Methodus medendi : a sketch of the development of therapeutics / by Sir William Henry Allchin.

  • Allchin, William Henry, Sir, 1846-1911.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Methodus medendi : a sketch of the development of therapeutics / by Sir William Henry Allchin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    41/94 (page 37)
    Sir Thomas Browne remarks, in “ Ilydriotapliia ” (1658); “Egyptian mummies, which Caml)yHt's anti time hatli spared, avarice now eonsumetli. Mummy is become mercliandise. ]\Iizraim cures wounds and Pharaoh is sold lor balsam.” Nor has the Hesh cut from living persons been disregarded as a remedy, but it may be observed that the eating of human flesh and drinking human blood—the latter a most widely-spread practice among many nations and over many ages—for curative purposes has also to be considered from the point of view as a means whereby individuals were thus supposed to ac<piire stich characteristics as courage, strength, ferocity, and the like possessed by those from whom the materials were derived. And, furthei-, it is to be remembered that even among cannibal races at the present day the consumption of the flesh and particular parts of their victims is often less for the purposes of satisfying hunger than with the idea of l)ecoming hardier and braver in conse(iueiice, or even, as suggested, in the belief that the organ eaten contains “some portion of the tribe-life or spirit of his enemy, which, when devoured, helps to build his own tribe-soul, and that cannibals cat to take in soul or life, and only secondarily to ac(|uirc specific ’ virtues such as courage.* Blood as a therapeiitic agent was specially I'ecommended for epilepsy so long ago as the days of Pliny, and in the fourteenth century and onwards references are also made in medical wi'itings to the use of products distilled from blood, though what they wei’e is not very evident. As an external application, blood was employed for leprosy and other skin affections, t •An ointment used for hypochondriacal persons, known as balsam of bats, and commended by His Majesty’s ph}’’siciaii. Dr. Thomas Sherley (1688-1()78), had in its composition the flesh of adders, bats, and sucking whelps, earthworms, hogs’ grease, stags’ marrow, and the thigh bone of an ox, among other things, and is a fair .sample of the pharmacy of the period. Dr. Bulle}m, one of the most distinguished physicians of the Elizabethan era, and author of the famous “Book of Simples” (f559), pre.scribcd “a .smal young mouse rested ” for a child suffering from some nervous malady. “ For the falling sickness,” it was recommended by another phy.sician, “ take the harte of a toad and drie it and beate it to powder, then drink with what drink you will.” “ For ye green sickness, take earthwoT-ms, open them, wash them clean, drye them in an oven, and beat them to powder: give two sponefulls in white wine in ye morning.” * Thn Lancet, October “20th, 1906, p. 1087. t “ Arnold dc Villanova on tho Therapeutic Use of Human Blood,” by Dr. J. E. Payne, Janus, 1903.