or unhealthy, it acted as an anaesthetic and facilitated the success of surgical operations. Flesh taken from the living subject, the heart, the liver, the gall, the blood--either dried or liquid--of animals, the hair and horn of stags, were all customarily used in many cases where the motive determining their preference above other _materiae medicae_ is unknown to us. Many recipes puzzle us by their originality and by the barbaric character of the ingredients recommended: "the milk of a woman who has given birth to a boy," the dung of a lion, a tortoise's brains, an old book boiled in oil.[*] * Ebers Papyrus, pl. lxxviii. 1. 22--lxxix. 1. 1: "To relieve a child who is constipated.--An old book. Boil it in oil, and apply half to the stomach, to provoke evacuation." It must not be forgotten that, the writings being on papyrus, the old book in question, once boiled, would have an effect analogous to that of our linseed-meal poultices. If the physician recommended taking an old one, it was for economical reasons merely; the Egyptians of the middle classes would always have in their possession a number of letters, copy-books, and other worthless waste papers, of which they would gladly rid themselves in such a profitable manner. The medicaments compounded of these incongruous substances were often very complicated. It was thought that the healing power was increased by multiplying the curative elements; each ingredient acted upon a specific region of the body, and after absorption, separated itself from the rest to bring its influence to bear upon that region. The physician made use of all the means which we employ to-day to introduce remedies into the human system, whether pills or potions, poultices, or ointments, draughts or clysters. Not only did he give the prescriptions, but he made them up, thus combining the art of the physician with that of the dispenser. He prescribed the ingredients, pounded them either separately or together, he macerated them in the proper way, boiled them, reduced them by heating, and filtered them through linen. Fat served him as the ordinary vehicle for ointments, and pure water for potions; but he did not despise other liquids, such as wine, beer (fermented or un-fermented), vinegar, milk, olive oil, "ben" oil either crude or refined, even the urine of men and animals: the whole, sweetened with honey, was taken hot, night and morning. The use of more than one of these remedies became worldwide; the Greeks borrowed them from the Egyptians; we have piously accepted them from the Greeks; and our contemporaries still swallow with resignation many of the abominable mixtures invented on the banks of the Nile, long before the building of the Pyramids.