Human excrement and human urine were strongly recommended by many of the chief authorities. Mme. de Sévigné, writing to her daughter on June 13, 1685, says:--“For my vapours I take 8 drops of essence of urine, and contrary to its usual action it has prevented me from sleeping.” There are other references to this delicate remedy in some other of her letters. Apparently she took a special combination of the essence with the Baume Tranquille. Culpepper says: “That small triangular bone in the skull of a man called Os Triquetum, so absolutely cures the Falling Sickness that it will never come again, saith Paracelsus.” Culpepper also states that “the fat of a man is exceeding good to anoint such limbs as fall away in the flesh.” Lemery explains how to make a plaster from the blood of a healthy young man, after drying it, which was useful in old ulcers. Paracelsus had a “Primum Ens Sanguinis,” which was fresh blood from a healthy young person. Crollius gives a recipe for an eye salve, which was to divide a human brain into half; mix one half with honey and apply it at night; dry and powder the other half and apply it in the morning. COW-DUNG AS A MEDICINE. A female pharmacist is mentioned in Salmon’s “Bate’s Dispensatory” (1694), who, he says, made a fortune of £20,000 by selling a tincture made from cow-dung. Her formula was, cow-dung, fresh gathered in the morning, 12 lbs.; spring or rain water, 30 lb. Digest for twenty-four hours, let it settle, and decant the clear brown tincture. Salmon says it is no doubt a good medicine, and has been much used with success. “It has a pretty kind of sweet scent as if it was perfumed with musk or some other odoriferous thing.” An essence of cow-dung was an old English household remedy for gout, rheumatism, stone, etc. It was from cow-dung gathered in May; digested with a third of its weight in white wine, and distilled. In another old formula cow-dung and snails with their shells, equal parts, are prescribed. The resulting distillate was known as all-flower water, aqua omnium florum, and aqua arthritica. Dr. Rutherford, of Edinburgh, in the eighteenth century strongly recommended cow-dung poultice in rheumatic fever, and asserted that he had known of many cures from its use. It has been for centuries a popular article in the Hindu materia medica. The phosphate of soda and benzoic acid (which are the medicinal constituents of cow-dung) are better suited to modern fastidious patients in the form of laboratory products. EXCREMENTS AS MEDICINES.