carnelian, or lapis-lazuli, etc. They were fashioned in many forms, the
most common being the heart, the symbolic eye, two fingers, disc and
horns, snakes, the tat, and the papyrus sceptre.

[Illustration: The Tat. The Heart. The Pillow. The Eye. Two Fingers.
Papyrus Sceptre.

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN AMULETS OF GOLD AND CLAY FOUND IN MUMMY CASES.]

Coming to those fashioned in metal, amulets of gold were also highly
esteemed. The precious metal was supposed to strengthen the heart,
drive away melancholy, fever, and other infirmities. Silver was
attributed with the possession of similar properties, but in a lesser
degree. Zoroaster and Paracelsus advocated the use of metallic amulets.
Special value was attached to those made from a peculiar metal called
_electron_, which was composed of seven metals fused together in fixed
proportions. Amulet rings were always worn on the third finger, which
was called the medicine-finger by alchemists, through which they
believed the heart was most susceptible to influence. Written amulets
usually consisted of some cabalistic character, or a few words written
on a small piece of skin or parchment. This was either enclosed in
a tiny case and suspended from the neck, or bound against the body.
It was not uncommon for the physician of the fifteenth century to
write his prescription in mysterious characters, and hang it round
the neck of the patient, or bind it over the part nearest the seat
of the complaint. Of written amulets perhaps the most famous formula
was Abracadabra, which, when written on a piece of parchment in the
following manner, was said to protect the wearer from most diseases:—

  A B R A C A D A B R A
   A B R A C A D A B R
    A B R A C A D A B
     A B R A C A D A
      A B R A C A D
       A B R A C A
        A B R A C
         A B R A
          A B R
           A B
            A

Another common formula was the sign A II, which, inscribed on
parchment, was worn round the neck to prevent sore eyes. Others were
composed of astrological signs and certain numbers. A favourite
inscription was A B R A X A S, supposed to ward off fever and
pestilence.

The Jews used the fifth and sixth verses of the sixteenth Psalm as
an amulet to discover hidden thieves, it being supposed that on
repeating these words they would be compelled to come forth from their
hiding-places. The modern burglar requires an amulet of a somewhat
stronger nature in these prosaic days. A curious charm for warts,
used some 400 years ago, was to write on seven little wafers the
following words: Maximanus, Walchus, Johannes, Martinianus, Dionysius,
Constantius, Serapion, and sing a prescribed incantation first into
one ear, then into the other, and then above the patient’s poll, after
which a virgin was to hang the incantation around the patient’s neck,
when the warts would disappear. Another amulet to charm away warts was
an iron ring made from the chain of a gibbet. The following incantation
was supposed to stop bleeding from the nose: Make the sign of the Cross
thrice, repeat the Lord’s Prayer thrice; then say the _Ave Maria_, and
repeat the words Max, Hackx, Lyacx, Iseus, Christus. Among the many
strange and curious articles worn as amulets the old philosophers seem
to have had the greatest veneration for certain mysterious stones, such
as bezoar, the origin of which in most cases is exceedingly doubtful.
Dark and weird are the legends relating to the power of the toadstone,
that amulet so highly prized by witches and astrologers. Among other
properties it was supposed to protect its owner from the bites of
venomous animals. Lemnius tells us of “a stone of the bigness of a
bean, to be found in the gizzard of an old cock, which makes him that
wears it beloved, constant, bold, and valiant in fighting and sports”.
Such amulets brought big prices, and were eagerly sought after. The
toadstone was much esteemed as a charm against the bites of snakes and
reptiles; it also had a reputation for curing weak eyes and headache.
Orpheus believed that when this amulet was worn by a public speaker he
could always compel and hold the attention of his audience. A charm
against the evil eye consisted of a quill filled with mercury, sealed
at each end, and worn bound to the body. A small portion of the plant
called St. John’s Wort was carried about the person as a preventive
from harm by witches or devils. A toad, well dried in the sun, put into
a bag and hung round the neck, low enough to touch the region of the
heart, was used to allay hæmorrhage; and a very well salted herring
split open and applied to the soles of the feet was a noted remedy for
ague. An emerald suspended from the neck was worn as an amulet to ward
off the same complaint. _Aqua divina_, a famous remedy, supposed to
possess “magnetick power,” was prepared by macerating a human body in
water and distilling it twice or thrice. Human bones, various parts
of a mummy, and other equally gruesome objects, were supposed to be
endowed with some mysterious power to ward off accident, disease, and
death. In some parts of the country, especially in Cornwall, eel skins
were and are still used, tied round the legs to prevent cramp; and
two sticks laid crosswise on the bedroom floor were supposed to charm
away the same painful complaint. It is still a common custom in other
country districts to pass a weakly child through the split branch of a
tree in order to make it grow stronger; and a certain class have the
strongest belief in a charm of a romantic nature that is worked with
the gum called dragon’s blood.

A famous amulet, the remarkable history of which inspired Sir Walter
Scott to write _The Talisman_, was “The Lee Penny,” which we believe is
still in existence, and held in veneration in some parts of Scotland.
The singular history attached to this coin was as follows: Sir Simon
Lockhart, of Lee and Cartland, was a well-known knight in the time of
Robert the Bruce and his son David. He was one of the chief Scottish
knights who accompanied Lord Douglas on his expedition to the Holy
Land with the heart of King Robert Bruce, and was there engaged in the
war with the Saracens. Tradition goes on to state that he captured in
battle an emir of great rank and wealth, and fixed a price at which
he should be ransomed. The aged mother of the prisoner came to the
Christian camp to redeem her son, and on pulling out a large purse
which contained the ransom, a peculiar pebble inserted in a coin fell
to the ground. The old woman, it is said, showed such haste and anxiety
to recover it, that it gave the Scottish knight a high idea of its
value—on which he refused to set the emir at liberty till the amulet
was added to the ransom. This the woman consented to do, and also
explained to Sir Simon the use of the talisman, which was of great
repute. When dipped in water the liquid assumed the properties of a
styptic and a febrifuge, etc. Sir Simon Lockhart, after much experience
of its value, brought it home, and left it to his heirs, and it is
known as the “Lee penny” from the name of his native place. The coin
is said to be of the early Byzantine period. The most remarkable part
of its history, as stated in the introduction to _The Talisman_, was,
that it escaped condemnation in an extraordinary manner when the Church
of Scotland impeached many other cures of the kind which savoured of
the miraculous, as occasioned by sorcery, and censured the appeal to
them; “excepting only that to the amulet called the ‘Lee penny,’ to
which it had pleased God to annex certain healing virtues which the
Church did not presume to condemn”. It still exists, and its powers are
sometimes yet resorted to.

For epilepsy, a curious custom was to take the sick man by the hand and
whisper softly in his ear, “I conjure thee by the sun and moon, and by
the Gospel of the day delivered by God to Hubert, Giles, Cornelius, and
John, that thou rise and fall no more”.

When picking simples for burns the following charm was repeated:—

    “Hail to the holy herb,
    Growing on the ground,
    All in the Mount Calvary,
    First wert thou found.
    Thou art good for many a sore,
    And heal’st many a wound;
    In the name of Sweet Jesus,
    I take thee from the ground.”

To produce sleep, the following is recommended to be repeated:—

        “In nomine Patris up and down,
    Et filii et spiritus sancte upon my crown,
        Dear Christ upon my breast,
        Sweet Lady, send me eternal rest”.

The following was supposed to stop the flux:—

    “In the blood of Adam death was taken,
    In the blood of Christ it was all to slaken,
    And by the same blood I do thee charge
    That thou do run no longer at large”.

Singular virtues were supposed to be attached to a “dead man’s hand”.
In a Roman Catholic chapel in Ashton-in-Mackerfield, there is preserved
with great care in a white silk bag, a hand, which is still held in
veneration, and wonderful cures are said to have been wrought by this
ghastly relic.

The hand is said to have been that of one Father Edmund Arrowsmith, who
was executed at Lancaster in 1628, for apparently no greater offence
than that of being true to his faith. After his execution one of his
friends cut off his right hand, which was preserved for many years at
Bryn Hall, in Lancashire, and afterwards removed to Ashton.

This “Holy hand” was formerly held in great esteem in Lancashire, and
pilgrims came from all parts of the country to receive its touch,
which was reputed to cure various diseases. It was believed to remove
tumours when rubbed over the part, and restore health to the paralysed.

There is a curious superstition still prevalent in some parts of
Lancashire, that when cat’s hair gets into the stomach it causes
sickness, which may be cured by eating a piece of egg-shell once a day.

Consumption was believed by the ignorant to be produced by drinking
water which had been boiled too long. The cure was to dig a hole in
the earth, lie in it face downwards, and breathe into the soil. This
extraordinary remedy was also largely used for coughs, asthma, and
those suffering from hysteria.

A curious charm is still practised in Devonshire as a cure for the
complaint called a white swelling or white leg. Bandages are used
to tie round the afflicted limb, over which the following charm is
repeated nine times, and each time followed by the Lord’s Prayer:—

“As Christ was walking, He saw the Virgin Mary sitting on a cold
marble stone. He said unto her, ‘If it is a white ill thing, or a red
ill thing, or a black ill thing, or a sticking, crackling, pricking,
stabbing, bone ill thing, or a sore ill thing, or a swelling ill thing,
or a rotten ill thing, or a cold creeping ill thing, or a smarting ill
thing, let it fall from thee to the earth in My name, and the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.’”

This comprehensive charm would seem to cover a multitude of ills indeed.

The following charms are taken from a MS. of the year 1475:—


_A Charme to Staunch Blood._

“Jesus, that was in Bethlehem born, and baptyzed was in the flumen
Jordane, as stente the water at hys comyng, so stente the blood of thys
man N, thy serwaunt, throw the virtu of thy holy name + Jesu + and of
thy Cosyn swete Sent Jon. And sey thys Charme fyve tymes with fyve
Pater nostirs, in the worshep of the fyve woundys.”


_For Fever._

“Wryt thys wordys on a lorell lef + Ysmael + Ysmael + adjuro vos per
angelum ut soporetetur iste Homo N. and ley thys lef under hys head
that he wote not thereof, and let hym ete Letuse oft and drynk Ip’e
seed small grounden in a morter, and temper yt with ale.”

It is said that the inhabitants of Colonsay had an ancient custom of
fanning the face of the sick with the leaves of the Bible.

Many and varied are the charms for curing warts. “For warts,” says
Sir Thomas Brown, “we rub our hands before the moon and commit any
maculated part to the touch of the dead.” Grose tells us to “steal a
piece of beef from a butcher’s shop and rub your warts with it; then
throw it down the ‘necessary house,’ or bury it; and as the beef rots
your warts will decay”.

The leaf of the castor-oil plant worn round the neck was believed to
ward away devils, because the leaf is like an open hand.

In Bale’s _Interlude_ the following charms are given:—

    “For the coughe take Judas Eare
    With the parynge of a Peare,
    And drynke them without feare
        If ye will have remedy:
    Thre syppes are for the hyckocke,
    And six more for the chyckocke;
    Thus my pretty pyckocke
        Recover by and by.
    If ye cannot slepe but slumber,
    Geve Otes unto Saynt Uncumber,
    And Beanes in a certen number
        Unto Saynt Blase and Saynt Blythe.
    Give Onyons to Saynt Cutlake
    And Garlycke to Saynt Cyoyake,
    If ye wyll spurne the heade ake.
        Ye shall have them at Quene hyth.”

Amulet rings were made from various metals, and worn to ward off
disease and misfortune.

In Berkshire there is a popular superstition that a ring made from a
piece of silver collected at the communion is a cure for convulsions
and fits.

Rings were also made from coffin-nails dug out of a grave, and
coffin-hinges, and used to cure cramp. Boorde, in his _Introduction to
Knowledge_ (1542), says: “The kynges of Englande doth halowe every yere
Crampe Rynges, ye which Rynges worne on one’s Fynger doth helpe them
whych hath the crampe”.

One of the favourite charms of the early Britons was the _anguineum_,
or snake’s egg, which was supposed to be produced from the saliva of
serpents, and besides its healing properties it got the credit of being
able to float against the current.

Many of the ancient writers believed that all charms were impotent
without the repetition of certain words. Thus the following words
are recommended by Barrett to be repeated as a charm against flux of
blood:—

    “In the blood of Adam arose death,
    In the blood of Christ death is extinguished.
    In the name of Christ I command thee, O blood,
        That thou stop fluxing.”

A piece of clean new vellum bearing the letters

  יהרה

was considered a powerful amulet against ague.

Pliny makes several allusions to the poison of toads, and Juvenal tells
us of the lady

    “Who squeezed a toad into her husband’s wine”.

The life of James VI. of Scotland was once attempted by a woman named
Agnes Sampson, who confessed on her trial, that in order to compass
the king’s death, she had hung up a black toad for nine days and
collected the juice that fell from it. The toadstone was greatly valued
as an amulet against a great variety of diseases. It was often set in
valuable rings, which were handed down from generation to generation.
Some are said to have borne a figure resembling a toad on their
surface. They varied in colour, some being dark-grey, and others of a
brownish fawn colour. These stones were supposed to grow only in very
old toads, and to be extracted when they were dying. In reality, they
were manufactured of fused borax and many other materials.

The toadstone was supposed to be specially powerful against witchcraft
and poison. When placed in proximity to the latter, or applied to
one bewitched, the stone was believed to sweat or change colour. It
was sometimes given internally as a remedy for fever or the bites of
reptiles. The toad itself was also credited with medicinal virtues,
and was given in plague and small-pox. Aubrey gives a process for
preparing the toad for internal use, in which “twenty great fatt toads
are directed to be stewed slowly, while alive, in a pipkin on the fire.
The calcined remains are again heated, and then finely powdered.” Sir
Kenhelm Digby speaks of their virtues, and recommends toads for quinsy,
bleeding at the nose, and, above all, a most valuable remedy in king’s
evil and scrofula. Within the last fifty years “toad doctors” visited
most country fairs, often selling bags containing the legs torn from
the body of a living toad for six or seven shillings each.

Among other curious charms used by the Romans to prolong life,
especially among the aged, was the singular practice of being breathed
upon by young girls. This custom is frequently mentioned by ancient
writers, and was believed to be efficacious also in prolonging life
in certain diseases. A reference to this singular charm is recorded
by Kohansen in an inscription which was discovered at Rome, cut in a
marble tablet, and which ran as follows:—

                “TO ÆSCULAPIUS AND HEALTH,
                    this is erected by
                   L. CLODIUS HERMIPPUS,
  who by the breath of young girls lived 115 years and 5
                           days
       at which physicians were no little surprised.
                          ------
         Successive generations lead such a life.”
                          ------

In later times amulets in civilised countries merged into the wearing
of images of saints, or consecrated objects, and the use of scapularies
by Roman Catholics at the present time. There is little doubt that
the custom of wearing precious stones in rings, and the charms worn
as pendants to watch chains, originated in the amulet and talisman.
Who can say that the belief in such charms has even yet died out? How
many people are there at the present day who do not carry about them
some coin, token, or object, to which they would probably be ashamed
to confess, they attach some mysterious virtue? The belief in keeping
a crooked sixpence or a broken ring is evidence of that peculiar vein
of superstition that runs through most of us, which, strange though
it may seem, the advance of science and education has not altogether
dispelled.




CHAPTER XV.

MONK PHYSICIANS—ITINERANT DOCTORS—SURGERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES.


The treatment prescribed by the monks, who were ready to cure the
body as well as the soul, consisted mainly of holy water, prayer, the
touching of relics, and a number of decoctions of herbs, the properties
of which they were acquainted with. Many of these physician monks
wandered about the country devoting themselves to the wants of the sick.

During the eleventh century hospitals began to spring up in various
parts of the country and over Europe. They seem to have originated
at the time of the crusades. Lacroix says: “The Johannists, and
the brotherhoods of St. Mary and St. Lazarus devoted themselves to
missions of charity in the East; in France, there were the brothers
of St. Antony and of the Holy Ghost; and throughout the world the
heroic chevaliers of St. John of Jerusalem or of the Templars, whose
countless establishments combined the triple character of conventual
church, almshouse, and fortress, and who, attired in a dress both
military and monastic, wore a mantle similar to that seen in the
statues of Æsculapius, as a sign of the double mission—beneficent and
warlike—which they had sworn to fulfil”.

Each of these orders had a special form of treatment, and took charge
of specific diseases. Thus, the Templars paid special attention to
those pilgrim soldiers and travellers particularly troubled with
ophthalmia, scurvy, or those suffering from wounds. The Johannists
professed the cure of epidemical disease and pestilence. The order
of St. Antony looked after those stricken with dysenteries and those
complaints known as St. Anthony’s fire, while the Lazarists treated
leprosy, small-pox, and pustular fevers. The first school of nurses
of which we have record, is one organised by Hildegarde, Abbess of
Rupertsberg, who died 1180. These nuns gave great assistance in
the hospitals. Thus the monks about the twelfth century tended the
bodies as well as the souls, and even accompanied armies on military
expeditions in that capacity.

In the thirteenth century faculties were established at Montpellier,
Salerno, and Paris, by the order of papal bulls, to grant degrees
in medicine. In order to obtain the title of master physician, the
candidate had first to become a clerk, then pass an examination before
masters or doctors selected from the staff of the college by the Bishop
of Maguelonne.

The barbers at this time came to occupy an important position in
medicine, and were promoted to the rank of subordinate surgeons,
chiefly for blood-letting and minor accidents.

In the fourteenth century medicine had rapidly progressed in Europe,
and the celebrated physician and surgeon Lanfranc founded the St.
Cosmo College at Paris, the examinations of which all surgeons were
obliged to pass. A decree was also passed by the King of France in 1352
prohibiting any one who was not an apothecary, student, or mendicant
monk from practising medicine. The king, we find, also exempted
the master barbers from doing duty as watchmen, as “the barbers
being nearly all of them in the habit of practising surgery, great
inconvenience might arise if they were absent from their houses when
sent for during the night”.

In France, the little barbers, as they were called, travelled about
on foot from village to village with a bag containing their drugs
and remedies, while the great barbers, or sworn surgeons, astride
their hacks with tinkling bells to announce their approach, wore long
robes trimmed with fur, and other rich apparel. They were usually
accompanied by an assistant and several servants, who carried their
cases of instruments, which always included scissors, nippers, a probe
or _éprouvette_, razors, lances, and needles. He also carried five
kinds of ointments, _viz._, basilicon, apostles’ ointment, the white
ointment, yellow ointment, and the dialtœa ointment for subduing
local pain.

Guy de Chauliac, who was physician to three successive popes, stated
“he never went out on his visits without taking several clysters and
plain remedies, besides gathering herbs in the field, so as to treat
diseases in a proper manner”.

Even at that early time the credulity of the public became imposed upon
by quacks, and Lacroix tells us of an English surgeon, one Goddesden,
who had two sorts of prescriptions, one for the rich and another for
the poor; he sold at a high price to the barbers a so-called panacea,
which the latter sold at a large profit, and this was simply a mixture
of frogs pounded in a mortar. In one of his books there is a short
chapter on _disagreeable_ diseases, as he terms them, “which work their
own cure, and bring no grist to the doctor’s mill”.

In the fifteenth century the practice of medicine became more and
more influenced and dominated by the occult sciences, and especially
astrology. All mankind was ruled by the stars, and the cause of
various diseases was attributed to the conjunction of certain planets.
“They believed the blood rose during the daytime towards the sun, and
descended into the lower extremities at night; that at the third hour
the bile subsided, so that its acid properties might not be mixed with
the course of the blood; and that at the second hour the atrabilis,
and in the evening the phlegm, subsided.” Such illusions and erroneous
beliefs stopped the progress of science, and threatened to turn a
noble art into mere charlatanry. In this country the surgeons mostly
practised as apothecaries; and we are told that when Henry V. invaded
France in 1415, the only surgeon he had in his camp was one Thomas
Morstede, who was with difficulty induced to accompany the army,
bringing with him twelve assistants.

The sixteenth century saw an effort to throw off some of these errors
which had grown round the art. The invention of printing helped largely
in disseminating knowledge throughout Europe, and the followers of
medicine assumed a higher position.

[Illustration: AN APOTHECARY’S SHOP. FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]

Towards the end of the fifteenth century Tachenius wrote: “There
is no new thing under the sun whatsoever, therefore the followers
of Hippocrates have handed out, and as it were midwifed into the
world, the same was from the beginning though our eyes were not so
clear-sighted as to discern it”. To which Stephen Pasquier replied in
the following rhyme:—

    “Some Paracelse of novelty implead,
    For which, judged crime, he erst was banished,
    So Hippocrates, Chrysippus, and at Rome
    Asclepiade, too, were new. They’d all one doom.
    They who condemn new things condemn the old,
    Or else do both misjudge and are o’er bold.”

During the crusades the surgeons naturally acquired a very large
experience in the treatment of wounds—incised, lacerated, and
contused. Baldwin was severely wounded before Jerusalem, having
received a spear-thrust “through the thigh and the loins”. He fell
fainting from his horse, but the most skilful leeches were summoned,
“by whose art and skill the king and valiant athlete was enabled to
recover from this deadly wound”. Baldwin was also wounded in the foot
before Antioch, and the surgical talent available was baffled by the
injury to such a degree that it was proposed to kill a Saracen after
wounding him in the same part, so as to learn the proper course to
pursue. Baldwin, however, refused to allow this crude attempt at
experimental surgery to be made. There seem to be no medical records of
the second crusade. In the third, the French king, Philippe Auguste,
and our own Cœur de Lion suffered grievously from a disease, the
symptomatology of which included extensive exfoliation of the skin,
shedding of the nails, and loss of the hair. The disease is called
_Arnoldia_ by the chroniclers, and is variously conjectured to have
been leprosy or syphilis. It could hardly have been leprosy, for both
the royal sufferers recovered, Cœur de Lion being killed eight years
later at the siege of Chalus, and Philippe Auguste dying of quartan
ague twenty-four years after Richard. Of the fourth crusade we have no
medical details. In the fifth, St. Louis of France was accompanied by
his private physician Dudon and other leeches; among them was a lady
doctor or _phisicienne_ named Hernandis, who probably attended the
queen in her confinement, which took place at Damietta. The expedition
suffered terribly from scurvy, typhus, and other pestilences. The
part played by water in the diffusion of disease would seem to have
been recognised, though the methods of water examination would hardly
satisfy a modern chemist. A piece of white linen was dipped in the
water to be tested, and then dried; if there were any stains on the
linen the water was condemned, but if not it was pronounced pure.
The addition of four crushed almonds or beans was believed to make
the water of the Nile safe for drinking. The method of disinfection
adopted for the king’s tent was to fumigate it with a mixture of amber,
chick peas, or lupine, which were macerated in wine, and then placed
on live charcoal. In the sixth crusade, which took place twenty-two
years later, vast numbers, including St. Louis himself, fell victims to
ignorance of the elements of sanitation.




CHAPTER XVI.

PLANT LORE, DRUG CHARMS, AND FOLK MEDICINE.


A curious survival of the age of superstition and romance attaches to
the red resin known as dragon’s blood, and is still largely practised
by a certain class of uneducated women in many parts of the country.
The resin is the product of the _Pterocarpus Indicus_ growing in the
East Indies, and now chiefly used as a colouring agent in varnishes and
stains, etc. It was formerly employed in medicine for its astringent
properties, but has now entirely gone out of use for that purpose.[4]

        [4] The Egyptian magical texts show that hair, feathers, the
        serpent’s skin, and “_the blood of the mystic eye_,” were used
        as charms of protecting or destroying power. This very probably
        denotes what is known as the charm of dragon’s blood, which is
        still employed as a potent love charm or philtre, the blood
        being now typified by the red resin of this name.

The secret of its use as a charm is shrouded in some mystery, and
those who use it are very reticent in giving particulars; but it has
been gathered, that several charms of a romantic nature are worked
with this otherwise very commonplace article of commerce. The most
common of these seems to be practised by young girls who are jealous of
their lovers and seek to win back their affection. A small quantity of
dragon’s blood is procured, wrapped in paper, and thrown on the fire
whilst the following couplet or incantation is repeated:—

    “May he no pleasure or profit see,
    Till he comes back again to me”.

Another method much believed in by women of a certain class, and
used by them to attract the opposite sex, is to mix dragon’s blood,
quicksilver, saltpetre, and sulphur, and throw them on the fire,
repeating a similar incantation.

A chemist in the north of England, giving his experience on the sale
of dragon’s blood, says: “I have had great difficulty in finding out
for what purpose it was used. It was not for medicine, but for a kind
of witchcraft. The women burn it upon a bright fire, while wishing
for their affection to be returned by some one of the opposite sex;
also those who have quarrelled with their husbands and desire to be
friends again; girls who have fallen out with their young men, and
want to win them back; as well as young women wanting sweethearts. A
working man recently came to me for a small quantity, and I inquired
for what purpose it was required. He was very reluctant to mention
anything about it, but at length said, a man had made him lose three
sovereigns, and he wished, as he had been swindled out of the money, to
have his revenge, and make him suffer for it. He was going to turn the
dragon’s blood on a clear fire, and he believed that the ill wishes of
the person thus burning it would have a dire effect on the individual
thought of.”

Another charm said to be worked with this drug, in which an inverted
teacup plays a prominent part, has reference to the sex of expected
offspring.

Altogether, considerable romantic properties seem to be associated with
this resin, but there seems to be no authentic record of the same,
the only probable explanation being, that it was used and sold, like
other innocent articles, by those who were supposed to have dealings
in the black art, for working charms, which have thus been handed
down from mediæval times. Coles states: “The early Greeks called
dragon’s blood _Cinnabaris_, not knowing whether it was of vegetable
or mineral origin; and that Pliny, Solinus, and Monardus have set it
down for truth that it was the blood of a dragon or serpent, crushed
to death by the weight of the dying elephant falling upon him; but he
thinks it was certainly so called from the bloody colour that it is
of, being nothing else but a mere gum”. It was used medicinally as an
emmenagogue, and in the arts 300 years ago by goldsmiths and painters
in glass, by the former as a base for enamel to set a foil under
precious stones to give them greater lustre, and the latter by fire, to
strike a crimson colour into glass for stained windows.

That a belief in charms and witchcraft is still fostered by ignorant
people in some parts of the country, is manifest from cases reported
in the newspapers from time to time. Two practitioners of the occult
sciences were haled before the magistrates but recently. One, an old
crone, who confessed to using dragon’s blood in working her love
charms, was rewarded with seven days with hard labour.

The other, which came to light in Cornwall, was a middle-aged
individual who practised as a wizard. His treatment consisted of
writing an amulet to be worn near the body. Money was then required to
remove the spell from the bewitched patient to some one else. To this
victim was to be lent neither “cock, pin, or pan,” and by the aid of
the planets the patient would be cured. But these are hard times truly
for the wizard and magician, and this professor was rewarded with
seven months’ incarceration in one of her Majesty’s gaols.

Singular superstitious properties are attributed to certain plants. The
walnut was formerly employed in medicine as an application to wounds
and an antidote to poisons; and the following old riddle, says William
Coles in 1657, “almost every one knows”:—

    “As high as a house,
    As little as a mouse,
    As round as a ball,
    As bitter as gall,
    As white as milk,
    As soft as silk”.

There is an old tradition that the more the branches are beaten, the
more prolific the fruit will be. There is a fable in Æsop of a woman
who asked the walnut tree growing by the wayside, which was pelted at
with stones and sticks by them that passed by, why it was so foolish
as to bring forth fruit seeing that it was so beaten for its pains, to
which the tree rehearsed these two proverbial verses:—

    “Nux, Asinus, Mulier, Simili suret lege legati,
    Haes tria nil recte faciunt si verbera cessent”.

“The English whereof,” the chronicler quaintly continues, “I could
tell you, but that I fear the women of this preposterous age would
be angry.” True it is that this tree, the more it is beaten the more
nuts it bears. The walnut was one of the chief ingredients in the
celebrated antidote against poison which was attributed to the wise
king Mithridates. The formula ran as follows: “Two (wall) nuttes and
two figges and twenty rewe beans, stamped together with a little suet
and eaten fasting, doth defende a man from poison and pestilence that
day”.[5]

        [5] Bullen’s _Governmente of Health_. 1558.

Sage was much esteemed by the housewife for simple ailments, and its
properties are embodied in the following lines, which are of great
antiquity:—

    “Sage helpes the nerves, and by its powerfull might
    Palsies and Feavers, sharp it puts to flight”.[6]

An old writer says, “Be sure you wash your sage for fear the Toades,
who as I conceive come to it to discharge their poyson, should leave
some of their venom upon the Leaves”.

        [6] William Coles, _Adam in Eden_. 1657.

Of rue, which was largely used as a carminative, the following couplet
has been handed down:—

    “Rue maketh chast, and eke preserveth sight,
    Infuseth wit, and Fleas doth put to flight”.

Tradition says that a weasel, going to fight with a serpent, eateth
rue, and rubbeth herself therewith to avoid his poison. Crollius
states: “The sign of the cross upon the seed of the rue, drives away
all phantoms and evil spirits by signature”.

Henbane, the Latins called Apollinaris, either from Apollo, the
inventor of physic, or because it makes men mad like unto Apollo’s
creatures when they deliver his oracles. “It was called in English
henbane, because the seeds are hurtful to hens,” says William Coles.
“The fumes of the dryed herb when burnt, will make Hens fall from their
roosting place as though they were dead.”

Of the moonwort, a simple used to allay bleeding and applied to
fractures, an old tradition says that it can be used to open locks,
fetters, and shoes from those horses feet that go on the places where
it groweth, and of this opinion was Culpepper, who, though he railed
against superstition in others, tells a story of a troop of horse of
the Earl of Essex, which being drawn up in a body, many of them lost
their shoes upon White Downe in Devonshire, near Tiverton, because
moonwort grows upon the heaths.

The root of the _Polygonatum angulosum_, commonly called Solomon’s
Seal, has a popular reputation for removing the congealed blood from
a bruise after a blow or fall, for which property it appears to have
been used 800 years ago. Coles states: “The bruised roots soddereth
and gleweth together broken bones very speedily and strangely, the
roots being stamped and outwardly applied as a pultis. The same also
is available for outward bruises, falls, or blowes, both to dispel the
congealed blood and to take away the paines, and the black and blew
markes that abide after the hurt.” The origin of the name Solomon’s
Seal is doubtless due to the dark marks seen on cutting the root
transversely, which somewhat resemble an ancient seal engraved with
characters.

Of Solomon’s Seal, Dioscorides says that “the root pounded and laid on
fresh wounds heals and seals them up”; and it is on this account that
Gerard considers its name to have originated.

An old author quaintly remarks with respect to its properties: “The
roots of Solomon’s Seale stamped while it is fresh and greene and
applied, taketh away in one night, or two at the most, any bruse,
blacke or blew spots gotten by fals, or woman’s wilfulness in stumbling
upon their hastie husband’s fists or such like”.

The anemone was regarded by the ancients as an emblem of sickness,
and Pliny tells us that the physicians and wise men ordered every
person to gather the first anemone he saw in the year, repeating at
the same time, “I gather thee for a remedy against disease”. It was
then devoutly placed in scarlet cloth and kept undisturbed unless the
gatherer became unwell, when it was tied either around the neck or the
arm of the patient.

The trefoil, vervain, St. John’s wort, and dill were supposed to
possess the power of protecting the wearer from the evil eye or
witchcraft, hence the old rhyme called Saint Colme’s charm:—

    “Trefoil, vervain, John’s wort, dill,
    Hinders witches of their will;
    Well is them, that well may
    Fast upon St. Andrew’s Day.

    Saint Bride and her brat,
    Saint Colme and his cat,
    Saint Michael and his spear,
    Keep the home frae reif and wear.”

There is an old tradition that the white veins of the variety of
thistle known as the _Carduus Marianus_ was caused originally by a drop
of the milk of the Virgin Mary having fallen thereon, and for this
cause the plant was in early times much revered.

The house leek, with its pretty rose-coloured flowers, often seen
growing along the tops of walls and on the roofs of cottages in
country places, was formerly known by the imposing name of the thunder
plant, from the power it was supposed to possess of averting lightning
from the house or building on which it was planted. Hence the custom of
planting it on the roof.

St. John’s wort was a noted herb in magical arts, and was also esteemed
as a repellant of spectres and to drive away demons, and was called
_Fuga Dæmonum_ by the old botanists. French and German peasants still
gather the plant with great ceremony on St. John’s Day.

That charming little wild flower the scarlet pimpernell, which grows in
our fields and hedges, ranked among the simples of ancient times. It
was used as a remedy against the plague, and an antidote against the
bites and stings of venomous insects, and to stop bleeding. This latter
attribute was doubtless more mythical than correct, being founded on
what the ancients called having the signature, which meant that if
a substance was of blood colour it signified it would stop bleeding
because of the same. Hung over the door or porch of a house, it was
believed to defend the inmates from witchcraft.

Josephus states in his _History of the Jews_[7] that Solomon
discovered a plant efficacious in the cure of epilepsy, and that he
employed the aid of a charm or spell for the purpose of assisting
its virtues. The root of the herb was concealed in a ring, which was
applied to the nostrils of the demoniac; and Josephus himself declares
that he saw a Jewish priest practice the art of Solomon, with complete
success, in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, and the tribune of the
Roman army.

        [7] Lib. viii., c. ii., 5.

From this art, exhibited through the medium of a ring or seal, we have
the Eastern stories which celebrate the seal of Solomon and record its
wonderful sway over the various orders of genii, who were supposed to
be the invisible tormentors or benefactors of the human race.

“Vervain,” says Coles, “was reported to be effectual against all
poisons and the venom of dangerous beasts and serpents, and also
against bewitched drinks and the like, so that it is not only used in,
but against witchcraft. That this herb is used by witches may appear
from the story of Anne Bodenham, the witch of Salisbury, who sent her
ruffian-like spirits to gather vervain and dill, which was to be given
to one whom she desired to bewitch.”

The magi of the ancient Elamites or Persians made use of vervain in
their worship or adoration of the sun, always carrying branches of it
in their hands when they approached the altar.

They also believed that by smearing the body over with the juice of
this plant, the individual could have whatever he wished, be able to
reconcile his most inveterate enemies, cure diseases, and perform other
magical operations. They always gathered the plant when neither sun nor
moon was visible, and poured honey and honeycomb on the earth as an
atonement for robbing it of this precious herb.

The Greeks called it the Sacred Herb, and used it to cleanse the
festival table of Jupiter before any great ceremony took place.

The Romans also employed it in the performance of their religious
rites, for cleansing their altars, and sprinkling holy water.

It was hung in their dwellings to ward off evil spirits.

Vervain was also one of the sacred plants of the Druids, both in Gaul
and Britain. They cut it with much ceremony in the spring of the year,
and made offerings to the earth for so doing. They also used it to
anoint the body to cure disease.

The ancient Greeks and Romans dedicated it to the god of war, and in
Scandinavia it was deemed sacred to Thor. The eye anointed with an
ointment of vervain was supposed to possess second sight. Its influence
over Venus has doubtless to do with its use as a love token. It is said
that the custom is still practised in Germany of presenting a bride
with a wreath of vervain.

Other magic wreaths worn by lovers when they wished to see their fate,
were composed of rue, crane’s bill, and willow.

The hawkweed commonly seen in our fields was regarded by the Greeks
as the emblem of quick-sightedness, believing that the hawk, a bird
renowned for its bright eye and quick sight, sharpened its visual
organs with the juice of this plant. Thus it became famed in early
medical practice as a remedy for dimness of sight, and was employed to
feed the hawks used in the old art of falconry.

In Scotland, a twig of the rowan tree or mountain ash is often sewed up
in the cow’s tail, to protect the animal from witches and warlocks.

The squill was used by the Egyptians for dropsy, under the mystic name
of the “Eye of Typhon”.

An old name for the fruit of the mandrake was “love apples”. They were
frequently used in ancient times in philtres and love potions. This
plant belongs to the natural order _Solanaceæ_, which also includes
the potato and the tobacco plant. Its leaves spring directly from
the root similarly to those of the lettuce, before it shoots into
flower, and its purple-coloured blossoms are succeeded by a yellow
berry or “apple,” which still ripens in Palestine at the time of the
wheat harvest. An overdose of the fruit is said to produce a sort
of temporary insanity. From the earliest times it has been credited
with magical virtues, and supposed to confer superhuman powers on its
possessor. The most valued specimens were those which grew under a
gibbet where a malefactor hung in chains. It was believed that on being
torn from the earth the mandrake uttered a groan, and that whosoever
heard it, dropped dead on the spot. The approved method of gathering
it was to fasten the plant to a dog’s tail, and beat the animal till
his struggles pulled the root up. The dog heard the groan and died, but
those who directed the proceedings escaped by having their ears stopped
with pitch or wax.

It was customary in Germany in mediæval times to form or carve small
figures out of the mandrake root, which were called _abrunes_. “These
images,” says Phillips, “they dressed regularly every day, consulted as
oracles, and their repute was such that they were manufactured in great
numbers and sold in cases.”

They appear to have been brought over to England in the time of
Henry VIII., and met with ready purchasers, it being pretended that
they would, with the assistance of certain mystic words, be able to
increase whatever money was placed near them. These roots were said to
have been taken from plants which had grown underneath gibbets, and had
been influenced by the flesh of the criminals hung thereon.

It is singular how the willow has ever been associated with sorrow
and sadness, even from the time the daughters of Israel hung their
harps on its branches. Among heathen nations the tree was regarded as
an evil omen, and was used as torches at funerals. “The early poets,”
says Johns, “made the willow of despairing woe,” and Shakespeare
frequently alludes to it as being used to weave garlands for jilted and
sorrow-stricken lovers. Benedick says:—

  “I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a
  garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod as being worthy
  to be whipped”.

And Bona, in _Henry VI._, remarks:—

    “Tell him, in hope he’ll prove a widower shortly,
    I’ll wear the willow garland for his sake”.

It seems to have been customary to wear it twined round the head as a
symbol of sorrow and mourning, but the origin of the custom is unknown.

A peculiar virtue was supposed to be attached to the eating of almonds,
which is still believed in some parts of the country, _viz._, that it
protects the eater from drunkenness.

Gerard says, “Five or six being taken fasting keepe a man from being
drunke”.

The pretty flower called the bachelor’s button, which is common in
our hedgerows, is said to possess the following peculiar property of
divination. “When carried in the pocket by men, and under the apron by
women, it will retain or lose its freshness according to the good or
bad success of the wearer’s amatory prospects.”

A considerable amount of romantic lore lingers about the bean and nut.
The bean was regarded with veneration by both the Greeks and Romans,
and on account of its sacred associations became the instrument for
voting by ballot in early times. Nuts of various kinds have long been
associated with certain love charms, and some of these old customs,
such as the cracking of nuts, still survive and are practised on All
Hallow Eve. An old charm for nut-testing runs as follows:—

    “Two hazel nuts I threw into the flame,
    And to each nut I gave a sweetheart’s name;
    _This_ with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,
    _That_ in a flame of brightest colour blazed;
    As blazed the nut, so may thy passion glow,
    For ’twas _thy_ nut that did so brightly glow”.

There is an old tradition that the white hawthorn was used to plait the
sacred crown of thorns, and that from that time the tree was endowed
with special virtues.

An old writer says: “He that beareth a branch on hym thereof, no
thundre, ne, no maner of tempest may dere hym; ne, in the howse that it
is ynne may none evil ghost enter”.

A great amount of superstition was associated with various ferns in
mediæval times, and fern seed was supposed to possess the wonderful
property of rendering those who swallowed it invisible.

According to the doctrine of Signatures, various shaped leaves were
used for special diseases. A liver-shaped leaf was used to cure
complaints of that organ, and a heart-shaped leaf was used for diseases
of the heart, and so on.

The black hellebore was employed by the ancients to purify their
dwellings, and they believed that its presence in their rooms drove
away evil spirits. It was also customary to bless the cattle with
hellebore to keep them free from spells wrought by the wicked.

When dug up for these purposes, certain religious ceremonies were
observed. First a circle was drawn round the plant with a sword, and
then, turning to the east, a humble prayer was made by the devotee
to Apollo and Æsculapius, for permission to dig up the root. If an
eagle approached the spot during the performance of the rites, it was
supposed to predict the certain death of the person who took up the
plant in the course of the year.

It is related by Dioscorides that Carneades, the Cyrenaic philosopher
who undertook to answer the books of Zeno, sharpened his wit and
quickened his spirit by purging his head with powdered hellebore.

The peony owes its name to Pæon, a famous physician of ancient Greece,
who is said to have cured, by the aid of this plant, the wounds which
the Greeks received during the Trojan war. It was largely used as an
amulet, and demons were supposed to fly from the spot where it was
planted. A small piece was worn round the neck to protect the wearer
from enchantment.

There is a curious tradition connected with that charming little
flower the forget-me-not. It is, that the juice, or decoction of the
plant, has the peculiar property of hardening steel, and that if edged
tools of that metal be made red hot and then quenched in the juice or
decoction, and this be repeated several times, the steel will become
so hard as to cut iron without turning the edge.

The elder had a great reputation as an amulet. An old writer states,
“if one ride with two little sticks of elder in his pockets he shall
not fret nor pant let the horse go never so hard”.

According to the _Anatomie of the Elder_ (1655), “The common people
keep as a great secret in curing wounds the leaves of the elder, which
they have gathered the last day of April, which, to disappoint the
charms of witches, they had applied to their doors and windows”.

A piece cut out between two knots was worn as an amulet against
erysipelas.

Lupton says: “Make powder of the flowers of elder gathered on Midsummer
Day, being before well dryed, and use a spoonful thereof in a good
draught of Borage water, morning and evening, first and last, for the
space of a month, and it will make you seem young a great while”.

The elder is still believed in the south of Germany to drive away evil
spirits, and in Denmark and Norway it is held in the same veneration.
It is customary in the Tyrol to plant an elder bush in the form of a
cross on a new grave, and if it blossoms, the soul of the body interred
beneath is supposed to be in Paradise.




CHAPTER XVII.

MUMMIES AND THEIR USE IN MEDICINE—THE UNICORN.


Who first introduced mummies as medicinal agents is not known, but
there is something particularly weird and gruesome in the idea of
the ancient physician dosing a sick patient, with the remains of a
predeceased fellowman, in order to restore him to health. The art of
embalming was practised thousands of years before the Christian era,
and was regarded as the greatest token of esteem that could be paid by
the living to the dead. Pomet says there were two kinds of embalming
practised by the ancient Egyptians. The first and most costly was used
to none but persons of the highest class, and was valued at a talent
of silver, or about £500. Three people were employed in the operation;
one was a kind of designer or overseer, who marked out such parts of
the body as were to be opened. The next was a dissector, who with a
knife of Ethiopian stone cut the flesh as much as necessary, and as
the law would permit, and immediately afterwards fled away with all
the expedition possible, because it was the custom of the relatives
and domestics to pursue the dissector with stones and do him all the
injuries they could, treating him as an impious wretch and the worst of
men.

After this operation the embalmers, who were accounted holy men,
entered to perform their offices, which consisted in removing the
internal organs, cleansing with palm wine and other aromatical liquor,
and during the space of thirty days they filled the cavity with
powdered myrrh, aloes, Indian spikenard, bitumen, and other aromatics.
In the process of embalming used by the middle class, which cost about
£250, the body was syringed with a decoction of herbs and oil of cedar,
then put into salt for seventy days, after which it was enveloped in
bandages of fine linen, which had been dipped in myrrh and asphaltum,
and the designer, who was called the scribe, covered the wrapping with
a painted cloth, on which were represented the rites of their religion
in hieroglyphics, and the animals which the dead loved most. There was
a third process of embalming used by the poorer people, in which a
mixture of pitch and bitumen was used. The bodies were first dried with
lime, and then coated with a mixture of nitre, salt, honey, and wax to
protect them from the air. Mummies of deceased persons were held in the
greatest reverence by their relatives. The faces were sometimes gilded
and painted and adorned with head-cloths, they were then placed in
elaborate cases according to the position and rank of the person, and
deposited in the highest part of their houses. An old writer states:
“They reckoned their deceased as such a valuable token and pledge of
their faith, that if any of them happened to want money he could not
give a better security than the embalmed body of his relation; and
that which made it esteemed so was, that they would spare no pains to
pay the money again; for if by mischance the debtor could not redeem
this pledge, he was reckoned unworthy of civil society, which engaged
him indispensably to find out ways to recover his kinsman in the time
limited, otherwise he was blamed by all the world”.

Some 300 years ago a large trade was carried on, mostly by Jews, who
imported mummies for medicinal purposes, as they were much used by
the ancient physicians; but there is little doubt that a great deal
of fraud was practised by the mummy merchants, and that many were
specially manufactured for the purpose. Pomet, alluding to this in his
_History of Druggs_, writes: “We may daily see the Jews carrying on
their rogueries as to these mummies, and after them the Christians;
for the mummies that were brought from Alexandria, Egypt, Venice, and
Lyons are nothing else but the bodies of people that die several ways.
Those from Africa called white mummies, are nothing else but bodies
that have been drowned at sea, which, being cast upon the African
coast, are buried and dried in the sands, which are very hot.” When
the ancient physician prescribed mummy for a bad headache, he rarely
got what he imagined. “For,” the writer continues: “I am not able to
stop the abuses committed by those who use this commodity. I shall only
advise such as buy to choose what is of a fine shining black, not full
of bones and dirt, of a good smell, and which being burnt does not
stink of pitch. Such is reckoned proper for contusions, and to hinder
blood from coagulating in the body. It is also given in epilepsies,
vertigoes, and palsies. The dose is two drachms in powder, or the same
made into a bolus. It also stops mortifications, heals wounds, and is
an ingredient in many compositions.” In a price list, dated 1685, mummy
is quoted at 5s. 4d. per lb.

Of the mummies used in medicine five kinds were known.

Factitious.—Those in which bitumen and pitch were largely used in the
process of embalming.

Those bodies dried by the sun in the country of the Hammonians between
Cyrene and Alexandria, being mostly the bodies of passengers buried in
the quicksands.

True Egyptian.

The Arabian, being those bodies embalmed with myrrh, aloes, and other
aromatic gums.

Artificial mummies. Crollius in his _Royal Chemist_ gives the following
process for preparing artificial mummy:—

“Take the carcass of a young man (some say red haired), not dying of a
disease but killed, let it lie twenty-four hours in clear water in the
air, cut the flesh in pieces, to which add powder of myrrh and a little
aloes, imbibe it twenty-four hours in spirit of wine and turpentine,
take it out and hang it up for twelve hours, then imbibe it again,
twenty-four hours in fresh spirit, then hang up the pieces in a dry air
and a shady place.” A rather cheerful operation for the apothecary. It
would possibly account for many a mysterious disappearance in those
days.

Mummy entered into a large number of preparations which we come across
in the old dispensatories. There was the balsam, which is described
by an old writer as “having such a piercing quality that it pierceth
all parts and restores wasted limbs, consumption, and cures all ulcers
and corruptions”. Beside mummies, the apothecaries stocked human fat,
respecting which gruesome material Pomet says: “Everybody knows in
Paris the public executioner sells it, the druggists and apothecaries
a little; nevertheless, they vend a sort of it prepared with aromatic
herbs, and which is without comparison much better than that which
comes from the hands of the hangman”. Human fat was much esteemed for
rubbing, in cases of rheumatism and kindred complaints.

Another part of the body used in ancient medicine was the human skull;
also a growth called the moss from the human skull, probably of fungoid
origin, that appeared on the bone on keeping. An old writer in the
seventeenth century says: “You may see in the druggist shops of London
some skulls entirely covered with moss, and some that only have the
moss growing on some parts. They send these skulls especially to
Germany, to put into the composition of the sympathetic ointment which
Crollius describes in his _Royal Chemist_, and which is used for the
falling sickness.”

Special virtue was attributed to skulls taken from gibbets. Referring
to these, Pomet states: “The English druggists, especially those of
London, sell skulls of the dead upon which there is a little greenish
moss called usnea, because of its near resemblance to 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 human skulls were sold at 8s., 9s., 10s., and
11s. each. They were given in the form of powder, or one of the
preparations, such as the oil or tincture. Besides the skull, other
human bones, calcined and powdered were used. An oil and a tincture of
skulls, an extract of the gall and the heart of man made with rectified
spirit, was dropped into the ear as a remedy for deafness, and also
given internally for epilepsy. Human hair was used for jaundice,
finger-nails as an emetic (which one can hardly wonder at), and blood
drawn from a healthy man, drunk hot, was used to prevent fits coming
on. The brains of various birds and animals were highly esteemed. The
latter were roasted and rubbed on children’s gums when teething. The
livers of ducks and frogs, and a dead mouse dried and beaten into
powder, were given to relieve kidney disease.

Another extraordinary article used in medicine was the horn of that
fabulous animal the unicorn. Concerning its origin we have recourse
again to Pomet, who states, “the unicorn is an animal which our
naturalists describe under the figure of a horse, having in the middle
of his head a spiral horn of two or three feet long, but we know not
the real truth of this matter to this day”. This horn was formerly held
in high esteem because of the great virtues attributed to it by the
ancients, especially against poisons, “which is the reason that so many
great persons are fond of it, so that it has been valued at its weight
in gold”.

Ambrose Paraens, in a treatise which he wrote on the unicorn, says that
in the deserts of Arabia he found wild asses carrying a horn in the
front, which they used to fight against the bulls. That there _was_ an
animal with one horn, most of the old writers agree, but whether it was
a goat, or an ox, or a hart, or an ass, no one could say. The horn was
probably collected from any of these animals, and as long as the horn
was there it doubtless answered the purpose. The _true_ unicorn, if you
dare believe Ludovicus Vertomanus, who says he saw two of them in Mecca
which were kept within the precincts of Mahomet’s sepulchre, is of a
weasel colour, “with the head like that of a hart, the neck not long,
and the mane growing all on one side, the legs slender and lean like
the legs of a hind, hoofs cloven like a goat’s feet, and the hinder
legs all hairy and shaggy on the outside. His horn was wreathed in
spires of an ivory colour.” There is little doubt that most of the horn
used medicinally, was that obtained from the narwhal or sea unicorn. In
the year 1553 a great unicorn’s horn was brought to the King of France,
and valued at £20,000 sterling. That which was presented to Charles I.
of England is supposed to have been one of the largest ever seen in
the world. “It was seven feet long, weighed thirteen pounds, and was
in the shape of a wax candle, but wreathed within itself in spires,
hollow about a foot from its root, growing taper little by little
towards the point of polished smoothness, and the colour not perfectly
white.” Ancient authors ascribe wonderful properties to the horn of
the unicorn. It was supposed to resist all kinds of poisons, cure the
plague, all manner of fevers, the biting of serpents, mad dogs, etc.,
and was chiefly used as a cordial, for which purpose a jelly was made
of it.




CHAPTER XVIII.

  THE ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY OF APOTHECARIES—APOTHECARIES AND THEIR
    PRACTICE—APOTHECARIES AND THEIR BILLS—CURIOUS REMEDIES—A DRUG
    PRICE LIST OF 1685.


The earliest record of the apothecary in England seems to be of one
Richard Fitznigel, who acted in that capacity to Henry II. This
individual subsequently rose in degree at Court, and exchanging the
pestle for the crozier, eventually became Bishop of London. In 1345
we hear of one Coursus de Gangland receiving for his services as
apothecary to Edward III., and for taking care of and attending his
Majesty during his illness in Scotland, a pension of sixpence a day.

Those who practised medicine, surgery, and pharmacy were called
physicians, while their assistants were known as apothecaries. Many
of the latter, as they began to learn the secrets and habits of their
employers, began business on their own account, also dealing in drugs
and other commodities, until they became a powerful body.

When the College of Physicians was established in 1518, they were soon
empowered “to search, view, and see the apothecaries’ wares, drugs and
stuffs, and destroy such as they found unfit for use”.

In the latter part of the century a distinct separation took place, and
we find that in 1600 there were physicians, surgeons, apothecaries,
barber surgeons, druggists or distillers and sellers of waters and
oils, and preparers of chemical medicines. It was not until the year
1617 that the Apothecaries’ Society had a separate existence, when it
was enacted that no grocer should keep an apothecary’s shop, and that
no surgeon should sell medicines.

In 1623 the Society of Apothecaries established a dispensary, for the
purpose of making some of the most important medicines then used in
a uniform manner, and in May, 1618, the first _Pharmacopœia_ was
published by the College of Physicians. We are told that it was so
imperfect that they brought out an improved edition in December of
the same year. This was published in Latin, and it was through making
and publishing his translation of this work that Nicholas Culpepper
(who was a man of common-sense in his time) got into disgrace with the
College of Physicians, who in consequence refused him a licence to
practise.

[Illustration: A PHYSICIAN.

From a drawing, dated 1490.]

The history of the Society of Apothecaries of London is an interesting
one. It is a mystery or guild which has retained its original function
of a trading corporation. It arose as an offshoot of the Grocers’
Company, which descended from the pepperers and the spicers, who
amalgamated in 1345 under the name of the Fraternity of St. Anthony.
The Grocers’ Company is one of the most powerful and wealthy of the
twelve great Livery Companies of London which have survived from
mediæval times.

King James I. appears to have interested himself in the separation of
the two bodies about the year 1614, and in spite of vigorous opposition
by the grocers, a charter was granted on 6th December, 1617, making
the apothecaries a distinct mystery, under the title of the Society of
Apothecaries. This charter restrained the grocers and all other persons
from keeping an apothecary’s shop in or near London, and it gave the
Society a right which had been inherent in the Grocers’ Company, of
paying domiciliary visits to the apothecaries’ shops to search for, to
seize, and destroy bad drugs and medicines, a power at first limited
to London and seven miles round, but afterwards extended throughout
England and Wales. This was discontinued shortly after 1833.

The first hall or council-house of the society consisted of a house and
grounds known as Cobham House, in Water Lane, Blackfriars, immediately
behind what is now the Ludgate Hill Station. It was purchased in 1633,
mainly through the instrumentality of Gideon Delaune, chief apothecary
to Anne of Denmark, who was one of the retinue sent to attend her from
Norway when she became the wife of James I. This hall was destroyed by
the great fire of London in 1666, and its site lay vacant for ten years
before it was rebuilt. The second hall was enlarged and improved in
1786, and it still stands.

In the reign of Queen Anne, Prince George of Denmark, who was then Lord
High Admiral, applied to the society to know if they would undertake
to supply the navy with drugs, as it was very badly served at that
time. This the society agreed to do, and for so doing was drawn into a
long series of quarrels with the College of Physicians, whose members
thought it was the duty of an apothecary “to remember his office is
only to be the physician’s cooke”.

A knowledge of herbs and simples was soon found necessary to these
early compounders of medicine, and as a means of instruction, botanical
excursions or herborisings, as they were called in those days, soon
formed a prominent feature of the society. This led eventually to
the decision to rent a physic garden, for which purpose the gardens
available near the hall were unsuitable, and in 1673 the Botanic Garden
at Chelsea was leased to the apothecaries for a term of sixty-one
years, by Charles Cheyne, Esq., lord of the manor.

The custom of examination grew up within the society very gradually,
the first examinations being found necessary to ascertain whether the
apprentices could decipher the very illegible handwriting in which the
physicians wrote their prescriptions or bills, an accomplishment for
which apparently they have been ever famous.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF AN APOTHECARY’S SHOP.

From a drawing by Drapentier, 1670.]

Then came the division of the apothecaries from the druggists,
the former in the process of time becoming a subordinate class of
practitioners who attended an individual afflicted with some internal
disease not requiring external or manual aid, and who prescribed for
the cure of such complaint and supplied the medicine; while the latter
were supposed to confine themselves to the dealing in and preparation
of drugs for the apothecary.

The apothecary was paid for the medicine which he supplied, which
was not by any means in small quantities, and so was supposed not to
encroach ostensibly upon the province of the physician, who received
his remuneration for advice only, and did not provide medicine.

In 1812 a tax was put upon glass which increased the price of bottles
greatly, much to the chagrin of the apothecaries, who were paid
according to the number of draughts and potions which they could induce
their patients to swallow. It was customary to place each dose of
medicine in a separate bottle, and charge it at the rate of one or two
shillings a dose, so the apothecary naturally felt aggrieved at the
glass tax, which, however, was soon afterwards repealed.

The following excellent rules and regulations were laid down by William
Bulleyn for the guidance of apothecaries of his time:—


  THE APOTICARYE.

  1. Must first serve God, foresee the end, be cleanly, pity the poor.

  2. Must not be suborned for money to hurt mankind.

  3. His place of dwelling and shop to be cleanly, to please the
  senses withal.

  4. His garden must be at hand, with plenty of herbs, seeds, and
  roots.

  5. To sow, set, plant, gather, preserve, and keep them in due time.

  6. To read Dioscorides; to know the nature of plants and herbs.

  7. To invent medicines; to choose by colour, taste, odour, figure,
  etc.

  8. To have his mortars, stills, pots, filters, glasses, and boxes
  clean and sweet.

  9. To have charcoals at hand to make decoctions, syrups, etc.

  10. To keep his clean ware close, and cast away the baggage.

  11. To have two places in his shop—one most clean for the physic,
  and a baser place for the chirurgic stuff.

  12. That he neither increase nor diminish the physician’s bill
  (_i.e._, prescription), and keep it for his own discharge.

  13. That he neither buy nor sell rotten drugs.

  14. That he peruse often his wares that they corrupt not.

  15. That he put not in _quid pro quo_ without advisement.

  16. That he may open well a vein for to help pleurisy.

  17. That he meddle only in his vocation.

  18. That he delight to read Nicolaus, Myrepsus, Valerius, Cordus,
  Johannes Placaton, the Lubri, etc.

  19. That he do remember his office is only to be the physician’s
  cook.

  20. That he use true measure and weight.

  21. To remember his end and the judgment of God; and thus do I
  commend him to God, if he be not covetous or crafty, seeking his
  own lucre before other men’s help, succour and comfort.

In Glasgow the sale of drugs and poisons was carefully restricted and
regulated as far back as 1599. Under the terms of a charter granted to
the Faculty by King James VI., and dated November, 1599, visitors were
appointed, and they were given

  “Full power to call, sumonnd, and convene before thame, within the
  said burgh of Glasgow, or onie otheris of ouir said burrowis, or
  publict places of the foirsaids boundis, all personis professing
  or using the said airt of Chirurgie, to examine thame upon thair
  literature, knawledge and practize; gif they be fund wordie, to
  admit, allow, and approve thame, give them testimonial according
  to the airt and knawledge that they sal be fund wordie to exercise
  thareftir, resave thair aithis, and authorize thame as accordis,
  and to discharge thame to use onie farder nor they have knawledge
  passing their capacity, laist our subjectis be abusit”.

It was further provided by “James, be the Grace of God, King of
Scottis,” in his fatherly solicitude for his subjects, that

  “The saidis visitouris sall visit everie hurt, murtherit, poisonit,
  or onie other persoun tane awa extraordinarily, and to report to
  the Magistrate of the fact as it is”.

The visitors were also empowered, with the advice of their brethren, to
make regulations for the common weal anent the art of surgery, and to
inflict punishment upon those infringing them. With regard to the sale
of drugs, it was provided that—

  “Na manir of personis sell onie droggis within the Citie of
  Glasgow, except the sam be sichtit be the saidis visitouris, and
  be William Spang, apothecar, under the pane of confiscatioune of
  the droggis”.

The responsibility of the seller is clearly defined in a clause which
further stipulates that—

  “Nane sell retoun poison, asenick, or sublemate, under the pane of
  ane hundred merkis, excep onlie the apothecaries quha sall be bund
  to take cautioun of the byaris, for coist, skaith, and damage”.

These powers were confirmed by Charles, “King of Great Britain, France,
and Ireland”.

The ancient apothecary believed in the administration of physic in
quantities which, in these advanced days of infinitesimal doses and
concentrated preparations, would be considered something alarming.

The following interesting extract is from the diary of William
Blundell, a celebrated cavalier of Lancashire, who took an active part
in many of the conflicts in Cromwell’s time. On being taken ill, we are
told, he sent for his medical man, one Dr. Worthington, of Wigan. The
doctor’s bill, together with some quaint remarks thereon, are entered
in the cavalier’s diary by his man, Master Thelwall, as follows:—

1681. “After my master had been long ill of a violent cold, Dr.
Worthington came first unto him on 8th January. He staid two nights,
and received for his pains £1 10s. He brought along with him, a
lohoch, ten pills, with a bottle of spirits somewhat bigger than
one’s thumb, and a paper of lozenges, with French barley and several
ingredients for making the water thereof. On the eleventh day he sent
a glister, with a large pint bottle of a cordial julep, and a small
bottle of syrups, to be sucked up with a liquorice stick, also some
small quantity of sal prunella.

[Illustration: A PHYSICIAN.

From a drawing by Amman, Sixteenth Century.]

“The doctor was with my master the second time, on 17th January, and
received for his pains 15s.”

Then comes the copy of Dr. Worthington’s bill, dated 24th October,
1681:—

                             £ _s._ _d._
     Spirits                 0   4   6
     An ointment             0   1   4
  January 8.
     Spirits                 0   4   6
     Ten pills               0   2   0
     A lohoch                0   2   0
     Lozenges                0   4   0
     Jujubes and sibertines  0   0   8
     French barley           0   1   0
     Ingredients             0   1   6
     Syrups                  0   3   0
     A cordial julep         0  10   6
     A glister               0   2   6
  January 11.
     Syrups                  0   3   0
     White powder            0   0   4
     Five pills              0   1   3
     The oiled sugar         0   7   0
     Syrups                  0   5   6
     Oil of sweet almonds    0   1   8
     Spirits of ptisanne     0   7   6
     For a messenger         0   1   6
                            ----------
                            £3   5   3
                            ==========

Master Thelwall then goes on to say: “My master’s opinion of these
several things in particular, is here to be inserted for further
use, _viz._, that the spirits first named, of which twenty-six drops
were put into one small cup of barley water and beer, had no apparent
effect, although he doth not much doubt but the secret effect might
be good. That the like might be said of the pills, mentioned in two
places, although it seemed that they did somewhat assuage his cough,
which was extremely violent. The lohoch, a liquor like syrup, did
apparently bring up phlegm, and was well liked. The lozenges were
pleasant, and did sometimes stop the cough. Barley water with the
ingredients was cooling and pleasant. Syrups twice mentioned, although
of much different prices, seemed to be the same.

“The cordial julep, of which there was a large pint bottle, was
pleasant, but the effect not apparent. The glister extraordinary
effective and good. White powder, supposed to be sal prunella, assuaged
the thirst. The oiled sugar, with the spirits ptisanne, besides the
extreme dearness, was almost wholly useless, in regard that the patient
being much in the mending hand when they were sent unto him. He sent
back to the doctor about seven-eighths of the oiled sugar, and yet he
paid for the whole. The oil of sweet almonds, of which seven or eight
drops were taken in a bolus of white sugar-candy, frequently helped
the breast made very sore by coughing.”

[Illustration: AN APOTHECARY.

From a drawing, 1641.]

We subsequently learn that the good old cavalier was at length cured
of his ailments, which he certainly ought to have been from the
multiplicity of the remedies employed. Many of the forms in which
medicine was administered in those days have entirely gone out of use,
and others we have still with us.

Another example of the apothecary’s bill appears in the appendix to the
_Eleventh Report of the Historical Manuscripts’ Commission_, among the
transcripts of the manuscripts of the Marquess Townshend. There is one,
dated 24th June, 1619, of a paper endorsed “The Apothycarie’s bill,”
Sir Roger Townshend’s account, which contains the following items:—

                             _s._ _d._

  “Grene ginger”               7   0
  Tabacco                      2   0
  Grene ginger                 8   0
  A masse of pills             5   0
  An electuarye                3   6

Under the name of Mr. Stanhope Townshend, 12th September, 1618, are:—

                             _s._ _d._

  “A clyster”                  3   4
  A julep                      3   0
  A cordiall with behoardston  3   0
  The cordiall julep           3   0
  Hearbs for brothe            0   4
  Rose water                   0   6
  A suppositorye               0   6
  Another suppositorye         0   6
  An unguent                   0   3
  A purge                      3   0
  Purgeing pills               2   6

The lohoch, the base of which consisted of honey or thick syrup, was
a very favourite form of medicine for a cough, such as the lohoch
demulcent, lohoch of fox’s lungs, and lohoch expectorant.

The julep was another ancient form of administration much in vogue.
Balsams, of divers compositions, had great repute as expectorants.
William Blundell in his diary (1681) mentions: “The Elder Lady Bradshaw
sent a bottle containing, as we guess, about one ounce of balsam,
which in her letter she calls ‘Balsam of Sulphur’. That it must be
taken morning and night, three or four drops, naked and alone in a
spoon; that it must be warmed before it will drop at all, by reason its
thick and clammy.” The sugared oils were simply made by triturating
various essential oils with white sugar, and usually given for their
carminative action.

Another favourite vehicle was broth, generally composed of many and
strange ingredients. We have come across the broth of calves’ lungs,
broth of the bones of lizards, and broths made from snails, tortoises,
woodlice, crabs, and vipers.

The recipe for the broth of viper we have taken from an old
black-letter book, and is rather curious:—

      “℞ Living viper             j.

  Remove his head, tail and viscera, excepting his heart and liver,
  cut it into little pieces and mix it with the blood, and add—

      Well water           12 ounces

  in a close vessel, boil for two hours and strain, and the broth
  will be made.”

The _materia medica_ of the old apothecary was largely drawn from the
animal kingdom, the greater part of it being, no doubt, handed down
from a very early period, when witchcraft and superstition exerted a
powerful influence on the minds of the people.

Among the many curious things used, we find that the liver of a mad
dog, or a wolf, washed in wine and dried in a stove, was employed as
a remedy for hydrophobia. The nimble lizard had a reputation as a
sudorific and antisyphilitic. Dried toads and the cast-off skins of
snakes and adders, were administered in dropsy as a diuretic.

The horn of rhinoceros was used in epilepsy, and goat’s blood and eel’s
liver as a cure for dysentery. The oil of frog’s spawn was celebrated
as an application for chilblains. The jawbone of a pike and the spine
of a lamprey in powder, were prescribed for leucorrhœa. Pepys
mentions in his diary, that he wore a hare’s foot as a sovereign remedy
against the plague, in which charm he seemed to place more faith than
in the various plague waters that were recommended to him as unfailing
antidotes for that terrible disease.

In the time of Edward I. there was a list of drugs recorded by the
king’s physician, one Nicholas de Tyngewyke, in 1307, which throws an
interesting light on the pharmacy of that period. The list includes
distilled oil of turpentine, aromatic flowers for baths, carminative
electuaries, plasters and ointments of various kinds, the oils
of wheat, ash, and bay, water of the roses of Damascus, wine of
pomegranates, remedies prepared from pearls, jacinths, and coral, and
many other drugs. The king was taken ill at Carlisle, and the cost of
conveying these remedies from London to that city amounted to £159 11s.
10d., the apothecary’s bill for the medicines being £134 16s. 4d.

In 1596 Sir Henry Winton, who was sent as ambassador by Elizabeth
to Henry IV. of France, met with an accident while on his mission.
According to the records “he was physicked with _confectio alcarmas_,
which was composed of musk, amber, gold, pearl, and unicorn’s horn, and
with pigeons applied to his side, and all other means that art could
devise sufficient to expel the strongest poison, and he be not bewitcht
withall”.

The apothecaries of the seventeenth century were not overburdened with
the estimable virtue of modesty, as instanced in the following quaint
announcement:—

“Cornelius Tilbury, sworn chirurgeon-in-ordinary to K. Charles II., to
his late Sovereign K. William, as also to her present Majesty Queen
Anne—address at the Blue Flower Pot, in Great Lincoln’s Inn Fields, at
Holbourn Row (where you see at night a light over the door); and for
the convenience of those that desire privacy, they may come through the
Red Lyon Inn in Holbourn, between the two turnstiles, which is directly
against my back door, where you will see the sign of the Blue Ball hung
over the door.

“I dispose of my famous Orvietan, either liquid or in powder, what
quantity or price you please. This is that Orvietan that expelled that
vast quantity of poison I took before K. Charles II., for which his
Majesty presented me with a gold medal and a chain.”

[Illustration: AN APOTHECARY.

From an engraving, 1517.]

The physician’s fees were by no means small in the time of the
Commonwealth, as may be judged from the following extract from the
_Memoirs of the Verney Family_:—

“Sir Theodore Mayerne is buryed,” writes Dr. Denton, “and died worth
£140,000.” Sir Ralph thought £30 too small a fee to pay Dr. Denton for
his attendance on his wife during her confinement, but for his pressing
poverty he would have sent him £50, equal to about £200 of our present
money. Dr. Radcliffe’s regular fees were estimated to bring him in
an income of at least £4000 a year; Dr. Mead’s were valued at between
£5000 and £6000. Sir George Wheler’s sickness, after a Christmas dinner
at Dr. Denton’s, cost him “the best part of £100”. He had caught a
chill after dancing, which turned to “a spotted feavour”; Sir George
Ent was called in: he had all sorts of “Applications of Blisters and
Loudanums”. “My Apothecary’s ... bill came to £28. He was a good man,
and told me if I fell into a feavour again, Sage Possit would do me as
much good as all the Physitians Prescriptions.”

In Sir Daniel Fleming’s account books we have record of the amount paid
to medical practitioners in 1659, as follows:—

  To Doctor Dykes for comeing and laying plasters unto Will    £0 10 0

  For his plaisters and paines contributed towards the cure
      of Will, the sum of                                       5  0 0

A further entry also shows the value of the midwife’s services at the
same period. Under date

  July 30th, 1659. Given unto Daniel Harrison’s wife for being my
  wife’s midwife, 5/-.

In the household books of Lord William Howard we learn that on 25th
September, 1612, he paid one Mr. Adamson, an apothecary of Keswick,
“for xxii dayes and his physick, £xiii. vi,s. viii,d”.

Some of the early preparations used in pharmacy were as elaborate as
they were mysterious. The Treacle of Andromachus the elder, a recipe of
great antiquity, contained sixty-three ingredients; and the celebrated
Mithridate of Damocratis contained forty-eight.

The origin of the formula for “Mithridates” is ascribed to Mithridates,
King of Pontus, whose recipe Pompey brought to Rome, where Damocratis
sang its praises and proclaimed its virtues. It was considered by the
ancients a panacea for every ill. Of the historic preparation known as
the Treacle of Andromachus, its invention is attributed to that worthy.
Pliny says that the formula of a similar composition was inscribed in
verse 300 years before the Christian era upon the temple of Æsculapius,
and that Andromachus merely imitated, by order of Nero, the composition
of the Mithridate, which had then been known for a considerable time.

Of the forms of administration there were a great variety in the
sixteenth century, and many, such as the Rob which consisted of the
juice of fruits boiled down to two-thirds, the lohoch, and the treacle,
have quite gone out of use.

But notwithstanding modern research and scientific advance, some of
the ancient formulæ still survive and are employed to-day.

It may not be generally known that the preparation known as hiera picra
was originated by Galen, on the properties of which he placed high
value on account of its excessively bitter taste. Charas states that
the great physician gave it the name of hiera picra or holy bitter.

In the _pil. aloes. et myrrh._ of the _British Pharmacopœia_,
commonly known by the old name of _Pil. Ruffi._, we have a formula
handed down intact for over a thousand years.

In mediæval times ladies were not above using preparations to beautify
their complexions, and among others for this purpose, we find the
formula of a cerate composed of white wax, spermaceti, oil of cole
seed, bismuth, borax, and alum, which was spread on a cloth to cover
the face at night, and worn as a mask.

Among the parts of the body used as medicine was human blood, on which
some early physicians set great value for the cure of epilepsy and
diseases of the brain.

Charas, in his _Royal Pharmacopœia_, says: “In the month of May take
a considerable quantity of healthy young men’s blood, let blood in that
season who are _not red haired_. This blood is to be distilled twice,
or spread on plates and dried in the sun or an oven. All writers extol
the volatile salt of man’s blood, for the cure of epilepsy, it being
also very proper to suppress vapours that arise from the stomach and
spleen.”

In a Celtic leech-book preserved in the University of Leyden, which is
said to have been written in the ninth century, there are the following
curious recipes:—

  “1. To prevent wrinkles. Smear the face with a mixture of water and
  the pounded root of wild cucumber. Wash with cold water. ‘Hóc sí
  triduo fac_er_e uolueris mirabile_m_ effectu_m_ uidebis.’

  “2. To remove freckles. Rub a bull’s gall on the face.

  “3. To cure headaches. Gather plantain-root before sunrise, and tie
  it on the head. Use also the juice of the seed of the elder-tree,
  a cow’s brain, goat’s dung dissolved in vinegar; swallows’ nests
  mixed with water, and applied to the forehead; water out of which
  an ass or an ox has drunk.

  “4. To purge the head. Pour the juice of cabbage (_brassica_) into
  the nostrils.

  “5. For dimness of the eyes. Pound fennel-roots, mix with honey,
  and boil over a slow fire; add cistern-water or woman’s milk. Smear
  the eyes with the fat of a fox (_adipe volpis_).

  “6. Another remedy. Mix a child’s urine (_lotium infantis_) with
  the best honey; add a decoction of fennel-roots (‘omnem caliginem
  mirabiliter discutiet’).

  “7. The beginning of this paragraph has been cut off. The remedies
  prescribed are butter and _cram occifæth_ (garlic...?), mixed with
  ram’s fat (‘per aruinam ariætis’).

  “14. To cure the bite of a dog. Apply two or three onions calcined
  and boiled with lard and honey.

  “15. To extract a straw from the eye. Chant the psalm _Qui
  habitat_ (Ps. 90) thrice over water, with which then douche the
  eye, _et sanus ærit_.”

Among the various remedies fish play a prominent part. For gravel it is
recommended that the head of a pike be boiled in a newly-glazed earthen
pot, then reduced to powder and drunk in a glass of white wine. A sure
means of curing gout is to wear continually three or four moles’ feet
tied to one’s garters. For nose-bleeding, the sufferer is advised to
blow up the nose the powder of a stone found in the head of a carp, or
to plug up the nostrils with hare’s fur. A certain remedy for curing
a drunkard of his evil way is to give him as many eggs of the screech
owl, boiled hard, as he can possibly eat, when we are assured he will
ever after be a total abstainer.

In the first book of the _Secretes of the reverent Maister Alexis
of Piemont_, 1562, which is a kind of general receipt-book for the
apothecaries of the time, there occur some curious formulæ, which may
be taken as a fair example of the pharmacy of those days. The process
of making the oil of red dog is given with elaborate detail.

“To make an oile of a redde dogge,” says the chronicler, “by the meane
whereof (beside other infinit vertues that it hathe) I have healed a
Fryer of Saint Onostres, who had by the space of twelve years a lame
and drye withered arme, lyke I styche so that nature gave it no more
nouryshement—

“Take a yonge dogge of redde heare and keep him three days without
meate, and then strangle him with a corde, and let him lie dead a
quarter of an houre, and in the meane time boyle a kettell of ayle up
by the fire, and putte the dogge in whole, or in pieces, it maketh no
matter howe, so that he be all there with the skynne and heare; make
him seethe so untyl he be almost sodden to pieces, keepying always the
kettell close covered: In the meane tyme take scorpions to the number
of four score or a hundred, and put them in a basyn on the fyre untyll
they be thoroughly bruised. Then putte them in the sayde kettell with
the ayle and the dogge, puttinge to it a good dishful of great grounde
wormes, well washed, a good handful of Saint John’s Worte, a handful
of wylde marshe mallowes, and a handful of wallworte, with an once of
saffron. Seethe all these things well to-gether, and then let it ware
colde.” The liquid being strained off and certain aromatic gums added,
the preparation was complete.

The belief that carrying a piece of camphor will ward off infectious
diseases, is a relic of the old days of amulets and charms. In 1547
Alexis recommended compounds to carry against the plague and fever, and
we find that aromatics were used to perfume clothes in the time of the
early Jews, long before the birth of Christ.

Among other secrets of Alexis, there is a curious recipe to “_cause
mervelous dreames_”.

“Take the bloode of a lampwink or black plover, and rubbe your temples
with it and so goe to bedde, and you shall see mervelous thinges in
your sleepe; or else if you eate at nighte a little of the herbe Solani
or Visicaria, or some Mandragora, or elles of the herbe called in
Greek Hyoscymus, in Latin hath these names, Altercum, Appolinaris, and
Symphonia, and in the English some call it Henbane, and you shall see
in the nighte goodly things in your dreame.”

The apothecary apparently omits to mention that a heavy meal of very
ordinary cheese, combined with the succulent fruit of the cucumber,
before you go to bed, will also make you see marvellous and weird
things in your sleep.

The gifts and wisdom of the apothecaries were according to their
writings very wonderful, but none perhaps is more remarkable than the
following recipe on a matter which would baffle the scientists of the
present day.

The chronicler writes: “To make a woman that beareth alwaies daughters
to beare also sonnes, it is a thing very easy, and hath good succes,
and hathe been divers times proved. Let her eate an herbe in English
called mercurie, which hath only two seedes; also the skrapings of an
elephant’s tooth.”

The name of the originator of the “everlasting pill” has not been
handed down to posterity, but whoever he was, he was certainly an
economist, and could not be charged with inventing it for his own
gain. It consisted of a small globule of metallic antimony, which was
believed to have the property of purging as often as it was swallowed.

A single pill of this kind would serve a whole family during their
lives, and was doubtless, transmitted as an heirloom to posterity.

Paris says, “we have heard of a lady who, having swallowed one of these
pills, became seriously alarmed at its not passing through”. “Madam,”
said her physician, “fear not; it has already passed through a hundred
patients without any difficulty.”

It is said to have been the constant custom of Cardinal Wolsey to carry
in his hand an orange deprived of its contents and filled with a sponge
soaked in vinegar, impregnated with various spices, in order to protect
him from infection when passing through the crowds of people which his
splendour of office attracted.

An old writer, one James Penrose of the middle ages, questions if
Cleopatra applied the asp to her breast as is commonly supposed,
because, as he remarks, “the veines are so very slender”.

“Petrus Victorius blames the painters who depict the Egyptian queen
applying the asp to her breast, seeing it is manifest out of Plutarch
in the life of Antonius, and out of Plinie likewise, that she applied
it to her arme.”

“Zonares relates, that there appeared no signe of death upon her, save
two blew spots on her arme.”

“Cæsar also in her statue, which he carryed in tryumph, applyed the
asp to her arme; for in the armes there are great veines and arteries
which doe quickly and in a straight way convey the venom to the heart,
whereas in the papps the vessels are slender.”

Gesnerus gives a method used by the apothecaries for changing the
colour of the hair which is somewhat singular. It is by means of one
of the many waters of the philosophers, and is made as follows, in
the language of the text: “Take a moule which serveth unto the dying
or coloring of heares whyte, eyther of man or beast; let the moule
be artely brought to powder with Brimstone, adde to it the juice of
celandine which orderly be myxed, let to stande for certaine dayes,
after dystill the whole according to taste. The virtue of this water is
in such wise, that if a beast wholy blacke of heare shall be washed all
over with this water, the heare shall in that time became so whyte as
snowe.”

The aloe mentioned in the Bible, usually in connection with myrrh and
frankincense, is not the same drug as that used in medicine to-day, and
is even without its bitterness. It is the product of the _Aquilaria
Agallocha_, a tree of large size growing in the Laos country and Assam.
The wood is light in colour and inodorous, but under certain conditions
a change takes place in it, and it becomes charged with a dark aromatic
juice. It was formerly used as a spice in embalming, and is employed in
China and the East as incense in the temples.

A curious little work, entitled _The House Apothecary_ written by
Dr. Gideon Harvey, physician-in-ordinary to his Majesty, and printed
in 1670, affords a further interesting glimpse at pharmacy 200 years
ago. It would appear that the apothecaries then, like some of their
descendants of the present day, excited a considerable amount of
jealousy among the physicians by prescribing in certain cases, and
meddling generally “in matters which they did not understand”.

[Illustration: AN APOTHECARY.

From an engraving, 1517.]

The worthy doctor begins by recommending people to prepare their
medicine at their own homes, it being a far safer and easier way
than sending it to the apothecary to be made, and as a further
inducement states: “And you shall also save nineteen shillings in
twenty shillings, according to the extravagant rates charged by many
apothecaries, in so doing. I must tell you, I have oft seen bills of
apothecaries rise to twenty, and sometimes thirty pounds in the time
of a fortnight; and what is more, I have known an apothecary’s bill so
extravagant that the sum at the bottom of his account amounted to fifty
pounds in the space of thirty days, when the ingredients of the whole
course could not be computed to stand him in forty shillings.” A severe
indictment indeed.

The doctor then goes on to inform us that “in preparing medicines at
home you may be certain the ingredients are sound and fresh, and you
can have your medicines without attending the apothecary’s leisure or
having the trouble of sending three or four times to his shop for them;
and, most important of all, you may be assured in so doing you shall
save nine pounds in ten, and sometimes forty-eight pounds in fifty”.

Another treatise written to denounce the excessive charges of the
apothecaries was _The Accomplished Physician, the Honest Apothecary,
and the Skilful Surgeon_, published and sold at the “Angel” in Duck
Lane, in 1656. It attacked the unfortunate apothecary on all sides.
It states that “if the apothecary finds you costive he sends you
a clyster, at the price of half a crown, which by consulting _The
Accomplished Physician_, etc., you may learn how to make yourself for
three half-pence. If he apprehends your stomach to be oppressed, he
orders his man to boil a little cardamoms in water, strain it, and put
to it three or four spoonsful of rank oil of sweet almonds, to cause
you to vomit and carry off a little phlegm, and for this he charges you
half a crown, which you can make yourself for two-pence.”

The author finally confides to the public “that it is fortunate
that the little apothecaries and prescribing surgeons have not much
knowledge of the great medicines, such as mercury and antimony, as they
would at most times do great mischief with them, using them at unseemly
times, as if you laid hold of a club to knock down a louse; such great
medicines should only be used by the physicians, who should reserve
them in secret”.

Most of the herbs and roots in common use were brought to the town
markets and vended by the physical herb-women, who would bring them in
baskets to Newgate Market, Gutter Lane, or Covent Garden, and there
sell them by the handful, a dozen for a groat. The measures in use
were of a very primitive description, chiefly the fascicle and the
pugil.

In 1656 a quart white glass bottle cost 1s. 6d., and a green glass
retort 8d. Plague water at certain times was in great demand, and was
usually sold at the apothecaries for 3s. 6d. a pint. The price of most
conserves was 2d. an ounce, and ointments retailed at 8d. an ounce.
An ointment that was much in vogue and very popular among the people
was _Unguentum Ægyptiacum_, similar to the ointment of the great Felix
Wurtz. Its composition is somewhat interesting and quaint. “Take of
verdigriese 12 drachms ground very fine in a brass mortar, observing
while you are powdering to hold your head back from the mortar and
keep your mouth and nose stopped, to prevent those venomous steams
from getting up into your brain. Then take 3 ounces of honey and 12
drachms of sharpest vinegar, place them in a broad brass pipkin, put
in the verdigriese, stir and boil them on a gentle fire unto the
thickness of an oyntment of a purple colour.” Of the waters in common
use the _Accomplished Physician_ gives directions for the preparation
of several. The London treacle water, _aqua mirabilis_ and _aqua
raphani composita_, were noted for scurvy. The London snail water was
recommended as an invaluable remedy in consumption, which, “owing to
the cool, clammy, and glutinous substance of the snail, facilitated the
expectoration and repaired the parts consumed”. Gascon’s powder, or
_pulvis é chelis cancrorum_, was regarded as a valuable medicament, and
much esteemed and ordered by the great physicians. It was an expensive
mixture, and contained equal parts, in powder, of crab’s eyes, the
oriental pearl, red coral, white amber, oriental bezoar, and the black
tops of crab’s claws. It was sometimes ordered and taken in the form
of pills mixed with hartshorn jelly. The apothecary’s price for this
powder was 40s. an ounce, or one penny per grain. We are told that if
made at home the cost would only be 13s. 1¼d. Another preparation
exceedingly popular in the seventeenth century was the emplastrum
opodeldock of Feliz Wurtz, “so much cried up among surgeons beyond
the sea”. It was a red plaster, composed of wax, Venice turpentine,
juice of celandine, oak leaves, ammoniacum, galbanum, and vinegar.
Then some powdered magnets, and such mysterious compounds as _Crocus
Martis_, _Crocus Veneris_, and prepared tutria, were thrown in, and
all boiled together. The following is extracted from an old price list
of the seventeenth century, which gives a good idea of some of the
extraordinary articles kept in the old apothecaries’ shops, and the
prices charged. It is headed “Rates and prices currant of Druggs and
other commodities, belonging to physick, as they are commonly sold at
the Apothecaries and Druggists in London, 1685”:—

  Mother of Pearl                   6d. per oz.
  Crab’s eyes                       5s. 4d. per lb.
  Crab’s claws                      1s. 6d.   ”
  Fox’s lungs                       2s.       ”
  A mummy                           5s. 4d.   ”
  Bone of stag’s heart              1s. 6d.   ”
  Borax                             4s.       ”
  Saltpetre                         10d.      ”
  Jalap                             3s. 4d.   ”
  Rhubarb                           14s.      ”
  Liquorice                         1s.       ”
  A boar’s tooth                    1s. each.
  A dead man’s skull (cranium
    humanum) according to size      8s. to 11s. each.
  Musk                              5s. per drachm.
  Bloodstone                        2s. 8d. per lb.
  Opium                             12s.      ”
  Elaterium                         36s. per oz.
  Lac Sulphur                       3s.    ”
  Red coral                         4s. per lb.
  Oleum Copaibæ                     2s. per oz.
  Gum acacia                        10s. per lb.
  Turmerick                         8d. per lb.
  Elicampane                        1s. 4d. per lb.
  Galingal                          4s.       ”
  Gentian                           8d.       ”
  Spanish Liquorice                 6d.       ”
  Hellebore, white                  1s.       ”
  Hellebore, black                  1s. per lb.
  Pyrethrum                         1s.    ”
  Sarsaparil, according to its
    goodness, from                  4s. to 5s. per lb.
  Squills                           6d.           ”
  Winter’s Bark                     2s.           ”
  Lig. Aloes.                       9d. per oz.
    ”  Guaici                       2d. per lb.
  Senna Alex., the best             4s.
  Cubebs                            2s. 4d. per lb.
  Nucis Vomicæ                      1s. 4d.    ”
  Cardamom                          4s.        ”
  Aloes Succot, according to its
   goodness                         4s. to 6s. per lb.
  Scammony                          12s.          ”
  Cantharides                       4s.           ”
  Civet                             5s. 6d. per dram.
  Ising-glass                       5s. 4d. per lb.
  Sea-horse tooth                   4d. per oz.
  Sea-horse pizzle                  4d.    ”
  Skink, a piece                    1s. 4d.
  Spermaceti                        3s. per ounce.
  Stag’s pizzle                     6d.     ”
  Elk’s claw                        2s. a piece.
  White wax                         2s. per lb.
  Yellow wax                        1s. 4d. per lb.
  Cinnabar                          3s. per oz.
  Mercury Sublimate                 5s. 8d., or 6s. per lb.
  Seed Pearls                       4s. to 8s. per oz.
  Mother of Pearl                   6d. per oz.
  Mithridate                        6s. per lb.
  Aqua Fortis                       5s. 4d. per lb.
  Ol. Cinnamon                      £1 12s. per oz.
  Ol. Vitrioli                      5s. 4d. per lb.

Besides the above, precious stones in powder, and diamond powder, which
was regarded as a powerful poison, commanded very high prices.




CHAPTER XIX.

PHARMACY IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.


To obtain a clear conception of the great advance that has been made in
medicine and pharmacy, it is necessary to look back through the vista
of centuries at the Elizabethan apothecary. In doing so, we should note
how the influence of superstition and charlatanry, with which the art
of healing was surrounded and intermixed, has been gradually dispersed
under the searching light of science. One can picture the apothecary’s
shop in the days of “good Queen Bess”. Up a narrow winding street,
paved with round cobble stones, and no pathway to protect you from the
jostling and nudges of the passing chair-bearers, French pages, and
watermen who throng the thoroughfares, his abode may be denoted perhaps
by the gilded crocodile which hangs over the doorway, accompanied by
a pole from which depends a pair of brightly-burnished metal pans,
denoting the practice of the chirurgical art. The overhanging gables
of the half-timbered houses darken the low-roofed shop, through whose
small windows filled with little panes of bottle glass, a very dim
light penetrates. A mysterious odour permeates the interior and strange
things are seen hanging from the rafters,—flying fish, tortoises, and
a long alligator float mid-air. Strings of poppy-heads, bunches of
chamomile and centuary, also glass jars containing adders and worms
adorn the counter. On one shelf an array of bright brass mortars, and
round about on others, a great collection of quaint bottles and earthen
pots, containing electuaries, unguents, and lohochs; syrup bottles with
long curved spouts, and bladders full of seeds and wax. In the corner
stands the great iron mortar, whose heavy pestle is suspended from a
spring beam, and another is filled with little drawers to hold the gums
and spices.

[Illustration: AN APOTHECARY.

From an engraving, 1517.]

Away at the back a red glow appears from the furnace, and alembics,
big and little, lie about. At night the shop is crowded with poor
women buying worm-seed for their children or treacle to drive out the
measles, and with country people who have come for drugs and drenches
for their sick cattle. “There are serving-men waiting for their
masters’ purgatives and electuaries, or the fops’ facewashes of oil of
tartar, _lac virginis_, and camphor dissolved in verjuice. Smart maids
are buying conserves and sackets for their mistresses, or perfumes for
my lady’s chamber. Here desperadoes and rakish gallants could purchase
poisons, and blushing maidens would buy their love charms and philtres,
or antidotes to counteract the same. Some apothecaries kept a little
room for taking tobacco, furnished with silver trays, and a maple
block for cutting it, where the gallants met and gossiped, or learned
tricks in smoking from fashionable professors, for nearly all the
apothecaries sold tobacco—real Timidado—nicotine cane, and pudding,
as it was called.” The old apothecary’s prescriptions were composed
of strange ingredients, sometimes crab’s eyes and boar’s teeth, or
powdered pearls, and viper broth. He would recommend you a toad, well
dried in the sun, put in a bag, and hung round the neck by a string
low enough to touch the region of the heart, to allay hæmorrhage. A
preparation of garlic and honey smeared on the person was a certain
charm against the bites of vicious dogs and reptiles, or the stings of
venomous insects. Toothache could be charmed away by a few leaves of
the “shepherd’s purse” placed in the sole of the shoe. An excellent
recipe for sore eyes was the expressed juice of the calyx of the red
honeysuckle, provided always that the flowers were gathered kneeling
and repeating nine Pater nosters in honour of the Trinity, nine more
“to greet our Ladye,” and a creed. My Ladye Falkenbrydge’s recipe for
eye-water was much esteemed, and ran thus: “Corne-flowers gathered
with their cuppes and bruyse them; macerate them in snowe or snowe
water for twentye-foure houres, then dystyl in a moderate sandebath
and applye it night and morning”. This was prescribed in 1553. A
favourite cure for rickety children was to pass them through the split
stem of a tree. For ague, a very well salted herring, split open, was
applied hot to the soles of the feet; or an emerald worn round the neck
formed a potent charm against the same complaint. The learned Boorde,
in his _Breviary of Health_, says: “The medical treatment of the day
was a mixture of religious theories, superstition, and white magic”.
He recommends for a bad rheum the application of oil of scorpions and
fox fat; for a bruised skin, washing it with white wine and plastering
with an oak leaf; and he quaintly states “the best remedy for itching
is long nails and scratching,” which, at any rate, is common-sense. To
preserve the health and a good complexion, he recommends young maids to
wipe their faces daily with a scarlet cloth, and only wash them once a
week.

Another peculiar phase of pharmacy in those early days was the
instructions of the various apothecaries’ guilds to their members as to
prayer. The compounder of prescriptions was directed to go down on his
knees and supplicate before he commenced his labours. Many old herbals
and works on pharmacy, especially in Germany, contain curious wood-cut
illustrations of the apothecary at his devotional exercises. Cyriacus
Schnaus, an apothecary of Nuremberg, published a book in 1565, wherein
he, in person, is represented as kneeling on a large mortar before a
sacred picture. This custom may have been originated by the monks, many
of whom followed the art of healing.

[Illustration: A PHYSICIAN FORECASTING FROM THE URINE.

From an engraving, 1517.]

A writer of the time states that the itinerant dentist was also a
well-known figure at the street corner. For 100 marks he would put out
both your eyes, and quite cure your inflammation with one drop of his
_aqua mirabilis_, at twelve-pence a drop. He offered you an antidote
from stab or bullet for five marks, and by his side waved a banner
stuck all over with horses’ teeth, to show his skill.

He cured your toothache by charms, sometimes writing mysterious words
on a paper, and burning it under your nose; or he would sear your teeth
with hot wires, most effectively; or make you inhale the hot vapour of
henbane seeds, and then show you the worms that he had conjured out,
which are certes now wriggling in the water. He wore a chain of molar
teeth around his neck, and shook them from time to time as he held up a
bottle of liquid and called out: “These are the spirits that pass with
the blood into the rheum, to vex the teeth of men”. His descendants may
still be seen at the present day working wondrous cures, decked out in
similar fantastic garb, or extracting teeth gratis, and by sheer bold
impudence reaping a golden harvest.

Having thus shown how the now almost forgotten pioneers of science laid
the foundation of the arts of medicine and pharmacy, and how much we
owe to their patience and diligence, a brief reference may be made
to the class of medicaments in use in the days of Queen Elizabeth,
immediately prior to the differentiation in England of the first
pharmacists—the apothecaries—and the beginnings of pharmacy as a
separate art.

[Illustration: AN ITINERANT DRUG SELLER.

From a fifteenth century drawing.]

“A few simples,” says Burton, “well prepared and understood, are
better than such a heap of nonsense, confused compounds, which are in
apothecaries’ shops ordinarily sold.”

For madness and melancholy, wormwood was used. Another remedy was
clarified whey, with borage, bugloss, endive, succory, etc., a good
draught of which was taken in the morning, fasting. For the spleen and
liver, syrups were prescribed composed of borage, thyme, epithyme,
hops, scolopendra, fumitory, maiden-hair, and bizantine. These syrups
were mixed with distilled water by the apothecaries, or stirred into
juleps.

Of conserves there were innumerable varieties, and ointments of oil
and wax, as well as liniments and plasters of herbs and flowers, well
boiled with oil or spirits.

Cataplasms and salves were frequently made of green herbs sodden,
pounded, and applied externally.

Gradually, as the years have rolled on, and as the science of chemistry
has unlocked the marvellous resources and products of nature, most
of these old relics of the days of superstition and witchcraft have
been left behind and forgotten, and it remains only for some old
black-lettered tome to tell the story and for us to fill in the
background to the picture.




CHAPTER XX.

FAMOUS EMPIRICS AND THEIR NOSTRUMS.


In the early part of the eighteenth century, the enterprising empiric
seems to have hit on a new method of lining his pockets at the expense
of the public, and we have the advent of the so-called proprietary
or quack nostrum, which has developed into such gigantic proportions
in later years. To bring some special drug into notoriety in those
days it was first necessary to spread some tale abroad as to its
extraordinary virtues, then by means of a pamphlet (for there were few
other advertising media) recount the marvellous cures it had performed,
and back them up by mentioning a few great names. In this way the quack
medicines originated.

In a similar manner, some drugs that have since proved of great use to
humanity were brought into note. Peruvian bark was first imported into
Spain by the Jesuits, where it remained seven years before a trial was
given to it. It was first administered to a Spanish priest in 1639,
and but for the supreme power of the Church of Rome it would in all
probability have sunk into oblivion. Pope Innocent X., however, at the
intercession of Cardinal de Lugo, ordered the bark to be duly examined
by the best experts of the time, and on a favourable report being
presented, it at once rose high in favour.

The “Elixirs of Life” made by the early alchemists may be said to have
been the forerunners of quack medicines, and for these concoctions
fabulous prices were demanded. Those made by Paracelsus and Van Helmont
were known throughout Europe, and must have brought considerable grist
to the mill of their proprietors. The Collyrium of Danares, which
enjoyed a wide reputation in the seventeenth century, was sold at
£9 per bottle. Then there was the Sympathetic Powder of Sir Kenelm
Digby, noted for healing wounds, and Hoffman’s Water of Magnanimity.
Another famous nostrum made by Paracelsus was called _Præcipitatus
Diaphoreticus Paracelsi_, and warranted to cure a fever in four days.

“Dutch drops,” which were originally sold for half a guinea a bottle,
are said to have brought the proprietors £2000 in one year.

The _Eau Médicinale de Husson_, another well-known quack nostrum, was
introduced by an officer of that name in the service of Louis XVI.
It is said to have been simply a decoction of meadow saffron. Dr.
James’ celebrated fever powder, which enjoyed a great reputation in
this country, is stated to have been the invention of an Italian named
Lisle, and a recipe for its preparation was published in Colborne’s
_English Dispensary_ in 1756. Oliver Goldsmith believed this to be a
remedy for all ills and took it regularly up to his death.

The Count St. Germain, a Frenchman, realised large sums by vending an
artificial tea, which he affirmed would prolong life. It is said to
have been composed chiefly of senna and fennel leaves. The Chevalier
d’Ailhoud was another adventurer who introduced a powder which met
with such a sale that he soon saved enough to buy a whole county. That
prince of empirics the Count Cagliostro sold his Balm of Life, or
stomach elixir, at an exorbitant price. He asserted that he had lived
200 years by its use, and was rendered invulnerable against poison of
every description.

During his residence in Strasburg, while boasting and expounding
the virtues of his nostrum and antidote to a large assembly of the
townsfolk, a physician who was present, and who had not taken part in
the conversation, quitting the room quietly, went to an apothecary’s
shop and ordered two pills to be made of equal size. Taking them with
him, he made his way back to the room, and walking up to the loquacious
quack he said, “Here, my worthy Count, are two pills. The one contains
a deadly poison, and the other is perfectly innocent. Choose one and
swallow it, and I will take the one you leave.”

The Count took alarm, and after making all kinds of apologies and
excuses, at last refused to swallow the pill. The physician, smiling,
then took his place on the platform, and in view of the company
swallowed both, and then, to the discomfort of Cagliostro, announced
that both pills were simply composed of bread. The Count beat a speedy
retreat.

In 1794 considerable sensation was excited by the account of some
wonderful cures made by a Count Thün of Leipzig, who professed to cure
gout, hypochondria, and hysteria by laying his hands on the head of the
patient.

The early part of the present century saw a great increase in the
number of these nostrums, the usual method adopted by their proprietors
being to set up in great style in a fashionable part of the town,
and by lavish display and various eccentricities, to attract general
attention.

Among the foremost in London was a German Jew who called himself
Doctor Brodum. This individual, who, it is said, started life as a
footman, took a large house in a fashionable square in the west-end,
and drove a pair of horses in a gorgeous chariot. He called his nostrum
“Nervous Cordial,” its properties being set forth in a pamphlet
entitled _A Guide to Old Age_. He is said to have amassed a fortune in
a very short time.

Another notorious quack was Doctor Solomon, who eventually settled in
Liverpool. He originally sold blacking in Newcastle, but finding it did
not pay, came to Liverpool, where he tried to establish a newspaper.
This effort also proved a failure, and Solomon at length turned his
attention to quack doctoring, and brought out a nostrum called “The
Balm of Gilead”. This proved successful, and he soon made enough money
to build himself a substantial house in Kensington, which was at that
time a fashionable suburban district. To advertise his preparation he
wrote a pamphlet called _The Guide to Health_, extolling the virtues
of the “Balm of Gilead and Anti-Impetigines”. This treatise, the cover
of which was adorned with an engraving of his mansion at Kensington,
stated “the most learned physicians have been unable to discover in the
cordial Balm of Gilead the least particle of mercury, antimony, or any
other mineral except _pure virgin gold_ and the balm of Mecca”.

The Doctor was a well-known character in the streets of Liverpool in
the early part of this century, and in his daily promenade always
carried an elaborate gold-headed cane. The celebrated “balm” is said to
have been simply brandy flavoured with some aromatic oil, and although
sold at a guinea a bottle, was in great demand.

A story is told of a prominent tradesman of the time, who discovered
that his wife was consuming considerable quantities of the invigorating
balm. Being further informed that this had become a common habit
with many of her friends, he took counsel with the husbands of these
ladies, with the result that they determined to punish the doctor by
carrying out the following plot. On a certain dark night, a messenger
was despatched to the doctor’s house, asking him to come at once and
see a patient a little way out in the country, and to be sure and bring
with him several bottles of his Balm of Gilead. The unsuspecting victim
soon set out on foot along the country lanes, and on getting to a very
lonely part, was pounced upon by four men disguised in cowskins, who,
with long horns and tails, looked like fiends incarnate. The poor
doctor thought his last hour had come, and went down on his knees and
invoked all the prophets he could think of; but his tormentors dragged
him off to a field close by, where they made him swallow bottle after
bottle of his own nostrum, then ducked him in a pond and tossed him in
a blanket.

Solomon was so incensed at this outrage he determined to leave
Liverpool and settle in Birmingham, but in a short time returned to
the former city, where he died, and was buried, according to his
directions, in his own garden.

The following verse, referring to these empirics, is extracted from an
old ballad:—

    “Brodum or Solomon with physic,
    Like death, despatch the wretch that’s sick,
    Pursue a sure and thriving trade;
    Though patients die, the doctor’s paid!
    Licensed to kill, he gains a palace
    For what another mounts a gallows!”

The electropathic girdles of our own time had their anti-type in
Perkin’s far-famed tractors for preserving health, for which the
proprietor demanded the sum of five guineas a set. The wonderful
properties attributed to them were set forth in a small book, entitled
_The Influence of the Metallic Tractors on the Body_.

Among the nostrums that enjoyed popularity in the early part of this
century were De Velno’s Vegetable Syrup, Dr. Senate’s Lozenges of
Steel to prolong life, Leake’s Patent Pills, Dr. Burton’s Vital
Wine, Beddoe’s Volatile Cordial Oxygen Gas for preserving life, Dr.
Squirrel’s Tonic Drops and Powders, Godbold’s Vegetable Balsam, and
many others.

The foibles of many of the most prominent empirics of the period are
well hit off in the following old ballad:—

    “We can boast of a Beddoe’s whose oxygen gas
    Can render immortal the ape and the ass;
    While Swainson the botanist, son of Apollo,
    Swears we ne’er shall be sick if his syrup we swallow.
                                            Derry down.

    “While Solomon flies on the wings of the wind,
    His magical Balm of Mount Gilead to find,
    Little Brodum stands stewing his herbs in a copper,
    And to vend his decoction for gold he thinks proper.
                                            Derry down.

    “Dull Gardner, destroyer of worms and of men,
    Like Leake, sells his pills to rouse death from his den;
    And Perkins stands brandishing two-pointed tractors,
    To heal the contusions of girls, beaux, and actors.
                                            Derry down.

    “There’s the lotion of Gowland that flays ladies’ faces,
    Distorting the features of our modern Graces;
    There, Lignum’s dire pills—but of quackery enough!
    Let John Bull take his pipe and contentedly puff.
                                            Derry down.”




CHAPTER XXI.

THE ANTIQUITY AND HISTORY OF THE MORTAR.


The mortar is the most ancient of pharmaceutical implements, its
earliest use carrying us back to prehistoric times, when the early
Briton bruised his grain in the hollow of a granite boulder. There
is little doubt indeed that mortars were employed for the purpose of
bruising and reducing hard bodies to powder, centuries before medicine
as an art was thought of or known.

The name is derived from the Latin word _mortarium_, which is probably
from the root _mordeo_, to bite, akin to the Sanscrit _mrid_, to grind
or to pound; the literal meaning of the word being a vessel in which
substances may be pounded with a pestle.

The origin of the mortar appears to have been identical with that of
the mill or quern as it was called in ancient times. The primitive
implement used by prehistoric nations for the purpose of crushing their
grain, was simply made by hollowing out a cup-shaped hole in a block
of stone or granite, and pounding the grain placed in this receptacle
with a smaller stone of suitable form. These grain-crushers, together
with stone rollers and pounders, have been found in the circular huts
of the Britons in several parts of North Wales.

This method was also used by the early Jews before the Christian
era for crushing their spices and gums, the knowledge of which they
doubtless gathered from the Egyptians during the captivity.

[Illustration: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MORTAR.]

In many of the ancient Egyptian papyri we find directions given to
bruise certain herbs and roots, but no mention is made of the implement
used for that purpose; carvings in stone, however, are extant which
show the mortars used by the Egyptians were similar in form to those
employed several centuries later.

It is interesting to note that the mortar has also been known to
several Oriental and savage races from time immemorial; and in the
mortar employed by the pharmacist to-day we have an implement that
links us not only with prehistoric man, but also with the savage races
of the world. In Africa, mortars and pestles of wood have been used
from a period of unknown antiquity for the purpose of crushing grain.
The one illustrated in Fig. 1 is composed of wood, and was brought from
Central Africa. In India, stone mortars with wooden pestles have for
centuries been used for shelling and pounding rice. Fig. 2 represents a
Cingalese mortar of stone, from two to three feet in height, taken from
a drawing of the seventeenth century.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.]

Coming to the time of the Roman Empire, we have the first real evidence
of the use of the mortar for pharmaceutical purposes. Medicine and
pharmacy allied, in the time of Celsus, had become practical arts; and
we know from the preparations described by that author that practical
appliances were necessary. Thus the _malagma_ used as an application
to the skin was a kind of soft mass directed to be beaten up to the
consistency of a thick paste; and the ingredients of the catapotia were
often ordered to be bruised before being mixed.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.]

Roman mortaria composed of earthenware are very commonly found, and
many examples may be seen in most of our museums among other Roman
remains. They were chiefly made for domestic use, and although they
vary very little in pattern, the sizes are numerous. The larger ones
are, as a rule, very strongly made, and all have a thick divided rim
with a rounded moulding. The inside was roughened with splinters of
flint or hard stone, or hard-burnt earthenware, which was fixed on
with a kind of “slip” or liquid clay with which the Romans finished
their ware. A wooden pestle was used with these mortaria, which were no
doubt chiefly employed for triturating and mixing various condiments
for domestic use. The Roman mortarium shown in Fig. 3 is twenty-eight
inches in breadth, and bears the stamp of the maker’s name, showing it
to be the work of one Publius Raso.

Some of the smaller mortaria found are composed of a very white clay of
a vitreous character burnt hard like porcelain, and are nonabsorbent.
These were probably used for mixing more delicate condiments.

There were large manufactories for mortaria in Britain, situated
chiefly in the south of England, at the mouth of the Thames, and in
Essex and Staffordshire. From these factories there was a considerable
export trade to Rome and Gaul.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.]

Roman mortars of stone are much rarer, and the one depicted in Fig. 4
is a unique specimen, and was with little doubt at one time used for
pharmaceutical purposes. Composed of stone, with a solid square base,
it stands about twelve inches high, and is about eight inches broad.
The notches at the corners are evidently intended for fixing it down on
a wooden table or slab, to keep it steady when being used for pounding
or breaking up hard substances. Closely akin to mortars were the querns
or small mills used for grinding purposes from the Roman period. In
shape they somewhat resembled the mortar, but were covered in at the
top, having a hole in the centre through which the pestle was worked.
They were made of stone and wood. A beautiful example of a wooden quern
is depicted in Fig. 5.[8] It stands thirteen inches high, and is made
of very hard wood. It is an exquisite specimen of the turner’s art,
some of the side mouldings being of great delicacy, no thicker than a
fine needle, yet perfectly true in every particular. The pestle was
worked through the hole in the centre of the cover. These wooden querns
were used during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

        [8] Now in the possession of Mr. E. W. Cox, to whom we are
        indebted for the sketch.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.]

There is little doubt that marble succeeded stone as a material for
making mortars, and this brings us down to mediæval times, when the
apothecaries, combining the practice of medicine and pharmacy, became
wielders of the pestle.

The value of the mortar as a pharmaceutical implement was recognised by
these early practitioners, and was given the most prominent position
in their shops, and so the pestle and mortar became a symbol or trade
sign of pharmacy.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.]

The great bell-shaped mortar, which was of considerable capacity,
usually stood, mounted on a solid block of wood, near the centre of the
shop, the huge pestle, three feet or more in length, being suspended
from a long wooden spring beam by a chain and ring. One can readily
picture the youthful apprentice, clad in jerkin and trunk hose,
exercising his muscles with the ponderous pestle, and with what mingled
feelings he would essay the task of pounding half a hundred-weight
of aloes to begin his day’s work and give him an appetite for his
midday meal. These large mortars were usually bell-shaped in form, as
illustrated in Fig. 6, and composed of iron or bell-metal. The smaller
mortars of this period were made of brass, copper, and bell-metal, and
were occasionally ornamented with some symbol or device. Many were
very elegant in form, and they usually stood in bright array on the
counter. The pestles were made flat, top and bottom, so that either end
could be used for pounding.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.]

[Illustration: FIG. 8.]

The bell-metal mortar depicted in Fig. 7 dates from the time of Oliver
Cromwell, and bears the arms of the Commonwealth on both sides. It was
probably once the property of an official State apothecary. The brass
mortar shown in Fig. 8 is peculiar in shape, and is supported by four
short legs. It dates from the early part of the seventeenth century,
and round the middle are inscribed the letters of the alphabet. Fig. 9
represents a particularly handsome example of the brass mortar of the
seventeenth century. Copper mortars when polished have a very elegant
appearance, and are somewhat rare. A specimen is depicted in Fig. 10.
A very fine bell-shaped mortar of brass was found in Chester about two
years ago, and is now deposited in the museum of that city. It stands
nearly two feet high, and dates from the early part of the eighteenth
century.

Small brass mortars were also formerly used by housewives in the
stillroom, and for other domestic purposes, and may often yet be found
ornamenting the kitchen mantelshelf in old country houses.

[Illustration: FIG. 9.]

[Illustration: FIG 10.]

During the last and the early part of this century Italian marble was
largely employed for making mortars, but with the introduction of
wedgewood and composition ware, which is lighter, more durable, and
less liable to be acted on by chemicals, marble mortars have now almost
gone out of use with pharmacists.

Small antique mortars of bronze are still to be found in many French
pharmacies, often bearing some symbol or device, such as St. Michael
and the dragon.




PART II.

ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY IN LITERATURE.




CHAPTER I.

CHAUCER.


Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_ present one of the most interesting
pictures of life and manners in the fourteenth century we have in
English literature. The father of English poetry was born in 1328, and
London is generally believed to have been his birthplace. It was his
fortune to live under the wing of that chivalrous and high-spirited
king, Edward III., a time when gallantry, prowess, and courage were
counted in the highest esteem. In his _Canterbury Tales_ he embodies
some vivid sketches of the times and characters among which he lived.
A physician of course forms one of his motley crew of pilgrims, who
beguile the monotony of their ride to Canterbury, to pay homage at the
shrine of Thomas à Becket, by the quaint stories related.

The pilgrim doctor is thus described:—

    “With us there was a doctor of physic,
    In all this world there was none him like
    To speak of physic and of surgery,
    For he was grounded in astronomy,
    He kept his patient in a full great deal,
    In houres by his magic natural.
    Well could he fortune the ascendant,
    Of his images for his patient
    He knew the cause of every malady,
    Were it of cold, or hot, or moist, or dry,
    And where engendered and of what humour,
    He was a very perfect practisour.
    The cause-y-know and of his harm the root
    Anon he gave to the sick man his boot.
    Full ready had he his apothecaries,
    To send his drugges and his lectuaries
    For each of them made other for to win
    Their friendship was not newe to begin.
    Well knew he the old Æsculapius,
    And Dioscorides, and eke Rufus,
    Old Hippocras, Hali, and Gallien,
    Serapion, Rasis, and Avicen
    Averrois, Damascene, and Constantin,
    Bernard, and Gatisden, and Gilbertin.
    Of his diet measurable was he,
    For it was of no superfluity,
    But of great nourishing and digestable;
    His study was but little on the Bible,
    In sanguine and in perse he clad was, all
    Lined with taffata and with sendall,
    And yet he was but easy of dispence,
    He kept that he won in the pestilence.
    For gold in physic is a cordial,
    Therefore he loved gold in special.”

One can thus picture the ancient physician riding his steady jennet,
clad in doublet and hose of red and blue, with cloak of sendall, a fine
silk material, all lined with taffata. In telling the stars and casting
horoscopes he would be learned, as astrology entered very largely into
his practice, and brought many big fees. So learned a leech would
doubtless have a large practice, and the apothecaries evidently vied
with one another in preparing his prescriptions. The names of ancient
philosophers with whom he was familiar is quite formidable, nearly all
the old authors being enumerated. It is satisfactory to know he was no
glutton, and had an easy conscience. That he was a wise and careful
man is evident from the fact that when an epidemic came he lived but
moderately, and saved extra money that flowed in during the plague time.

The closing couplet is a pretty bit of wit, and alludes to the frequent
use of gold in medicine in ancient times.

Among the pilgrims also was a cook—

    “To boil the chickens and the marrow bones,
    And powder marchant tart and garlingale”.

The former ingredient, probably a kind of baking powder, is now
unknown, and the use of galingal in cookery has been quite forgotten.
This aromatic condiment was commonly used as a culinary spice in the
middle ages. Reference is made to the drug in the writings of Ibn
Khurdadbah, the Arabian geographer, in the year 869. It was used mixed
with cloves and cardamoms, and also employed in medical practice as
early as the ninth century.

In the course of the knight’s romantic tale, Palamon, a gallant young
knight, escapes from a prison in which he has been immured for seven
years, by drugging the jailer:—

    “Soon after the midnight, Palamon
    By helping of a friend brake his prison
    And fled the city, fast as he might go,
    For he had given drink his gaoler so,
    Of a clary made of a certain wine
    With narcotise and opie of Thebes fine,
    That all the night through that men would him shake,
    The gaoler slept he mighte not wake”.

Clary was Hippocras wine made with spices, probably chosen in order
to mask the taste of the opium and other narcotics, of which it was
evident Palamon must have given the unfortunate jailer a large dose
if he slept through the vigorous shaking which is said to have been
administered. The opium of Thebes was much used in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. Prosper Alpinus, who visited Egypt in 1580-83,
states that opium or meconium was in his time prepared in the Thebäid
from the expressed juice of poppy-heads, and it was called _Opium
Thebaïcum_. Later in the story a sharp encounter occurs between two
bands of knights, in which:—

    “All were they sorely hurt and namely one,
    That with a spear was thirled his breast bone,
    To other wounds and to broken arms,
    Some hadden salves and some hadden charms,
    And pharmacies of herbs eke sage,
    They dranken, for they would their lives have.”

The carrying of salves by knights to battle probably originated with
the Crusaders, who carried, prepared and blessed, unguents to dress
their wounds. Other warriors scorned to encumber themselves with the
healing medicines, and relied on the charm or talisman which almost
every knight carried on going to war. Some would trust to the simple
herb or decoction, and sage which is here mentioned was supposed to
have special healing virtue.

In the Miller’s tale we are introduced to one Hendy Nicholas, a poor
scholar or tutor who lived at Oxford, and

    “Had learned art, but all his fantasy
    Was turned for to learn astrology”.

Nicholas was a sly fellow to boot, and somewhat of a beau or a fop of
his time and evidently having a turn for science, he practised it in
his leisure, and was consulted by the farmers of the neighbourhood as
to the state of the weather, or in prognosticating the future for their
wives. He had a laboratory at his lodgings, which is described in the
following words:—

    “A chamber had he in that hostelry,
    Alone withouten any company,
    Full fetisly-y-dight with herbs swoot,
    And he himself was sweet as is the root
    Of liquorice or any setewale.
    His almagest, and books great and small,
    His astrolobe belonging to his art,
    His augrim stones layed fair apart,
    On shelves couched at his beddes head.
    His press-y-covered with a falding red,
    And above all them lay a gay psaltry,
    On which he made at nightes melody
    So sweetely that all the chamber rang,
    And Angelus a virginem he sang;
    And after that he sung the Knight’s note;
    Full often blessed was his merry throat.
    And thus this sweete clerk his time spent,
    After his friendes finding, and his rent.”

One can easily imagine from this sketch the astrologer sitting arrayed
in his laboratory, the room filled with the perfume of fragrant herbs,
with a manner that vied with the sweetness of liquorice or valerian
root. Prominent among the many books with which he is surrounded
is the _Almagest_, the book of Ptolomy, which formed the canon of
astrological science in the middle ages. In one corner his bed, and
above on a shelf his astrolobe, with which he told the stars, and the
augrim stones, probably pieces of slate marked with figures used by
astrologers in their art. Then there was the press or chest covered
with a red cloth, and hanging above it his psaltery gaily decked with
ribbons, on which he accompanied himself when he sang, at which he
was evidently an adept. Later in the story the astrologer and man of
science becomes smitten by Cupid, and one fine morning goes forth at an
early hour to serenade a comely maid (unfortunately for him, married)
of whom he is enamoured, and we are told—

    “When that the first cock hath crowed, anon
    Up rose this jolly lover Absolon,
    And him arrayed gay at point devise,
    But first he chewed grains and liquorice,
    To smelle sweet ere he combed his hair.
    Under his tongue a true love he bear,
    For thereby thought he to be gracious.”

Like unto other votaries at the shrine of Venus, our astrologer took
pains to make himself look to the best advantage, and evidently
bestowed the greatest care on his dress. To perfume his breath and
make himself acceptable to his lady love, he chewed grains of paradise
and liquorice. The former was a favourite spice in early times, but
now rarely used. It has a strong aromatic taste, which is imparted
by an essential oil it contains. The “true love” is thought to mean
some charm or sweetmeat in the form of a “true lover’s knot,” which he
placed under his tongue for the same purpose, and thus this ancient
gallant went forth to woo.

That belladonna was used in Chaucer’s time as a narcotic may be
gathered from a passage in the Reeve’s tale, which runs:—

    “To bedde went the daughter right anon,
    To bedde went Alein and also John.
    There was no more, needed them no dwale.”

Dwale was an old name for the nightshade, and we may infer its
properties were known, as it was used to produce sleep at this period.

In the Nun’s Priest’s tale we are given a receipt for bad dreams and
melancholy, which gives an example of the housewife’s knowledge of the
herbs and simples which grew in her garden:—

    “Through in this town is no apothecary,
    I shall myself two herbes teache you,
    That shall be for your health and for your prow,
    And in our yard the herbs shall I find,
    The which have of their property by kind,
    To purge you beneath and eke above,
    Sire, forget not this for Godde’s love.
    Ye be full coleric of complexion,
    Ware that the sun in his ascension,
    You finde not replete of humours hot,
    And if it do I dare well lay a groat,
    That ye shall have a fever tertiane,
    Or else an ague that may be your bane.
    A day or two ye shall have digestives,
    Of wormes, ere ye take your laxatives
    Of laurel, centaury, and fumetére,
    Or else of elderberry that groweth there,
    Of catapuce, or of the gaitre berries,
    Or herb ivy growing in our yard that merry is.
    Pick them right as they grow and eat them in,
    Be merry husband for your father’s kin.
    Dreade no dream. I can say you no more.”

The patient seems threatened with a fever, and the good-wife, after
some wholesome advice, doses him with digestives for a day or two, and
afterwards with aperients. Laurel would doubtless refer to the leaves
of the cherry laurel, which, infused with wine, was an old digestive
tonic. Centaury, common in our fields, enjoyed a very early reputation.
The herb was so called because it is said that by its virtue the
centaur Chiron was healed when the poisoned arrow of Hercules had
accidentally wounded his foot. Fumitory, too, was grown by the
housewives, and was used as a tonic and a remedy for jaundice.

The curative properties of the elder-berry are still recognised as
astringent and sudorific, and take a place in domestic remedies.

Catapuce is the old name for spurge, a common herb formerly used for
its purgative properties; while the gaitre or dogwood-berries, and the
herb ivy, were also used as laxative medicines and liver stimulants.

In the Canon’s Yeoman’s tale we are introduced to a canon who practises
alchemy, and whom Chaucer makes the butt for some keen satire against
the followers of that science. “It seems,” says Tyrwhitt, “that some
sudden resentment had determined Chaucer to interrupt the regular
course of his work in order to insert a satire against the alchemists.
That their pretended science was much cultivated about this time, and
produced its usual evils, may fairly be inferred from the Act that was
passed soon after, whereas it was made a felony to multiply gold or
silver above the art of multiplication.” The description of the canon
as he joined the procession is somewhat amusing:—

    “His hat hung at his back down by a lace,
    For he had ridden more than trot or pace,
    He hadde pricked like as he were wood.
    A clote leaf he had laid under his hood,
    For sweat and to keep his head from heat,
    But it was joye for to see him sweat.
    His forehead dropped as a stillatory
    Were full of plantain or of paritory.”

To keep his head cool while riding hard he had placed a clote or
burdock leaf, which was formerly used as a poultice, in his hat or
hood, a common custom in some parts of the country at the present
time. To show the tone of the poet’s mind when he wrote this tale,
it may be noted how early the chemical hyperbole is introduced, in
comparing the canon’s perspiring forehead to a still which is in
operation, filled with plantain, or paritory, an old name for the
wallflower. The former plant had a large, thick, juicy leaf, and was
formerly used as an astringent, while the wallflower once enjoyed a
reputation as an anodyne. The yeoman, in proceeding with the story of
his master’s practises, first describes his duties as the philosopher’s
man:—

    “I will speak of our work,
    When we be there as we shall exercise
    Our elvion craft, we seeme wonder wise,
    Our termes be so clergial and quaint,
    I blow the fire till that mine hearte faint.
    Why should I tellen each proportion
    Of things whiche that we work upon,
    As on five or six ounces may well be
    Of silver, or some other quantity?
    And busy me to tell you the names,
    As orpiment, burnt bones, iron squames,
    That into powder grounden be full small,
    And in an earthen pot how put is all.”

The poet here describes an old amalgam used in alchemy composed of red
lead, bone ash, and iron scales:—

    “Of the care and woe
    That we had in our matters subliming,
    And in amalgaming, and calcining
    Of quicksilver, called mercury crude,
    For all our sleightes we can not conclude”.

The subliming of mercury was considered a most important process, and
was performed with much care.

The yeoman then goes on to enumerate other articles and apparatus used
by the craft, in a somewhat disjointed manner:—

    “Yet I will tell them as they come to mind,
    As bol armoniac, verdigris, borace,
    And sundry vessels made of earth and glass,
    Our urinals, and our descensories;
    Phials, and croslets, and sublimatories,
    Cucurbites and alembikes eke,
    And other suche dear enough a leek”.

The descensorie was a kind of flask used in distilling _per descensum_,
while the croslet was an old name for the crucible. The cucurbite was
the retort used in distilling, and the alembike was the still itself.

The yeoman then continues:—

    “Waters rubifying and bulle’s gall,
    Arsenic, sal-ammoniac, and brimstone,
    And herbs could I tell eke many a one,
    As egremonie, valerian, and lunary;
    And other such if that me list to tarry,
    Our lampes burning both night and day,
    To bring about our craft if that we may,
    Our furnace eke of calcination,
    And of waters albification”.

Egremonoine or agrimony, commonly called liverwort, was used in
early medical practice as an astringent tonic, lunary or moonwort
(_Botrychium Lunaria_) being possessed of similar medicinal
properties:—

    “Clay made with horse and mannes hair, and oil
    Of tartar. Alum, glass, barm, wort, and argoil,
    Rosalgar and other matters imbibing,
    And eke of our matters encorporing;
    And of our silver citrination,
    Our cementing and fermentation,
    Our ingots, tests, and many things mo’.”

Among the other strange articles named, argoil was the potters’ clay
used as a luting to close the joints, seal the flasks, and exclude
the air. Rosalgar was the ancient name for flowers of antimony, much
esteemed by the philosophers. The term citrination refers to the yellow
colour, which, when it occurred through chemical action, proved the
philosopher’s stone.

We next have the alchemist’s creed, and the fundamental principles of
the old philosophy:—

    “I will tell you as was one taught also,
    The foure spirits and the bodies seven.
    By order as oft I heard my lord them neven,
    The first spirit quicksilver called is;
    The second orpiment, the third y-wis
    Sal-ammoniac, and the fourth brimstone,
    The bodies sion eke lo them here anon;
    Sol gold is, and Luna silver was threpe,
    Mars iron, Mercury quicksilver, we clepe.
    Saturnus is lead, and Jupiter is tin,
    And Venus copper by my father’s kin.”

The metallic bodies were described in the works of alchemists by
the planet under whose influence they were supposed to operate, and
known by the alchemical symbol of that planet. Thus gold is called
Sol, represented by the symbol ☉, and copper is termed
Venus, represented by the symbol ♀. It appears to have been
a custom of the apothecaries from very early times to fill bottles
with coloured solutions which were marked with these symbols; thus, a
bottle containing a yellow solution signifying gold would be marked
☉, and a red one would be marked ♂, signifying iron.
These gradually became a kind of trade sign, and are probably the
origin of the coloured globes used as the insignia of the pharmacist or
compounder of medicines at the present time.




CHAPTER II.

SHAKESPEARE.


The bard of Avon, in the wide and general knowledge he displays of
the manners, ways, and customs of his own and other countries in his
plays, makes many allusions to drugs and herbs, and their use. In his
references to drugs, there is none perhaps on which greater difference
of opinion exists than that alluded to in the speech of the Ghost in
_Hamlet_, in which the apparition says:—

    “Sleeping within mine orchard,
    My custom always in the afternoon,
    Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
    With juice of cursèd hebenon in a vial,
    And in the porches of mine ear did pour
    The leprous distilment; whose effect
    Holds such an enmity with blood of man,
    That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
    The natural gates and alleys of the body;
    And, with a sudden vigour, it doth posset
    And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
    The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine”.[9]

        [9] _Hamlet_, act i., scene v.

It has always been a matter of individual speculation and dispute
as to the juice of what plant Shakespeare alludes to here as the
“cursed hebenon”. The meaning of the word hebenon is ebony-coloured,
or black, so that it might apply to any dark liquid. Most writers and
commentators seem to be of opinion that henbane is alluded to, but
judging from the rapid effect of the liquid, it would appear that
some more powerful poison is intended. The juice of henbane is not a
powerful poison, and it is but a feeble narcotic whose effects are
mainly sedative and soothing. It acts also as a neurotic, affecting
the brain and producing delirium. It will be seen that there is little
similitude between the actual effect of henbane and that of the poison
described by the poet. Others think it more probable that hemlock,
an ancient poison of the Greeks, is intended. Its action is much
more rapid and powerful, the spinal cord being chiefly affected, and
paralysis caused, ending in death. The drug is a powerful narcotic
and anodyne, and is also a paralysant. It was well known to the
apothecaries of Shakespeare’s day, its poisonous properties having been
observed from very early times. It should be taken into account, that
as a matter of fact the pouring of any poisonous liquid of vegetable
origin into the ear would have little or no immediate effect; and
unless the tympanum had been ruptured it would be almost impossible
for it to be absorbed into the system and at once prove fatal.

Paris says: “Might not the juice of cursed hebenon by which, according
to Shakespeare, the King of Denmark was poisoned, have been the
essential oil of tobacco?” In the first place, the learned commentator
Dr. Grey observes, that the word here used—hebenon—was more probably
designated by a metathesis, either of the poet or transcriber, for
henebon, _i.e._, henbane. Now, it appears from Gerade, the “tobaco”
was commonly called henbane of Peru—_Hyoscyamus Peruvianus_; and when
we consider how high the public prejudice ran against this herb in the
reign of James, it seems not unlikely that Shakespeare should have
selected it as an agent of extraordinary malignity. No preparation
of _hyoscyamus_ with which we are acquainted would produce death by
application to the ear, whereas the essential oil of tobacco might
possibly have such an effect.

The term “distilment,” says Stevens, “is calculated to support this
conjecture. Surely the expression signifies that the preparation was
the result of a distillation.” It is a singular fact that the essential
oil of tobacco differs considerably in its physiological action from
an infusion made from the leaves, the former affecting the brain, and
the latter the heart.[10]

        [10] Paris, _Pharmacologia_, p. 294.

Ellacombe states: “Before, and in the time of Shakespeare, other
writers had spoken of the narcotic and poisonous effects of heben,
hebenon, or hebona.”

Spenser says:—

    “Faire Venus sonne,...
    Lay now thy deadly heben bow apart”.

Gower and Marlowe also wrote of the juice of hebon. It may be taken for
granted that all these authors allude to the same tree.

Nicholson and Harrison, after a very exhaustive investigation of the
subject, agree that the true reading is hebona, and that hebona is the
yew. Their main arguments are based on the following three facts:—

1. That in nearly all the northern nations the name of the yew is more
or less like heben.

2. That all the effects attributed by Shakespeare to the action of
hebona are described by different medical writers as arising from yew
poisoning.

3. That the _post-mortem_ appearances after yew poisoning and snake
poisoning are similar.

Later on, in the play performed before the King, Lucianus thus speaks
of the poisonous medicine he uses:—

    “Thoughts break, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
    Confederate season, else no creature seeing,
    Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
    With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
    Thy natural magic and dire property
    On wholesome life usurp immediately”.

Here allusion is made to a mixture of poisonous herbs gathered at
midnight, probably hemlock among others, as mentioned in the witches’
incantation in _Macbeth_, to which we shall refer later. With regard
to the gathering of herbs at night, the practice was common, it being
supposed that the properties of the plant collected at night were
stronger than in the daytime. That there is a certain amount of truth
in this is proved by the researches of Sachs and Brown, who have found
from their investigations that starch is formed in the leaves of plants
during the day, and is consumed during the night, so that the old
superstition of the increased activity of the midnight gathered herb
was not mythical.

Shakespeare’s well-known description of the poor apothecary of his
time, which he introduces in _Romeo and Juliet_, presents an excellent
picture of the needy practitioner in the sixteenth century:—

    “I do remember an apothecary,
    And hereabouts he dwells, whom late I noted
    In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,
    Culling of simples; meagre were his looks,
    Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
    And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
    An alligator stuff’d, and other skins
    Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
    A beggarly account of empty boxes,
    Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds;
    Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,
    Were thinly scattered to make up a show”.[11]

        [11] _Romeo and Juliet_, act v., scene i.

One can readily picture the poverty-stricken appearance of the dark
little shop, littered and crowded with the stuffed skins of curious
fishes and alligators. One can almost smell the close musty odour
blended with the aromatic perfume of drugs and the old cakes of pressed
rose leaves, the manner in which they were formerly preserved for
medicinal purposes.

The fashionably-dressed Romeo enters, after having made a considerable
noise to rouse the attention of the old apothecary from his perchance
much-needed repose, and offers his bribe for the poison. Of the purpose
for which he requires it he makes little secret.

    “ROMEO. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor;
            Hold, there is forty ducats; let me have
            A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
            As will disperse itself through all the veins,
            That the life-weary taker may fall dead;
            And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
            As violently as hasty powder fir’d
            Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s mouth.”

The Apothecary’s reply:—

    “Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua’s law
    Is death to any he that utters them,”

would show that Shakspeare’s idea of the law respecting the sale of
poisons was a severe one, and much before his time. The law in England
at that time as regards the selling of poisons was very lax. But for
the poor apothecary the bribe was too tempting. Perchance he was
hungry, and there is something pathetic in his rejoinder,

    “My poverty, but not my will, consents”.

And giving Romeo the poison:—

    “Put this in any liquid thing you will,
    And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
    Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight”.

The poet gives no indication of the nature of the poison beyond that
its effect was very rapid, as when the distracted lover drinks to his
lady love in the deadly draught he exclaims:—

    “O true apothecary!
    Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.”

In the early part of the sixteenth century the practice of the black
art was carried on throughout England, mostly by old women, who
also sold charms and love philtres. Shakespeare’s description of the
witches’ incantations in _Macbeth_ presents some idea of a seance, and
the gruesome articles in which they dealt. To know the properties of
the most poisonous herbs (often quite fictitious) was part of their
trade.

    “Round about the cauldron go;
    In the poison’d entrails throw.
    Toad, that under coldest stone,
    Days and nights hast thirty-one
    Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
    Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.
        Double, double, toil and trouble;
        Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
    “Fillet of a fenny snake,
    In the cauldron boil and bake;
    Eye of newt and toe of frog,
    Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
    Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
    Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,
    For a charm of powerful trouble;
    Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
        Double, double, toil and trouble;
        Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
    “Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
    Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf
    Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark;
    Root of hemlock, digg’d i’ the dark,
    Liver of blaspheming Jew;
    Gall of goat, and slips of yew,
    Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse;
    Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips;
    Finger of birth-strangled babe,
    Ditch-delivered by a drab,
    Make the gruel thick and slab;
    Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
    For the ingredients of our cauldron.
        Double, double, toil and trouble;
        Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

The method here used by the witches to measure the time that the
cauldron should boil by singing their incantation is, according to Dr.
Lauder Brunton, an ancient mode of calculating time still used in some
parts of the country at the present day. By thus repeating several
verses they could regulate the time of boiling fairly well. The old
apothecaries used the moon as a method of calculating the time certain
processes should take, and the word “menstruum,” still commonly used,
was employed because certain drugs were allowed to macerate a month in
the liquid to extract the active constituents.

In the toad that had been lying under a stone for thirty-one days
and nights, we have another curious instance how the empirical
practitioners of mediæval times acted on a certain traditional
knowledge, which modern science has since proved to be correct.

We have again in the toad which has lain dormant for a month, the idea
that it was the best time for his use, when his venom would be most
active, besides the advantage also of catching him napping, when he
would have no opportunity of getting rid of the poisonous principle
contained in his skin. Dr. Lauder Brunton remarks with respect to this
practice: “I remember reading as a child a story of how King John was
poisoned by a friar who dropped a toad into his wine, but some books
of natural history forty or fifty years ago scouted the idea of toads
being poisonous at all. A little while ago, however, Dr. Leonard Guthie
sent me an interesting account of a wicked Italian woman whose husband
was dying of dropsy. He took so long about it that his wife became
tired of the process, and thought that she would help him on. She
accordingly caught a toad and put it in his wine, so that he should
drink the liquid and die, but instead of dying he, to her astonishment
and disgust, completely recovered. Forty years ago this story would
have been scouted as equally mythical with that of King John, but now
we know that it is precisely what the woman would have expected if she
had only been acquainted with the researches of modern pharmacology.
For the skin of a toad secretes a poison, the active principle of
which, phrynin, has an action very much resembling that of digitalis,
which is the remedy _par excellence_ for dropsy depending on heart
disease.”

Not less curious are the directions for gathering the poisonous
hemlock at night, which has recently been shown to be the time of
its greatest activity. These few instances show that the ancient
apothecaries had often much greater knowledge than we give them credit
for, and that some of the modern discoveries in modern science were
well known to them, even if they could not account for them.

In the _Taming of the Shrew_ allusion is made to the simples in vogue
at the time for hurts and bruises. The lord’s directions for the
treatment of Christopher Sly, who is found sleeping in the road on a
cold night after a drinking bout, are curious:—

    “Balm his foul head with warm distilled waters,
    And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet”.

The distilled aromatic waters, of which the apothecary manufactured a
considerable number, were much used in the middle ages for the purpose
of fomentation. The burning of sweet woods, such as aloe or sandal, to
take away evil smells, was a very ancient practice.

An old cure for melancholy is embodied in the following lines:—

    “Your honour’s players, hearing your amendment,
    Are come to play a pleasant comedy,
    For so your doctors hold it very meet:
    Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood,
    And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy,
    Therefore they thought it good you hear a play,
    And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
    Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life”.

In _Measure for Measure_, the poet had evidently the dulcamara or
bitter-sweet in mind when he penned the lines:—

    “I should not think it strange, for ’tis a physic
    That’s bitter to sweet end”.

The dulcamara or bitter-sweet has the peculiar property, when first
taken into the mouth, of imparting a bitter flavour which gradually
changes to a sweet one, hence its name.

The knowledge of drugs and herbs possessed by the noble dames and
housewives is frequently mentioned by Shakespeare. The chatelaine of
his time was well acquainted with the medicinal properties of all the
simples and herbs, which she cultivated in her own garden. Her skill
and experience were always at the service of her household and of
dependants for miles around.

The Queen, wife of Cymbeline, gives evidence of this in her
conversation with Cornelius the physician:—

        “QUEEN. Whiles yet the dew’s on ground, gather those flowers;
                Make haste: who has the note of them?

                 *       *       *       *       *

                Now, master doctor, have you brought those drugs?

    “CORNELIUS. Pleaseth your highness, ay: here they are, madam
                    (_presenting a small box_),
                But I beseech your grace, without offence—
                My conscience bids me ask—wherefore you have
                Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds,
                Which are the movers of a languishing death;
                But, though slow, deadly?

        “QUEEN. I do wonder, doctor,
                Thou ask’st me such a question. Have I not been
                Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learned me how
                To make perfumes, distil, preserve? yea, so,
                That our great king himself doth woo me oft
                For my confections? Having thus far proceeded
                (Unless thou think’st me devilish), is’t not meet
                That I did amplify my judgment in
                Other conclusions? I will try the forces
                Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
                We count not worth the hanging, but none human,
                To try the vigour of them, and apply
                Allayments to their act, and by them gather
                Their several virtues, and effects.

    “CORNELIUS. Your highness
                Shall from this practice but make hard your heart:
                Besides, the seeing these effects will be
                Both noisome and infectious.

        “QUEEN. Oh content thee.

                    _Enter_ PISANIO.

      (_aside_) Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him
                Will I first work: he’s for his master,
                And enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio?
                Doctor, your service for this time is ended;
                Take your own way.

    “CORNELIUS. (_aside_) I do suspect you, madam,
                But you shall do no harm.
                I do not like her. She doth think she has
                Strange lingering poisons. I do not know her spirit,
                And will not trust one of her malice with
                A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has
                Will stupify and dull the sense a while:
                Which first, perchance, she’ll prove on cats and dogs,
                Then afterwards up higher, but there is
                No danger in what show of death it makes,
                More than the locking up the spirits a time
                To be more fresh reviving. She is fool’d
                With a most false effect; and I the truer
                So to be false with her.”[12]

        [12] _Cymbeline_, scene vi.

The caution of the physician is well described, and his resort to
subterfuge in order to checkmate the evil design of his wily mistress
and old pupil, whom he evidently distrusts.

The Queen is supposed to have possessed considerable knowledge and
skill in the use of drugs, and her conserves had evidently a great
reputation. Her scientific ideas were in advance of the age she lived
in when she states her desire to make physiological experiments on
animals to advance her knowledge; but the clear acumen of Cornelius saw
through the apparently laudable spirit of research that imbued his
pupil, and he supplied her with drugs of less potency.

The following allusions are made to the apothecary:—

    “CARDINAL BEAUFORT. Bid the apothecary
        Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.”[13]

And again, in _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_, Cerimon says:—

    “Your master will be dead ere you return;
    There’s nothing can be minister’d to nature,
    That can recover him. Give this to the apothecary,
    And tell me how it works.”[14]

        [13] _Henry VI._, part iii., act ii., scene iii.

        [14] _Pericles_, act iii., scene ii.

This lord of Ephesus was evidently something of an amateur physician,
as he tells us later that

                      “’Tis known I ever
    Have studied physic, through which secret art,
    By turning o’er authorities, I have
    (Together with my practice) made familiar
    To me and to my aid the blest infusions
    That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones;
    And can speak of the disturbances that nature
    Works, and of the cures; which doth give me
    A more content in course of true delight
    Than to be thirsty after tottering honour”.

The lines—

    “One whose subdu’d eyes,
    Albeit unused to the melting mood,
    Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
    Their medicinal gum,”[15]

spoken by Othello, refer to the manner in which many of the medicinal
gums are collected in the East. Small slits or punctures are made in
the bark of the tree, through which the semi-liquid gum slowly oozes.
It then coagulates in the form of a tear, and is at length scraped off
and collected.

        [15] _Othello_, act v., scene ii.

    “Set ratsbane by his porridge.”[16]

        [16] _King Lear_, act iii., scene iv.

    “I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to
        stop it with security.”[17]

        [17] _Henry IV._, part ii., act i., scene ii.

    “I would the milk
    Thy mother gave thee, when thou suck’dst her breast,
    Had been a little ratsbane for my sake.”[18]

        [18] _Henry VI._, act v., scene iv.

Ratsbane, mentioned in the three preceding quotations, was an old
name for arsenic, which in Shakespeare’s time was commonly used for
poisoning rats, hence the name.

    “I have bought the oil, the balsamum, and aqua vitæ,”[19]

says Dromio of Syracuse. These were the medical comforts for the barque
of Epidamnum, and show that sailing vessels in those days carried a
certain amount of medicine. The oil may have been one of the many
panaceas of the time for “purging the body of bile or humour,” while
balsams there were by the score, of Hungary, and aromatics for “wind
and pain”. The _aqua vitæ_ alluded to was probably brandy, which would
serve to keep the courage of the voyagers up and the cold out.

        [19] _Comedy of Errors_, act iv., scene i.

Proteus, in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, exclaims:—

    “When I was sick you gave me bitter pills;
    And I must minister like to you”.[20]

        [20] _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act ii., scene iv.

In _Lucrece_ the bard shows he knew something of the counteracting
effects of certain drugs from the following lines:—

    “The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted
    In a pure compound; being so applied,
    His venom in effect is purified”.[21]

        [21] _Lucrece_, v., 76.

    “KING HENRY. The united vessel of their blood,
                 Mingled with venom of suggestion,
                 As, for a purpose, the age will pour it in,
                 Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
                 As aconitum or rash gunpowder.”[22]

        [22] _King Henry IV._, part ii., act iv., scene iv.

The aconite or monkshood, formerly called wolf’s bane, gives us one
of the most powerful vegetable poisons, its properties having long
been known and employed in medical practice. It was used by the early
Greeks and Romans, and is probably even of still greater antiquity.
On account of its rapid and deadly action, Shakespeare compares it to
gunpowder. Some commentators are of the opinion that aconite was the
poison sold by the apothecary to the lovesick Romeo.

A curious old tradition is alluded to by Falstaff when speaking of the
chamomile, in the following sentence:—

  “Though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it
  grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears”.[23]

        [23] _King Henry IV._, part i., act ii., scene iv.

The chamomile has an ancient reputation for its medicinal properties as
a stomachic and febrifuge.

Its growth is said to be improved by being pressed or trampled into the
earth.

  “SHALLOW. Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we
  will eat a last year’s pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of
  caraways and so forth.”[24]

        [24] _King Henry IV._, part ii., act v., scene iii.

Carraway seeds were very largely used in Shakespeare’s time as a spice
and condiment. The essential oil they yield has carminative properties.
The seeds were often served with roast apples, a custom still said to
be kept up at Trinity College, Cambridge.

  “IAGO. The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be
  to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida.”[25]

The coloquintida mentioned, is the old name for colocynth, a drug
largely used in medicine at the present time. It was employed by the
Greek and Roman physicians as a purgative, and was known in Britain as
early as the eleventh century. It has a drastic, bitter taste, and is
commonly known as bitter apple.

        [25] _Othello_, act i., scene iii.

Shakespeare makes several allusions to the elder, a tree concerning
which there are many old traditions. One of them will suffice.

    “HOLOFERNES. Begin, sir, you are my elder.

         “BIRON. Well followed; Judas was hanged on an elder.”[26]

        [26] _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, act v., scene ii.

The _sambucus nigra_, or black elder, has long been used in medicine as
a discutient, yet tradition gives it an evil name. Judas was supposed
to have hanged himself on an elder tree, which doubtless brought it
into disrepute, although its flowers distilled with water make an
excellent cosmetic.

    “OPHELIA. There’s fennel for you and columbines.”[27]

        [27] _Hamlet_, act iv., scene v.

This herb was greatly valued by the old apothecaries, and was known
also to the ancients. There was an old belief that the fennel in flower
predicted an early summer. Its chief use now is as a flavouring agent.

Several allusions are also made to ginger.

  “CLOWN. I must have saffron to colour the warden pies; mace;
  dates—none, that’s out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race or two
  of ginger, but that I beg.”[28]

Ginger was known and used by the Greeks and Romans as a spice, and was
esteemed by physicians in England at the time of the Norman Conquest.
Its hot, burning taste is due to a resinous principle contained in the
root, and is still used in medicine.

        [28] _Winter’s Tale_, act iv., scene iii.

The mandrake or mandragora is frequently mentioned in the plays. Thus
says

    “IAGO. Not poppy, nor mandragora,
           Nor all the drowsy syrup of the world,
           Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
           Which thou owedst yesterday.”[29]

Also—

    “JULIET. And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
             That living mortals, hearing them, run mad,”[30]

alluding to the old tradition that the mandrake groaned when pulled
up by the roots, and the person who did it would surely die soon.
The mandragora, to which wonderful properties were ascribed by the
ancients, is not now used in medicine.

        [29] _Othello_, act iii., scene iii.

        [30] _Romeo and Juliet_, act iv., scene iii.

  “LAFEU. Go to, sir, you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel
            out of a pomegranate.”[31]

        [31] _All’s Well that Ends Well_, act ii., scene iii.

The medicinal properties of the pomegranate have been known from very
ancient times, frequent mention of it being made in the Bible. A
decoction of the root is recommended by Celsus, Dioscorides, and Pliny
for tapeworm; and it is still used as an astringent.

The poppy is mentioned by Iago in the quotation previously given, as
being known for its narcotic properties.

    “MACBETH. What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug
              Would scour these English hence?”[32]

        [32] _Macbeth_, act v., scene iii.

Rhubarb was known to the Chinese 2700 B.C., and has been used for its
purgative properties from the earliest times. It is said to take its
name from the river Rhu, now the Volga, on whose banks it grows.

    “PERDITA. For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep
              Seeming and savour all the winter long;
              Grace and remembrance be to you both.”[33]

        [33] _Winter’s Tale_, act iv., scene iv.

Rosemary has been esteemed for centuries for its refreshing and
aromatic perfume, due to the essential oil it contains, and which even
now has a reputation as an application for the hair. It is mentioned by
Pliny, and has been cultivated in Britain since the time of the Norman
Conquest. On account of its evergreen leaves it was considered an
emblem of constancy, and was frequently carried at wedding and funeral
ceremonies. It was customary in France at one time, to place a bunch of
rosemary in the hands of the dead. The old apothecaries had great faith
in the oil as an embrocation, and it was largely used to place among
clothes as a preventive of moths.

  “OPHELIA. There’s rue for you; and here’s some for me: we may call
              it herb grace o’ Sundays: O, you must wear your rue
              with a difference.”[34]

        [34] _Hamlet_, act iv., scene v.

Some curious traditions are attached to rue, or, as it was formerly
called, the herb of grace, probably on account of its being often worn
as an amulet to ward off disease, and also used by the old Romanists in
the exorcisms. It has ever been regarded as a symbol of sorrow or pity,
as its name implies. The word is probably derived from the same root
as Ruth, meaning sorrow and remorse, while “to rue” was to be sorry for.

In ancient times it was supposed to be useful for almost every disease,
its properties being due to an essential oil still used in pharmacy.

It was largely employed in affections of the eye and for its antiseptic
properties as a preservative to ward off decay.

The plant is not a native of England, but has been cultivated in this
country for more than 800 years, and was extensively grown in the old
herb gardens.

Euphrasie and rue were often used together as a curative application
for the eyes. In _Paradise Lost_ Milton says:—

    “Then purged with euphrasie and rue
    The visual nerve, for he has much to see”.

Rue was employed also to take away warts, the freshly cut stem being
rubbed over the excrescence, and the following couplet repeated:—

    “Ashen true, ashen tree,
    Pray bury these warts of me”.

Another old rhyme runs:—

    “What savour is better, if physicke be true
    For places infected than wormwood or rue”.

    “CLOWN. I must have saffron to colour the warden pies.”[35]

        [35] _Winter’s Tale_, act iv., scene iii.

Saffron was formerly much prized as a medicine, a condiment, and a
dye. It is said to have been introduced into England in the reign of
Edward III., and was cultivated in the neighbourhood of Walden, in
Essex, to which it gave its name. The quality of English saffron was
renowned in Shakspeare’s time. It was used by the monks in mediæval
days in illuminating their missals, and dyeing materials, as well as
being esteemed as a febrifuge and cordial.

    “MACBETH. What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug
              Would scour these English hence?”[36]

        [36] _Macbeth_, act v., scene iii.

The well-known purgative properties of senna leaves were held in great
repute by the old apothecaries. The drug was introduced into Europe
about the ninth or tenth century by the Arabs, and it soon attained a
reputable position in medical practice. The best variety was originally
supposed to have been brought from Mecca.

    “ROSALINE. To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain.”[37]

        [37] _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, act v., scene ii.

Wormwood has always had a high reputation as a medicine, and was
chiefly used as a tonic. It yields an essential oil with an extremely
bitter taste, which is yet largely used in France in the manufacture
of absinthe.

In one of his Sonnets, Shakespeare alludes to the old alembic of the
alchemist in the following lines:—

    “What potions have I drunk of Syren tears,
    Distill’d from limbecks foul as hell within”.

And in the following verse he deals with some theories of medical
treatment:—

    “Like as to make our appetites more keen,
    With eager compounds we our palate urge;
    As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
    We sicken to shun sickness when we purge:
    Even so, being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,
    To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding,
    And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
    To be diseas’d, ere that there was true needing.
    Thus policy in love, to anticipate
    The ills that were not, grew to faults assur’d,
    And brought to medicine a healthful state
    Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur’d.
        But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,
        Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.”[38]

        [38] _Sonnets_, verses 118, 119.




CHAPTER III.

SPENSER.


Edmund Spenser was born in London towards the close of the year 1552,
and in his after career, added lustre to an age which for brilliancy
in literature has never been equalled in the history of this country.
He lived for some time in Lancashire in his early days, but in 1578
quitted the country for the court. It was probably his friend Sir
Walter Raleigh who introduced him to court-favour and Queen Elizabeth.
In 1589 he published the _Faerie Queen_, a poem which will ever live in
English literature.

There are few allusions in the works of Edmund Spenser to medicinal
plants, although he frequently mentions salves and other methods of
administration used in the leechcraft of his time, as instanced in the
following quotations:—

                  “Eftsoons he gan apply relief
    Of salves and med’cines which has passing prefe”.[39]

        [39] _The Faerie Queen_, book i., canto x.

    “With wholesome read of sad sobriety,
    To rule the stubborn rage of passion blind,
    Give salves to every sore, but counsel to the mind.”[40]

        [40] _The Faerie Queen_, book vi., canto vi.

In the first book of the _Faerie Queen_ Spenser makes an interesting
allusion to trees and their uses in his time, in the following lines:—

    “Much gave they praise the trees so straight and high:
    The sailing pine; the cedar proud and tall;
    The vine-prop elm; the poplar never dry;
    The builder oak, sole king of forests all;
    The aspen good for staves; the cypress funeral;
    The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors
    And poets sage; the fir that weepeth still;
    The willow, worn of forlorn paramours;
    The yew, obedient to the binder’s will;
    The birch for shafts; the sallow for the mill;
    The myrrh sweet bleeding in the bitter wound;
    The warlike beech; the ash for nothing ill;
    The fruitful olive, and the plantane round;
    The carver holm; the maple, seldom inward sound”.[41]

        [41] _The Faerie Queen_, book i., canto i.

The sailing pine was doubtless so called on account of it being so
largely used for the masts of ships. The wood of the aspen tree was
often used for making staves on account of its toughness. He alludes
also to the ancient use of the cypress at funeral rites, and the
wearing of the willow as a badge of the unfortunate; the yew, chiefly
employed for making the long bows; the birch, for the strongest arrows;
and the sallow, which when plaited formed the sails of the windmills.

Incisions are cut in the bark of the myrrh tree in order that the gum
should exude as from an open wound.

Beech was used for the shafts of spears and axes, and the carver holm
or cutting holly was so called from its prickles.

In the sixth canto we have mention of the flower-de-luce:—

    “The lily, lady of the flowering field,
    The flow’r-de-luce her lovely paramour”.[42]

Flower-de-luce was the old name for the iris, and is also the French
_fleur-de-lis_, and the origin of that symbol. The roots of many of the
iris species have long been used in medicine for their cathartic and
emetic properties. That of the _I. florentina_ is well known for its
sweet violet smell, and from early times has been employed to sweeten
the breath and as an ingredient in tooth powders. Another old name for
this plant was “The flower of delights”.

        [42] _The Faerie Queen_, book ii., canto vi.

In the seventh canto the poet shows he was well acquainted with some
medicinal plants, and gives us quite a group of “herbs of ill favour”.

    “There mournful cypress grew in greatest store;
    And trees of bitter gall; and ebon sad;
    Dead sleeping poppy, and black hellebore;
    Cold coloquintida, and tetra mad;
    Mortal samnitis; and cicuta bad,
    With which th’ unjust Athenians made to die
    Wise Socrates, who, thereof quaffing glad,
    Pour’d out his life and last philosophy
    To the fair Critias, his dearest belamy!”[43]

Here we have mention of the narcotic poppy and the black hellebore,
a drastic purgative with which tradition states Melampus, the great
soothsayer and physician, cured the daughters of Prœtus, King of
Argos, of madness. Also the colocynth or bitter apple; tetra mad, an
old name for the belladonna or deadly nightshade; savin, here called
mortal samnitis, a plant possessing powerful properties, used in
medicine from the time of the Romans; and the cicuta or hemlock, which
formed the active ingredient in the poison cup of the Greeks.

        [43] _The Faerie Queen_, book ii., canto vii.

In the _Shepherd’s Calendar_ we have another allusion to the black
hellebore:—

    “Here grows melampode ev’rywhere,
    And terebinth, good for goats;
    The one my madding kids to smear,
    The next to heal their throats”.[44]

The ancient name for hellebore was melampus root, hence the name
melampode, which doubtless arose from the old tradition. By terebinth
the poet probably means one of the species of pine from which
turpentine is obtained.

        [44] _Shepherd’s Calendar_—July.




CHAPTER IV.

GOETHE.


The Faust-legend around which Goethe wove his great tragedy, was one
of those floating traditions which were common in the romantic lore
of many countries during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and
which seem to have originated in the general belief in occult forces.
The Johann Faust of the popular stories was undoubtedly an individual
of that name, born towards the close of the fifteenth century in the
little town of Knittlingen, near Maulbronn, in Würtemberg. His parents
were poor, but he was enabled by the bequest of a rich uncle to study
medicine. He attended the University of Cracow (where he probably
received his doctor’s degree), studied magic which was there taught
as an accepted branch of knowledge, and appears to have afterwards
travelled for many years through Europe. Manlius, the disciple of
Melancthon, quotes the latter as having said: “This fellow Faust
escaped from our town of Wittenberg, after our Duke John had given the
order to have him imprisoned. He also escaped from Nuremberg under the
like circumstances. This sorcerer Faust, an abominable beast, a common
sewer of many devils, boasted that he, by his magic arts had enabled
the Imperial armies to win their victories in Italy.” It was probably
the famous battle of Pavia fought in 1525 of which Faust spoke, as
the time of his visit to Wittenberg appears to have been about the
year 1530. Further evidence of the existence of such a character is to
be found in the _Index Sanitatis_ of the physician, Philip Begardi,
published at Worms in 1539, and in the _Sermones Conviviales_ of Johann
Gast, who gives an account of a dinner given by Faust at Basle at which
he was present. The original form of the legend is contained in a work
published by Spiess in Frankfurt in 1587, entitled the _History of Dr.
Joh. Faust, the Notorious Sorcerer and Black-artist, etc., etc._ This
book was first translated into English in 1590, and from it Marlowe
doubtless obtained the material for his tragedy of “Dr. Faustus,” which
appears to have been first performed in London in 1593, the year of his
death.

In the first act of Goethe’s tragedy we are introduced to Faust, who
is sitting in his lofty-arched Gothic chamber or laboratory, his desk
piled high with the works of noted writers on magic and astrology.

    “And this one Book of Mystery
    From Nostradamus’ very hand,
    Is’t not sufficient company?”

Nostradamus, the famous astrologer, was born at St. Remy, in Provence,
in the year 1503. His real name was Michel de Notre Dame. For some
time he practised as a physician, but finally devoted himself to
astrology, and published in 1555 a collection of prophecies in rhymed
quatrains, entitled _Les Prophecies de Michel Nostradamus_, which
created an immediate sensation, and found many believers, especially as
the death of Henry II. of France seemed to verify one of his mystical
predictions. He was appointed physician to Charles IX., and continued
the publication of his prophecies, asserting, however, that the study
of the planetary aspects was not alone sufficient, but that the gift of
second sight, which God grants only to a few chosen persons, is also
necessary.

He died in the year 1566.

In the following lines allusion is made to two popular forms of
divination.

    “CITIZEN’S DAUGHTER. Come, Agatha! I shun the witch’s sight
    Before folks, lest there be misgiving!
    ’Tis true, she showed me, on Saint Andrew’s Night,
    My future sweetheart, just as he were living.

    “THE OTHER. She showed me mine, in crystal clear,
    With several wild young blades, a soldier-lover”.

St. Andrew’s Night is celebrated in some parts of Germany by forms
of divination very similar to those which are practised in Scotland
on Hallow E’en. The maidens believe that by calling upon St. Andrew,
undressed, before getting into bed, their future sweetheart will appear
to them in a dream. Another charm is practised by pouring melted lead
through the wards of a key, wherein there is the form of a cross, into
a basin of water brought between eleven o’clock and midnight: the
cooling lead will then take the form of tools which indicate the trade
of the destined lover.

Crystal gazing, which we have described in a previous chapter, was also
a common method of foretelling future events, and young maidens were
supposed to be specially successful in its practise.

Faust’s description of the preparation of a panacea is a good
illustration of the fantastic language employed by the alchemists:—

    “Who, in his dusky work-shop bending,
    With proved adepts in company,
    Made, from his recipes unending,
        Opposing substances agree.
    There was a Lion red, a wooer daring,
    Within the Lily’s tepid bath espoused,
    And both, tormented then by flame unsparing,
        By turns in either bridal chamber housed.
    If then appeared, with colours splendid,
    The young Queen in her crystal shell,
    This was the medicine—the patient’s woes soon ended,
    And none demanded—who got well?”

Goethe is said to have drawn this description partly from Paracelsus,
and partly from Welling’s _Opus Mago Cabbalisticum_. The “Lion red” is
cinnabar, called a “wooer daring” on account of its action in rushing
to an intimate union with other bodies. “The Lily” is a preparation of
antimony, which bore the name of Lilium Paracelsi. Red, moreover, is
the masculine, and white the feminine colour. The retort containing
these substances was first placed in a “tepid bath” and gradually
heated, then “tormented by flame unsparing,” the two were driven from
one “bridal chamber” to another, that is, their wedded fumes were
forced by the heat into an alembic. If then the “Young Queen,” the
sublimated compound, appeared with a brilliant colour in the alembic
the proper result was obtained and this signified the true medicine.

In scene iii. Mephistopheles says:—

    “My steps by one slight obstacle controlled,—
    The wizard’s foot, that on your threshold is”.

The wizard’s foot or pentagram, was supposed to possess an especial
potency against evil spirits, and was often chalked on the door-steps
to protect the household from their influence. It consisted of a
five-rayed star, thus:—

[Illustration]

The belief in its efficacy doubtless sprang from the circumstance that
it resolves itself into three triangles, and thus a triple symbol of
the Trinity. Paracelsus ascribes a similar, though a lesser degree
of virtue to the hexagram. Another peculiarity of the pentagram is,
that it may be drawn complete from one point, without lifting the pen,
and therefore belongs to those _involuntary_ hieroglyphics which we
sometimes make in moments of abstraction. In scene xiii. where Margaret
plucks a star-flower, and pulls off the leaves one after the other,
murmuring—

    “He loves me—loves me not”

we have an illustration of a favourite mode of amorous divination by
means of flowers still practised by country maidens.

The custom is of great antiquity and is mentioned by Theocritus. The
single daisy is a favourite flower for the purpose.

The following allusion to the red mouse refers to an ancient
superstition concerning one of the many forms of diabolical possession.
The “evil one” was supposed to enter the body in the form of a red
mouse.

    “MEPHISTOPHELES. Wherefore forsakest thou the lovely maiden,
                     That in the dance so sweetly sang?

    “FAUST. Ah! in the midst of it there sprang
            A red mouse from her mouth—sufficient reason.”

In the second part of the work we are introduced to an astrologer who,
prompted by Mephistopheles, delivers himself as follows:—

    “The Sun himself is gold of purest ray;
    The herald, Mercury, serves for love and pay;
    Dame Venus has bewitched you all, for she,
    Early and late, looks on you lovingly;
    Chaste Luna has her whims, no two alike;
    Mars threatens you, although he may not strike,
    And Jupiter is still the splendid star.
    Saturn is great, though seeming small and far;
    As metal, him we don’t much venerate,
    Of value slight, though heavy in his weight.
    Now, when of Sol and Luna unions had,—
    Silver with gold,—then is the world made glad:
    All else, with them, is easy to attain,—
    Palaces, gardens, cheeks of rosy stain;
    And thus procures this highly learned man,
    Who that can do which none of us e’er can.”

The astrologer here alludes to the seven principal metals, to which
the early alchemists attached the names of seven planets. The Sun was
gold, the Moon silver, Mercury quicksilver, Venus copper, Mars iron,
Jupiter tin, and Saturn lead.

In the same act, reference is made to an old tradition that is still
believed in some parts of Germany.

                    “Lo! at hand there
    Is ancient juice of strength divine.
    Yet trust to him who’s knowledge gotten,
    The wood o’ the staves has long been rotten,
      A cask of tartar holds the wine.”

It is a general belief in the wine districts, that when a cask of wine
has been kept for centuries, the crust of argol or crude cream of
tartar which is gradually deposited, may acquire such a consistency
as to hold the liquid when the staves have rotted away. The wine thus
becomes its own cask, and preserves itself in a thick oily state. It is
then said to possess wonderful medicinal virtues.

Later on Mephistopheles is asked by a blonde beauty for a cure for her
complexion.

          “One word, sir! Here you see a visage fair,—
          In sorry summer I another wear!
          There sprout a hundred brown and reddish freckles,
          And vex my lily skin with ugly speckles.
          A cure!

    “MEPHISTOPHELES. ’Tis pity! shining fair, yet smitten,—
          Spotted, when May comes, like a panther-kitten!
          Take frog’s spawn, tongues of toads, which contribute,
          Under the full moon deftly distillate,
          And when it wanes, apply the mixture:
          Next spring, the spots will be no more a fixture.

    “A BRUNETTE. To sponge upon you, what a crowd’s advancing!
          I beg a remedy: a frozen foot
          Annoys me much, in walking as in dancing;
          And awkwardly I manage to salute.

    “MEPHISTOPHELES. A gentle kick permit, then, from my foot!

    “THE BRUNETTE. Well,—that might happen when the two are lovers.

    “MEPHISTOPHELES. My kick a more important meaning covers;
          _Similia similibus_, when one is sick,
          The foot cures foot, each limb its hurt can palliate;
          Come near! Take heed! and pray you don’t retaliate!”

Frog’s spawn and toad’s tongues formed an old remedy for spots on the
skin, and in the “gentle kick” we have a satire on the homœopathic
theory of medicine.




CHAPTER V.

LE SAGE.


Le Sage draws a vivid picture of the medical practitioner of his day in
his well-known work _Gil Blas_. Doctor Sangrado, bigoted, obstinate,
and dominated by one idea, was doubtless very true to nature, and
a type of physician not unfrequently met with even later than the
seventeenth century. The character is supposed to have been drawn from
that of Doctor Hecquet, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Paris, a man
extremely thin and spare in body, and who is said never to have drank
anything but water.

Le Sage describes his physician as “a tall, meagre, pale man, who had
kept the shears of Clotho employed during forty years. He had a very
solemn appearance, weighed his discourse, and gave an emphasis to his
expressions: his reason was geometrical, and his opinions extremely
singular.” All the city looked upon him as another Hippocrates. The
licentiate Sedillo, a fat clerical epicurean, having fallen sick with
the fever and gout, this great physician was called in, and after
examining his patient delivered himself of the following diagnosis:
“The business here is to supply the defect of obstructed perspiration;
others in my place would doubtless prescribe saline draughts,
diuretics, diaphoretics, and such medicines as abound with mercury and
sulphur; but cathartics and sudorifics are pernicious drugs invented by
quacks, and all the preparations of chemistry are only calculated to do
mischief,” said this disciple of Æsculapius.

“You must renounce all palatable food; and do you drink wine?”

“Yes,” said the poor canon; “wine and water.”

“Oh! watered as much as you please,” replied the physician: “what an
irregularity is here! what a frightful regimen! You ought to have been
dead long ago. If you had drunk nothing but pure water all your life,
and had been satisfied with simple nourishment, such as, for example,
boiled apples, peas, and beans, you would not now be tormented with
gout, and all your limbs would perform their functions with ease.”

The poor canon promised to obey in all these things, but the doctor
hadn’t finished yet, for he sent for a surgeon, and ordered him to let
“six good porringers of blood as the first effort” to supply the want
of perspiration.

“And return in three hours, and take as much more, and repeat the same
to-morrow,” said this veritable leech to the surgeon, “for a patient
cannot be bled too much.”

Besides this, the unfortunate patient was dosed incessantly with
warm water, two or three pints in as many draughts, “for,” said the
physician, “water is the true specific in all distempers what-ever”.

Little wonder that in less than two days, Gil Blas tells us, the old
canon was reduced to the last extremity, and soon after breathed his
last, much to the regret of the physician, who declared it was because
he had not lost blood enough, nor drank a sufficient quantity of water.

The mercurial Gil Blas shortly after took service with this learned
medico, and kept his books, which he declares might have been with
great justice styled a register of the dead; for almost all the people
whose names it contained died soon afterwards.

But after being about a week with the physician, Gil Blas was seized
with a cramp which he attributed to the quantity of the “universal
dissolvent” he was compelled to imbibe, and had to consult his master.

“Why, truly, Gil Blas, I am not at all surprised that thou dost not
enjoy good health,” said the hydropathist. “Thou dost not drink enough,
my friend. Water taken in small quantities serves only to disentangle
the particles of the bile, and give them more activity, whereas
they should be drowned in a copious dilution. I will warrant the
consequence, and if thou wilt not take my word, Celsus himself shall be
thy security.”

It need hardly be wondered at that Gil Blas soon came to believe that
he also had a natural talent for the medical profession, which was so
easy to acquire and lucrative to practise, and was rapidly promoted as
assistant to his master.

“Listen, my child,” said the doctor one day, “I will immediately
disclose to thee the whole extent of that salutary art which I have
professed so many years. Know, my friend, all that is required is to
bleed thy patients and make them drink warm water. This is the secret
of curing all the distempers incident to man. I have nothing more to
impart; thou knowest physic to the very bottom.”

Thus the _ci-devant_ valet soon robed himself in a physician’s gown
and long _perruque_, then went forth to practise, but resolved to
drink wine every day, of which he said he drank huge draughts, and
(no disparagement to the Roman oracle) “the more I filled my stomach,
the less did that organ complain of the injury it received”. So he
bled and watered the community. But the time soon came when this young
practitioner met with a reverse. When called in to consultation with
a Spanish doctor of another school, a dispute arose on the subject of
the water-cure, which ended in a pitched battle being fought between
the rival medicos over the unfortunate patient, and they were not
separated until each had lost a handful of hair. This ended in the
discharge of Gil Blas, who immediately took the opportunity of imbibing
a considerable quantity of wine at the first tavern he came across, and
returned to his patron in a condition of considerable elevation.

The wine having made him thirsty, he consumed a large quantity of water
while telling his story.

“I see, Gil Blas, thou hast no longer an aversion to water,” said the
physician. “Heaven be praised! thou drinkest it now like nectar! a
change that does not at all surprise me, my friend.”

“Sir,” replied Gil Blas, “there’s a time for all things; I would not
at present give a pint of water for a hogshead of wine.”

That Le Sage had a very poor opinion of the professors of the art of
medicine in his time may be gathered from the following conversation
which Gil Blas holds with his employer: “Scarcely a day passed in which
we did not visit eight or ten patients each, from whence it may be
easily conceived what a quantity of blood was spilt and water drank.
But I do not know how it happened, all our sick died. We very seldom
had occasion to make three visits to one patient; at the second we were
either told that he had just been buried, or we found them at the last
gasp; and as I was but a young physician who had not yet had time to be
inured to murder, I began to be very uneasy at the fatal events which
might be laid to my charge.” And so he at last gave it up, after being
threatened with his life by a gallant, whose wife had succumbed to his
drastic treatment.

Towards the close of the story Gil Blas has an interview with his
former master, who describes to his old pupil the change that had
taken place in the practice of medicine in a few years, which forms an
interesting account of the transition through which the medical art was
passing towards the end of the seventeenth century.

“Ah, my son,” says the worthy doctor, “what a change has happened in
physic within these few years. There are in this city, physicians,
or such as call themselves so, who are yoked to the triumphal car of
antimony—_currus triumphalis antimonii_. Truants from the school
of Paracelsus, adorers of kermes, accidental curers who make the
whole science of medicine consist in knowing how to prepare chymical
drugs. What shall I tell you! Everything is turned topsy-turvey in
their method. Bleeding at the foot, for example, hitherto so seldom
practised, is now almost the only bleeding in use. Those purgatives
which were formerly gentle and benign are now changed for emetics and
kermes.

“I published a book against this brigandage of medicine, but it was no
use. The surgeons, mad with ambition of acting as physicians, think
themselves sufficiently qualified when there is nothing to be done
but to give kermes and emetics, to which they add bleeding at the
foot, according to their own fancy. They even proceed so far as to
mix kermes in apozems and cordial potions; and so they are on a par
with your celebrated prescribers. This contagion has spread also among
the cloisters. There are some monks who act both as apothecaries and
surgeons. These apes of medicine apply themselves to chemistry, and
compose pernicious drugs, with which they abridge the lives of the
reverend fathers.”

The doctor describes the dawn of pharmacy in France and Spain, which
was first practised by the surgeons who became surgeon-apothecaries.
The use of emetics in medical treatment came largely into vogue in
1658. It is said that the life of Louis XIV. was saved by an emetic
administered by Dusausoi, in opposition to the opinion of Vallot, the
chief physician to the king.




CHAPTER VI.

BEN JONSON.


Ben Jonson gives a description of the itinerant doctor in Queen
Elizabeth’s time, who travelled the country, usually accompanied by
a jester or zany, as he was called, who carried the box or chest
containing his remedies. We see the professor with his copper rings,
shining chain, better than gold but not quite so valuable, his yellow
jewel, his dirty feather-embroidered suit, grave look, and starched
beard.[45] Hush! he begins:—

        [45] Ben Jonson’s _Fox_, act ii., scene i.

“Most noble gentlemen and my worthy patrons!—I have nothing to sell,
little or nothing to sell, though I protest, I and my six servants are
not able to make of my precious balsam so fast as it is fetched away
from my lodging by the worthy men of the town. O health! health! the
blessing of the rich, the riches of the poor, who can buy thee at too
dear a rate? And since there is no enjoying the world without thee, for
when a humid flux or catarrh, by the mutability of air, falls from
your head into an arm or shoulder, take you a rose noble or an angel
of gold and apply to the place affected; see what good effect it can
work. No, no; to this blessed unguent, this rare extraction, that hath
only power to dispose all malignant humours that proceed either of hot,
cold, moist, or windy causes; to fortify the most indigest and crude
stomach—aye, were it one that through extreme weakness vomited blood,
applying only a warm napkin to the place after the unction and fricace;
for the vertigoe in the head, putting out a drop into your nostrils,
likewise behind the ears, a most sovereign and approved remedy; the
_mal caduco_, cramps, convulsions, paralysies, epilepsies, tremor
cordia, retind nerves, ill vapours of the spleen, and stoppings of the
liver, or stops a dysentery, immediately cureth poison of the small
guts, and cures melancholia, being taken and applied according to my
printed recipe (shows his bill and vial, and the zany sings a song). It
will cost you eight crowns, and has cured all the kings in Christendom.
Many have attempted to make this oil, wasting thousands of crowns in
the ingredients (for there go to it sixty several simples, besides
some quantity of human fat for conglutination, which we buy of the
anatomists); but when these practitioners come to the last decoction,
blow, blow! puff, puff! it flies in fumes, poor wretches.

“Gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, I will undertake by virtue of
chemical art, out of the honourable hat that covers your head, to
extract the four elements—that is to say, the fire, air, water, and
earth, and return you your felt without burn or stain. You all know,
honourable gentlemen, I never valued this ampulla or vial at less than
eight crowns, but for this time I am content to be deprived of it for
six; six crowns, then, is the price in courtesy. I know you cannot
offer me less; take it or leave it, howsoever, both it and I are at
your service (zany sings another song).

“Well, I am in a humour at this time to make a present of the small
quantity my coffer contains to the rich in courtesy, and to the poor
for God’s sake; wherefore now mark, I asked you six crowns, and six
crowns at other times you have paid me: you shall not give me six
crowns, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two, nor one, nor half a
one, nor a shilling; sixpence it will cost you or £60. Expect no lower
price, for I will not bate a jot; and this I take away as a pledge
of your love, to carry something from amongst you to show I am not
condemned.”




CHAPTER VII.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.


That picturesque period when the astrologer formed part of the
_entourage_ of almost every European court, and was petted by emperors
and kings, is graphically described by Sir Walter Scott in _Quentin
Durward_ in the following words:—

“Louis XI. of France had retired to the castle of Plessis, where
he received an ambassador from the Duke of Burgundy, with whom his
relations were somewhat strained. Attached to the court of the king,
we are told, and lodged in magnificent apartments, was the celebrated
astrologer, poet, and philosopher, Galeotti Martius, author of the
famous treatise _De Vulgo Incognitis_. He had long flourished at
the court of the King of Hungary, from whom, it is said, he was in
some measure decoyed by Louis, who grudged the Hungarian monarch the
counsels of a sage accounted so skilful in reading the decrees of
Heaven. Martius was none of those ascetic, withered, pale professors
of mystic learning of those days, who bleared their eyes over the
midnight furnace, and macerated their bodies by outmatching the
polar bear. He was trained in arms, and renowned as a wrestler. His
apartment was splendidly furnished, and on a large oaken table lay a
variety of mathematical and astrological instruments, all of the most
rich materials and curious workmanship. His astrolabe of silver was
the gift of the Emperor of Germany, and his Jacob’s staff of ebony,
jointed with gold, was a mark of esteem from the reigning Pope. In
person the astrologer was a tall, bulky, yet stately man. His features,
though rather overgrown, were dignified and noble, and a Santon might
have envied the dark and downward sweep of his long descending beard.
His dress was a chamber robe of the richest Genoa velvet, with ample
sleeves clasped with frogs of gold, and lined with sables. It was
fastened round his middle by a broad belt of virgin parchment, round
which were represented in crimson characters the signs of the zodiac.

“Such was the astrologer of Louis XI., who was consulted in matters of
state policy and intrigue, and exercised a considerable influence over
that weak monarch.

“The costly nature of such a courtier is well illustrated in an
interview which the king has with his astrologer, and leaves on his
table a purse of gold as a reward for some special service. But the
contents did not by any means satisfy the man of science.

“He emptied the purse, which contained neither more nor less than ten
gold pieces.

“The indignation of the astrologer was extreme.

“‘Thinks he that for such paltry rate of hire I will practice that
celestial science which I have studied with the Armenian Abbot of
Istrahoff, who had not seen the sun for forty years; with the Greek
Dubravius, who is said to have raised the dead; and have even visited
the Scheik Ebn Hali in his cave in the desert of Thebais? No, by
Heaven! He that contemns art shall perish through his ignorance. Ten
pieces!—a pittance which I am half-ashamed to offer to Toinette to buy
her new breast laces.’”




CHAPTER VIII.

DUMAS.


Pharmacy, pure and simple, occupies but a small space in literature,
although the disciples of the sister arts of medicine and alchemy have
often formed interesting studies for many great writers of fiction.

Unfortunately the scientific knowledge of the average novelist is, as
a rule, extremely limited, and the effects they attribute to certain
drugs are usually as fabulous as those believed in the dark ages.
They tell us of mysterious poisons of untold power, an infinitesimal
quantity of which will cause instantaneous death without leaving a
trace behind. They also describe anæsthetics so powerful that a whiff
from a bottle or the wave of a handkerchief will at once produce
insensibility for any period desired. In fact the writer of romance has
a _pharmacopœia_ of his own.

But why should we cavil at it or try to analyse it in the prosaic
test-tube of modern science.

Exclude the marvellous and mysterious, and you kill romance. It
performs its mission if it succeeds in interesting and amusing us, so
we should be lenient if it errs in mere matters of science.

The art of the romancer reaches its height when it succeeds in mixing
the possible with the impossible so that we can scarce perceive it.

There are few characters in the realm of romantic fiction more
fascinating than the Count Monte Christo. As a work of imaginative
power and absorbing interest, this masterpiece of Dumas stands unique.
Nothing is impossible to this extraordinary individual, and incident
after incident of the most dramatic and exciting nature crowd one upon
another.

The count, who is supposed to have studied the art of medicine in the
East, has always a remedy ready for every ill; from his hashis, in
which he is a profound believer, to his mysterious stimulating elixir,
a liquid, we are told, of the colour of blood, which he always kept in
a phial composed of Bohemian glass.

A single drop of this vital fluid, if allowed to fall on the lips,
almost before it reaches them, restores the marble and inanimate form
to life. His pill-boxes were composed of emeralds and precious stones
of huge size, and their contents were composed of drugs whose effect
was almost beyond comprehension.

In the _Memoirs of a Physician_, Dumas describes an alchemist of the
last century, a time when the seekers after the philosopher’s stone
and the _elixir vitæ_ had almost died out. Joseph Balsamo, the hero
of the story, drawn from the life of the notorious Cagliostro, is a
necromancer of the modern kind, who works his marvels by what is now
known as hypnotism or mesmerism, a condition little understood in those
days. Althotas, an alchemist of renown, lives with Balsamo, and aids
him in his researches.

He is described as “an old man of over a hundred years, with grey
eyes, hooked nose, and trembling bony hands, and he sits half-buried
in his chair. Clad in a long silk robe, now nothing but a shapeless,
colourless ragged covering, he grumbled as he drew over his ears his
cap of velvet, from under which a few locks of silver hair peeped out.

“The dwelling of the alchemist,” says the novelist, “might be about
eight or nine feet high and sixteen in diameter; it was lighted from
the top like a well, and hermetically closed on the four sides.”

“Besides the phials, boxes, books, and papers strewed around, copper
pincers were seen, and pieces of charcoal which had been dipped in
various liquids; there was also a large vase half full of water, and
from the roof, hung by threads, were bundles of herbs, some apparently
gathered the night before, others a hundred years ago. A keen odour
prevailed in this laboratory, which in one less strange would have been
called a perfume.

“The old man was seated in his armchair on wheels, in the centre of a
marble table formed like a horseshoe, and heaped up with a whole world,
or rather whole chaos, of plants, phials, tools, books, instruments,
and papers covered with cabalistic characters.

“He was so absorbed that he never raised his head when Balsamo appeared.

“The light of an astral lamp, suspended from the culminating point of
the window in the roof, fell on his bald, shining head.

“He was turning to and fro in his fingers a small white bottle,
the transparency of which he was trying before his eye, as a good
housekeeper tries the eggs which she buys at market.

“Balsamo gazed on him at first in silence; then, after a moment’s
pause:—

“‘Well,’ said he, ‘have you any news?’

“‘Yes, yes; come hither, Acharat, you see me enchanted—transported
with joy! I have found—I have found——’

“‘What?’

“‘Pardieu! what I sought.’

“‘Gold?’

“‘Gold, indeed! I am surprised at you!’

“‘The diamond?’

“‘Gold? diamonds? The man raves! A fine discovery, forsooth, to be
rejoiced at!’

“‘Then what you have found is your elixir?’

“‘Yes, my son, yes!—the elixir of life! Life?—what do I say?—the
eternity of life!’

“‘Oh!’ said Balsamo in a dejected voice (for he looked on this pursuit
as mere insanity), ‘so it is that dream which occupies you still?’

“But Althotas, without listening, continued to gaze delightedly at his
phial.

“‘At last,’ said he, ‘the combination is complete: the elixir of
Aristæus, twenty grains; balm of mercury, fifteen grains; precipitate
of gold, fifteen grains; essence of the cedar of Lebanon, twenty-five
grains.’

“‘But it seems to me that, with the exception of the elixir of
Aristæus, this is precisely your last combination, master?’

“‘Yes, but I had not then discovered one more ingredient, without which
all the rest are as nothing.’

“‘And have you discovered it now?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Can you procure it?’

“‘I should think so!’

“‘What is it?’

“‘We must add to the several ingredients already combined in this
phial, the three last drops of the life-blood of an infant.’

“‘Well, but where will you procure this infant?’ said Balsamo
horror-struck.

“‘I trust to you for that.’

“‘To me? You are mad, master!’

“‘Mad? And why?’ asked the old man, perfectly unmoved at this charge,
and licking with the utmost delight a drop of the fluid which had
escaped from the cork of the phial and was trickling down the side.

“‘Why, for that purpose you must kill the child.’

“‘Of course we must kill him; and the handsomer he is the better.’”

But in the end the old man falls a victim to his own infatuation, and
at length dies incontinently without discovering the long-looked-for
arcana.




CHAPTER IX.

READE.


An excellent picture of a physician of the fifteenth century is drawn
by that master in the art of fiction, Charles Reade, in his work _The
Cloister and the Hearth_, a story of much historic interest and beauty.

The hero, Gerard, wounded in an encounter with a bear, lies sick at
Düsseldorf, and is visited by a physician.

“It was an imposing figure that entered the sick room; an old gentleman
in a long sober gown trimmed with rich fur, cherry-coloured hose, and
pointed shoes, with a sword by his side in a morocco scabbard, a ruff
round his neck, not only starched severely, but treacherously stiffened
in furrows by rebatoes, or a little hidden framework of wood; and on
his head a four-cornered cap with a fur border; on his chin and bosom,
a majestic white beard. This was the full dress of a physician. A boy
followed at his heels with a basket, where phials, lint, and surgical
tools rather courted than shunned observation.”

The old doctor, on learning that his patient suffered from a wound,
exclaimed, “This must be cauterised forthwith,” and immediately called
for his urchin to heat his iron. Gerard, who didn’t like the look of
things, informed the leech the wound was caused by the bear’s paw, and
not his jaw.

“And why did’st not tell me that at once?”

“Because you kept telling me instead.”

“Never conceal aught from your leech, young man,” continued the senior,
who was a good talker, but one of the worst listeners in Europe. “Well,
it is an ill business. All the horny excrescences of animals—to wit,
claws of tigers, panthers, badgers, cats, bears, and the like, and horn
of deer, and nails of humans, especially children, are imbued with
direst poison. I had better have been bitten by a cur, _whatever you
may say_, than gored by a bull or stag, or scratched by bear. However,
shalt have a good biting cataplasm for thy leg; meantime keep we the
body cool: put out thy tongue!—good!—fever. Let me feel thy pulse:
good!—fever! I ordain flebotomy, and on the instant. Hans, go fetch
the things needful, and I will entertain the patient meantime with
reasons.”

The man of art then entered into a learned disquisition on pathology
and the healthful practice of blood-letting. Time was evidently no
object, neither the extremity of his patient. “Think not,” said he
warmly, “that it suffices to bleed; any paltry barber can open a vein.
The art is to know what vein to empty, and for what disease. T’other
day they brought me one tormented with earache. I let him blood in the
right thigh, and away flew his earache. By-the-bye, he has died since
then. Another came with the toothache. I bleed him behind the ear, and
relieved him in a jiffey. He is also since dead as it happens.”

After thus reciting his powers in venesection, the worthy doctor
thought he could not do better than back it up with a show of
knowledge, and recommenced on a new theme.

“Know, young man, that two schools of art contend at this moment
throughout Europe. The Arabian, whose ancient oracles are Avicenna,
Rhazes, Allricazis; and its revivers are Chauliac and Lanfranc; and
the Greek school, whose modern champions are Bessarion, Platinus,
and Marsilius Ficinus, but whose pristine doctors were medicine’s
very oracles—Phœbus, Chiron, Æsculapius, and his sons Podalinus
and Machaon, Pythagoras, Democritus; Praxagoras, who invented the
arteries, and Dioctes, _qui primus urinæ animum dedit_. All these
taught orally. Then came Hippocrates, the eighteenth from Æsculapius,
and of him we have manuscripts, to him we owe ‘the vital principle’. He
also invented the bandage, and tapped for water on the chest; and above
all, he dissected, yet only quadrupeds, for the brutal prejudices of
the pagan vulgar withheld the human body from the knife of science. Him
followed Aristotle, who gave us the aorta, the largest blood-vessel in
the human body.”

“Surely, sir, the Almighty gave us all that is in our bodies, and not
Aristotle nor any Grecian man,” objected Gerard humbly.

“Child! of course He gave us the thing; but Aristotle did more—he gave
us the name of the thing. But young men will still be talking. The
next great light was Galen; he studied at Alexandria, then the home
of science. He, justly malcontent with quadrupeds, dissected apes, as
coming nearer to man, and bled like a Trojan. Then came Theophilus, who
gave us the nerves, the lacteal vessels, and the _pia mater_.”

“I am put to silence, sir.”

“And that is better still, for garrulous patients are ill to cure,
especially in fever. I say, then, that Eristratus gave us the cerebral
nerves and the milk vessels; nay, more, he was the inventor of
lithotomy, whatever you may say. Then came another whom I forget;
you do somewhat perturb me with your petty exceptions. Then came
Ammonius, the author of lithotrity, and here comes Hans with the basin
to stay your volubility. Blow thy chafer, boy, and hand me the basin;
’tis well. Arabians, quotha! What are they but a sect of yesterday,
who about the year 1000 did fall in with the writings of those very
Greeks, and read them awry, having no concurrent light of their own?
for their demi-god and camel-driver, Mahomed, impostor in science as
in religion, had strictly forbidden them anatomy, even of the lower
animals, the which he who severeth from medicine, _tollit solem e
mundo_, as Tully quoth. Nay, wonder not at my fervour, good youth;
where the general weal stands in jeopardy a little warmth is civic,
humane, and honourable. Now, there is settled of late in this town a
pestilent Arabist, a mere empiric, who, despising anatomy, and scarce
knowing Greek from Hebrew, hath yet spirited away half my patients, and
I tremble for the rest. Put forth thine ankle; and thou, Hans, breathe
on the chafer.”

At the end of this tirade Gerard’s friend and fellow-traveller Denys
appears on the scene, and will not hear of the bleeding being carried
out. The blustering but good-tempered soldier soon comes to hot words
with the old physician on the subject, and a wordy battle ensues, which
ends by the doctor being offended, and decides to beat a dignified
retreat. The concluding scene is too good to omit, and we will give it
in the author’s own words.

“Ah! you reject my skill, you scorn my art. My revenge shall be to
leave you to yourself; lost idiot, take your last look at me, and at
the sun. Your blood be on your head!” And away he stamped.

But on reaching the door he whirled and came back, his wicker tail
twirling round after him like a cat’s.

“In twelve hours at furthest you will be in the secondary stage of
fever. Your head will split. Your carotids will thump. Aha! And let
but a pin fall, you will jump to the ceiling. Then send for me, and
_I’ll not come_.” He departed. But at the door-handle gathered fury,
wheeled and came flying, with pale, terror-stricken boy and wicker tail
whisking after him. “Next will come—_Cramps of the stomach_. Aha!

“Then—_Bilious vomit_. Aha!

“Then—_Cold sweat and deadly stupor_.

“Then—_Confusion of all the senses_.

“Then—_Bloody vomit_.

“And after that nothing can save you, not even I; and if I could I
would not, and so farewell.”

Even Denys changed colour at threats so fervent and precise; but Gerard
only gnashed his teeth with rage at the noise, and seized his hard
bolster with kindling eye.

This added fuel to the fire, and brought the insulted ancient back from
the impassable door, with his whisking train.

“And after that—_Madness!_

“And after that—_Black vomit!_

“And then—_Convulsions!_

“And then—_That cessation of all vital functions the vulgar call
‘death,’_ for which thank your own Satanic folly and insolence.
Farewell.” He went. He came. He roared: “And think not to be buried
in any Christian churchyard, for the bailiff is my good friend, and
I shall tell him how and why you died: _felo de se! felo de se!_
Farewell.”

Gerard sprang to his feet on the bed by some supernatural gymnastic
power excitement lent him, and, seeing him so moved, the vindictive
orator came back at him fiercer than ever, to launch some master-threat
the world has unhappily lost, for as he came with his whisking train
and shaking his fist, Gerard hurled the bolster furiously in his face
and knocked him down like a shot, the boy’s head cracked under his
falling master’s, and crash went the dumb-stricken orator into the
basket, and there sat, wedged in an inverted angle, crushing phial
after phial. The boy, being light, was strewed afar, but in a squatting
posture, so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the
smaller howling. But soon the doctor’s face filled with horror, and he
uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled
with wonderful agility for one of his age.

He was sitting on the hot coals.

They had singed the cloth, and were now biting the man. Struggling
wildly but vainly to get out of the basket, he rolled over with it
sideways, and lo! a great hissing; then the humane Gerard ran and
wrenched off the tight basket, not without a struggle. The doctor lay
on his face groaning, handsomely singed with his own chafer, and slaked
a moment too late by his own villainous compounds, which, however,
being as various and even beautiful in colour as they were odious in
taste, had strangely diversified his grey robe, and painted it more
gaudy than neat.

Gerard and Denys raised him up and consoled him. “Courage, man, ’tis
but cautery; balm of Gilead—why, you recommended it but now to my
comrade here.”

A curious specimen of medical treatment came to light when Philip, Duke
of Burgundy, lay sick at Bruges. He was a doughty warrior this Earl of
Holland, as he was sometimes called, and wealthy withal, so the best
advice was secured.

“Now, paupers got sick and got well as Nature pleased, but woe betided
the rich,” says the novelist, “in an age when for one Mr. Malady
killed, three fell by Dr. Remedy.

“The duke’s complaint, nameless then, is now called diphtheria. He was
old and weak, so Dr. Remedy bled him.

“The duke turned cold—wonderful!

“Then Dr. Remedy had recourse to the arcana of science.

“Ho! This is grave. Flay me an ape incontinent, to clap him to the
duke’s breast! Officers of state ran septemvious, seeking an ape to
counteract the blood-thirsty tomfoolery of the human species.

“But an ape could not be found.

“Then Dr. Remedy grew impatient, and bade flay a dog.

“A dog is next best to an ape; only it must be a dog all of one colour.

“So they flayed a liver-coloured dog and clapped it, yet palpitating,
to their sovereign’s breast; and he died.”

Thus ended Philip the Good.




CHAPTER X.


DICKENS.

The apothecary of romance is almost invariably pale and lean, with head
nearly destitute of hirsute covering, and a man of retiring habits and
sad demeanour. This is perhaps because he gets little chance to make
the wherewithal to make him fat, and has few opportunities to seek
enjoyment and recreation.

Dickens’ chemist, whom he describes in his pathetic little story
_The Haunted Man_, is no exception to this rule. “Who could have
seen his hollow cheek, his sunken, brilliant eye; his black-attired
figure, indefinably grim, although well knit and well proportioned;
his grizzled hair hanging like tangled seaweed about his face,—as if
he had been through his whole life a lonely mark for the chafing and
beating of the great deep of humanity—but might have said he looked
like a haunted man?

“Who could have observed his manner—taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy,
shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never, with a
distraught air of reverting to a bygone place and time, or of listening
to some old echoes in his mind—but might have said it was the manner
of a haunted man?

“Who could have heard his voice—slow-speaking, deep and grave, with a
natural fulness and melody in it which he seemed to set himself against
and stop—but might have said it was the voice of a haunted man?

“Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part library and part
laboratory,—for he was, as the world knew far and wide, a learned man
in chemistry, and a teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of aspiring
ears and eyes hung daily,—who that had seen him there, upon a winter
night, alone, surrounded by his drugs and instruments and books; the
shadow of his shaded lamp, a monstrous beetle on the wall, motionless
among a crowd of spectral shapes raised there by the flickering of the
fire upon the quaint objects around him; some of these phantoms (the
reflection of glass vessels that held liquids) trembling at heart like
things that knew his power to uncombine them, and to give back their
component parts to fire and vapour;—who that had seen him then, his
work done and he pondering in his chair before the rusted grate and red
flame, moving his thin mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead,
would not have said that the man seemed haunted and the chamber too?”

In the _Pickwick Papers_ the author describes in one of his happiest
veins, the troubles of a chemist who is suddenly called to serve on a
common jury—to try indeed the celebrated case of “Bardell _versus_
Pickwick”.

“‘Answer to your names, gentlemen, that you may be sworn,’ said the
gentleman in black.

“‘Richard Upwitch.’

“‘Here,’ said the greengrocer.

“‘Thomas Groffin.’

“‘Here,’ said the chemist.

“‘Take the book, gentlemen. You shall well and truly try——’

“‘I beg this court’s pardon,’ said the chemist, who was a tall, thin,
yellow-visaged man, ‘but I hope this court will excuse my attendance.’

“‘On what grounds, sir?’ said Mr. Justice Stareleigh.

“‘I have no assistant, my lord,’ said the chemist.

“‘Then you ought to be able to afford it, sir,’ said the judge
reddening, for Mr. Justice Stareleigh’s temper bordered on the
irritable, and brooked not contradiction.

“‘I know I _ought_ to do, if I got on as well as I desired, but I
don’t, my lord,’ answered the chemist.

“‘Swear the gentlemen,’ said the judge peremptorily.

“The officer had got no further than the ‘You shall well and truly try’
when he was again interrupted by the chemist.

“‘I am to be sworn, my lord, am I?’ said the chemist.

“‘Certainly, sir,’ replied the testy little judge.

“‘Very well, my lord,’ replied the chemist in a resigned manner. ‘Then
there’ll be murder before this trial’s over: that’s all. Swear me if
you please, sir.’ And sworn the chemist was before the judge could find
words to utter.

“‘I merely wanted to observe, my lord,’ said the chemist, taking his
seat with great deliberation, ‘that I’ve left nobody but an errand boy
in my shop. He is a very nice boy, my lord, but he is not acquainted
with drugs; and I know that the prevailing impression in his mind is,
that Epsom salts means oxalic acid, and syrup of senna, laudanum.
That’s all, my lord.’ With this, the tall chemist composed himself
into a comfortable attitude, and, assuming a pleasant expression of
countenance, appeared to have prepared himself for the worst.”

This little sketch shows the disabilities the chemist laboured under
before he was exempted from jury service, and the intimate knowledge
Dickens had of almost every phase of life on which he wrote.

In _Oliver Twist_ he gives us an instance of prompt prescribing on the
part of the parochial doctor’s assistant and dispenser, related by
Bumble.

Mr. Bumble betakes himself to the undertaker’s shop to arrange for the
funeral.

“‘Bayton,’ said the undertaker looking from the scrap of paper to Mr.
Bumble; ‘I never heard the name before.’

“Bumble shook his head as he replied, ‘Obstinate people, Mr.
Sowerberry—very obstinate. Proud, too, I’m afraid, sir.’

“‘Proud, eh?’ exclaimed Mr. Sowerberry with a sneer. ‘Come, that’s too
much.’

“‘Oh, its sickening,’ replied the beadle; ‘antimonial, Mr. Sowerberry!’

“‘So it is,’ acquiesced the undertaker.

“‘We only heard of the family the night before last,’ said the beadle;
‘and we shouldn’t have known anything about them then, only a woman who
lodges in the same house made an application to the parochial committee
for them to send the parochial surgeon to see a woman as was very bad.
He had gone out to dinner, but his ’prentice (which is a very clever
lad) sent ’em some medicine in a blacking bottle off hand.’

“‘Ah, there’s promptness,’ said the undertaker.

“‘Promptness indeed!’ replied the beadle. ‘But what’s the consequence;
what’s the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir? Why, the husband
sends back word that the medicine won’t suit his wife’s complaint, and
so she shan’t take it—says she shan’t take it, sir! Good, strong,
wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish
labourers and a coal-heaver only a week before. Sent ’em for nothing,
with a blacking bottle in, and he sends back word that she shan’t take
it, sir!’”


THACKERAY.

The great satirist, in _Pendennis_, gives us a brief sketch of the
apothecary of the Georgian era in the early life of John Pendennis,
who in the city of Bath practised as an apothecary and surgeon,
“attending gentlemen in their sickrooms, and ladies at the most
interesting periods of their lives, and condescending to sell a
brown-paper plaister to a farmer’s wife across the counter, or to vend
tooth-brushes, hair-powder, and London perfumery”. How he eventually
merged into John Pendennis, Esq., of Fairoaks, Clavering, with a
“family pride,” is it not described with the pen of inimitable genius
in the pages of the story?




CHAPTER XI.

MARRYAT.


In his novel entitled _Japhet in Search of a Father_, Captain Marryat
introduces to us that eccentric apothecary, Mr. Phineas Cophagus; and
although the character is doubtless exaggerated to some extent, it
forms an amusing picture of the practising apothecary in the early part
of this century.

Japhet, who is taken in hand and apprenticed to the worthy
practitioner, describes the shop looking upon Smithfield Market,
with its usual allowance of green, yellow, and blue bottles. All the
patent medicines in the known world were kept in stock, even to the
all-sufficient medicine for mankind of Mr. Euony. The shop was large,
and at the back part there was a most capacious iron mortar with a
pestle to correspond.

The proprietor himself, we are told, might have been forty-five years
of age. “He was of middle height, his face was thin, his nose very much
hooked, his eyes small and piercing, with a good-humoured twinkle in
them. His mouth was large and drawn down at one corner. He was stout
in his body, and carried a considerable protuberance before him, which
he was in the habit of patting with his left hand complacently. But
although stout in his body, his legs were mere spindles, so that in his
appearance he reminded you of some bird of the crane genus.

“He dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, white cravat, and high
collar to his shirt; blue cotton-net pantaloons and Hessian boots, both
fitting so tight that it appeared as if he was proud of his spindle
shanks. His hat was broad-brimmed and low, and he carried a stout black
cane with a gold top in his right hand, almost always raising the gold
top to his nose when he spoke.

“The apothecary’s assistant, Brookes, was a tall, fresh-coloured, but
hectic-looking young man, and, with the ubiquitous Timothy, who took
out the medicine, formed the staff of the establishment.”

Japhet’s introduction to the rudiments of the profession was to pound
up some drugs in the big iron mortar, which he did with a will until
the perspiration ran down him in streams. He hadn’t been many months
in the shop before he was left in charge with Timothy, who, after
cudgelling his brains as to how they shall make a little money on their
own account, agrees with Japhet to physic any one who comes in the shop.

The story is related by Japhet as follows:—

“An old woman soon came in, and addressing Timothy, said that she
‘wanted something for her poor grandchild’s sore throat’.

“‘I don’t mix up the medicines, ma’am,’ replied Timothy; ‘you must
apply to that gentleman, Mr. Newland, who is behind the counter; he
understands what is good for everybody’s complaints.’

“‘Bless his handsome face—and so young, too! Why, be you a doctor,
sir?’

“‘I should hope so,’ replied I. ‘What is it you require—a lotion or an
embrocation?’

“‘I don’t understand those hard words, but I want some doctor’s stuff.’

“‘Very well, my good woman; I know what is proper,’ replied I, assuming
an important air. ‘Here, Timothy, wash out this phial very clean.’

“‘Yes, sir,’ replied Timothy very respectfully.

“I took one of the measures, and putting in a little green, a little
blue, and a little white liquid from the medicine bottles generally
used by Mr. Brookes, filled it up with water, poured the mixture into
the phial, corked, and labelled it _haustus statim sumendus_, and
handed it over to the old woman.

“‘Is the poor child to take it, or is it to rub outside?’ inquired the
old woman.

“‘The directions are on the label; but you don’t read Latin?’

“‘Deary me, no! Latin! and do you understand Latin? What a nice clever
boy!’

“‘I should not be a good doctor if I did not,’ replied I. On second
thoughts I considered it advisable and safer that the application
should be _external_, so I translated the label to her: _haustus_, rub
it in; _statim_, on the throat; _sumendus_, with the palm of the hand.”

Their next effort at doctoring is humorously described by the novelist
in the following words:—

“An Irish labourer, more than half-tipsy, came in one evening and asked
whether we had such a thing as was called ‘_A poor man’s plaister_’.
‘By the powers, it will be a poor man’s plaister when it belongs to me;
but they tell me that it is a sure and sartain cure for the thumbago,
as they call it, which I’ve at the small of my back, and which is a
hinder to my mounting up the ladder; so as it’s Saturday night, and
I’ve just got the money, I’ll buy the plaister first, and then try
what a little whisky inside will do. The devil is in’t if it won’t be
driven out of me between the two.’

“We had not that plaister in the shop, but we had blister plaisters,
and Timothy, handing one to me, I proffered it to him. ‘And what may
you be after asking for the same?’ inquired he.

“The blisters were sold at a shilling each, when spread on paper, so I
asked him eighteen-pence, that we might pocket the extra sixpence.

“‘By the powers, one would think that you had made a mistake, and
handed me the rich man’s plaister instead of the poor one’s. It’s less
whisky I’ll have to drink, any how; but here’s the money, and the top
of the morning to ye, seeing as how it’s jist getting late.’

“Timothy and I laughed as we divided the sixpence. It appeared that
after taking his allowance of whisky the poor fellow fixed the plaister
on his back when he went to bed, and the next morning found himself in
a condition not to be envied. It was a week before we saw him again,
and, much to the horror of Timothy and myself, he walked into the shop
when Mr. Brookes was employed behind the counter. Timothy perceived him
before he saw us, and pulling me behind the large mortar, we contrived
to make our escape into the back parlour, the door of which we held
ajar to hear what would take place.

“‘Murder and turf!’ cried the man, ‘but that was the devil’s own
plaister you gave me here for my back, and it left me as raw as a
turnip, taking every bit of my skin off me entirely, forbye my lying in
bed for a whole week and losing my day’s work.’

“‘I really do not recollect supplying you with a plaister, my good
man,’ replied Mr. Brookes.

“‘Then by the piper that played before Moses, if you don’t recollect
it, I’ve an idea that I shall never forget it. Sure enough, it cured
me, but wasn’t I quite kilt before I was cured?’

“‘It must have been some other shop,’ observed Mr. Brookes. ‘You have
made a mistake.’

“‘Devil a bit of a mistake, except in selling me the plaister. Didn’t I
get it of a lad in this same shop?’

“‘Nobody sells things out of this shop without my knowledge.’

“The Irishman was puzzled—he looked round the shop. ‘Well, then, if
this a’n’t the shop, it was own sister to it.’”

“Like all embryo apothecaries,” says Japhet, “I carried in my
appearance, if not the look of wisdom, most certainly that of
self-sufficiency, which does equally well with the world in general.
My forehead was smooth and very white, and my dark locks were combed
back systematically and with a regularity that said, as plainly as
hair could do, ‘The owner of this does everything by prescription,
measurement, and rule’. Altogether I cut such a truly medical
appearance that even the most guarded would not have hesitated to allow
me the sole conduct of a whitlow, from inflammation to suppuration, and
from suppuration to cure, or have refused to have confided to me the
entire suppression of a gumboil.

“Such were my personal qualifications at the time I was raised to the
important office of dispenser of, I may say, life and death.”




Transcriber’s note


Text in italics was surrounded with _underscores_ and small capitals
changed to all capitals.

A few errors in punctuation were corrected silently. Also the
following changes were made, on page

   52 “furnance” changed to “furnace” (seizing his red-hot tongs from
      the little furnace in which)

   76 “Teragrammaton” changed to “Tetragrammaton” (Tetragrammaton +
      Adonai)

  234 “the” added (centre of the cover)

  273 “Lanfen” changed to “Lafeu” (Lafeu. Go to, sir, you were beaten
      in Italy)

  278 “Spencer” changed to “Spenser” (Edmund Spenser was born in
      London).

Otherwise the original was preserved, including unusual or
inconsistent spelling and hyphenation, and possible errors in
quotes from other books.