Turner’s Cerate.
Daniel Turner, M.D., the inventor of Turner’s Cerate, which appeared in several Pharmacopœias as Ceratum Calaminæ, was at first a surgeon in London, but was admitted a Licentiate of the College of Physicians in 1711, and practised in Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate. In William Munk’s Roll of the Royal College of Physicians an opinion of him is quoted that he was too fond of displaying his talents upon paper; the result being that he published many volumes which are now forgotten. (A commentary which might be made on most other authors.) It is also said of him that his cases were not stated in the most delicate terms, nor was politeness among his excellences. As several of his works were about syphilis it may be that his style was merely perspicuous. He wrote comments on Dover’s “Ancient Physician” and on Mr. Ward’s Pill and Drop. His biographer, however, quotes from him with approval a pious exhortation to physicians not to be ashamed to avow their religious principles even if they kept their politics to themselves. “It can be no disgrace,” he wrote, “for a physician who owns himself to be no more than Nature’s minister to acknowledge himself also the servant of Nature’s Master.”
Turner’s original formula for his Ceratum de Lapide Calaminari was to melt together 3½ lb. of freshly made unsalted butter, 3½ lb. of the best yellow wax, and 4 lb. of pure and newly-prepared olive oil. These when melted to be strained through a linen cloth, and while cooling, 3 lb. 10 oz. of the best calamine stone, “sufficiently triturated and passed through a Sierce,” to be sprinkled into the mixture with constant stirring till it sets.
Turner’s comments on this cerate are worth quoting, because they incidentally illustrate the pharmacy of the period. He says:—
“As I have had ample experience of this cerate, I may be allow’d, I hope, to judge of its singular properties and good effects in all cutaneous ulcerations and excoriations either from scalding, burning, or fretting of the said parts by means of salt, acrid, or sharp humours; upon which accounts, not straining a tittle beyond its deserved euology, I am bold to affirm it will do more in all these superficial hurts of the body than either Unguentum Tutiae, Diapompholyx, Nutritum, Desiccativum Rubrum, Rosatum, or all the epuletic medicines now in use; and for which cause I can, for the public benefit, sincerely recommend it to all the professors of the art; and do wish that the Apothecaries would keep it made up in their shops, to deliver, at a suitable price, to indigent or poor people, instead of their ridiculous Locatellus’s Balsam, and other improper medicines which they call for ignorantly to heal their skin-deep maladies. I know the medicine has been imitated by several, and I have seen somewhat like it in some gentlemen’s salvatories; but I know not more than two persons I ever communicated it to, as I was wont to prepare it for my own use. The medicine thus prepared is of a good consistence and a true cerate, serving both for pledget or plaister, neither sticking troublesomely, nor running off or about by the heat of the parts; but keeping its body and performing things incredible. Whoever thinks fit to take it into practice will never repent it, nor perhaps (when he has experienced it as I have done) think I have said too much in its Commendation. This is the medicine I have so often taken notice of, which, that I might contribute my mite to the Surgeon’s Treasure of Medicine, I here have publish’d, and leave it to take its fate.”
The other preparations to which Dr. Turner refers as being at that time in public demand may be briefly noted. Tutty was another impure oxide of zinc generally containing some oxide of lead or copper. It was obtained from the flues of smelting furnaces where zinc ores were purified. Tutty was so called from an Arabic or Persian name given to zinc, or to a zinc and tin bronze imported from China and used as a gong metal by the Chinese. The tutty ointment was properly made up with viper’s fat. Pompholyx was one of the names given to oxide of zinc prepared by combustion. It was a Greek word meaning a bubble in melted metal, from pomphos, a blister. Unguentum Diapompholyx contained besides the flowers of zinc, white lead, the juice of nightshade berries, and frankincense. Unguentum Nutritum was an acetate of lead ointment. Unguentum Desiccativum Rubrum was compounded from litharge, bole armeniac, calamine, and camphor. Unguentum Rosatum was similar to cold cream.
XXI
NOTED NOSTRUMS
From powerful causes spring the empiric’s gains,
Man’s love of life, his weakness, and his pains;
These first induce him the vile trash to try,
Then lend his name that other men may buy.
Crabbe:—The Borough.