Scatalogic Rites of All Nations: A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globeBourke, John Gregory
Religion
Scatalogic Rites of All Nations: A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe
Bourke, John Gregory
Scatology
“For the cure of fistula, ‘man’s-dung and pepper’ were to be applied
externally; goat’s-dung externally; dove’s-dung was to be drunk in
goat’s-milk; the juice of cow-dung, in wine, was to be cast into the
fistula, and a plaster of the same was to be applied.”—(Idem, pp. 165,
166.)
“Qui mane jejune, per novem dies, bibit propriam urinam non patietur
epilepsiam, paralysim, nec colicam, et qui bibit propriam urinam
sanabitur a sumpto veneno.”—(Idem, pp. 169, 170.)
“D’après le témoignage de Charles Lancilotti, l’acqua di sterco humano
pigliata in una calante por lo spation di nuove giorni sana quelli
che patiscono il male caduco.” (Voyez Guida alla Chimica.)—(“Bib.
Scatalogica,” p. 29.)
Schurig’s “Chylologia,” published in Dresden, 1725, contains citations
from nearly seven hundred authorities. As these are nearly all of very
ancient date, and only in a few cases accessible to scholars restricted
to American libraries, this learned work of Schurig becomes all the more
valuable to such as desire to study intelligently and profoundly this
subject of the use of human and animal excreta in religious rites or in
religious medicine.
Some of the writers quoted by Schurig favor, others oppose the medical
employment of the human excretions. Among those in favor of it, according
to him, may be seen the names of Galen and Dioscorides. In Schurig’s day
there seems to have been much opposition developing, especially when
other remedies were available; although Schurig says that the Dutch
soldiers returning from the Indies spoke in praise of what they had seen
there of the use of such medicaments. Among European practitioners, human
ordure was employed alone, mixed with water or other ingredients, or a
water and an oil were distilled from it.
It would be a useless task to repeat the names of all the authorities
mentioned by this learned German, or to give in detail all the
prescriptions in which the alvine dejecta figure as components. Their
insertion here would add nothing to the value of these notes, as they
are strictly pharmaceutical in their spirit; it may, however, be of some
interest to the student to learn just what diseases were supposed to be
amenable to this course of treatment, and just how the curatives were to
be administered.
For angina pectoris, the ordure passed by a young boy after eating
lupines, to be taken internally (p. 758). For the same disease there were
other recipes for ordure in pills, plasters, and decoctions, as well as
for electuaries of ordure, to be blended with honey (p. 756).
For bringing boils, ulcers, etc., to a head, for sprains, luxations,
etc., a poultice of human ordure, applied hot, was considered the best
specific (p. 757).
For rheumatic gout, a hot poultice of human ordure was considered of
value (p. 757).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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