The root of the male fern, a nostrum for the cure of the tape worm, was secretly retailed by Madame Noufleur. This secret was purchased by Louis XV. for a considerable sum of money. It was not until this event that the physicans discovered, that the same remedy had been administered in the same complaint by Galen. The history of popular remedies in the cure of gout, is equally illustrative of this subject. The Duke of Portland's celebrated powder was nothing less than the _deacintaureon_ of Caelius Aurelianus, or the _antidotus et duobus centaurae generibus_ of Aetius, the receipt for which, a friend of his grace brought with him from Switzerland, into which country, in all likelihood, it had been introduced by the early medical writers, who had transcribed it from the Greek volumes, soon after their arrival into the western part of Europe.[134] The active ingredient of a no less celebrated preparation for the same complaint, the _Eau médicinale_ de Husson, a medicine brought into fashion by M. de Husson, a military officer in the service of Louis XVI has been discovered to be the meadow saffron. Upon searching after and trying the properties of this herb, it was observed that similar effects in the cure of the gout were ascribed to a certain plant, called hermodaclyllus, by Oribasius (an eminent physician of the 4th century) and Aetius, who flourished at Alexandria towards the end of the 5th century, but more particularly by Alexander of Tralles, a physician of Asia Minor, whose prescription consisted of hermodaclyllus, ginger, pepper, cummin seed, aniseed, and scammony, which he says will enable those who take it to walk immediately. On an inquiry being immediately set on foot for the discovery of this unknown plant, a specimen of it was procured at Constantinople, and it actually did turn out to be a species of meadow saffron, the colchicum autumnale of Linnaeus. The celebrated fever powder of Dr. James was evidently not his original composition, but an Italian nostrum, invented by a person of the name of Lisle; a receipt for the preparation of which is to be found at length in Colborne's complete English Dispensary for the year 1756. The various secret preparations of opium which have been extolled as the discovery of modern days, may be recognised in the works of ancient authors. The use of prussic acid in the cure of consumptions, lately suggested by M. Magendie, at Paris, is little more than the revival of the Dutch practice in this disorder; for Linnaeus informs us, that distilled laurel water was frequently used in the cure of pulmonary consumption.[135]