The Mystery and Romance of Alchemy and PharmacyThompson, C. J. S. (Charles John Samuel)
History
The Mystery and Romance of Alchemy and Pharmacy
Thompson, C. J. S. (Charles John Samuel)
Alchemy; Medicine, Magic, mystic, and spagiric; Pharmacy -- History
“2. To remove freckles. Rub a bull’s gall on the face.
“3. To cure headaches. Gather plantain-root before sunrise, and tie
it on the head. Use also the juice of the seed of the elder-tree,
a cow’s brain, goat’s dung dissolved in vinegar; swallows’ nests
mixed with water, and applied to the forehead; water out of which
an ass or an ox has drunk.
“4. To purge the head. Pour the juice of cabbage (_brassica_) into
the nostrils.
“5. For dimness of the eyes. Pound fennel-roots, mix with honey,
and boil over a slow fire; add cistern-water or woman’s milk. Smear
the eyes with the fat of a fox (_adipe volpis_).
“6. Another remedy. Mix a child’s urine (_lotium infantis_) with
the best honey; add a decoction of fennel-roots (‘omnem caliginem
mirabiliter discutiet’).
“7. The beginning of this paragraph has been cut off. The remedies
prescribed are butter and _cram occifæth_ (garlic...?), mixed with
ram’s fat (‘per aruinam ariætis’).
“14. To cure the bite of a dog. Apply two or three onions calcined
and boiled with lard and honey.
“15. To extract a straw from the eye. Chant the psalm _Qui
habitat_ (Ps. 90) thrice over water, with which then douche the
eye, _et sanus ærit_.”
Among the various remedies fish play a prominent part. For gravel it is
recommended that the head of a pike be boiled in a newly-glazed earthen
pot, then reduced to powder and drunk in a glass of white wine. A sure
means of curing gout is to wear continually three or four moles’ feet
tied to one’s garters. For nose-bleeding, the sufferer is advised to
blow up the nose the powder of a stone found in the head of a carp, or
to plug up the nostrils with hare’s fur. A certain remedy for curing
a drunkard of his evil way is to give him as many eggs of the screech
owl, boiled hard, as he can possibly eat, when we are assured he will
ever after be a total abstainer.
In the first book of the _Secretes of the reverent Maister Alexis
of Piemont_, 1562, which is a kind of general receipt-book for the
apothecaries of the time, there occur some curious formulæ, which may
be taken as a fair example of the pharmacy of those days. The process
of making the oil of red dog is given with elaborate detail.
“To make an oile of a redde dogge,” says the chronicler, “by the meane
whereof (beside other infinit vertues that it hathe) I have healed a
Fryer of Saint Onostres, who had by the space of twelve years a lame
and drye withered arme, lyke I styche so that nature gave it no more
nouryshement—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account