Chapter XIV: Medicines From the Metals 376 (10)

“Sitting under his state in the Banqueting House, the chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought or led up to the throne, where, they kneeling, ye King strokes their faces and cheeks with both his hands at once, at which instant a chaplaine in his formalities says:--‘He put his hands upon them and healed them.’ This he said to every one in particular. When they have been all touched, they come up again in the same order; and the other chaplaine kneeling, and having an angel of gold strung on white ribbon on his arms delivers them one by one to His Majestie, who puts them about the necks of the touched as they passe, while the first chaplaine repeats ‘That is ye true light which came into ye world.’ Then follows an epistle (as at first a gospel) with the liturgy, prayers for the sick, with some alteration, and then the Lord Chamberlain and the Comptroller of the Household bring a basin, ewer, and towel, for his Majesty to wash.”

In 1684 Thomas Rosewell, evidently an unrepentant Puritan, was tried before Judge Jeffries on a charge of high treason, the indictment alleging that he had said “the people made a flocking to the king upon pretence of being healed of the king’s evil, which he could not do.” Rosewell had further declared that he and others, being priests and prophets, could do as much as the king. And Rosewell had told how Jeroboam’s hand had dried up when he would have seized the man of God who had prophesied against him, and how the king’s hand had been restored on the prayer of the prophet. In his defence Rosewell had sneered at the Latin of the indictment, which spoke of the “Morbus Regni Anglici,” which, as he said, would mean the disease of the English kingdom, not the king’s evil. Jeffries, having taunted the prisoner and his witnesses with being “snivelling saints,” insisted on a verdict of guilty, and would no doubt have had the mocker’s ears cut off; but it is satisfactory to know that Charles II, who probably had not more faith in his healing power than the accused, ordered him to be pardoned.

The English prayer-book contained a form of service for this ceremony up to the year 1719.

Queen Anne was the last ruler in England to touch. There is no record of any of the Georges attempting the miracle, but the young Pretender, Charles Edward, when claiming to be Prince of Wales, touched a female child at Holyrood House in 1745, and is said to have effected a cure, and after his death in 1780 his brother, Cardinal York, still touched at Rome.

Louis XV was the last King of France who touched. Louis XIV fulfilled the duty on a larger scale, and doubtless with the utmost confidence in his royal virtue. The formula used by the kings of France when they had touched a patient was “Le roi te touche, Dieu te guerisse” (“The king touches thee; may God heal thee”). It is said that Henri of Navarre, when in the thick of the fight at Ivry (1590), as he laid about him with his sword right and left, gaily shouted this familiar expression.

CRAMP RINGS.

Faith in “cramp rings” corresponds in many respects with the reverential confidence in the royal touch as a cure for scrofula. The former, however, appears to have been of entirely English origin. Legend attributes the first cramp ring to Edward the Confessor.

St. Edward on his death-bed is alleged to have given a ring from his finger to the Abbot of Westminster with the explanation that it had been brought to him not long before by a pilgrim from Jerusalem to whom it had been given by a mysterious stranger, presumably a visitant from the world of spirits, who had bidden him give the ring to the king with the message that his end was near. The ring was preserved as a relic at Westminster for some time, and was found to possess miraculous efficacy for the cure of epilepsy and cramp. It was next heard of at Havering in Essex, the very name of which place, according to Camden, furnished evidence of the accuracy of the tradition. Havering was obviously a contraction of “have the ring.” So at least thought the old etymologists.

When the relic disappeared is not recorded; but the Tudor kings were in the habit of contributing a certain amount of gold and silver as an offering to the Cross every Good Friday, and the metal being made into rings was consecrated by them, in accordance with a form of service which was included in old English prayer books (see Burnett’s History of the Reformation, Part 2, Book 2, No. 25). This was actually used until the reign of Queen Anne. Andrew Boorde, in his “Breviary of Health,” 1557, says: “The kynges of England doth halow every yere cramp rynges ye which rynges worn on one’s finger doth helpe them whyche hath ye cramp.” They seem to have been regarded especially as a protection against epilepsy, and courtiers were much importuned to obtain some for persons afflicted.

The process of hallowing the rings is described in Brand’s “Popular Antiquities.” A crucifix was laid on a cushion in the royal chapel, and a piece of carpet was spread in front of it. The king entered in state, and when he came to the carpet crept on it to the crucifix. There the rings were brought to him in a silver dish, and he blessed them.

In the Harleian Manuscripts (295 f119) a letter is preserved dated the xxi. daie of June, 1518, from Lord Berners (the translator of Froissart), then ambassador to the Emperor Charles V. He writes from Saragoza “to my Lord Cardinall’s grace” (Wolsey), “If your grace remember me with some crampe rynges ye shall doo a thing muche looked for; and I trust to bestowe thaym well with Goddes grace, who evermor preserve and encrease your most reverent astate.”

It does not appear certain that the royal consecration of these rings was continued after the reign of Queen Mary; but cramp rings continued in esteem almost until our own time in some parts of the country. In Brand’s book, and in several numbers of _Notes and Queries_ references to superstitions in connection with these, their production and the wearing of them particularly against epilepsy, are recorded. Sometimes, to be effective, the rings must have been made from coffin handles, or coffin nails, the coffins from which they have been taken having been buried; or rings of silver or gold, manufactured while the story of the Passion of the Saviour was being read, would possess curative power. So would a ring made from silver collected at a Communion service, preferably on Easter Sunday. In Berkshire, a ring made from five sixpences collected from five bachelors, none of whom must know the purpose of the collection, and formed by a bachelor smith into a ring was believed in; and in Suffolk, not very long since, nine bachelors contributed a crooked sixpence each to make a ring for a young woman in the village to wear for the cure of epileptic fits to which she was subject.

THE EARL OF WARWICK’S POWDER.

The Earl of Warwick’s Powder is named in many old English, and more frequently still in foreign dispensatories and pharmacopœias, appearing generally under the title of “Pulvis Comitis de Warwick, or Pulvis Warwiciensis,” sometimes also as “Pulvis Cornacchini.” It is the original of our Pulv. Scammon Co, and was given in the P.L. 1721 in its pristine form, thus:--

Scammony, prepared with the fumes of sulphur, 2 ounces.
Diaphoretic antimony, 1 ounce.
Cream of tartar, ½ ounce.

In the P.L. 1746 the pulvis e scammonio compositus, made from four parts of scammony and three parts of burnt hartshorn, was substituted for the above, but neither this nor the modern compound scammony powder, consisting of scammony, jalap, and ginger, can be regarded as representing the original Earl of Warwick’s powder.

The Earl of Warwick from whom the powder acquired its name was Robert Dudley, son of the famous Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, and of Kenilworth notoriety. His mother was the widow of Lord Sheffield, and there was much dispute about the legitimacy of the child, but the evidence goes to show that Leicester married her two days before the birth of the boy. He afterwards abandoned her, but he left his estates to the boy. Young Robert Dudley grew up a singularly handsome and popular youth. He led an adventurous life, voyaging, exploring, and fighting Spanish ships. He failed to establish his claims to his titles and estates in England, and ultimately settled at Florence, where he became a Catholic, and distinguished himself as an engineer and architect. He won the favour of Ferdinand II, Emperor of Austria, who created him Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, and the Pope recognised his nobility. He died in Italy in 1649. The chroniclers of the time refer to a book he is said to have written under the title of _Catholicon_, which was “in good esteem among physicians.” If it existed it was probably a collection of medical formulæ, but it is not unlikely that this supposed book has been confused with one written by a Dr. Cornacchini, of Pisa, and dedicated to Dudley. In that work, which is known, the powder is described, and its invention is attributed to the Earl. It is alleged to have possessed marvellous medicinal virtues.

DUKE OF PORTLAND’S GOUT POWDER.

Under this title a powder had a great reputation about the middle of the eighteenth century, and well on into the nineteenth century. The powder was composed of aristolochia rotunda (birthwort root), gentian root, and the tops and leaves of germander, ground pine, and centaury, of each equal parts. One drachm was to be taken every morning, fasting, for three months, and then ½ drachm for the rest of the year. Particular directions in regard to diet were given with the formula.

The compound was evidently only a slight modification of several to be found in the works of the later Latin authors, Aetius, Alexander of Trailles, and Paul of Egineta. These were entitled Tetrapharmacum, Antidotus Podagrica ex duobus centauriae generibus, Diatesseron, and other names. The “duobus” remedy was an electuary prescribed by Aetius, and a piece the size of a hazel nut had to be taken every morning for a year. Hence it was called medicamentum ad annum. This, or something very like it, was in use in Italy for centuries under the name of Pulvis Principis Mirandolæ, and spread from there to the neighbouring countries. An Englishman long resident in Switzerland had compiled a manuscript collection of medical formulæ, and his son, who became acquainted with the Duke of Portland of the period, persuaded him to give this gout remedy a trial. The result was so satisfactory that the Duke had the formula and the diet directions printed on leaflets, and these were given to anyone who asked for them.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH’S GREAT CORDIAL.

During his twelve years’ imprisonment in the Tower in the earlier part of the reign of James I, Sir Walter Raleigh was allowed a room in which he fitted up a laboratory, and divided his time between chemical experiments and literary labours. It was believed that Raleigh had brought with him from Guiana some wonderful curative balsam, and this opinion, combined with the knowledge that he dabbled largely with retorts and alembics in the Tower, ensured a lively public interest in his “Great Cordial” when it was available.

The Queen, Anne of Denmark, and Prince Henry, were both warm partisans of Raleigh, and did their best to get him released. The Queen was convinced that the “Great Cordial” had saved her life in a serious illness, and Prince Henry took a particular interest in Raleigh’s experiments. When the Prince was on his death-bed Raleigh sent him some of the cordial, declaring, it was reported, that it would certainly cure him provided he had not been poisoned. This unwise suggestion coming to James’s ears greatly incensed him, and darkened Raleigh’s prospects of life and freedom considerably.

(From a mezzotint in the British Museum.)
]

No known authentic formula of the cordial exists, but Charles II was curious about it, and his French apothecary, Le Febre, on the king’s command, prepared some of the compound from data then available, and wrote a treatise on it which was afterwards translated into English by Peter Lebon. Evelyn records in his diary the demonstration of the composition given by Le Febre to the Court on September 20, 1662.

The cordial then consisted of forty roots, seeds, herbs, etc., macerated in spirit of wine, and distilled. With the distillate were combined bezoar stones, pearls, coral, deer’s horn, amber, musk, antimony, various earths, sugar, and much besides. Vipers’ flesh, with the heart and liver, and “mineral unicorn” were added later on the suggestion of Sir Kenelm Digby. The official history of this strange concoction is appended.

Confectio Raleighana was first official in the London Pharmacopœia of 1721. The formula was--

Rasurae C. Cervi lb. i.

Carnis viperarum c. cordibus et hepatibus, 6 oz.

Flor. Borag., rosmar., calendulae, roris solis, rosarum rub.,
sambuci, ana lb. ss.

Herb. scordii, cardui benedicti, melissæ, dictamni cretici,
menthæ, majoranæ, betonicæ, ana manipules duodecim.

Succi Kermis, Sem. card. maj., cubebarum, Bacc. junip., macis,
nuc. mosch., caryoph., croci, ana 2 oz.

Cinnam. opt., cort. lign. sassaf., cort. flav. malorum
citriorum, aurantiorum, ana 3 oz.

Lign. aloes, sassafras, ana 6 oz.

Rad. angelic., valerian, sylvest., fraxinell, seu dictamni
alb., serpentar. Virginianæ, Zedoariæ, tormentillæ bistort,
Aristoloch. long., Aristoloch. rotund., gentianæ, imperatoriæ,
ana 1½ oz.

These were to be cut up or crushed, and a tincture made from them with rectified spirit. The tincture was to be evaporated in a sand-bath, the expressed magma was then to be burned, and the ashes, lixiviated in water, were to be added to the extract.

Then the following powders were to be added to this liquid to form a confection:--Bezoar stone, Eastern and western, of each 1½ oz.; Eastern pearls, 2 oz.; red coral, 3 oz.; Eastern Bole, Terra Sigillata, calcined hartshorn, ambergris, of each 1 oz.; musk, 1½ drachms; powdered sugar, 2 lb.

In the P.L. 1746 Confectio Raleighana appears as Confectio Cardiaca. It is expressly stated that this new name is substituted for the old one. The formula is simplified, but the resemblance to the original can be traced. It runs thus:--Summitatum Rorismar, recent., Bacc, Junip., ana lb. i; Sem. card., min. decort., Zedoariæ, Croci. ana lb. ss. Make a tincture with these with about 1½ gallons of diluted spirit, and afterwards reduce it to 2½ lb. by evaporating at a gentle heat; then add the following, all in the finest powder:--Compound powder of crabs’ shells, 16 oz. This was prepared powder of crab shells, 1 lb.; pearls and red coral, of each 3 oz.; cinnamon and nutmegs, of each 2 oz.; cloves, 1 oz.; sugar, 2 lb. To make a confection.

In the P.L. 1788 the compound is still further simplified, and acquires the name of Confectio Aromatica. The index of that work gives “Confectio Aromatica vice Confectio Cardiaca.” The formula now runs thus:--Zedoaria, coarsely powdered, saffron, of each, ½ lb.; water, 3 lb. Macerate for 24 hours, express and strain. Evaporate the strained liquor to 1½ lb., and add the following, all in fine powder:--compound powder of crabs’ shells, 16 oz.; cinnamon, nutmeg, of each 2 oz.; cloves, 8 oz.; cardamom seeds, ½ oz.; sugar, 2 lb. Make a confection.

In the 1809 P.L. the zedoary is abandoned, the quantity of saffron is reduced to 2 ounces, the pulv. chelis cancrorum co. is described as testarum præp., and there is no maceration of any of the ingredients. The powders are simply mixed, and the water added little by little until the proper consistence is attained.

This formula is retained in the Pharmacopœias of 1824 and 1836, but in that of 1851 the powdered shells became prepared chalk. In the Edinburgh Pharmacopœia of 1841, and in that of Dublin of 1850, the confection was made from aromatic powders of similar composition, made into confections in P.E. with syrup of orange peel, and in P.D. with simple syrup and clarified honey. All that remains of this historic remedy is Pulvis Cretæ Aromaticus B.P., and from this the saffron has been entirely removed.

Raleigh’s Cordial occasionally turns up in histories. In Aubrey’s “Brief Lives,” it is stated that “Sir Walter Raleigh was a great chymist, and amongst some MSS. receipts I have seen some secrets from him. He made an excellent cordiall, good in feavers. Mr. Robert Boyle has the recipe and does great cures by it.”

In Strickland’s “Lives of the Queens of England” (Vol. VIII, p. 122) we are told that, according to the newspapers of the day, William III, in his last illness was kept alive all through his last night by the use of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Cordial.

In Lord John Hervey’s “Memoirs of the Reign of George II” (Vol. III, p. 294), the details of the last illness of Queen Caroline, who died in 1737, are narrated. Snake root and Sir Walter Raleigh’s Cordial were prescribed for her. As the latter took some time to prepare, Ransby, house surgeon to the King, said one cordial was as good as another, and gave her Usquebaugh. She, however, took the other mixture when it came. Afterwards Daffy’s Elixir and mint water were administered.

TAR WATER AS A PANACEA.

George Berkeley was born in 1685 in Kilkenny county, Ireland, but claimed to be of English extraction. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, and became a Fellow of that College. His metaphysical speculations made him famous. He was the originator of the view that the actual existence of matter was not capable of proof. Having been appointed Dean of Derry he was well provided for, but just then he became enthusiastically desirous to convert and civilise the North American Indians. With this object in view he proposed to establish a University at Bermuda to train students for the work. He got some college friends to join him, collected about £5,000 from wealthy supporters, and after long negotiations persuaded the House of Commons to recommend George I. to grant him a contribution of £20,000 which never came. It was during that time that he learned of the medicinal efficacy of tar water from some of the Indian tribes whom he visited. Some time after his return he was made Bishop of Cloyne, and worked indefatigably in his diocese. A terrible winter in 1739-40 caused great distress and was followed by an epidemic of small-pox. It was then that the Bishop remembered his American experiences. He gave tar water as a remedy and tar water as a prophylactic, with the result, as he reported, that those who took the disease had it very mildly if they had taken tar water. Convinced of its value he gave it in other illnesses with such success that with characteristic enthusiasm he came to believe that he had discovered a panacea. Some reports of this treatment had been published in certain magazines, but in the spring of 1744 a little book by the Bishop appeared giving a full account of his experiences. It was entitled “A Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Enquiries concerning the virtues of Tar Water, and divers other subjects connected together and arising one from another.” The treatise was eagerly read and discussed both in Ireland and England. A second edition was required in a few weeks, and to this the author gave the short title “Siris” (Greek for chain).

(From the British Museum.)
]

The Bishop’s theory was an attractive one. The pine trees he argued, had accumulated from the sunlight and the air a large proportion of the vital element of the universe, and condensed it in the tar which they yielded. The vital element could be drawn off by water and conveyed to the human organism.

It is not necessary here to follow out his chain of reasoning from the vital element in tar up to the Supreme Mind from which that vital principle emanated. On the way the author quoted freely and effectively from Plato and Pythagoras, from Theophrastus and Pliny, from Boerhaave and Boyle, and from many other authorities. He showed how the balsams and resins of the ancient world were of the same nature as tar. Van Helmont said, “Whoever can make myrrh soluble by the human body has the secret of prolonging his days,” and Boerhaave had recognised that there was truth in this remark on account of the anti-putrefactive power of the myrrh. This was the power which tar possessed in so large a degree. Homberg had made gold by introducing the vital element in the form of light into the pores of mercury. The process was too expensive to make the production of gold by this means profitable, but the fact showed an analogy with the concentration of the same element in the tar.

Berkeley’s process for making the tar water was simply to pour 1 gallon of cold water on a quart of tar; stir it with a wooden ladle for five or six minutes, and then set the vessel aside for three days and nights to let the tar subside. The water was then to be drawn off and kept in well-stoppered bottles. Ordinarily half a pint might be taken fasting morning and night, but to cure disease much larger doses might be given. It had proved of extraordinary value not only in small-pox, but also in eruptions and ulcers, ulceration of the bowels and of the lungs, consumptive cough, pleurisy, dropsy, and gravel. It greatly aided digestion, and consequently prevented gout. It was a remedy in all inflammatory disorders and fevers. It was a cordial which cheered, warmed, and comforted, with no injurious effects.

The nation went wild over this discovery. “The Bishop of Cloyne has made tar water as fashionable as Vauxhall or Ranelagh,” wrote Duncombe.

The Bishop’s book was translated into most of the European languages, and tar water attained some degree of popularity on the Continent. It owed no little of its success in this country to the opposition it met with from medical writers. The public at once concluded that they were very anxious about their “kitchen prospects,” to use the symbolism of Paracelsus. Every attack on tar water called forth several replies. Berkeley himself responded to some of the criticisms by very poor verses, which he got a friend to send to the journals with strict injunctions to keep his name secret.

Paris in “Pharmacologia” refers to the tar water mania, asking “What but the spell of authority could have inspired a general belief that the sooty washings of rosin would act as a universal remedy?” It need hardly be pointed out that the general belief was rather a revolt against authority than an acceptance of it.

Dr. Young, the author of “Night Thoughts,” wrote: “They who have experienced the wonderful effects of tar water reveal its excellences to others. I say reveal, because they are beyond what any can conceive by reason or natural light. But others disbelieve them though the revelation is attested past all scruple, because to them such excellences are incomprehensible. Now give me leave to say that this infidelity may possibly be as fatal to morbid bodies as other infidelity is to morbid souls. I say this in honest zeal for your welfare. I am confident if you persist you’ll be greatly benefited by it. In old obstinate, chronical complaints, it probably will not show its virtue under three months; though secretly it is doing good all the time.”

KINGS BUY SECRET REMEDIES.

In past times it was not unusual for monarchs to purchase from the inventors of panaceas the secrets of their composition for publication for the benefit of their subjects. Several instances are mentioned in other chapters of this book. Among these may be noted Goddard’s Drops, bought by Charles II., Glauber’s Kermes Mineral or Poudre des Chartres, Talbor’s Tincture of Bark, and Helvetius’s Ipecacuanha, the secrets of which were obtained by Louis XIV for fancy prices. In Louis XIV’s reign the French Government purchased from the Prieur de Cabrier an arcanum to cure rupture without bandages or operations. The recipe, which was made public, was that a few drops of spirit of salt were to be taken in red wine frequently during the day. Mr. Stephens’s Cure for the Stone was transferred to the public by a payment authorised by Act of Parliament.

The Emperor Joseph II of Austria paid 1,500 florins somewhere about the year 1785 for the formula for a secret febrifuge which was at that time enjoying extreme popularity. It proved to be simply an alcoholic tincture of box bark (_Buxus sempervirens_). The remedy lost its prestige as soon as the secret was gone.

_Nouffer’s Tapeworm Cure._

Louis XVI gave 18,000 livres (about £700) to a Madame Nouffer or Nuffer for a noted cure for tapeworm, which she had inherited from her deceased husband. As the result of the king’s purchase, a little book was published in 1775 explaining fully the treatment.

Nouffer was a surgeon living at Morat, in Switzerland. He had practised his special worm cure treatment for many years, and by it he had acquired a considerable local fame. After his death his widow, who knew all about the secret, continued to receive patients. Among those who came to her was a Russian, Prince Baryantinski, who was staying in the neighbourhood and had heard of the cure. He had been troubled for years with tapeworm, and Madame Nouffer’s remedy cured him. The Prince reported the facts to his regular physician at Paris, and consequently cases were sent from that city to the Swiss lady. She was so successful that the king was induced to give her the sum named for the revelation of her method, which was briefly as follows:--

For a day or two the patient was fed on buttered toast only. Meanwhile enemas of mallow and marshmallow with a little salt and olive oil were administered. Then, early in the morning, 3 drachms of powder of male fern in a teacupful of water was taken. Candied lemon was chewed after the dose to relieve the nauseousness, and the mouth was washed out with an aromatic water. If the patient vomited the medicine another dose was given. Two hours after the male fern a bolus containing 12 grains each of calomel and resin of scammony, with 5 grains of gamboge, and with confection of hyacinth as the excipient, had to be taken. A cup of warm tea was recommended shortly after the bolus. The doses quoted were regarded as average ones. They might be modified according to the strength of the patient. Generally the treatment narrated sufficed to expel the worm. If it did not, the whole proceeding was repeated.

Male fern was a remedy mentioned by Dioscorides and other ancient writers, but it had been forgotten for centuries until Madame Nouffer’s system brought it to the recollection of medical practitioners. It again fell out of use, but a French physician named Jobert revived its popularity in 1869. He was assisted in the preparation of the remedy by Mr. Hepp, pharmacien of the Civil Hospital of Strasburg.

_Bestucheff’s Tincture and La Mothe’s Golden Drops._

Alexis Petrovitch Bestoujeff-Rumine, commonly called Count von Bestoujeff or Bestucheff, was in the service of the Elector George of Hanover when that Prince was called to reign over Great Britain. He thereupon became George’s ambassador at St. Petersburg. On the death of Peter the Great Bestucheff withdrew from the British diplomatic service, and commenced a varied and stormy political career, under the three Empresses Anna, Elizabeth, and Catherine II, who, with brief intervals, succeeded each other on the Russian throne. He was Foreign Minister under the first, Grand Chancellor and then a disgraced exile under the second, recalled and highly honoured by Catherine. During his banishment he interested himself in a remedy which became enormously popular at that epoch, known in France as the Golden Drops of General La Mothe, and in Germany and Russia as Bestucheff’s Tincture. La Mothe had been in the service of Leopold Ragotzky, Prince of Transylvania, but retiring from the Army he went to live at Paris and took these golden drops with him. They were a tincture of perchloride of iron with spirit of ether, but the public believed them to be a solution of gold. They were recommended as a marvellous restorative medicine, and sold (in Paris) at 25 livres (nearly £1) for the half-ounce bottle. So famous were they that Louis XV sent 200 bottles to the Pope as a particularly precious gift. Subsequently Louis gave La Mothe a pension of 4,000 livres a year for the right of making the drops for his Hotel des Invalides, La Mothe and his widow after him retaining the right to sell to the public.

Bestucheff sold his recipe to the Empress Catherine for 3,000 roubles, and by her orders it was passed on to the College of Medicine of St. Petersburg, which published it under the title of the Tinctura Tonica Nervina Bestucheffi. The formula at first published was chemically absurd, but Klaproth corrected it, and the prestige of the quack medicine was destroyed. But an ethereal tincture of perchloride of iron was adopted in most of the Continental pharmacopœias.

It is not clear whether Bestucheff and La Mothe were in association at any time, but their preparations were similar if not identical.

Under the rule of Napoleon I the French Government bought several formulas of secret remedies for about £100 each. None of them either had or has since acquired any popular reputation. The formulas were published in the medical and pharmaceutical journals of the time.

XIII

CHEMICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHARMACY

Chymistry. “An art whereby sensible bodies contained in
vessels, or capable of being contained therein, are so changed
by means of certain instruments, and principally fire, that
their several powers and virtues are thereby discovered, with
a view to philosophy or medicine.”--BOERHAAVE. Quoted
as a definition in Johnson’s Dictionary, 1755.

ACIDS, ALKALIES, AND SALTS.

Under the above title almost the entire history of chemistry might be easily comprehended. The gradual growth of definite meanings attached to these terms has been coincident with the attainment of accurate notions concerning the composition of bodies. To the ancient philosophers sour wine, acetum vinæ, or acetum as it is still called, was the only acid definitely known. When the alchemists became busy trying to extract the virtue out of all substances they produced several acids by distillation. These they called, for example, spirit of vitriol, spirit of nitre, spirit of salt, meaning our sulphuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids respectively. They regarded everything obtained by distillation as a spirit. When the theorists came forward, Becher, Stahl, and their followers, they treated these acids as original constituents of the substances from which they were obtained. Thus, when sulphur was burned phlogiston was set free, and acid remained. Lavoisier believed that the acidifying principle had been discovered in oxygen, and it was on this theory that he gave that element its name. But this idea broke down when Davy proved that there was no oxygen in the so-called muriatic, or oxy-muriatic acid. It was the subsequent recognition of the law of substitution which made it clear that the acids are, in fact, salts of hydrogen or of some metal substituted for the hydrogen.

The history of alkalies is as varied as is that of acids. The distinction between caustic alkalies and mild alkalies was a problem as far back as Dioscorides. By burning limestone caustic lime is produced. It was not an unreasonable presumption that the fire had created this causticity, and this theory was held with regard to all the alkalies until it was proved by Joseph Black, in 1756, that the caustic alkali was the result of a gas, fixed air, he named it, being driven off from the mild alkali.

The ancient Jews prepared what they called Borith (translated “soap” in Jeremiah, ii, 22, and Malachi, iii, 2) by filtering water through vegetable ashes. Borith was therefore an impure carbonate of potash. It is probable that the salt-wort was generally employed for this purpose, and some of the old versions of the Old Testament give the herb “Borith” as the proper sense of the passages referred to above. In any case the alkaline solution produced from vegetable ashes was used for bleaching and cleansing purposes. The Roman “lixivium” was similarly prepared, and the process is still followed in some countries where there are dense forests. The Arabic word “al-kali” was apparently applied to the product from the word “qaly,” which meant “to roast.” The earliest known use of the term is, however, found in the works of Albertus Magnus, early in the thirteenth century. A process of making caustic potash by filtering water through vegetable ashes with quicklime is described in the works attributed to Geber, but this is in a treatise now known to have been written in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. It was only in 1736 that the three alkalies, soda, potash, and ammonia, were definitely distinguished by Duhamel as mineral, vegetable, and animal or volatile alkalies.

A formula for a solution of caustic potash was given in the P.L., 1746, under the title of Lixivium Saponarium. Equal parts of Russian potashes and quicklime were mixed, wetted until the lime was slaked, water afterwards added freely, and after agitation the solution poured off. This was ten years before Black’s classic investigation already referred to. Before Black, and for some time afterwards, there were several theories in explanation of the action of the lime on the potashes. The lime had been tamed, but the potash had become more virulent. One popular suggestion was that the lime had withdrawn a kind of mucilage from the potashes; another that it had the effect of developing the power of the potashes by a mechanical process of comminution. A German chemist named Meyer, who vigorously opposed Black’s conclusions, maintained that the lime contained a certain Acidum Causticum or Acidum Pingue, which potashes extracted from it.

In the P.L., 1788, the process was altered by increasing the proportion of the lime, and the product was described as Aqua Kali Puri. Subsequently the proportion of the lime employed was reduced.

The word “salt” is traced back to the Greek “hals,” the sea, from which was formed the adjective “salos,” fluctuating (like the waves), and subsequently the Latin “sal.” Marine salt was therefore the original salt, and salts in chemistry were substances more or less resembling sea-salt. Generally, the term was limited to solids which had a taste and were soluble in water, but the notion was developed that salt was a constituent of everything, and this salt was extracted, and was liable to get a new name each time. Salt of wormwood, for instance, is one of the names which has survived as a synonym for salt of tartar, or carbonate of potash. Paracelsus insisted that all the metals were composed of salt, sulphur, and mercury, but these substances were idealised in his jargon and corresponded with the body, soul, and spirit, respectively.

Lavoisier was the first chemist who sought to define salts scientifically. He regarded them as a combination of an acid with a basic oxide. But when the true nature of chlorine was discovered it was found that this definition would exclude salt itself. This led to the adoption of the terms “haloid” and “amphide” salts, the former being compounds of two elements (now the combination of chlorine, bromine, iodine, cyanogen, or fluorine with a metal), and the latter being compounds of two oxides. The names were invented by Berzelius. Since then salts have been the subjects of various modern theories, electric and other, but they are always substances in which hydrogen or a metal substituted for it is combined with a radical. In a wide sense the acids are also salts.

ALCOHOL.

Al-koh’l was an Arabic word indicating the sulphide of antimony so generally used by Eastern women to darken their eyebrows, eyelashes, and the eyes themselves. Similar words are found in other ancient languages. Cohal in Chaldee is related to the Hebrew kakhal used in Ezekiel, xxiii, 40, in the sense of to paint or stain. The primary meaning of alcohol therefore is a stain. Being used especially in reference to the finely levigated sulphide of antimony, the meaning was gradually extended to other impalpable powders, and in alchemical writings the alcohol of Mars, a reduced iron, the alcohol of sulphur, flowers of brimstone, and similar expressions are common. As late as 1773 Baumé, in his “Chymie Experimentale,” gives “powders of the finest tenuity” as the first definition, and “spirit of wine rectified to the utmost degree” as the second explanation of the term alcohol. As certain of the finest powders were obtained by sublimation the transfer of the word to a fluid produced by a similar method is intelligible, and thus came the alcohol of wine, which has supplanted all the other alcohols.

Distillation is a very ancient process. Evidence exists of its use by the Chinese in the most remote period of their history, and possibly they distilled wine. But so far as can be traced spirit was not produced from wine previous to the thirteenth century. Berthelot investigated some alleged early references to it and came to the conclusion indicated. Aristotle alludes to the possibility of rendering sea water potable by vaporising it, and he also notes elsewhere that wine gives off an exhalation which emits a flame. Theophrastus mentions that wine poured on a fire as in libations can produce a flame. Pliny indicates a particular locality which produced a wine of Falerno, which was the only wine that could be inflamed by contact with fire. At Alexandria, in the first century of the Christian era, condensing apparatus was invented, and descriptions of the apparatus used are known, but no allusion to the distillation of wine occurs in any existing reference to the chemistry of that period. Rhazes, who died in A.D. 925, is alleged to have mentioned a spirit distilled from wine, but Berthelot shows that this is a misunderstanding of a passage relating to false or artificial wines.

Water distilled from roses is mentioned by Nicander, about 140 B.C., and the same author employs the term ambix for the pot or apparatus from which this water was obtained. The Arabs adopted this word, and prefixing to it their article, al, made it into alembic. This in English appeared for some centuries in the abbreviated form of limbeck. The Greek ambix was a cup-shaped vessel which was set on or in a fire, as a crucible was used.

Pissaeleum was a peculiar form of distillation practised by the Romans. It was an oil of pitch made by hanging a fleece of wool over a vessel in which pitch was being boiled. The vapour which collected was pressed out and used.

Distilled waters from roses and aromatic herbs figured prominently in the pharmacy of the Arabs, and Geber, perhaps in the eighth century, describes the process, and may have used it for other than pharmaceutical purposes. Avicenna likens the body of man to a still, the stomach being the kettle, the head the cap, and the nostrils the cooling tube from which the distillate drips.

M. Berthelot gives the following from the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecas, which he says could not be earlier than 1300, as the first definite indication of a method of producing what was called aqua ardens. “Take a black wine, thick and old. To ¼ lb. of this add 2 scruples of sulphur vivum in very fine powder, and 2 scruples of common salt in coarse fragments, and 1 or 2 lbs. of tartar extracted from a good white wine. Place all in a copper alembic and distil off the aqua ardens.” The addition of the salt and sulphur, M. Berthelot explains, was to counteract the supposed humidity.

Albucasis, a Spanish Arab of the eleventh century, is supposed from some obscure expressions in his writings to have known how to make a spirit from wine; but Arnold of Villa Nova, who wrote in the latter part of the thirteenth century, is the first explicitly to refer to it. He does not intimate that he had discovered it himself, but he appears to treat it as something comparatively new. Aqua vini is what he calls it, but some name it, he says, aqua vitæ, or water which preserves itself always, and golden water. It is well called water of life, he says, because it strengthens the body and prolongs life. He distilled herbs with it such as rosemary and sage, and highly commended the medicinal virtue of these tinctures.

It is worth remarking that when Henry II invaded and conquered Ireland in the twelfth century the inhabitants were making and drinking a product which they termed uisge-beatha, now abbreviated into whisky, the exact meaning of the name being water of life.

Raymond Lully, who acquired much of his chemical lore from Arnold of Villa Nova, was even more enthusiastic in praise of the aqua vitæ than his teacher. “The taste of it exceedeth all other tastes, and the smell all other smells,” he wrote. Elsewhere he describes it as “of marveylous use and commoditie a little before the joyning of battle to styre and encourage the soldiers’ minds.” He believed it to be the panacea so long sought, and regarded its discovery as evidence that the end of the world was near. The process for making the aqua vitæ as described by Lully was to digest limpid and well-flavoured red or white wine for twenty days in a closed vessel in fermenting horse-dung. It was then to be distilled drop by drop from a gentle fire in a sand-bath.

The chemical constitution of alcohol was speculated upon rather wildly by the chemists who experimented on it before Lavoisier. It was held to be a combination of phlogiston with water, but the phlogiston-philosophers disagreed on the question whether it contained an oil. Stahl, however, later supported by Macquer, found that an oil was actually separated from it if mixed with water and allowed to evaporate slowly in the open air, after treating it with an acid. Lavoisier, in 1781, carefully analysed spirit of wine and found that 1 lb. yielded 4 oz. 4 drms. 37½ grains of carbon, 1 oz. 2 drms. 5½ grains of inflammable gas (hydrogen), and 10 oz. 1 drm. 29 grains of water. It was de Saussure who later, following Lavoisier’s methods of investigation, but with an absolute alcohol which had been recently produced by Lowitz, a Russian chemist, showed that oxygen was a constituent of alcohol. Berthelot succeeded in making alcohol synthetically in 1854. His process was to shake olefiant gas (C_{2}H_{4}) vigorously with sulphuric acid, dilute the mixture with eight to ten parts of water, and distil. Meldola, however (“The Chemical Synthesis of Vital Products,” 1904), insists that an English chemist, Henry Hennell, anticipated Berthelot in this discovery.

ALUM.

Alum is a substance which considerably mystified the ancient chemists, who knew the salt but did not understand its composition. Ancient writers like Pliny and Dioscorides were acquainted with a product which the former called alumen and which is evidently the same as had been described by Dioscorides under the name of Stypteria. Pliny says there were several varieties of this mineral used in dyeing, and it is clear from his account that his alumen was sometimes sulphate of iron and sometimes a mixture of sulphate of iron with an aluminous earth. It is the fact that where the various vitriols are found they are generally associated with aluminous earth.

Alum as we know it was first prepared in the East and used for dyeing purposes. Alum works were in existence some time subsequent to the twelfth century at a place named Rocca in Syria, which may have been a town of that name on the Euphrates, or more probably was Edessa, which was originally known as Roccha. It has been supposed that it was the manufacture of alum at this place which bequeathed to us the name of Rock or Rocha alum, but the Historical English Dictionary says this derivation is “evidently unfounded.”

The alchemists were familiar with alum and knew it to be a combination of sulphuric acid with an unknown earth. Van Helmont was the first to employ alum as a styptic in uterine hæmorrhage, and Helvetius made a great reputation for a styptic he recommended for similar cases. His pills were composed of alum 10 parts, dragon’s blood 3 parts, honey of roses q.s., made into 4 grain pills, of which six were to be taken daily. Alum and nutmeg equal parts were given in agues. Paris says the addition of nutmeg to alum corrects its tendency to disturb the bowels. It has also been advocated in cancer and typhoid, but these internal uses have been generally abandoned. Spirit of Alum is occasionally met with in alchemical writings. It was water charged with sulphuric acid obtained by the distillation of alum over a naked fire.

Until the fifteenth century the only alum factories from which Europe was supplied were at Constantinople, Smyrna, and Trebizonde. Beckman relates that an alum factory was founded in the Isle of Ischia, on the coast of Tuscany, by a Genoese merchant named Bartholomew Perdix, who had learnt the art at Rocca. Very soon afterwards John de Castro, a Paduan who had been engaged in cloth dyeing at Constantinople but had lost all his property when that city was captured by Mahomet II in 1453, was appointed to an office in the Treasury of the Apostolic Chamber, and in the course of his duties found what he believed to be an aluminous rock at Tolfa, near Civita Vecchia. He asked the Pope, Pius II, to allow him to experiment, but it was some years before the necessary permission was granted. When at last the truth of Castro’s surmise was established the Pope was greatly interested. He looked upon the discovery as a great Christian victory over the Turks, and handsomely rewarded de Castro, to whom, besides, a monument was erected in Padua inscribed “Joanni de Castro, Aluminis inventor.” The factory brought in a splendid revenue to the Apostolic exchequer, and the Pope did his utmost to retain the monopoly, for when in consequence of the extravagant prices to which the Tolfa alum was raised merchants began again to buy the Eastern product his Holiness issued a decree prohibiting Christians from purchasing from the infidels under pain of excommunication. Later, when, in Charles I’s reign, Sir Thomas Challoner discovered an aluminous deposit near his home at Guisborough in Yorkshire, and persuaded some of the Pope’s workmen to come there to work the schist, he and those whom he had tempted away were solemnly and most vigorously “cursed.”

Meanwhile the nature of the earth with which the sulphuric acid was combined remained unknown to chemists. Stahl worked at the problem and came to the conclusion that it was lime. The younger Geoffroy, a famous pharmacist of Paris, ascertained (1728) that the earth of alum was identical with that of argillaceous earth and Alumina was for some time called Argile. Marggraf observed that he could not get alum crystals from a combination of argile and sulphuric acid, but noting that in the old factories it had been the custom to add putrid urine to the solution, for which carbonate of potash was subsequently substituted, went so far as to make the salt, but did not appreciate that it was actually a double salt. The name alumina which the earth now bears was given to it by Morveau. It was Vauquelin (another pharmacist) who clearly proved the composition of alum, and Lavoisier first suggested that alumina was the oxide of a metal. Sir Humphry Davy agreed with this view but failed to isolate the metal. Oersted was the first to actually extract aluminium from the oxide, but his process was an impracticable one, but in 1828 Woehler, and in 1858 Deville, found means of producing the metal in sufficient abundance to make it a valuable article of industry.

AMMONIA.

The chemical history of ammonia commences in Egypt with Sal Ammoniac. This is mentioned by Pliny under the name of Hammoniacus sal. Dioscorides also alludes to it; but in neither case does the description given fit in satisfactorily with the product known to us. Dioscorides, for instance, states that sal ammoniac is particularly prized if it can lie easily split up into rectangular fragments. It has been conjectured that what was called sal ammoniac by the ancient writers was, at least sometimes, rock salt.

The name is generally supposed to have been derived from that of the Egyptian deity, Amn or Amen, or Ammon as the Greeks called him, and in the belief that he was the same god as Jupiter he is referred to in classical literature as Zeus-Ammon or Jupiter-Ammon. The principal temple of this god was situated in an oasis of the Libyan desert which was then known as Ammonia (now Siwah), and if, as is supposed, the salt was found or produced in that locality its name is thus accounted for. Gum ammoniacum was likewise so called in the belief that it was obtained in that district, though the gum with which we are familiar and which comes from India and Persia, is quite a different article from the African gum the name of which it has usurped. Pliny derives the name of the salt from the Greek “ammos,” sand, as it was found in the sand of the desert; an explanation which overlooks the fact that the stuff was called by a similar name in a country where the sand was not called ammos. In old Latin, French, and English writings “armoniac” is often met with. This was not inaccurate spelling; it was suggested by the opinion that the word was connected with Greek, armonia, a fastening or joining, from the use of sal ammoniac in soldering metals.

That Pliny did sometimes meet with the genuine sal ammoniac is conjectured by his allusion to the “vehement odour” arising when lime was mixed with natrum. Probably this natrum was sal ammoniac. Among the Arabs the term sal ammoniac often means rock salt; but in the writings attributed to Geber, some of which may be as late as the twelfth or thirteenth century, our sal ammoniac is distinctly described. It is also exactly described by Albertus Magnus in the thirteenth century, who mentions an artificial as well as a natural product, but does not indicate how the former was made. From this time sal ammoniac became a common and much-prized substance in alchemical investigations, as from it chlorides were obtained. The “volatile spirit of sal ammoniac” was made by distilling a solution of sal ammoniac with quicklime, and of course the same product was obtained in other ways, especially by distilling harts’ horns, and this was always regarded as having peculiarly valuable properties. A “sal ammoniacum fixum” was known to the alchemists of the fifteenth century. It was obtained as a residue after sal ammoniac and quicklime had been sublimed. It was simply chloride of calcium.

The so-called natural sal ammoniac was for centuries brought from Egypt, and was supposed to have been mined in the earth or sand of that country. In 1716 the younger Geoffroy came to the conclusion that it must be a product of sublimation, and he read a paper to the French Academy giving his reasons for this opinion. Homberg and Lemery opposed this view with so much bitterness, however, that the paper was not printed. In 1719 M. Lemaire, French Consul at Cairo, sent to the Academy an account of the method by which sal ammoniac was produced in Egypt, and this report definitely confirmed the opinion which Geoffroy had formed. It was, said M. Lemaire, simply a salt sublimed from soot. The fuel used in Egypt was exclusively the dung of camels and other animals which had been dried by the sun. It consisted largely of sal ammoniac, and this was retained in the soot. For a long time an artificial sal ammoniac had been manufactured at Venice, and a commoner sort also came from Holland. These were reputed to be made from human or animal urine. The manufacture of sal ammoniac was commenced in London early in the eighteenth century by a Mr. Goodwin.

A formula for Sal Ammoniacum Factitium in Quincy’s Dispensatory (1724) is as follows:--Take of Urine lb. x.; of Sea-salt lb. ii.; of Wood soot lb. i.; boil these together in a mass, then put them in a subliming pot with a proper head, and there will rise up what forms these cakes. Dr. James (1764) states that at Newcastle one gallon of the bittern or liquor which drains from common salt whilst making, was mixed with 3 gallons of urine. The mixture was set aside for 48 hours to effervesce and subside. Afterwards the clear liquor was drawn off and evaporated in leaden vessels to crystallisation. The crystals were sublimed. A sal ammoniacum volatile was made by subliming sal ammoniac and salt of tartar (or lime or chalk) together. Sometimes some spices were put into the retort. This salt was used for smelling-bottles. Aqua regia was made by distilling sal ammoniac and saltpetre together.