Paracelsus gives the recipe for distilling “The Oyle of the Skull of a Man.... Take the skull of a man that was never buried, and beate it into powder.” (“The Secrets of Physicke,” Theophrastus Paracelsus, Eng. transl. London, 1633, p. 97.) “The dose is three grains against the falling sickness.”—(Idem.) Schurig notes that the human skull is a remedy for the falling sickness.—(See “Chylologia.”) The skull of a man was used for diseases of men; that of a woman, for diseases of women.—(See “Rare Secrets in Physicke,” collected by the Comtesse of Kent, London, 1654, p. 3.) Beckherius prescribed it in cephalic affections, epilepsy, paralysis, apoplexy, vertigo, etc., taken in powder, or raw, simply or in combination.—(“Medicus Microcosmus,” p. 199 _et seq._) But the skull was, preferentially, “Cranii humani nunquam sepulti” (p. 217); or, “Cranii humani violenter mortui” (p. 266). Moss from such a skull was also used medicinally (idem, p. 237). If possible, it should be that of a man who had been executed on a scaffold, “patibula.” “Powder of a man’s bones, burnt, chiefly of the skull that is found in the earth, given, cureth the epilepsy. The bones of a man cureth a man, the bones of a woman, cureth a woman.” But the patient had to abstain from wine for nine days.—(“The Poor Man’s Physician,” John Moncrief, Edin. 1716, p. 70.) “Os hominis adustum,” a cure for epilepsy (Avicenna, vol. i. p. 330 a 18); “Mumia” (idem, vol. i. p. 357, a 55); “Ossa hominis in potu data” (idem, vol. i. p. 371, a 6). Epilepsie. “Take pilles made of the skull of one that is hanged.”—(Reg. Scot. “Discoverie,” p. 175.) The skulls of ancestors were used as drinking cups by the Tibetans, according to Rubruquis, in Purchas (vol. i. p. 23). “Among primitive people the head is peculiarly sacred.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 187.) Dr. Bernard Schaff gives the following formula for the cure of fevers: “Take a human skull from among those not enclosed in tombs, and calcine it in a crucible or in the open fire; administer in doses of from one scruple to half a dram an hour or two before the paroxysm of the fever.” He adds that among the common people the belief prevailed that the skull should be obtained at the early dawn of day, about the time of the winter solstice, and with the ceremonies (_sacris_) peculiar to that season, that it should be picked up in silence; but for his part he does not believe in such things. “Recipitur cranium humanum ex ipsis quoque sepulchrorum claustris depromptum (vulgus addit tempore matutino ante Solis ortum sub sacris angeronæ, hoc est, ore tacito, aufferatur, quod tamen, cum aliquam sapere videatur superstitionem, imitari nolui) et vel igne aperto, vel in crucibulo, calcinatur, usquedem colorem acquirat cineritium pulverisatum hocce cranium adhibetur a ℈ i. ad ʒ; i. vel ii. horas ante paroxysmi principio.”—(“Ephem. Phys. Medic.,” Leipzig, 1694, vol. ii. p. 93.)