A concise historical sketch of the progress of pharmacy in Great Britain : from the time of its partial separation from the practice of medicine until the establishment of the Pharmaceutical society. Intended as an introduction to the Pharmaceutical journal / By Jacob Bell.

  • Jacob Bell
Date:
1843
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A concise historical sketch of the progress of pharmacy in Great Britain : from the time of its partial separation from the practice of medicine until the establishment of the Pharmaceutical society. Intended as an introduction to the Pharmaceutical journal / By Jacob Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    CULPEPER9 TRANSLATION OF THE PHARMACOPEIA. empirical nostrums, or heterogeneous mixtures of substances, some of which neutralized others, and which were selected without any reference to scientific principles. One of the most striking instances of this practice is to be found in the Mithridate, which was a compound of seventy-two ingredients; and in looking over the ancient works on Pharmacy, a great variety of ridicul- ous formulas present the same peculiarity. The science of Che- mistry was so little advanced, that the real composition of ordinary remedies was seldom understood, and in many cases different virtues were attributed to the same substance, accord- ing to the source from whence it was obtained. Thus crab's eyes, prepared pearls, oystershells, and burnt hartshorn, were severally recommended as specifics in certain cases, the qualities of these remedies being supposed to be essentially different. Snails, vipers, the urine of men and animals, calculous concre- tions, various portions of criminals, as the thigh bone of a hanged man, and many other equally absurd remedies, were extolled as specifics for a variety of disorders. Culpeper, in his translation of the Pharmacopoeia (1653), lidicules the catalogue of remedies derived from the animal kingdom, which were at that time enumerated in the Pharmaco- poeia of the college. The following is a portion of a list which will serve as a specimen, with Culpeper's remarks in parentheses. The fat, grease, or suet of a duck, goose, eel, bore, heron, thjmallos (if you know where to get it), dog, capon, bever, wild cat, stor/i, hedgehog, hen, man, lyon, hare, kite, or jack (if they have any fat, I am pursuaded 'tis worth twelve-pence the grain), wolf, mouse of the mountains (If you can catch them), pardal, hog, serpent, badger, bear, fox, vultur (if you can catch them), album Gracum, east and west benzoar, stone taken out of a 'man's bladder, viper's flesh, the brain of hares and sparrows, the rennet of a lamb, kid, hare, and a calf and a horse too (quoth the colledg.) [They should have put the rennet of an ass to make medicine for their addle brains.] The excrement of a goose, of a dog, of a goat, of pidgeons, of a stone horse, of swalloics, of men, of women, of mice, of peacocks, Sfc. Sfc. Although Culpeper abuses the college for inserting this absurd catalogue of remedies in their Pharmacopoeia, he is not free from superstition himself, as he tells us, that Bees being burnt to ashes, and a ly made with the ashes trimly decks a bald head, being washed with it. He also extols snails, as a cure for con- sumption, but blames the college for directing the slime to be separated from them with salt or bran before they are used, and supports his opinion by saying, that Man being made of the slime of the earth, the slimy substance recovers him when he is wasted. In describing verbena he says, It is hot and dry, a great opener, cleanser, and healer, it helps the yellow jaundice, defects in the reins and bladder, and pains in the head, if it be but bruised and hung about the neck.