Chapter III: Part 3

After the first Pharmacopœia had been several times reprinted a new one appeared in 1650. Notable features of this issue were that the gallon hitherto 9 lb. of water was now fixed at 8 lb.; corrosive sublimate and red and white precipitate were among the additions, but it has to be remarked that the white precipitate of that day was not what we know by name but really a precipitated proto-chloride of mercury. Its true chemical composition was not recognised until some fifty years later by Deidier in his “Chimie Raisonné.” Tinctures formed a new class of preparations, seven of them being formulated, castor, saffron, and strawberries being among these. Syrup of buckthorn was added to the syrups, and Gascoin powder to the powders. Mercury was now killed by turpentine. Mezereon, Winter’s bark, and cochineal were among the new drugs; antimonial wine made from the regulus of antimony was adopted; and the skull of a man killed by violence, and moss from that skull were admitted.

The third Pharmacopœia (1677) did not present many remarkable features, and was apparently rather hastily produced. The most striking new formula it contained was one for “Aqua Vitæ Hibernorum sive Usquebagh.” Burnt alum, flowers of benzoin, balsams of capivi and tolu, contrayerva root, Jesuits’ bark, and resin of jalap were among the new drugs. Steel wine was added.

Sir Hans Sloane presided over the compilation of the P.L. of 1721, the fourth of the series. The preface to this edition claimed that all remedies owing their use to superstition and false philosophy had been thrown out, but perhaps the far-reaching effects of the false philosophy were not fully appreciated. Many of the absurd old formulas were retained, but an approach to greater simplicity is apparent. The transition from the old to the new pharmacy can be traced very easily in this volume. The names of the plants, we are told in the preface, are “not only distinguished by the names known in shops, but also by such as are sometimes used by the more eminent writers in botany.” Tinctures are growing in favour, their number being increased to 18. The number of waters and syrups is largely diminished, and puppies, hedgehogs, wagtails, bread-crust plaster, lapis lazuli pills, and Galen’s unguentum refrigerans are dismissed. The last-named has, however, refused to die to this day. Among new chemical preparations Hepar Sulphuris (pot. sulphuret.), Flores Salis Ammoniaci Martiales (ammonio-chloride of iron), Tinctura Martis cum Spiritu Salis (tinct. ferri perchlor.), Sal Martis (ferri sulphas), Aqua Sapphirina (solution of ammonio-sulphate of copper), Lunar Caustic, Tartar Emetic, Ens Veneris, Aurum Mosaicum, Ethiops Mineral, Spirit of Sal Volatile, Mynsicht’s tincture of steel, Elixir of Vitriol, and Lime Water may be mentioned.

The P.L. 1746 (the fifth) was very different from its predecessors. Among those who took an active part in its preparation were the President of the College, Dr. Plumptre, and Drs. Crowe, Mead, Heberden, and Freind. In the preface to this work the old “inartistic and irregular mixtures” and “the antidotes superstitiously and doatingly derived from oracles, dreams, and astrological fancies” are severely condemned, and the College declares its intention of freeing the book as much as possible from whatever remains of former pedantry. Notwithstanding these good intentions the old pharmacy is still abundantly represented. Crabs’ eyes, coral, bezoar stones, harts’ horns, woodlice, pearls, vipers, and skinks’ bellies continue to figure among the simples, and formulas for Mithridatium with 45 ingredients, and for theriaca with 61 are likewise retained. On the other hand, human fat, unicorn’s horn, mummy, spiders’ webs, moss from the human skull, bone from the stag’s heart, and lac virginale disappear. There are now 34 tinctures, while the medicated waters have been reduced to about 30 and the syrups to about 20. Tinctures of cummin, valerian, and cardamoms, syrup scilliticus, and pilula saponacea (soporific) are new; and lixivium saponarium (liquor potassæ), sal diureticus (potassæ acetas), causticum commune fortius (potassa cum calce), sal catharticus Glauberi, pilulæ mercuriales, and spiritus nitri dulcis make their first appearance.

The sixth P.L. (1788) proceeds on the same lines. The College claims to have paid special attention to the application of the advances of chemistry to pharmacy, and to have provided that very few traces of former superstition should remain. Mithridatium, theriaca, bezoar stones, vipers, and oil of bricks are dismissed, but woodlice remain. Materia medica synonyms are now according to Linnæus. Among the new drugs admitted we find aconite, arnica, cascarilla, calumba, kino, quassia, simarouba, castor oil, senega, and magnesia; and among the new preparations may be named Dover’s powder, James’s powder, Mindererus’s spirit, Rochelle salts, tartrate of iron, oxide of zinc, Huxham’s tincture of bark, ether, Hoffmann’s anodyne, the decoctions of sarsaparilla, tincture of calumba, compound tinctures of benzoin, cardamoms, and lavender, and extract of chamomile. Tincture of opium made with proof spirit deposes the Tinctura Thebaica made with wine, and elixir paregoricum assumes the name of tinct. opii camphorata. A number of other names are changed. It is significant of the declining familiarity of doctors with Latin that for the first time an English translation of the Pharmacopœia is authorised.

The seventh P.L. is dated 1809. The new chemical nomenclature is introduced, and the minim substituted for the drop. Acidum vitriolicum becomes acidum sulphuricum, and ferrum vitriolatum is changed to ferri sulphas. More than a hundred articles are omitted, and nearly that number substituted. Among the new drugs and preparations are arsenic, belladonna, cajeput, cusparia, digitalis, infusions of calumba, rhubarb, and digitalis, compound decoction of aloes, acetum colchici, confections of roses, rue, and almonds, pulv. kino co, pil. cambogiæ co, emp. opii, ung. zinci, Griffiths’ mixture and pills, Plummer’s pills, lin. hydrargyri, cataplasm of yeast. Prepared woodlice, crabs’ claws, tutty ointment, and the electuaries fall out.

The eighth P.L. (1824) recognised bismuth, cubebs, croton oil, and stramonium, and admitted confection of black pepper as a substitute for Ward’s paste, and colchicum wine in imitation of the Eau Medicinale d’Husson. But the conservative College lacked the courage to endorse the claims of morphine, iodine, and quinine, though these were pretty generally established in medical practice at the time.

The Pharmacopœia of 1836 was largely the work of Richard Phillips, a very competent pharmacist, who had mercilessly criticised the edition of 1824. This, the ninth P.L., was brought well up to date with notes indicating the methods of ascertaining the purity of medicines, better methods of preparing chemicals, and the introduction of the most important of the new products. The alkaloids aconitine, morphine, quinine, strychnine, and veratrine found admission. Iodine and bromine and their compounds, hydrocyanic and phosphoric acids, creosote, ergot, and lobelia were also among the novelties. Acetum cantharidum, aqua flor. aurant., aqua sambuci, cataplasma lini, decoct. cinchonæ (2), extract. colchici corm., extract. colchici acet., hydrarg. iodid. and biniodid., inf. krameriæ and inf. lupuli. lin. opii, liquor sodæ chlorinatæ, mist. spt. vini Gall., pil. rhei co. and tinct. colchici were the principal new compounds. Muriatic acid now became hydrochloric acid, subcarbonate of magnesia was advanced to be a carbonate, and tartarised antimony assumed the title of antimonii potassio-tartras.

The tenth and last of the London Pharmacopœias appeared in 1851. Henbane seeds, spigelia, oyster shells, and extract of digitalis were removed after longer or shorter periods of service, together with soda and potash waters, and biniodide of mercury and veratrine ointments, which had only found admission in the preceding edition. Cod-liver oil, chloroform, atropine, gallic and tannic acids, extract of nux vomica, tincture of aconite, tincture and ointment of belladonna, iodide of sulphur, chloride of zinc, and ammonio-citrate of iron, were the principal novelties now made official.

The first Edinburgh Pharmacopœia appeared in 1699 and the last in 1841, while the first Dublin Pharmacopœia was published in 1807 and the last in 1850. The Medical Act of 1858 authorised the fusion of the Pharmacopœias of the three kingdoms, and assigned the task of carrying out this work to the General Medical Council created by that statute. The first British Pharmacopœia was issued in 1864, but it failed to give satisfaction, and was superseded by a second dated 1867. The third and fourth editions were published in 1884 and 1898.

XVIII

SHAKESPEARE’S PHARMACY.

But law and the gospel in Shakespeare we find,
And he gives the best physic for body and mind.
GARRICK: _Shakespeare’s Mulberry Tree_.

The two most familiar pharmaceutical allusions in Shakespeare’s writings are the apothecary and his shop in “Romeo and Juliet” (Act V., Sc. 1), and the juice of cursed hebenon which Hamlet’s uncle poured into the ear of his father (“Hamlet,” Act I., Sc. 5). Some remarks on both these noted allusions are given separately. The medical knowledge of Shakespeare has been discussed by several eminent doctors, notably by Dr. J. C. Bucknill, of Exeter, who published a very interesting work under that title in 1860, in which the writer almost went so far as to hint at the possibility that the great dramatist must have had some training in the medical science of the day before he took to the theatre business. A similar suggestion was made by Lord Campbell in regard to the poet’s legal knowledge.

Great interest in drugs and poisons was taken by the people generally in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and the medical controversies of the period filled a good many books. It is certain that Shakespeare at least skimmed a good many of these. “Galen and Paracelsus” are mentioned in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (Act II., Sc. 3). In “Coriolanus” (Act II., Sc. 1) Menenius says of a letter from Coriolanus that it gives him an estate of seven years’ health, adding “the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutick, and,” compared with this letter, “of no better report than a horse-drench.”

Apothecaries are mentioned in “Henry VI” (Part II., Act III., Sc. 3), when Cardinal Beaufort, delirious on his deathbed, cries, “Bid the apothecary bring the strong poison that I bought of him.” Also in “Pericles” (Act III., Sc. 2), the amateur physician Cerimon, a Lord of Ephesus, who had studied medicine, and “by turning o’er authorities” had made himself familiar with “the blest infusions that dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones,” gives a prescription to his servant, saying, “Give this to the ’pothecary, and tell me how it works.” Apothecaries’ weights are used as metaphors in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (Act II., Sc. 3) when Lafeu, who has given Parolles “most egregious indignity,” which the latter says he has not deserved, replies “Yes, good faith, every dram of it; and I will not bate thee a scruple,” and by Falstaff, who, in his interview with the Chief Justice, refers rather enigmatically to drams and scruples. Falstaff again, in “Merry Wives of Windsor,” is responsible for the simile of those who “smell like Bucklersbury in simple time.” The Dr. Caius in the same play, with his “by gar” and comical English, is assumed by some interpreters to have been a burlesque on Sir Theodore Mayerne, but except that Mayerne was French and certainly spoke English with a foreign accent, there is no reason for associating him with the character. Mayerne never acquired English. In one of his later letters he writes of Lady Cherosbury, for Shrewsbury. There was a very famous Dr. Caius, who had been physician to Queen Elizabeth, who founded Caius College, Cambridge, and who died in 1573, not so very long before this play was written. But it is agreed that he could not have been the original of the caricature.

Of the drugs and pharmaceutical preparations named by Shakespeare most would be familiar to anyone acquainted with the literature of the day. “Throw physick to the dogs,” says Macbeth to the physician who is telling him of the mental illness of Lady Macbeth. Then, his mind recurring to the war in which he was engaged, he demands of the doctor “What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug would scour these English hence?” (Act V., Sc. 3). In the same play (Act I., Sc. 3), Banquo asks when the witches vanish, “Have we eaten of the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?” There are many allusions in classical literature to herbs which destroyed the reason. In Plutarch’s life of Antony, for example, there is an account of some Roman soldiers in the Parthian war eating a root which deprived them of all memory, and it is said they occupied themselves in digging, and in hurling stones from one place to another. Among the ingredients of the witches’ cauldron (Act IV., Sc. 1), the animal substances named recall much of the pharmacy of the period, but only one vegetable drug, “root of hemlock, digg’d i’ the dark,” is named. Lady Macbeth (Act II., Sc. 2) tells how she has drugg’d the possets of Duncan’s grooms, so that “death and nature do contend about them Whether they live or die.” In Act V., Sc. 1, she complains that “all the perfumes of Arabia” will not sweeten her hand from the smell of blood. It is also in this play that the description of Edward the Confessor curing the King’s Evil (see Vol. I, p. 299) occurs.

In the “Comedy of Errors” (Act IV., Sc. 1) Dromio of Syracuse tells Antipholus of Ephesus that he has found a bark for him, put the freightage on board, and bought “the oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitae.” In Act V., Sc. 1, the Abbess declares that Antipholus having taken sanctuary in the Priory she will not let him stir, “Till I have used the approved means I have, with wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers, To make of him a formal man again.”

In “Much Ado about Nothing” (Act III., Sc. 4) Margaret recommends the love-sick Beatrice to “get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it to your heart; it is the only thing for a qualm.” This drug was in great repute in Shakespeare’s time and was used for a multitude of complaints. Woodall says the distilled water of it “doth ease the pain of the head, conformeth the memory, cureth a quartane, provoketh sweat, and comforteth the vital spirits.” The Physician in “King Lear” (Act IV., Sc. 4), tells Cordelia there are “many simples operative whose power will close the eye of anguish.”

The story of “All’s Well that Ends Well” is based on a secret remedy for fistula which Helena had acquired from her deceased father, and with which she heals the King. The Queen in “Cymbeline” is an amateur pharmacist. In Act I., Sc. 6, she tells the doctor that he has taught her how “to make perfumes, distil, preserve”; and in Act V., Sc. 5, the doctor tells the King that on her deathbed she confessed she had “a mortal mineral” which would “by inches waste you.”

In the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” (Act III., Sc. 1), a fairy named Cobweb gives Bottom the opportunity of alluding to the usefulness of cobwebs for cut fingers. “In Twelfth Night” Sir Toby Belch jocularly addresses Maria as “My nettle of India” (Act II., Sc. 5), probably Indian hemp. We read of “parmaceti,” “the sovereign’st thing on earth for an inward bruise,” and also of the “villainous saltpetre” in Act I., Sc. 3, of “Henry IV.” Part I.; in the second part (Act I., Sc. 2) there is an allusion to the fashion of diagnosis by the examination of a person’s water; and in Act IV., Sc. 4, we find mention of the deadly character of aconitum, and in the same scene of gold “preserving life in medicine potable.” In “Antony and Cleopatra,” the Queen greets Antony’s messenger with the remark that though so much unlike him yet that “coming from him, that great medicine hath with his tinct gilded thee” (Act I., Sc. 5), evidently an allusion to the tincture of gold. Another reference to potable gold is found in “All’s Well that Ends Well.”

The plantain for a broken shin is called for by Costard in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (“plantain, a plain plantain; no salve, sir, but a plantain,” Act III., Sc. 1); plantain leaf for a broken shin is also recommended by Romeo (Act I., Sc. 2). In the same scene occur the words so dear to homeopaths: “One fire burns out another’s burning.” In “King John” (Act V., Sc. 2,) revolt is likened to a plaster which will heal “inveterate canker of the wound by making many.”

In “Henry VI.,” part II. (Act V., Sc. 1) York quotes the legend of Achilles’ spear “able to kill or cure”; while in “Hamlet” (Act IV., Sc. 7) Laertes declares that he will anoint his sword with unction bought of a mountebank;

“No mortal that but dips a knife in it,
Where it draws blood, no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
That is but scratched withal.”

The action of drugs as charms is much in evidence in “Othello.” The father of Desdemona accuses the Moor of having

“Practised on her with foul charms,
Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
That awaken motion.”

And again Brabantio tells the Duke that Desdemona has been stolen from him

“And corrupted
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks.”

These allusions all occur in scenes 2 and 3 of the first Act; in the latter also Iago promises Roderigo that Desdemona shall soon be to Othello “bitter as coloquintida.” At the end of this play Othello describes his “subdued eyes dropping tears as fast as the Arabian trees their medicinal gum.”

Autolycus refers to aqua vitæ as a restorative in the “Winter’s Tale” (Act IV., Sc. 3), as does the nurse in “Romeo and Juliet” when she finds her mistress dead (Act IV., Sc. 5). The “popinjay” takes snuff in “Henry IV.” (part I., Act I., Sc. 3), Cleopatra calls for mandragora to drink “that I might sleep out this great gap of time my Antony is away” (“Ant. and Cleop.,” Act I., Sc. 5). “Not poppy nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,” said Iago, shall medicine Othello against the poison he has given him (“Othello,” Act III., Sc. 3). “Sleepy drinks” are mentioned in the “Winter’s Tale,” (Act I., Sc. 1), and in the same play (“Winter’s Tale,” Act II., Sc. 1) Shakespeare uses the word “land-damn,” which some of his commentators have been disposed to identify with laudanum. The King of Sicily grossly insults his wife, Hermione, declaring her to be an adultress, Antigonus warmly defends her and assures the King that he has been “abused by some putters-on who will be damn’d for’t,” and he adds,

“Would I knew the villain,
I would land-damn him.”

The idea is that this may be a misprint for laudanum, meaning, “I would poison him.” It must be added that this explanation does not find much favour, and perhaps it is rather far-fetched. It is mentioned by Stevens as having been proposed by Dr. Farmer, but Furness thinks that Stevens was poking fun at the solemn nonsense of his learned friend. But the other interpretations are not much better. There is, it appears, an old dialect word “lan-dan” which meant following a man with kettles and other rough music. Another suggested meaning is an association with an old Saxon word (hland) for urine, conveying the notion that the villain is to be made ill by a suppression of urine. Both these explanations seem ludicrously insufficient to express the anger of the speaker. Damn him up with land, that is, bury him alive, is gruesome enough, but this is an obscure way of expressing the proposal. Johnson disposes of the term by the theory that it was “a word which caprice brought into fashion, and reason and grammar drove irrevocably away. It has also been assumed, and this looks likely, that the punctuation has got misplaced and that the sentence should read “I would--Lord damn him.”

Shakespeare’s favourite daughter Susannah was married to Dr. John Hall, and it is possible that the doctor and his wife lived with the poet in his later years at Stratford. Dr. Hall was a practitioner of some eminence, and wrote a book in Latin (translated into English in 1657 by James Cook) entitled “Select Observations ... Cures Empirical and Historical on Very Eminent Persons in Desperate Disorders.” The following, which is Observation 60, is worth quoting for the picture it gives of pharmacy in the Elizabethan age.

“Talbot, the first born of the Countess of Salisbury, aged about one year, being miserably afflicted with a fever and worms, so that death was only expected, was thus cured. There was first injected a clyster of milk and sugar. This gave two stools and brought away four worms. By the mouth was given hartshorn burnt, prepared in the form of a julep. To the pulse was applied Ung Populeon ʒii mixed with spiders’ webs, and a little powder of nutshells. It was put to one pulse of one wrist one day, to the other the next. To the stomach was applied mithridate; to the bowel the emplaster against worms. And thus he became well in three days, for which the Countess returned me many thanks and gave me great reward.”

THE APOTHECARY IN “ROMEO AND JULIET”

is a favourite illustration of the scrupulous care which Shakespeare bestowed on the revision of his dramas. The story on which the play is founded is well known to students. It was written by an Italian novelist, Luigi da Porto, of Vicenza, and was entitled “La Giuletta.” This author died in 1529. In Girolamo de la Corte’s “History of Verona,” published at Venice in 1549, it is given and stated to be a true story. An English translation of it in rhyme by Arthur Brooke appeared in 1562, and a prose translation by Painter some time later. The version by Brooke is entitled “The Tragicall Historie of Romeus and Juliet,” and it is from this that Shakespeare took not only the incidents, but, as will be seen, some of his expressions. Brooke describes Romeus in Mantua, resolved to die, and looking for a shop where he may buy poison.

_Brooke’s Version, 1562._

And then from street to street he wand’reth up and down
To see if he in any place may find in all the town
A salve meet for his sore, an oil fit for his wound,
And seeking long, alas, too soon, the thing he sought he found,
An apothecary sat unbusied at his door,
Whom by his heavy countenance he guessed to be poor;
And in his shop he saw his boxes were but few,
And in his window of his wares there was so small a shew.
Wherefore our Romeus assuredly hath thought
What by no friendship could be got with money should be bought.
For needy lack is like the poor man to compel
To sell that which the city’s law forbiddeth him to sell.
Then by the hand he drew the needy man apart
And with the sight of glittering gold inflamed well his heart.
“Take fifty crowns of gold (quoth he) I give them thee
So that before I part from hence thou shalt deliver me
Some poison strong that may in less than half an hour
Kill him whose wretched hap shall be the poison to devour.”
The wretch by covetisse is won and doth assent
To sell the thing whose sale ere long too late he doth repent.
In haste he poison sought and closely he it bound
And then began in whisp’ring voice thus in his ear to round:
“Fair Sir (quoth he), be sure this is the speeding gear,
And more there is than you shall need; for half of that is there
Will serve, I undertake, in less than half an hour
To kill the strongest man alive. Such is the poison’s power.”

_Shakespeare’s First Rendering._

This is the rendering of the scene from Shakespeare’s first quarto edition, 1597:

As I do remember
Here dwells a pothecarie whom oft I noted
As I past by, whose needie shop is stuft
With beggarly accounts of empty boxes.
And on the same an Aligarta hangs,
Olde ends of packthred, and cakes of roses
Are thinly strewed to make up a show.
Here as I noted thus with myselfe I thought:
Ah, if a man should need a poison now,
(Whose present sale is death in Mantua),
Here he might buy it. This thought of mine
Did but forerune my need; and hereabout he dwells.
Being holiday the beggar’s shop is shut.
What ho! Apothecary! Come forth I say.
_Ap._ Who calls? What would you, Sir?
_Rom._ Here’s twenty ducats.
Give me a dram of some such speeding gere
As will despatch the weary taker’s life
As suddenly as powder being fired
From forth a cannon’s mouth.
_Ap._ Such drugs I have, I must of force confesse,
But yet the law is death to those that sell them.
_Rom._ Art though so bare and full of poverty,
And dost thou fear to violate the law?
The law is not thy friend nor the law’s friend,
And therefore make no conscience of the law.
Upon thy back hangs ragged misery
And starved famine dwelleth in thy cheeks.
_Ap._ My poverty but not my will consents.
_Rom._ I pay thy poverty but not thy will.
_Ap._ Hold, take you this and put it
In any liquid thing you will, and it will serve,
Had you the lives of twenty men.
_Rom._ Hold, take this gold, worse poison to men’s souls
Than this which thou hast given me. Go hie thee hence,
Go, buy thee cloathes, and get thee into flesh:
Come cordial and not poison, go with me
To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.

Shakespeare was a busy man in 1597, and in the years before as well as about that date he was preparing novelties for his theatre. Later he had more leisure, and it is interesting to notice how artistically he fills out his original sketch with only just such details as make the ideas more vivid. In the revised version of this scene, published in 1609, there are no new ideas, but scarcely a line is left untouched. A comparison of title-pages in the two editions is amusing and at the same time instructive. In 1597 it reads: “An Excellent Conceited Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet as it hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely.” In 1609 this is toned down to “The most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet as it hath been sundri times publiquely Acted.” The omission of the parenthetic (“with great applause”) is significant. The poet knows he no longer needs meretricious advertisement. The scene as we have it in our modern books is very similar to

_Shakespeare’s Revised Version (Third Quarto, 1609)._

_Rom._ I do remember an apothecary
And hereabouts he dwells--whom late I noted
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; meager were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff’d, and other skins,
Of ill-shap’d fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scatter’d to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said--
And if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O, this same thought did but fore-run my need;
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember this should be the house;
Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut--
What ho! Apothecary!
_Ap._ Who calls so loud?
_Rom._ Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor;
Hold, there is forty ducats; let me have
A dram of poison; such soon speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead;
And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath
As violently as hasty powder fired
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.
_Ap._ Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua’s law
Is death to any he that utters them.
_Rom._ Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness,
And fear’st to die? famine is in thy cheeks.
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back,
The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law;
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.
_Ap._ My poverty but not my will consents.
_Rom._ I pray thy poverty and not thy will.
_Ap._ Put this in any liquid thing you will
And drink it off; and if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.
_Rom._ There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls
Doing more murders in this loathsome world
Than these poor compounds that thou may’st not sell.
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell; buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Come cordial, and not poison; go with me
To Juliet’s grave, for there I must use thee.

(Drawn by Miss K. Righton.)]

Two lines in the accepted version have been the subject of much controversy, sometimes of an acrimonious character among critics. Both sides quote one or other of the early editions in support of their contentions. One of the lines is “Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes.” It is fiercely held that “starveth” in this expression should be “stareth.” And in the famous line “I pray thy poverty and not thy will” ordinary readers naturally think “pay” should be substituted for “pray.” The defenders of the quoted versions contemptuously reply that it is because we are only commonsense people and not poets that we cannot rise to the height of appreciating the meaning of the more recondite phrases that makes us suggest the emendations.

HEBENON.

The “juice of cursed Hebenon,” which according to the Ghost, was the poison chosen by Hamlet’s wicked uncle to kill his father by dropping some of it into his ears during his afternoon nap, has been much discussed by commentators. Authorities generally favour either henbane or ebony (hebenus). Some occasional opinions may be found suggesting other poisons, but they do not carry much weight. Dr. Paris, for example, in “Pharmacologia” proposes the essential oil of tobacco, quoting in support of his opinion the authority of Gerard, who says it was “commonly called the henbane of Peru.” Dr. Bucknill remarks that the poet could not have meant henbane because that herb is not a virulent poison, and would not have had the effect attributed to it. But no dramatist would care to have his fancies subjected to the test of science in this way. Possibly Shakespeare would hardly have cared to justify the introduction of the ghost by strict evidence. Dr. Bucknill decides that as no poison will fit the description the term was used as a generic one for a drug producing “hebetudo animi.” In Beisley’s “Shakespeare’s Garden” it is suggested that hebenon may have been a misprint for eneron, nightshade, which Dyce, a prominent authority, politely dismisses as a “villainous conjecture.”

A plausible German interpretation of hebenon is that it is derived from _Eibenbaum_, the yew-tree. Eibe was the Saxon name for the yew, and its poisonous properties were recognised from very ancient times. It is probable that some of the quotations which have been credited to ebony may have been really due to the yew. Spenser, for example, writes: “Lay now thy Heben bow aside”; “A speare of Heben wood” and “trees of bitter gall and Heben sad.” These references are more likely to be to the yew than to the ebony: and certainly could not have been applied to the henbane weeds. Gower (1390) has “Of hebanus the sleepy tree.” In Marlowe’s “Jew of Malta” (1592, contemporary with Shakespeare), several deadly things are grouped thus:--

“The blood of Hydra, Lerna’s bane,
The juice of Hebon, and Cocytus’ breath.”

There is no tradition of poisonous properties associated with ebony, as there is with both henbane and yew, but in regard to henbane, a remarkable passage has been found in Holland’s translation of Pliny which was published in London just about the time when Shakespeare was writing “Hamlet.” Pliny, dealing with henbane, says (in this translation): “An oile is made of the seed thereof which if it be but dropped into the eares is ynough to trouble the braine.” Shakespeare must have been a voracious reader, he probably got Holland’s book as soon as it came out, and finding this passage, adopted the suggestion. He was no doubt familiar with the word hebon or hebonus, and chose that for his verse, perhaps without caring very much whether it was a correct interpretation of henbane or not. As a matter of fact, in the earlier editions of “Hamlet” the word appears as hebona. In the folios, which came later, hebonon is substituted, no doubt out of consideration for euphony.

It is notable that the player who enacts the murder of the King (Act III., Sc. 2) describes the poison as a

“Mixture rank of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecat’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected.”

This of course does not correspond with the suggestion that the juice of hebenon was the product of some one poisonous plant.

XIX

SOME NOTED DRUGS.

Who was the first cultivator of corn? Who first tamed and
domesticated the animals whose strength we use, and whom we make
our food? Or who first discovered the medicinal herbs which from
the earliest times have been our resource against disease?
CARDINAL NEWMAN: Sermon on _The World’s Benefactors_.

The most valuable and original records of the history of drugs are to be found in “Pharmacographia” by F. A. Flückiger of Strasburg and Daniel Hanbury of London (published by Macmillan & Co.). I have as a rule avoided copying details from that work, although I have dealt with no subject without referring to it. In this section, however, the drugs named are of course treated in “Pharmacographia,” and necessarily the facts given must to some extent correspond. But comparison would show that I have only selected subjects which were capable of discussion from a somewhat different point of view from that which guided Messrs. Flückiger and Hanbury.[1]

ALOES.

Dioscorides is the earliest medical writer to mention aloes as a medicine. According to him it should be given in doses of from half a drachm to one drachm as a gentle purge, or of three drachms if its full cathartic effect were required. The drug is not named by Hippocrates nor by Theophrastus.

Celsus describes it as specially valuable for city men and men of letters (urbani et literarum cupidi); he says it is an ingredient in all purgatives, and it is clear from the later Greek and Roman writers how highly this remedy was esteemed. In “Pharmacographia” Hanbury refers to the legend of Alexander the Great visiting the Island of Socotra at the instance of Aristotle particularly on account of the aloes grown there. It is said that Alexander left a colony of Ionians on the island in order to ensure a sufficient supply of the drug. Undoubtedly there were Greek Christians there in Mohammedan times and it is probable that the Arabs invented the Alexandrian origin of them.

[This photograph was published in “London Botanic Gardens” by
P. E. F. Perrédès, B.Sc., F.L.S., published by the Wellcome
Chemical Research Laboratories, and is kindly lent for this book
by the Director of those Laboratories, Dr. Frederick B. Power].
]

The fame of aloes was well maintained by the Arabian physicians, and the old Greek and Roman formulas for aloetic compounds were passed on to the Middle Ages by Mesué of Damascus, together with some new ones. It was one of the drugs recommended to Alfred the Great by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

In 1622 Mindererus published a treatise on a special compound of aloes which he had devised. Raymond Minderer was the most famous physician of his time. He lived at Augsburg, and was the appointed medical adviser to the Duke of Bavaria and the great house of the Fuggers, the Rothschilds of the period. Minderer’s book was entitled “Aloedarium,” and it described in loving detail each of the nine ingredients of what is supposed to have been the lineal ancestor of our modern compound rhubarb pill. The components were:--

Aloes 3 ounces, Marum (herb mastic), and Saffron, of each 3 scruples, Agaric, Costus, and Myrrh, of each 3 half-drachms, Ammoniacum, 3 drachms, Rhubarb, 3 two-drachms (ʒvi), and Lign Aloes, 3 half-scruples. These drugs were each separately macerated in appropriate liquids, the aloes in rose water, the myrrh in rue vinegar, and so forth. Mindererus recommended these pills not so much as a purgative, but as a general tonic, especially useful to strong, fair, well-fed persons.

Following Minderer’s book, and indeed slavishly copying it, came a treatise by Dr. William Marcquis of Antwerp, entitled “Aloe Morbifuga.” The only notable feature of this work is that its author is clear about the importance of that part of the aloes which is soluble in water as the constituent of the drug in which the purgative properties reside. He was, in fact, the originator of our aqueous extract of aloes.

CASTOR OIL.

The supposed identity of the Palma Christi tree, from the seeds of which castor oil is obtained, with the Hebrew “kikaion” is mentioned in the note on Jonah’s “gourd” in the section “Pharmacy in the Bible.” It is not doubtful that the plant was the same as the “kiki” of Herodotus, and the “kiki” or “kroton” of Dioscorides. Avicenna quotes a reference to the seeds from Dioscorides, from which, he says, is pressed the oil of kiki “which is the oil of Alkeroa.” Other Arab authors use the term “al-keroa” for the Greek “kiki.” A frequent Latin name for the Palma Christi was “kikinum,” or “cicinum.”

The earliest allusion to the oil is found in Herodotus (“Hist. Euterpe,” sec. 94), where we read “The inhabitants of the marshy grounds in Egypt make use of an oil which they term the ‘kiki,’ expressed from the Sillicyprian plant. In Greece this plant springs spontaneously without any cultivation; but the Egyptians sow it on the banks of the river and the canals; it there produces fruit in great abundance, but of a very strong odour. When gathered they obtain from it, either by friction or pressure, an unctuous liquid which diffuses an offensive smell, but for burning it is equal in quality to the oil of olives.”

From this and other references it is clear that the Egyptians held the Palma Christi plant in high esteem, and this would hardly have been the case if it was only used for the extraction of an inferior burning oil. As is stated in another section, Ebers guesses that an aperient medicine made from the fruit of the kesebt tree may have meant the ricinus seeds. The seeds of the Palma Christi, too, have been frequently found in sarcophagi; evidence that they had acquired a high reputation of some kind.

Hippocrates apparently tried to reduce the acridity of the seeds so as to make them more useful as purgatives. Dioscorides alludes to their purgative properties, but only contemplates the external employment of the oil in medicine. Pliny, however, is more explicit. Chapter xli., of Book 23 begins with the sentence: “Oleum cicinum bibitur ad purgationes ventris cum pari calidæ mensura.” The whole passage is of interest. The following is the translation of it given in Bohn’s “Classical Library” (Dr. Bostock): “Castor oil taken with an equal quantity of warm water acts as a purgative upon the bowels. It is said, too, that as a purgative it acts particularly upon the regions of the diaphragm (precordia). It is useful for diseases of the joints, all kinds of indurations, affections of the uterus and ears, and for burns, employed with the ashes of the murex; it heals itch, scabs, and inflammations of the fundament. It improves the complexion also, and by its fertilising tendencies promotes the growth of the hair. The cicus or seed from which this oil is made no animal will touch, and from these grape-like seeds wicks are made which burn with a peculiar brilliancy. The light, however, that is produced by the oil is very dim, in consequence of its extreme thickness. The leaves are applied topically with vinegar for erysipelas. Fresh gathered they are used by themselves for diseases of the mamillæ and defluxions. A decoction of them in wine with polenta and saffron is good for inflammations of various kinds. Boiled by themselves and applied to the face for three successive days they improve the complexion.”

In Egypt and Rome, therefore, Ricinus was evidently esteemed; and though as a medicine they dropped largely out of use, it is clear from old English physic books that a traditional reputation was always associated with both the seeds and the oil. Gerard, in his “Herbal,” and Piso, in an account of the natural history of the West Indies, both recommend them, the former in broth, the latter in the form of a tincture made with brandy for colic and constipation. Gerard states that the Palma Christi “of America” grew in his garden (in Holborn) and in many other gardens likewise. The seeds, however, came to be regarded as dangerous, and were clearly but little used in orthodox medicine. Quincy (1724) refers to them as “hardly ever met with in practice, unless amongst empirics and persons of no credit.”

In 1764, however, Dr. Peter Canvane, of Bath, who had practised for seven years in the West Indies, published a treatise entitled “A Dissertation on the Oleum Palmæ Christi, sive Oleum Ricini, or (as it is commonly call’d) Castor Oil,” in which he warmly recommended the oil as a gentle purgative, particularly in cases of “dry belly ache.” His advocacy soon took effect, for in the second edition of his treatise published in 1769, he says it had become officinal, by which he meant was sold in the shops, “at Apothecaries Hall and several other shops in London and Bath.” Dr. Odier, of Geneva, who visited England in 1776, became then acquainted with the medicine, and subsequently brought it to the notice of Continental physicians. It was admitted into the London Pharmacopœia in 1788.

The name “Ricinus” was in Latin the name of the parasite known as the dog-tick, _Ixodes ricinus_, and was transferred to the Palma Christi seeds because of their resemblance to the insect. In Greek the same insect was called the kroton, and Theophrastus and Dioscorides describe the Palma Christi seeds as kroton seeds. Curiously the name kroton has been applied in America to the cockroach, not from any association with ticks, but from a belief that the insects came from the Croton River when the water from that source was brought to New York in 1842. The name of castor oil is supposed to have been given to the oil in consequence of a mistaken idea in the Western Indies that the plant which yielded the seeds was _Agnus Castus_. There was, however, a castor oil and compound castor oil in medicinal use in England and other countries until the eighteenth century. The simple oil was made by digesting castorum in oil and boiling it with wine until the latter had all evaporated. The compound oil contained besides a number of aromatic gums and spices. Possibly the taste of the oil from the Palma Christi seeds recalled that from the old oil of castor, and the name may thus have been transferred.

CINCHONA.

It is not possible to determine from the legends and reports collected by the many competent naturalists who visited Peru in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with the special object of investigating the history of the cinchona trees whether it was known or used as a medicine by the natives before its virtues were ascertained by Europeans.

Peru was discovered in 1513, and became subject to Spain about the middle of the sixteenth century. But Hanbury points out that no reference to the bark as a febrifuge has been found earlier than the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was reported by La Condamine, and others who acquired their knowledge on the spot, that the Indians had long used the bark as a dye. The Countess Ana of Chinchon, wife of the Spanish Viceroy of Peru, was cured of a fever by the bark in 1638, but there is evidence that its medicinal value had been experienced by some of the conquering race before that date. One story is that when the Countess was ill and all the usual remedies had been found ineffective, the Corregidor of Loxa, Don Juan Lopez Canizares, who had himself been cured by the bark of a similar illness, brought some of the remedy from Loxa to Lima and staked his reputation on its infallibility. After her cure the Countess became an enthusiastic advocate of the medicine, administering it with uniform success to her dependents and others in Lima, and on her return to Spain in 1640, exerting herself to make it known there.

Another story is to the effect that a native maid in the employment of the Countess had made known the virtues of the bark to the Viceroy out of affection for her mistress, though until then the Indians had concealed the secret from their cruel rulers. The most likely account is that the bark had become known as a valuable medicine to the Jesuit missionaries who had been in the country for fully fifty years when the Countess of Chinchon was cured.

Le Condamine stated, in 1738, that the Indians had a legend that they had become acquainted with the properties of the bark in consequence of an earthquake in the neighbourhood of Loxa which had caused a number of the trees surrounding a lake near the city to be thrown into the water. An Indian violently ill with a fever and consumed with thirst had drunk water from this lake and had been rapidly cured. Another tradition was that the pumas of the country had been observed to eat the bark when they were ill, and that the Indians had learned its value from this circumstance.

The Count and Countess of Chinchon returned to Spain, as has been said, in 1640. They went to live on their estate at Chinchon Castle, about forty miles from Madrid, and their physician, Juan del Vego, followed them and resided at Seville. Vego brought with him a considerable quantity of the bark from Peru, and sold it at 100 reals per pound. Sprengel queries whether the real of Plata or the real of Vellon is to be understood; the latter was worth about 2d., the Plata or silver real being worth about 8d. It is not at all certain that Vego’s bark was the first importation of the medicine into Spain. A Spanish physician named Villerobel, quoted by Badus in 1663 in a work on the Peruvian bark, states that a quantity was received in 1632, but was not tried until 1639 (a year after the cure of the Countess, it will be noted). The patient was an ecclesiastic of Alcala de Henarez, near Madrid. However this may be, Vego’s reports and the experiments with his bark excited lively interest all through Spain, and from then began a controversy almost as bitter as that between the Galenists and Paracelsists. There were a large number of practitioners who could not bring themselves to believe in any medicine which Galen had not described. It was also alleged by some contemporary writers that a prompt cure of intermittent fevers was not by any means desired by a large number of medical men and apothecaries, who consequently allied themselves in opposition to this very effective bark. This statement is no doubt due to the usual uncharitableness of controversy; but it is possible that the adversaries of the new remedy might at least cling to their old prejudices with not less firmness when these and their interests ran on parallel lines.

Fevers were at that time regarded as caused by some morbific principle in the humours which occasioned effervescence, and which it was essential first of all to expel. The patient was, therefore, treated with evacuants and debilitating medicines while the fever continued, and the vital spirits were afterwards restored by a course of cordials and bitters, such as wormwood, chamomile flowers, mace, carduus benedictus, angelica, and valerian. The opponents of the bark insisted that if it palliated the fever it “fixed the humour” and ensured a relapse or some other more dangerous disease. In 1652 Leopold William, Archduke of Austria, and Governor of the Low Countries, who had interested himself in popularising the bark, fell ill with a quaternian fever. He took bark and recovered. A relapse occurred, but the complaint again yielded to the remedy. Some time after he had another attack. This time, perhaps influenced by the views already quoted, he refused to take bark and died. This event was regarded, illogically enough, as evidence of the dangerous character of the medicine.

Meanwhile, the Jesuits had been busy propagating the new remedy and proving its virtues. The provincial father brought a large supply to Rome, and explained the method of using it to a congress of Jesuits then assembled in that city. The fathers administered it all over Europe, giving it gratuitously to the poor and to their own order, but charging its weight in gold to the rich. It is said that they endeavoured to keep it as a secret medicine, and would only supply it in powder so that it might be more difficult to identify. The Procurator-General of the order, Father (afterwards Cardinal) de Lugo, making a journey to Paris in 1649, found the king, Louis XIV, himself suffering at the time from an intermittent fever. He recommended to him the use of the bark, and Louis took it and quickly recovered. The powder of the Cardinal, the Powder of the Fathers, the Jesuits’ Powder, by which names among others it was known, consequently came into strong demand. But these titles were largely responsible for the reaction which almost drove cinchona out of practice. Protestant fears and prejudices were added to the orthodox opposition of the Galenists, and besides, many practitioners administered the bark ignorantly, in too small or too large doses, while the high prices at which it was sold led to fraudulent substitution, which more than anything else discredited the bark as a medicine. Sprengel quotes complaints from the Cardinal de Lugo, the apothecary of the College of Medicine at Rome, and Vincent Protospatario, a physician at Naples, who alleged that the Spanish merchants were sending into Italy instead of the true Peruvian bark various other astringent barks devoid of any aromatic taste, but flavoured up to the necessary bitterness by aloes.

Although Sydenham in England, and a number of eminent physicians on the Continent, studied the proper methods of administration and the suitable doses of bark, it fell to a practitioner whose methods went a long way to justify charges of charlatanry firmly to establish cinchona in professional and popular favour.

Robert Talbor was assistant with an apothecary at Cambridge named Dear. It has been ascertained that in 1663 he had been entered as a sizar at St. John’s College for five years, but there is no indication that he took a degree. In his writings he states that he was largely indebted to a member of the University of the name of Nott for suggestions relative to the administration of bark. The next heard of him is that he was practising in Essex. This was about 1671. He wrote a book in 1672, which he called “Pyretologia,” a rational account of the cause and cure of agues. In this he refers to his own secret remedy, which, he says, consists of four ingredients, two indigenous and two exotic. He mentions Peruvian bark and intimates that it is an excellent remedy, but one that should be employed with prudence, as in the hands of inexperienced doctors it might occasion serious evils. He does not say that it was contained in his specific.

Talbor moved to London and set up his sign next door to Gray’s Inn Gate, in Holborn. His treatment brought him into fame, the climax of which was that having cured the daughter of Lady Mordaunt he was sent for when Charles II was ill with an ague and cured him. He was knighted, appointed a royal physician with a salary of £100 a year, and the king caused a letter to be written to the College of Physicians asking them not to interfere with his practice in London.