Chapter M: C. H. Gaidoz takes exception to this interpretation. In his opinion, (10)

Swine’s dung as a remedy for dysentery in Ireland, alluded to in terms of high approval by Borlase, quoted by Southey in “Commonplace Book,” p. 149.

Hon. E. W. P. Smith, secretary of the United States Legation in the Republic of Colombia, South America, states that among the San Blas Indians of that country, and the lower classes generally, the patient’s own urine is applied warm for sore eyes.

Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, of Cambridge, Mass., has for some years devoted time and intelligent study to the acquisition of data bearing upon the superstitions connected with the human saliva. While making this valuable and curious collection she has also been fortunate enough to encounter much relating to kindred superstitions, and has very generously placed at the disposal of the author of this volume all that related to the employment of human and animal egestæ.

Urine a cure for chapped hands, on Deer Isle.

Urinate into your shoe to keep it from squeaking, on Deer Isle.

Sheep-dung tea, a cure for measles, is extensively used on Deer Isle.

Boys urinate on their legs to prevent cramp. This practice was common in eastern Maine twenty to thirty years ago.

Water standing in the depressions of cow-dung was formerly recommended as a certain cure for pulmonary consumption, in New York.

Oil tried from the penis of the hog and applied to the loins of a child suffering from weakness of kidneys or bladder cured such diseases, in northern parts of the United States and in parts of Nova Scotia.

One’s own urine was administered for gravel in Staffordshire, England, within the past ten years.

A woman in England was given her own urine to drink, after a severe illness, to prevent “fits,” in the present generation. A poultice of fresh, warm cow-dung cured a man of rheumatism in New York. Measles were cured by giving the patient a decoction of lamb’s excrements (locally called “nanny-beads”), in Brunswick, N. Y., about 1825. A newly born child was given a spoonful of woman’s urine as a laxative, in 1814, in St. Albans, Vt. The white, limy part of hen-manure was used for canker-sores in mouth, in Abingdon, Ill. Cow-manure was used for swelled breasts in County Cork, Ireland. Sheep-manure tea was used for measles in County Cork, Ireland, and by the negroes of Chestertown, Md. Sheep-dung tea for measles all over New England, Ohio, and Cape Breton. Cow-dung, as fresh as possible, plastered on inflamed breasts, commonly known as “bealed” breasts, within the last twenty-five years, on Cape Breton.

Similar excrementitious remedies are in use among the Pennsylvania Germans. Cow-dung poultices are applied in the treatment of diphtheria, or as lenitives in cases of sore or gathered breasts. “Tea made of sheep-cherries (Gen. et spec.?) is given for measles.”—(“Folk-Medicine of the Pennsylvania Germans,” in “Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc.,” 1889.)

For reasons not ascertained, the use of these revolting medicaments has nearly always been veiled under the language of euphemism. Sheep-dung is rarely called by its own name, but always, as has been shown in the preceding remarks, “sheep-nanny tea,” etc. In the same manner, the use of human excreta was veiled under the high-sounding designations of “zibethum,” “oriental sulphur,” etc.

This use of sheep-dung in the treatment of measles must be very ancient and wide-spread. Surgeon Washington Matthews notes its existence among the Navajoes, who learned it from the Spaniards.

“Slight wounds are cured” by the application of dirt to the part affected.—(“Nat. trib. of S. Australia,” p. 284, received through the kindness of the Roy. Soc. Sydney, N. S. Wales, T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)

Mr. Chrisfield, of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., states that urine was a remedy for earache among people on eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia; while for the cure of jaundice, in New England, “the spider, and even a more disagreeable remedy, is administered in a spoonful of molasses.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, London, 1883, p. 61, quoting Napier, “Folk-Lore,” p. 95, and “Folk-Lore Record,” vol. i. p. 45.)

“I am impressed to tell you of a custom that prevailed to some extent among the people of this State (Iowa); this was the use of sheep-dung for measles. The dung was made into what the old women denominated ‘tea,’ and was familiarly known as ‘sheep-nanny tea.’ It was believed to be singularly efficacious in bringing out the eruption. The mixture was sweetened with sugar, and thus disguised was given to children. This practice was kept up among certain classes until about twenty years ago; I have not heard of it, at least in recent years. I can trace the custom through the origin of the families in which it was practised here to Indiana and North Carolina.”—(Personal letter from Prof. S. B. Evans, Ottumwa, Iowa, to Captain Bourke, April 16, 1888.)

“I was told by an old person, now dead, that some fifty years since the urine of a cow was given internally as a remedy for chlorosis, in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.”—(Personal letter from Prof. Frank Rede Fowke to Captain Bourke, dated London, England, June 18, 1888.)

“In the country where I was born I have seen several times, when a cow or an ox had one of its horns knocked away by a shock or any other cause, people pissing into the horn before putting it again over its root. This was supposed necessary to cause the horn to stick firmly against the root.”—(Personal letter from Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy, Cherbourg, July 29, 1888.)

“The presence of ammonia in the secretions (whose power of neutralizing acids may have been accidentally discovered) may have had something to do with the repute of the excretions of the kidneys. I remember to have been told as a little boy of the virtues of urine as a relief to chapped hands, also as a counter-irritant for inflamed eyes. In the former case the ammonia would soften as an alkali; in the latter, the salts present would act to reduce congestion, like common salt, by endosmosis.”—(Personal letter from Prof. E. N. Horsford, Harvard University, to Captain Bourke, April 19, 1888.)

“I have been recently informed, by a man who is acquainted with the peculiarities of Parisian life, that there are men who are in the habit of swallowing the scum which they obtain from the street urinals, and that they are known as ‘Les mangeurs du blanc.’” (Prof. Frank Rede Fowke.) According to Parent du Chatelet, a “mangeur du blanc” meant in Paris, until 1810, “a man who lived off the earnings of a strumpet.” The name has since been changed to “paillasson.” (See “La Prostitution,” Paris, 1857, vol. i. p. 138.)

“When I was a boy we had in my father’s house a gang of cats, and I remember that frequently the people of Cherbourg came and asked permission to search in our garrets for cat’s dung, which, they said, mixed and infused in white wine, produced a very efficient drink against periodical fits of fever.”—(Captain Henri Jouan, French Navy.)

“Lye-tea, made of human urine and lime-water, was used for colds by the ‘old people’ in the rural parts of Central New York.”—(Conversation with Colonel Pierce, Dr. Pangborn, and Lieutenant W. G. Elliott, U. S. Army, at San Carlos Agency, Arizona.)

The savages of Australia apply to wounds the resin of the eucalyptus, and also the bark of the same tree, previously steeped in human urine. (Personal letter from John Mathew, Esq., M. A., to Captain Bourke, dated “The Manse,” Coburg, Victoria, November, 1889.) The same thing is referred to in “The Australian Race,” E. M. Curr, Melbourne, 1886, vol. i. p. 256. In regard to the uses of the crust of latrines, in connection with “mangeurs du blanc,” see other pages of this volume.

“Philos.; hermet.; urine du vin, le vinaigre. Urine des jeunes colériques Le Mercure Philosophe.” Dict. National, par M. Bescherelle, aîné, Paris, 1857, sub voc. Urine (p. 1573).

We have already been informed from Marco Polo that the prisoners taken by the Tartars often poisoned themselves; “for which reason the great lords haue dogs’ dung ready, which they force them to swallow, and that forceth them to vomit the poyson” (in Purchas, vol. i. p. 92); and we have also learned, from many sources,—Etmuller, Schurig, Levinus Lemnius, Flemming, Paullini, Beckherius, Lentilius,—of the antidotal powers of the excreta. The existence of the very same belief was detected among the natives of America.

Padre Inamma, whose interesting researches upon rattlesnake bites and their remedies (made in Lower California, some time before the expulsion of the Jesuits, in 1767) are published in Clavigero,[74] says that the most usual and most efficacious antidote was human ordure, fresh and dissolved in water, drunk by the person bitten.

Along the Isthmus of Darien the belief was prevalent among the aborigines that the most efficacious remedy for poisoned arrows was that which required the wounded man to swallow pills of his own excrement.[75]

So in Peru, “when sucking infants were taken ill, especially if their ailment was of a feverish nature, they washed them in urine in the mornings, and when they could get some of the urine of the child, they gave it a drink.”[76]

OCCULT INFLUENCES ASCRIBED TO ORDURE AND URINE.

In Canada, human urine was drunk as a medicine. Father Sagard witnessed a dance of the Hurons in which the young men, women, and girls danced naked around a sick woman, into whose mouth one of the young men urinated, she swallowing the disgusting draught in the hope of being cured.[77]

Analogous medicaments may be hinted at in Smith’s account of the Araucanians of Chili: “Their remedies are principally if not entirely, vegetable matter, though they administer many disgusting compounds of animal matter, which they pretend are endowed with miraculous powers.”—(Smith, “Araucanians,” New York, 1855, p. 234.)

Brand enumerates obsolete recipes, one of which (disease not mentioned) directed the patient to take “five spoonfuls of knave child urine of an innocent.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” London, 1849, vol. iii. p. 282.)

The Crees apply the dung of animals lately killed to sprains.—(See “Mackenzie’s Voyages,” etc., to the Arctic Circle, London, 1800, introd. p. 106.)

Henry M. Stanley says that, for the cure of certain ulcers due to fly-blow, from which his men suffered, “Safeni, my coxswain on the Victoria Nyanza, ... adopted a very singular treatment, which I must confess was also wonderfully successful.... This medicine consisted of a powder of copper and child’s urine, painted over the wound with a feather twice a day.”—(“Through the Dark Continent,” New York, 1878, vol. ii. p. 369.)

“It appeared that the dung of the donkey, rubbed on the skin, was supposed to be a cure for rheumatism, and that this rare specific was brought from a distant country in the East, where such animals exist.”—(“The Albert Nyanza,” Sir Samuel Baker, Philadelphia, 1869, p. 372.)

“The Mandingoes of Africa dress abscesses with cow’s dung.”—(See Mungo Park’s “Travels in Africa,” in Pinkerton, vol. xvii. p. 877. See, also, the edition of his works, “Travels in Africa,” New York, etc.)

The author has seen cow-manure plastered with soothing effect upon bee-stings in New Jersey.

“Pro remedio, in pluribus morbis urina fœminæ externe applicata, in eximia estimatione habetur.”—(“The Native Tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, introduction, xvi. See, also, Eyre, “Expedition into Central Australia,” London, 1845, ii. 300.)

“Pilgrim’s Salve. A Sir-Reverence; human excrement.”—(Grose, “Dictionary of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.)

“The medicine-men of the Ove-herero, who live south of Angola (which is on the west coast of Africa), urinate over the sick, in order to cure them.”—(“Muhongo,” interpretation by Rev. Mr. Chatelain.)

The Inuit medicine-man asperses the sick with human urine, “le goupillonne avec de vieilles urines, à l’instar des docteurs à poison bochimans ... les Cambodgiens aspergent également le démon de la petite-vérole avec de l’urine, mais cette urine est celle d’un cheval blanc.”—(Réclus, “Les Primitifs,” p. 98.)

“There are few complaints that the natives do not attempt to cure, either by charms or by specific applications. Of the latter, a very singular one is the application personally of the urine from a female,—a very general remedy, and considered a sovereign one for most disorders.”—(Eyre, “Expedition into Central Australia,” London, 1845, vol. ii. p. 300; contributed by Prof. H. C. Henshaw, Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.)

(See previous references to the therapeutics of the native Australians in this volume.)

“Plasters of mixed grass, butter, and cow-dung were placed on the wounds” of sore-backed animals in Abyssinia.—(“A Visit to Abyssinia,” W. Winstanley, London, 1881, vol. ii. p. 3.)

Cameron employed a native medicine-man, near Lake Tanganyika, to treat one of his men who had injured his eye. “His treatment consisted of a plaster of mud and dirt, and his fee was forty strings of beads.”—(“Across Africa,” London, 1877, vol. i. p. 322. The word “dirt,” as used by Cameron in the above sentence, no doubt means ordure.)

Mr. Stewart Culin, of Philadelphia, Penn., who has been making careful investigations into the Chinese materia medica, states that “frequent directions for the use of urine” are to be seen “among the official remedies in the herbal.” Only a few pages back, reference was had to the use by the Chinese in Batavia of all kinds of excrementitious remedies.[78]

The Reverend Maurice J. Bywater writes from Nassau, Bahamas, that during the seven years he was on missionary duty in the island of Borneo, he witnessed several very curious and remarkable instances of the restorative and stimulating effects of human urine, as used by the Chinese immigrants in cases of accident.

The Coreans use the same system of medicine as the Chinese. Both employ plasters of human excrement for bites, erysipelas, inflammations, etc. They use the urine of a healthy boy as a tonic.—(Dr. H. T. Allen, Secretary of Legation, Corean Embassy, Washington, D. C., 1888.)[79]

Our knowledge of the Thibetans is still so limited that we must not attach too much importance to the little we have so far gained; there is still much to be learned concerning that singular, isolated race.

The strange veneration accorded the excrement of the Grand Lama has been fully discussed, but their sacred books do not show that the employment of stercoraceous medicaments is carried any farther.

According to the translation of the “Pratimoksha Sutra” made by Mr. W. W. Rockhill, sick Buddhist monks were ordered to employ the following remedies: “Le beurre fondu, l’huile, la mélasse, le miel, l’écume de mélasse.”—(“Asiatic Society,” Paris, 1885, p. 22.)

Dr. Francis Parkman, in his “Jesuits in North America,” Boston, 1867, introduction, p. xl., speaks of the “revolting remedies” employed by the Huron, Iroquois, and Algonquin tribes.

The following are among many of the curious recipes given in the “Tragedy of the Gout,” written by Blambeauseant, in 1600:—

“Ther’s the odorous sheep’s dung, given always on the sly.”

“A little blue ointment, mixed with man’s ordure.”

“Virgin’s urine, as a cure for all the men in town.”

(“Medicine in the Middle Ages,” Minor, p. 88.)

Further references can be found in the following list, taken from the “Bibliotheca Scatalogica,” which likewise contains several of those from which citations have already been made.

“Cet emploi des stercora, et en particulier, de ceux de l’homme, pour les usages pharmaceutiques, est très réel. On nommait médecins stercoraires ceux qui les prescrivaient, et on dissimulait l’origine de la substance sous diverses dénominations bizarres ou ridicules (carbon humanum, oletum, sulphur occidentale). Suivant Paracelse, les excréments humains pouvaient par une certaine préparation, acquérir l’odeur du musc et de la civette; de là le nom qu’on leur donnait de civette ou musc occidental.”—(“Bib. Scat.,” p. 29.)

Ganin, De Simplic. Medicament. facultat. lib. x. fol. m. 75, _seq._ “An stercoris usus licitur? Conceditur.”—(No. 200 of the “Bib. Scat.,” p. 77.)

“202. Gufer, Joh. Medicin. domest. tab. 3, p. 11, et Joh. phil. Gieswein, De Mater. Medic. p. 292, imprimis laudant stercus hominis qui lupinos comedit.”—(Idem, p. 78.)

“203. Helvetius, Joh. Freder, Diribitor. med. p. 112, _seq._, recommande le stercus humanum recens et adhuc calidum.”—(Idem.)

Hérodote, lib. ii.; Hésïode, “Opera et Dies.”

Sheep-dung, boiled in milk, recommended for the cure of the whooping cough by the Swedish physician Hjoort, as well as by the French doctor Baumer.—(“Bib. Scat.” p. 78.)

Hoffmann, Fred. annot. in Petr. poter, Pharmacop. Spagyric (lib. i. p. 445), dit que excrementa alvina magnam vim possident.

Homère, Odyssée, lib. vi.—(“Bib. Scat.” p. 78.)

Kircher, Podronus Ægypticus, cap. ult.

Laerce (Diogène) in Pythagor.

Langius (Christ.), Oper. Medic., “regarde les médicaments stercoraux ut res indigna et execrabilis, cependant il en permet l’usage contra desperatissimos morbos” (p. 79).

Lotichus, Johan. De casei nequitiæ, Francof. 1640, “sordidi medicastri et σκατοφάγοι excrementis frui solent; sed homo vero cordatus et bonæ mentis se abstinet” (p. 81).

“M. Gustave Brunet a inséré dans sa traduction des propos de table de Martin Luther” (Paris, 1844, p. 377), “quelques pensées du célèbre réformateur qui appartiennent à notre sujet. L’une roule sur la transformation des excréments en nouveaux aliments; l’autre sur les propriétés de la fiente,” etc. (p. 81).

Macrobii Saturnal. lib. iii.; Martialis, Epigrammata, iv. 88; vii. 18; xii. 40, 77, et ailleurs (p. 81).

Mayern, Theodor. de Prax. Medic. syntagm. alter mêle le stercus à la poudre d’œillets (gilly-flowers).

Menangiana. Paris, 1715, 4 vols. in 12 On trouve dans ce livre divers passages relatifs à notre sujet. Voy. t. 1, pp. 9, 180, 222; t. 2, p. 198; t. 3, p. 239.

Clemens d’Alexandrie, Recogn. lib. v. p. 71.

Denne, Ludovic. Pharmac. dissert. l. p. m. 411, _seq._ “Il blâme l’usage médical des excréments humains” (p. 73).

Diodore de Sicile, lib. i. cap. 8, p. 73.

Damian, P. Opuscula, c. 2, p. 73.

“Praterius, Praxis, lib. iii. p. 330, recommande surtout l’huile et l’eau extraite de stercore humano. Suivant Belleste, Chirurg. d’hôpital, part 3, p. 248, chap. 4, le sel extrait des excréments du malade atteint de dysenterie le guérit.”

Plutarque, Apoph. Laconic., p. 232. Petrus Pharmacop. Spagiric. p. m. 445, regarde le stercus comme pouvant fournir rara et perfecta remedia. Reference is had to the thirteenth chapter of Rabelais “sur les anisterges.” Rivinus (Augustus Quirinus) Censur. Medicament. officinal. cap. 2, p. 10, _et seq._ et 15 _et seq._, “strenue contra stercorum usum pugnat.” There are other old medical authorities cited, some fully, others only partially in favor of the medicinal use of the excreta; and one or two in antagonism thereto.—(“Bib. Scat.” p. 38 _et seq._).

“On a appelé album nigrum les crottes des souris et des rats, jadis employés comme purgatif par les médecins stercoraires. Merde du diable, stercus diaboli, c’est l’assafœtida, espèce de gomme.” (“Bib. Scat.” p. 128. See also Grose, Dict. of Buckish Slang, Lond. 1811, Assafœt.) On the principle of “lucus a non lucendo,” the works of Swieten, “Commentariorum,” etc., Lyons, 1776, are worthy of special mention; careful examination fails to discover any allusion to the use of excreta, human or animal, in pharmacy or therapeutics, and no mention is made of witchcraft. Therefore the works of this author mark a new stage in the development of scientific and religious thought.

In Warner’s “Topographical Remarks relating to the southwestern parts of Hampshire,” 1793 (vol. ii. p. 131), speaking of the old register of Christ Church, that author tells us, “The same register affords, also, several very curious receipts, or modes of cure in some singular cases of indisposition; they are, apparently, of the beginning of the seventeenth century, and couched in the uncouth phraseology of that time.” I forbear, however, to insert them, from motives of delicacy.—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 306, article “Physical Charms.”)

“A new-born babe was not considered fully prepared for life’s journey until its stomach had been filled and emptied by a potation of molasses diluted with the vesical secretions of the first youngster that could be secured for the purpose.”—(“Professional Reminiscences,” Benjamin Eddy Cutting, M. D., Curator of the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., 1888, p. 40.)

OTHER EXCREMENTITIOUS REMEDIES.

It was not enough that the urine and ordure of men and animals should be employed in pharmacy; everything that could be taken from the bodies of men or animals, wild or domesticated, living or dead, was enlisted to swell the dread list of filth remedies.

Etmuller supplies the following list of remedies; “sumuntur ex corpore vivente:” Hair, nails, saliva, ear-wax, sweat, milk, menses, after-birth, urine, ordure, semen, blood, calculi, worms, lice, caul (of infant), ... and these “ex partibus corporis demortui.” ... The whole corpse, flesh, skin, fat, bones, skull, moss growing on a skull, brain, gall, heart. Gall of animals has been used by the Indians of North America as a stimulant. (See Etmuller, Michaelus, “Opera Omnia,” vol. ii. p. 265, Schrod. “Dil. Zoöl.”)

He also recites that the following parts of domestic kine were used in medical practice: horns, bile, liver, spleen, blood, marrow, tallow, fat, hoofs, urine, ordure, testicles, milk, butter, cheese, phallus, and bones.—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 248 _et seq._)

HAIR.

“The first hair cut from an infant’s head will modify the attacks of gout.... The hair of a man torn down from the cross is good for quartan fevers.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap. 7.)

“The smell of a woman’s hair, burnt, will drive away serpents, and hysterical suffocations, it is said, may be dispelled thereby. The ashes of a woman’s hair, burnt in an earthen vessel, will cure eruptions and porrigo of the eyes ... warts and ulcers upon infants ... wounds upon the head ... corrosive ulcers ... inflammatory tumors and gout ... erysipelas and hemorrhages, and itching pimples.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 20.)

Schurig commends the use of human hair in cases of baldness, applied externally in salve, chopped fine or in ashes; for the cure of yellow jaundice, it was powdered and drunk in some suitable menstruum; it was employed in luxation of the joints, for hemorrhage from wounds: “Ad canis morsuum, infantis capilli cum aceto impositu morsum sine tumore sanant et capitis ulcera emendant.”—(Sextus Placitus, art. “De Puello et Puella Virgine.”)

Flemming advised that it be powdered and drunk in wine as a cure for yellow jaundice; woman’s hair, powdered and made into a salve, with lard, was of general efficacy; men’s hair was burned under the nostrils of those suffering from lethargy; and was drunk for “suffocation of the womb.”—(“De Remediis,” etc. p. 8.)

A medicinal oil was distilled from the hair of a full beard, and an ointment made from the same. Powdered human hair was drunk as a potion in a cure for yellow jaundice; the ashes of burnt hair were made into an unguent with mutton tallow, and applied to the nostrils of people in a state of lethargy; in “suffocation of the uterus,” this ointment was applied to the pudenda. The hair of a patient was frequently used in affecting “sympathetic cures,” or in what were called “Cures by Transplantation,” but the names of the diseases are not given by Flemming (p. 21). (But see under “Cures by Transplantation” in this volume.)

In China, the shavings of the hair, which must amount to a considerable quantity, since hundreds of millions of people shave the head close daily, are preserved for manuring the land.—(See “Bingham’s Exped. to China,” London, 1842, vol. ii. p. 7.)

In China, everything connected with the tilling of the fields is still a religious rite. Probably no country in the world of equal advancement has adhered with more tenacity to old usages in all that pertains to the turning-up of the soil; there are ceremonies in which the Emperor himself must lead with a plough. How much all this may have to do with the utilization of a refuse which has been so generally regarded as possessed of “magical” or “medicinal” properties, is, in all likelihood, never to be ascertained; but attention should be attracted to the fact, in the same manner that it was found worth while to make an examination into the history of latrines.

“Among ourselves, it is a Devonshire belief that you can give a neighbor ague by burying a dead man’s hair under his threshold.”—(“Folk-Medicine,” Black, p. 27.)

“In Devonshire and in Scotland alike, when a child has whooping-cough, a hair is taken from its head, put between slices of bread and butter, and given to a dog, and if in eating it the dog cough, as naturally he will, the whooping-cough will be transferred to the animal, and the child will go free.” The same method of cure is practised in Ireland, but the animal selected is an ass.—(Idem, p. 35.)

“Certain oak-trees at Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, were long famous for the cure of ague. The transference was simple, but painful. A lock of hair was pegged into an oak, and then, by a sudden wrench, transferred from the head of the patient to the tree.”—(Idem, p. 39.)

Clippings of hair and rags are offered to holy wells in Ireland, Borneo, Malabar, etc., not merely as offerings to deities, but in order to effect a “transference” of diseases to the people who may take hold of them.—(Idem, pp. 39, 40; quoting from Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” vol. ii., and others.)

“In New England, to cure a child of the rickets, a lock of its hair is buried at cross-roads, and if at full moon, so much the better.”—(Idem, p. 56.)

It is believed in parts of England that the hairs from a donkey’s back, wrapped up in bread, and given to a sick child, will cure the whooping-cough; another remedy of the same kind is to take clippings from the child’s own head, mix them in butter, and give to a dog, which will take the disease from the child; still another was to mount the sufferer upon the back of an ass, and lead him nine times round an oak-tree.—(See Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 288, art. “Physical Charms.”)

The Romans attached certain omens to the manner, time, and place of cutting the nails and hair.—(See Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 5.)

The ancients believed that “no person in a ship must pare his nails, or cut his hair except in a storm.”—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. iii. p. 239, art. “Omens Among Sailors,” quoting Petronius Arbiter.)

“When a man has his hair cut, he is careful to burn it, or bury it secretly, lest falling into the hands of some one who has an evil eye, or is a witch, it should be used as a charm to afflict him with a headache.”—(Livingston, “Zambesi,” London, 1865, p. 47.)

Etmuller relates that in his time women suffering from retention of the menses were in the habit of plucking the hair growing on the pubis, which would promptly cause their reappearance, but whether by the irritation or by taking the hair internally, is not clear:—“Mulieres suffocatæ ex utero soleant vellicare in pilis pubis, ut citius et felicius ad se redeant.” Finger-nail clippings were drunk as an emetic, especially by soldiers while on campaign:—“Ungues infusi in vinum vel potum cum vehementia cient vomitum et purgant per fecessum ... propinavit pro vomitorio et purgante militibus ungues proprios infusos per noctem in vinum calidum.”—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 269.)

“The hair and nails are cut at the full moon.”—(Grimm, “Teutonic Mythology,” Stallybrass, London, 1882, vol. ii, p. 712 _et seq._)

The Patagonians “all believe that the witches and wizards can injure whom they choose, even to deprivation of life, if they can possess themselves of some part of their intended victim’s body, or that which has proceeded thence, such as hair, pieces of nails, etc.... And this superstition is the more curious from its exact accordance with that so prevalent in Polynesia.”—(“Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle,” London, 1839, vol. ii. p. 163, quoting the Jesuit Faulkner.)

“Which is the most deadly deed whereby a man increases most the baleful strength of the Dævas, as he would by offering them a sacrifice?”

“Ahura Mazda answered:—‘It is when a man here below combing his hair or shaving it off, or paring off his nails, drops them in a hole or in a crack.’”—(Fargard XVII. Avendidad, Zendavesta, Oxford, 1880, p. 186.)

Beckherius states that the clippings of the finger-nails made an excellent emetic. “Vomitorium non inelegans ex iis paratur.”—(“Med. Mic.”)

Flemming goes more into detail; he says that the finely ground clippings of the hoof of the elk, stag, goat, hull, etc., were employed as a vomitory, but in their absence, human finger-nails were substituted; “istam ungulorum speciem quæ ab homine desumitur, substitui.” Human finger-nail clippings were also recommended in “sympathetic” cures.—(Flemming, “De Remediis,” p. 21.)

“He who trims his nails and buries the parings is a pious man; he who burns them is a righteous man; but he who throws them away is a wicked man, for mischance might follow should a female step over them.”—(Paul Isaac Hershon, “Talmudic Miscellany,” Boston, 1880, p. 49; footnote to above, “The orthodox Jews in Poland are to this day careful to bury away or burn their nail-parings.”)

On a fragment of a Chaldean tablet occurs this curious passage:—

“A son to his mother,
(if) he has said to her, Thou art not my mother
His hair and nails shall be cut off,
In the town he shall be banished from land and water.”

(“Chaldean Magic,” François Lenormant, London, 1873, p. 382.)

In the province of Moray, Scotland, “In hectic fevers and consumptive diseases they pare the nails of the fingers and toes of the patient, put these in a bag made of a rag from his clothes, ... then wave their hand with the rag thrice round his head, crying ‘Deas Soil,’ after which they bury the rag in some unknown place.” Pliny, in his Natural History, mentions it as practised by the magicians or Druids of his time.—(Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. iii. p. 286, art. “Physical Charms.”)

SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH THE HUMAN SALIVA.

The most recent work on this subject is the extended monograph of Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, now in press, and to the pages of which the author of this volume has contributed his own collection of data.

Reference may also be had, with advantage, to Brand’s Popular Antiquities, Reginald Scot’s “Discoverie of Witchcraft,” Black’s “Folk-Medicine,” Samuel Augustus Flemming’s “De Remediis ex Corpore Humano desumtis,” Lenormant’s “La Magie chez les Chaldéens,” and to the works of Pliny, Galen, “Saxon Leechdoms,” Levinus Lemnius, Beckherius, Etmuller, and many others.

John Graham Dalyell, “Superstitions of Scotland,” Edinburgh, 1834, has a chapter on the occult influences attributed to human saliva. When the Khonds of Orissa were about to sacrifice a human victim, they were wont to solicit the favor of having him spit in their faces; “sollicitent un crachat qu’ils s’étendront soigneusement.”—(“Les Primitifs,” Réclus, p. 368.)

In the ritual of the Hill Tribes of the Nilgherris, it is related:—

“Mada a craché dans les fontaines.”

(Quoted in “Les Primitifs,” p. 244.)

Frommann, in his “Tractatus de Fascinatione,” Nuremburg, 1675, speaks of the anointing of eyes with saliva, to cure blindness; this he compares to the use made by our Saviour of the same (p. 196).

“The Kirghis tribes apply to their sorcerers, or Baksy, to chase away demons, and thus to cure the diseases they are supposed to produce. To this end they whip the invalid until the blood comes, and then spit in his face.”—(“Chaldean Magic,” François Lenormant, London, 1873, p. 212.)

Many interesting practices connected with the human saliva, are given in Lady Wilde’s “Ancient Legends and Superstitions of Ireland,” Boston, 1888. See also “The Golden Bough,” James G. Frazer, M.A., London, 1890, vol. i. pp. 385, 386.

CERUMEN OR EAR-WAX.

Pliny speaks of its use in medicine (lib. xxviii. cap. 7); Galen does also. Flemming recommended its internal use in colic and cramps; and externally as an application to wounds.—(“De Remediis,” etc., p. 22.)

Paullini was of the opinion that a good salve for sore eyes could be prepared from cerumen (pp. 42, 43).

“The excrement of the ears, like unto a yellow oyntment, is a great comfort in the pricking of the sinews.”—(Von Helmont, “Oritrika,” English translation, London, 1662, p. 247.)

Galen thought that ear-wax was efficacious in the cure of whit-nails; the other “sordes” were also employed, but he would not write about them, on account of the difficulty of obtaining them,—such as the perspiration flowing in the bath, or scraped from the body after severe exercise; and, finally, the fatty matter of wool was of medicinal value, and seemed to have the same properties as butter.—(Galen, “Opera Omnia,” lib. xii. p. 309, Kuhn’s edition, Leipzig, 1829.)

WOMAN’S MILK.

Woman’s milk mitigated redness of eyes and inflammation of the lachrymal glands; it should be used with vitriol. For “gutta serena” it was applied as an ointment; in cases of atrophy it was regarded by many as of commendable utility, especially if drawn from the woman’s breast; the same treatment was a specific in obstinate hiccough.

A butter prepared from woman’s milk was used in diseases of children, especially colic, and in ocular affections. (See Flemming, “De Remediis,” etc., p. 18.) Its remedial efficacy forms the basis of Pliny’s c. 21, lib. xxviii.; if possible, it should be that of a woman who had just borne male twins. “If a person is rubbed at the same time with the milk of both mother and daughter, he will be proof for all the rest of his life against all affections of the eyes.... Mixed with the urine of a youth who has not yet arrived at puberty, it removes ringing in the ears.”—(Idem.)

“Matricis vulneribus confert ... lac mulieris.”—(Avicenna, vol. i. p. 337, a 36.)

The Empress of China took the milk of sixty wet nurses to keep herself alive, according to Mr. Frank G. Carpenter.

Woman’s milk is still used in the rude trephining of the African Kabyles as a dressing.—(See “Prehistoric Trephining,” by Dr. Robert Fletcher, in vol. v. “Contributions to North American Ethnology,” Washington, D. C., 1882.)

HUMAN SWEAT.

Human perspiration was believed to be valuable not only as a means of prognosis in some diseases, but its appearance was dreaded in others. If the perspiration of a fever-stricken patient was mixed with dough, baked into bread, and given to a dog, the dog would catch the fever, and the man recover. It was efficacious in driving away scrofulous wens, and in rendering philters abortive. It was narrated that if a man, who under the influence of a philter, was forced to love a girl against his will, would put on a pair of new shoes, and wear them out by walking in them, and then drink wine out of the right shoe, where it could mingle with the perspiration already there, he would promptly be cured of his love, and hate take its place.

This corresponds closely to the urine case already noted; and it is proper to repeat Flemming’s own words on the matter: “Narrant quod, si quis philtro fascinatus era fuerit, ad amandam præter voluntatem virginem, ut is noves induat calces, miliareque unum obambulando conficiat, quo sudor animadvertatur postque vinum e calceo dextri pedis sudore madido, hauriat, sic ab illicito amore liberari amoremque in odium converti dicunt.”—(“De Remediis,” p. 19.)

See Etmuller, who used it in scrofula, lib. ii. p. 265; Pliny, lib. 28; Galen and Avicenna (sweat of gladiators), vol. i. p. 398, a 17, and elsewhere.

SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH THE CATAMENIAL FLUID.

For the opinions entertained by the ancients regarding its occult powers, read Pliny (Bohn’s edition), lib. xxviii. cap. 23, and again lib. viii. cap. 13. “On the approach of a woman in this state, must will become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grafts wither away, garden-plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she sits; ... a swarm of bees if looked upon by her will die immediately, brass and iron will immediately become rusty.... Dogs tasting the catamenial fluid will go mad.... In addition to this, the bitumen which is found at certain periods of the year floating on the Lake of Judea, known as Asphaltites,—a substance which is peculiarly tenacious, and adheres to everything it touches,—can only be divided into separate pieces by a thread which has been dipped into this virulent matter.” (Lib. vii. cap. 13, and again lib. xxviii. cap. 23.) In a footnote it is stated that both Josephus (“Bell. Jud.,” lib. iv. cap. 9) and Tacitus (lib. v. cap. 6) give an account of this supposed action of this fluid on the bitumen of Lake Asphaltites. “Hail-storms, they say, whirl-winds, and lightning even, will be scared away by a woman uncovering her body merely, even though menstruating at the time.” (Lib. xxviii. cap. 23.) Menstruating women, in Cappadocia, perambulated the fields of grain to preserve them from worms and caterpillars. (Idem.) “Young vines, too, it is said, are injured irremediably by the touch of a woman in this state; and both rue and ivy plants, possessed of highly medicinal virtues, will die instantly upon being touched by her.... The edge of a razor will become blunted on coming in contact with her.”—(Idem.)

“All plants will turn pale upon the approach of a woman who has the menstrual discharge upon her.” (Pliny, lib. xix. cap. 57.) The same opinion prevailed in France down to our own times. (Idem, footnote.)

“Expiations were made with the menstrual discharge, ... not only by midwives, but even by harlots as well” (lib. xxviii. cap. 20).

Frommann cites Aristotle and Pliny in reference to the maleficent effects of the menses and of the uncanniness of a menstruating woman. Aristotle said her glance took the polish out of a mirror, and the next person looking into it would be bewitched. Frommann quotes a man who said he saw a tree in Goa which had withered because a catamenial napkin had been hung in it.—(“Tractatus de Fascinatione,” Nuremburg, 1675, pp. 17, 18.)

“Stains upon a garment made with the catamenial fluid can only be removed by the agency of the urine of the same female.”—(Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap. 24.)

“An Australian black fellow who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket at her menstrual period, killed her, and died of terror himself within a fortnight. Hence Australian women at these times are forbidden under pain of death to touch anything that men use.” (“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 170. He supplies other examples from the Eskimo and the Indians of North America. “Tinneh,” etc., p. 170.) In the following example we are not certain that the young women selected were undergoing purgation, but there is some reason for believing that such was the case, especially in view of the general dissemination of the ideas connected with the catamenia. “In a district of Transylvania, when the ground is parched with drought, some girls strip themselves naked, and, led by an older woman, who is also naked, they steal a harrow and carry it across the field to a brook, where they set it afloat. Next they sit on the harrow, and keep a tiny flame burning on each corner of it for an hour; then they leave the harrow and go home. A similar rain-charm is resorted to in India; naked women drag a plough across the field by night.”—(“The Golden Bough,” Frazer, vol. i. p. 17.)

For all bites of centipedes the people of Angola, Portuguese and negroes, apply the catamenial fluid. This remedy is implicitly believed in by all concerned.—(Rev. Mr. Chatelain, missionary to Angola, Africa.)

For the Inuit, see “Les Primitifs,” Réclus, Paris, 1885.

The dread felt by the American Indians on this subject is too well known to need much attention in these pages; it corresponds in every respect to the particulars recited by Pliny. Squaws, at the time of menstrual purgation, are obliged to seclude themselves; in most tribes they are compelled to occupy isolated lodges; and in all are forbidden to prepare food for any one but themselves.

It is believed that were a menstruating woman to step astride of a rifle or a bow or a lance, the weapon would have no further utility. Medicine-men are in the habit of making a saving clause, whenever they proceed to make “medicine;” this is to the effect that the “medicine” will be all right provided no woman in this peculiar condition be allowed to approach the tent or lodge of the officiating charlatan.

Among the Navajoes of Arizona it is customary for the women to wear a strip of sheep-skin, called a “chogan;” when the necessity for its use has disappeared, the woman goes outside of the village and conceals it in the forks of one of the cedar or juniper trees so numerous in the mountains. The author once found one of these; but the people with him were impressed with the idea that no good would come from being near it. At another time he knew of a young boy who had been hit by a “chogan” which had been dislodged by a wind-storm. He was almost frantic with terror, and devoted three or four days to singing and to washing in a “sweat-bath.”

The Ostiaks of Siberia would seem to have the same ideas on this subject as the Apaches and Navajoes have.—(See Pallas, “Voyages,” vol. iv. p. 95.)

Danielus Beckherius informs his readers that menstrual blood was used in medicine (pp. 23 _et seq._); philters were prepared from it (idem, p. 341). “Zenith juvencarum sc. sanguines menstruum” were given for epilepsy,—that is, the first menses of a girl (idem, p. 42). The lint of the napkin itself was thus given also (idem),—“litura pannorum menstruorum datur patienti sanari morbum comitialium.” The first napkin used by a healthy virgin was preserved for use in cases of plague, malignant carbuncles, etc., dampened with water and laid on the part affected; also used in erysipelas (idem, p. 43, “Med. Microcosmus”). Dried catamenia were given internally for calculi, epilepsy, etc., and externally for podagra; they were also used in treatment of the plague, for carbuncles, aposthumes, being placed thereon with a rag wet with rosewater or oil, into which menstrual fluid had been poured; it was good as a cosmetic to drive away pimples (p. 265).

To restrain an immoderate flow of the menses a napkin was saturated with menstrual blood, and then kept for a certain time in an aperture made in the bark of a cherry-tree. “Ad immodicum menstruorum fluxum cohibendum sunt qui pannum menstruum sanguine imbutum certo tempore cerasi radice in cortice apertæ indunt, incisuramque iterum operiunt.”—(Etmuller, “Op. Omnia;” Schrod. “Dil. Zoöl.,” vol. ii. p. 265.)

Paullini prescribes the “dried catamenia of women” for the cure of kidney diseases (pp. 142, 143), also for ring-worm, felons, menstrual troubles. Frommann gives the same cure for immoderate menses, by placing the napkin in a cherry-tree.—(See “Tract. de Fascinatione,” p. 1006.)

“Excoriationi conferunt ... sanguis menstruus.”—(Avicenna, vol. i. p. 388.)

According to Flemming, menstrual blood was believed to be so powerful that the mere touch of a menstruating woman would render vines and all kinds of fruit-trees sterile (herein he seems to be following Pliny). It was believed to be valuable medicinally in relieving obstructions to the menstrual flow of other women; even the soiled smock of a woman who had menstruated happily was efficacious in assisting another woman whose menses for any cause were retarded. A small portion of the menses, dried and taken internally, mitigated the ailment known as dysmenorrhœa. Flemming states that, while in his time this remedy had been gradually superseded, its use was still kept up among the poor and ignorant, in erysipelas, face-blotches, and as an ingredient in an ointment for podagra or gout.—(“De Remediis,” pp. 16, 17.)

The Laplanders “say that they can stop a vessel in the middle of its course, and that the only remedy against the power of this charm is the sprinkling of female purgations, the odor of which is insupportable to evil spirits.”—(“Regnard’s Journey to Lapland,” in Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 180.)

“To cure a young woman of consumption she was given monthly discharges to drink.”—(“Dutchess County, New York,” 1832, Mr. Joseph Y. Bergen, Jr., Cambridge, Mass.)

Isaiah compareth our justice “panno menstruatæ.”—(Harington, “Ajax,” p. 24.)

“Crines fœminæ menstruosæ, the haires of a menstruous woman are turned into serpents within short space.”—(Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 221.)

“Men have a special objection to see the blood of women at certain times; they say that if they were to see it they would not be able to fight against their enemies and would be killed.” (Mrs. James Smith, “The Roandik Tribes,” p. 5.) Hence, although bleeding is a common Australian cure among men, women are not allowed to be bled. (Angas, vol. i. p. 3.) “This aversion is perhaps the explanation of that seclusion of women at puberty, childbirth, etc., which has assumed different forms in many parts of the world.”—(“Totemism,” Frazer, p. 54, footnote.)

Old women were suspected of using the first menstrual flow of a young girl in love-philters.—(Samuel Augustus Flemming, “De Remediis.”)

“For colic take the scrapings of the nails of a catamenial virgin, mix with water, and take.”—(Sagen-Märchen, Volksaberglauben aus Schwaben, Freiburg, 1861, p. 487.)

There were many curious ideas prevalent in olden times as to the manner in which the basilisk or cockatrice could be engendered. “Si l’on place dans une gourde de verre du sang menstruel, et si l’on fait putréfier celui-ci dans le ventre d’un cheval, il en naît un basilic.”—(“Mélusine,” Paris, January-February, 1890, p. 19.)

Although the Israelites had many notions in common with the American Indians on the subject of the catamenial fluid, and the seclusion of women undergoing purgation, there does not seem to have been any effort made to preserve or to hide the cloths used on such occasions. Thus the Prophet Isaiah (lxiv. 6) says of the idols of the Gentiles that they must be cast aside as the napkins soiled with the menses. “Hoc est disperges ea (de idolis loquitur) sicut immunditionem menstruatæ.”—(Contributed by Doctor Robert Fletcher.)

References to use of the catamenial fluid in witchcraft will be found in Beckherius, quoting Josephus:

“Hiawatha, wise and thoughtful,
You shall bless to-night the corn-fields,
Draw a magic circle round them,
To protect them from destruction.

“Rise up from your bed in silence,
Lay aside your garments wholly,
Walk around the fields you planted,

“Covered with your tresses only,
Robed with darkness as a garment.”

(“Hiawatha,” Longfellow, canto xiii., “Blessing the Corn-Fields.”)

Menstruating women were excluded from the Jewish synagogues and from the communion table of the early Christian Church: “Menstruatæ mulieres superstitiose exclusæ ab ecclesia.”—(Baronius, “Annales,” Lucca, 1758, tome 3, 266, xi.)

AFTER-BIRTH AND LOCHIÆ.

Both of these were used medicinally; the lochiæ were useful in restraining uterine hemorrhages; after-birth, dried and powdered, deprived love-philters of their power; it was used as an anti-epileptic, to relieve retention of the menses, etc. (See Flemming, “De Remediis,” p. 17.) Secundines were used in the treatment of epilepsy.—(See Etmuller, vol ii. p. 265).

HUMAN SEMEN.

Etmuller knew nothing of the remedial value of human semen beyond the fact that Paracelsus had recommended its use in some cases (vol. ii. p. 272).

Pliny mentions the use of human semen as a medicine (lib. xxviii. c. 10).

The savage Australians have “a last and most disgusting remedy ... deemed infallible in the most extreme cases.... ‘Mulierem ob juventutem firmitatemque corporis lectam sex vel plures viri in locum haud procul a castris remotum deducant. Ibique omnes deinceps in illa libidinem explent. Tum mulier ad pedes surgere jubetur quo facilius id quod maribus excepit effluere possit. Quod in vase collectum ægrotanti ebibendum præbent.’ The aborigines have unbounded faith in this truly horrible dose, and enumerate many, many instances where it has effected marvellous cures. We, however, have known of its having been administered in several cases without the remotest revivifying result. It may be that this fluid is—in fact some savants positively assert that it is so—the very essence of life, as well as containing the germs thereof, and that administering a draught thereof to a patient slowly but surely dying from exhaustion, consequent upon a long fit of illness (the illness itself having died out or been cured) might have the wonderful effect detailed so positively by the natives; but this is a question for physicians to decide.”—(“The Abor. of Victoria and Riverina,” Melbourne, 1889, p. 55, P. Beveridge, received through the kindness of the Royal Soc., Sydney, N. S. Wales, F. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)

“Impetigine conferunt ... sperma.”—(Avicenna, vol. i. p. 330, a 10.)

For gout Avicenna prescribed “Sanguis menstruus,” “Sperma hominis” (vol. i. p. 330, a 12; idem, a 13); “Sanguis menstruus calidus” (vol. i. p. 388, b 9); also “Stercus caprarum” (vol. i. p. 390, a 13). Consult also what has been said of this secretion under “Love-philters.”

HUMAN BLOOD.

The medicinal employment of human blood is described by Pliny (lib. xxviii. cap. 105).

Beckherius says that human blood was employed in the treatment of epilepsy. Faustina, the wife of the philosophical emperor, Marcus Antoninus, anxious to have a child, drank the warm blood of a dying gladiator, and then shared her husband’s bed, and at once became pregnant, and brought forth the cruel Commodus. Human blood was also used in effecting “sympathetic cures.”—(“Medic. Microcos.” pp. 122, 128.)

But it was essential that the human blood so employed should be pure and undefiled; lovers who wished to increase the affection of their mistresses, were recommended to try an infusion of their own blood into the loved one’s veins. The blood of man and also that of some animals, notably the dog, sheep, etc., were employed in mania, delirium, cancer, etc. The method of transfusion was preferred. Epileptics would sometimes drink a draught of the warm blood caught gushing from the neck of a decapitated criminal; the blood of a man, just decapitated, drunk warm, cured epilepsy and restrained uterine hemorrhage.—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 272.)

Grimm alludes to the fact that the blood of innocent maids and boys was used as a remedy for leprosy; that of malefactors, in epilepsy.—(“Teut. Mythol.” vol. iii. p. 1173.)

See the discussion of this matter under the caption of “Human Skulls.” Consult the work “Blood-Covenant,” by Dr. H. C. Trumbull.

In regard to the conduct of the empress Faustina, see “History of the Inquisition,” Henry C. Lea, N. Y. 1889, vol. iii. p. 391.

HUMAN SKIN, FLESH, AND TALLOW.

Girdles of human skin were regarded as efficacious in helping women in labor; Etmuller, in his “Comment. Ludovic.” disapproves of their use, but, in another part of his works, describes how and for what purposes they were to be employed.

“Corium humanum et ex inde paratum cingulum magni est usu in suffocatione uterina arcenda, uti etiam in pellendo fœto mortuo, item in partu difficile” (vol. ii. p. 272).

References to such girdles or belts, called “cingulæ” or “chirothecæ” are to be found in the writings of Samuel Augustus Flemming and others.

Human flesh, of corpses, was administered under the name of “Mummy.” (See Beckherius, “Med. Microcos.” p. 263 _et seq._) He enumerates no less than fifty prescriptions for all sorts of ailments. The “mummy” should be from a malefactor, hanged on a gibbet, never buried, and the age should have been between 25 and 40, of good constitution, without organic or other diseases, and gathered in clear weather.

Human flesh occurs in recipes in “The Chyrurgeon’s Closet,” London, 1632, pp. 6, 53.

Andrew Lang refers to the use of “mummy powder” by the physicians of the Court of Charles II.—(“Myth,” etc. vol. i. p. 96.)

Human tallow was employed in medicine, rendered from the skin and other parts. It was regarded as efficacious in eradicating small-pox pustules, while an “oleum Philosophorum” was distilled from it and held in high repute for tumors, catarrhal troubles, affections of the ear, etc.—(Flemming, “De Remediis,” p. 9.)

Human flesh “mumia,” was recommended in the preparation of the best “Paracelsus salve.... Recommended for cure of bruises and against congealed blood.... Most excellent and most approved medicines.”

HUMAN SKULL.—BRAIN.—MOSS GROWING ON HUMAN SKULL.—MOSS GROWING ON STATUE.—LICE.

Democritus thought, in his Memoirs, quoted by Pliny, that “the skull of a malefactor is most efficacious.... While, for the treatment of others, that of one who has been a friend or guest is required.” (Pliny, lib. xxviii. c. 2.) ... “Skull of a man who has been slain,” and “whose body remains unburnt.... Skull of a man who has been hanged.”—(Idem.)

“Xenocrates, who, says Galen, flourished two generations or sixty years before him, writes with an air of confidence on the good effects to be obtained by eating of the human brain, flesh, or liver; by swallowing in drink the burnt or unburnt bones of the head, shin, or fingers of a man, or the blood.”—(“Saxon Leechdoms,” lib. i. p. 18.)

“Against a boring worm ... burn to ashes a man’s head-bone or skull; put it on with a pipe.”—(Idem, vol. ii. p. 127, article “Leech Book.”)

Paracelsus gives the recipe for distilling “The Oyle of the Skull of a Man.... Take the skull of a man that was never buried, and beate it into powder.” (“The Secrets of Physicke,” Theophrastus Paracelsus, Eng. transl. London, 1633, p. 97.) “The dose is three grains against the falling sickness.”—(Idem.)

Schurig notes that the human skull is a remedy for the falling sickness.—(See “Chylologia.”)

The skull of a man was used for diseases of men; that of a woman, for diseases of women.—(See “Rare Secrets in Physicke,” collected by the Comtesse of Kent, London, 1654, p. 3.)

Beckherius prescribed it in cephalic affections, epilepsy, paralysis, apoplexy, vertigo, etc., taken in powder, or raw, simply or in combination.—(“Medicus Microcosmus,” p. 199 _et seq._)

But the skull was, preferentially, “Cranii humani nunquam sepulti” (p. 217); or, “Cranii humani violenter mortui” (p. 266). Moss from such a skull was also used medicinally (idem, p. 237). If possible, it should be that of a man who had been executed on a scaffold, “patibula.”