MISCELLANEOUS.
Marco Polo mentions that in the province of Carazan (Khorassan?), the common sort of people carried poison about their persons, so that if taken prisoners by the Tartars, they might commit suicide; but the Tartars compelled them to swallow dog’s dung as an antidote.—(See Marco Polo, in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 143.)
“In cases of sickness, the Eskimo of Cumberland Sound are not allowed to clean their chambers before sunrise.”—(“The Central Eskimo,” Boas, p. 593.)
The writings of the best medical authorities for the first two centuries after the discovery of the art of printing teem with copious dissertations upon the value of these medicaments in all diseases, and as potent means of frustrating the maleficence of witches; the best of these writings will be selected and arranged in chronological order.
“A dram of a shepe’s tyrdle,
And good Saint Francis gyrdle,
With the hamlet of a hyrdle,
Are wholsom for the pyppe.”
(Brand, “Pop. Ant.” vol. iii. p. 311,
art. “Rural Charms,” quoting Bale,
“Interlude concerning the Laws of
Nature, Moses, and Christ.”
4to. 1562.)
“An oyle drawne out of the excrements of Chyldren” and “An Oyle drawne out of Manne’s Ordure,” described as medicines in the “Newe Jewell of Health,” by George Baker, Chirurgeon, London, 1576 (Black Letter), pp. 171, 172, was prescribed for fistula and several other ailments.
“Water distilled from Manne’s Ordure” was given internally for the falling sickness, dropsy, etc.... There was also an “Oyle drawne out of the Excrements of Chyldren,” as well as one from “Manne’s Ordure” (see “Doctor Gesnerus, faithfully Englished,” p. 76). In the same work we read of “Water of Doue’s dung ... which helpeth the stone” when taken internally.—(Idem p. 77.)
Paracelsus seems to be entitled to more credit than is generally accorded him; he was a chemist, in the early stages of that science, groping in the dark, but he was not the mere quack so many are anxious to make him out to have been. He condemns the old practice of medicine:—“The olde Physitians made very many medicines of most filthy things, as of the filth of the eares, sweat of the body, of women’s menstrues (and that which it is horrible to be spoken), of the Dung of man and other beastes, spittle, urine, flies, mice, the ashes of an owle’s head, etc.... Truly, when I consider with myself the pride of these fooles which disdaine this metalline part of Physicke (which after their manner, contumeliously they call Chymerican, and therefore can neither helpe their owne nor many other diseases), I call to mind a storie ... of Herachio Ephesio, which being sick of a leprosie, despising the help of Physitians, anoynting himself over with cow-dung, set himselfe in the sun to drie, and falling asleepe was torn to pieces by dogges.”—(Paracelsus, “Experiments,” translation of 1596, p. 59.)
This last statement should be compared with the description of the suicides of the East Indian fanatics, given under “Ordeals and Punishments.”
Dr. Fletcher, United States Army, states that in old medical practice in England, from the time of Queen Elizabeth down to comparatively modern days, consumptive patients were directed to inhale the fumes of ordure. “Some physicians say that the smell of a jakes is good against the plague.”—(“Ajax,” p. 74.)
Urine was one of the ingredients from which Paracelsus prepared his “Crocus or Tincture of Metals.”—(See “Archidoxes,” English translation, London, 1661, p. 59.)
Further on he says, “The salt of man’s urine hath an excellent quality to cleanse; it is made thus,” etc. (p. 74). He also says: “Man’s dung, or excrement, hath very great virtues, because it contains in it all the noble essences, viz.: of the Food and Drink, concerning which wonderful things might be written.”—(“Archidoxes,” lib. v. p. 74.)
“To distill Oyle of a Man’s Excrements, ... Take the Doung of a young, sanguine child, or man, as much as you will.... This helpeth the Canker and mollifieth fistulas; comforteth those that are troubled with Alopecea.”—(“The Secrets of Physicke,” London, 1633, p. 98.)
“For any manner of Ache ... a plaister of Pigeon’s dung” (see “A Rich Storehouse or Treasurie for the Diseased,” Ralph Blower, London, 1616, black letter, p. 3); also, “Hen’s Dung” (idem, p. 4); to provoke urine, a plaster of Horse dung was applied to the patient (p. 25.)
“For spitting of blood ... the dung of mice was drunk in wine” (idem, p. 29); for sore breasts of women, a plaster of Goose dung (p. 33); “for Burns and Scalds ... a Plaster of Sheepe’s doung,” (p. 38); also, “the Doung of Geese” (p. 39).
“For deafe ears ... the pisse of a pale Goat” was poured into them (p. 67); horse-dung was used as a face-lotion (p. 106); for the bloody flux soak the feet in water in which “Doue’s Doung has been seethed” (p. 119). For the gout, “Stale pisse” was an ingredient in a composition for external application (p. 119). For stitch in the side and back “Pigeon’s Doung” was used externally (p. 172); for sciatica, “Oxe-Doung and Pigeon’s Doung” in equal parts, were applied as a plaster (p. 173). Cow-dung was used internally in hydrocele (“The Chyrurgeon’s Closet,” London, 1632, p. 38); the urine of boys was used as an application to ulcers in the legs (idem, p. 24); again, the urine of immaculate boys was employed for the cure of all inveterate ulcers (p. 27); goat-dung was applied externally for the cure of auricular abscesses and for ulcers (pp. 35 and 42); cow-dung and dove-dung were used in the same manner (idem p. 42); dove-dung was also used externally in the treatment of sciatica (p. 48), and for “Shingles” (idem p. 51). Goat-dung, externally, for tumors (p. 49); goose-dung, externally, for canker in the breasts of women (p. 50); swallow-dung, externally, for angina; chicken-dung for the same (p. 58); cow-dung, externally, for tumors in the feet (p. 56); cow and goat dung, externally, in dropsy (p. 222); and many others throughout the volume.
In a black letter copy of “The Englishman’s Treasure,” London, 1641, is given a cure for wounds, in which it is directed “To wash the wounde very cleane with urine.”—(In Toner Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.)
To restrain excessive menstrual flow, apply hot plasters of horse-dung, between the navel and the privy parts.—(See “The Englishman’s Treasure,” by Thomas Vicary, Surgeon to King Henry VIII., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth; London, 1641, p. 184; this little volume contains nothing else of value to this work.)
Horse-dung was used internally for pleurisy (“Secrets in Physicke,” by the Comtesse of Kent, London, 1654, pp. 26, 27); goose-dung, internally, for yellow jaundice (idem, p. 37); “Hound’s Turd,” externally, “to cure the bleeding of a Wound” (idem, p. 46); peacock’s dung, internally, for the falling sickness or convulsions (idem, p. 56); “The patient’s own water,” externally, for pains in the breast (p. 64); pigeon’s dung, both internally and externally, in child-birth pains (p. 68); goose-dung, externally, for burns (p. 96); hen’s dung, externally, for burns (p. 152); and for sore eyes (p. 174); “stale urine,” externally, for sore feet (p. 163).
“The stale of a cow and the furring of a chamber-pot” to be given, applied locally and externally, for scald head (“Most excellent and most approved Remedies,” London, 1652, p. 80). “The Urine of him that is sick,” externally, for stitch in the side (p. 115); goose dung, externally, for canker in woman’s breast (p. 129); “Urin of a Man Child (he beeing not aboue 3 years of age)” was a component in a salve for the king’s evil (p. 132). For patients sick of the plague, “Let them drink twice a day a draught of their own urin” (p. 143).
“A certain countryman at Antwerp was an example of this, who, when he came into a shop of sweet smells, he began to faint, but one presently clapt some fresh smoking horse-dung under his nose and fetched him to again.”—(Levinus Lemnius, “The Secret Miracles of Nature,” Eng. translation, London, 1658, p. 107, speaking of the effects of sweet and nasty smells upon different persons.)
“The urine of a Lizard, ... the dung of an elephant,” were in medical use, according to Montaigne (“Essays,” Hazlitt’s translation, New York, 1859, vol. iii. p. 23; art. “On the Resemblance of Children to their Parents”). Also, “the excrement of rats beaten to powder” (idem). The above remedies were for the stone.
Doctor Garrett mentions “water of amber made by Paracelsus out of cow-dung,” and gives the recipe for its distillation, as well as for that of its near relative, “water of dung,” the formula for which begins with the words, “Take any kind of dung you please.”[73]
The work of Daniel Beckherius, “Medicus Microcosmus,” published in London, in 1660, is full of the value of excrementitious remedial agents.
Urine alone was applied to eradicate lice from the human head; but a secondary application of dove’s dung was then plastered on (p. 62). Urine was drunk as a remedy for epilepsy, used as an eye-wash, and various other ocular affections, and dropped into the ears for various abscesses and for deafness (pp. 63, 64).
A lotion of one’s own urine was good for the palsy; but where this had been occasioned by venery, excessive drinking, or mercury, the urine of a boy was preferable (p. 64). A drink of one’s own urine, taken while fasting, was commended in obstructions of the liver and spleen, and in dropsy and yellow jaundice (idem); but some preferred the urine of a young boy (p. 65). For jaundice the remedy should be drunk every morning, and the treatment continued for some time (idem).
For retention of urine the remedy was to drink the urine of a young girl (p. 66). Urine was drunk as a remedy for long-continued constipation (idem); for falling of the womb stale urine was applied as a fomentation (idem); for hysteria human ordure and stale urine were applied to the nostrils (idem); the urine of the patient was drunk as a cure for worms (idem); urine was used as a wash for chapped hands, also for all cutaneous disorders (idem); also for “ficus ani” (p. 67). For gout in the feet the patient should bathe them in his own urine, also for travel sores, as he would then be able to resume his journey next day (idem).
One’s own urine was drunk as a preservative from the plague. Beckherius says he knew of his own knowledge that it had been used with wonderful success between 1620 and 1630 for this purpose.
Urine was recommended as a drink in lues veneris; while a sufferer from cancer was bathed in his own urine and Roman vitriol; ulcers were likewise bathed with the patient’s own urine (p. 68). Urine was applied as a lotion to wounds, bruises, and contusions (p. 69). Beckherius recites the case of a laborer who was buried under a falling mass of earth, in 1522, but, being protected by some obstruction, nourished himself for seven days on his own urine. Besides being used alone in the above cases, urine entered as an ingredient into medicines for old sores (p. 72); against the growth of “wild hairs,” ocular affections, throat troubles as gargle (p. 73), affections of the spleen (p. 74). The urine of a boy was to be employed in paralysis and in erysipelas (idem); the urine of a boy was also prescribed in suppression of the menses, and the urine of a man in podagra (75). The urine of undefiled boys entered into the composition of aqua ophthalmica, and was used externally in rheumatism of the legs (p. 74).
The urine of boys was used as an ointment in some fevers; also as a fomentation in tympanitis, as a plaster in dropsy, for gangrene and podagra, in various clysters, in the cure of calculi and cachexy (pp. 78, 79); in some of the plasters cow and dove dung also entered. For the treatment of anasarca there was a “spagyric preparation of urine.” To make the spirit of urine by distillation, some took the urine of a healthy man, some that of a wine-drinking boy of twelve years (pp. 81, 82). This spirit was administered in lung troubles, in dropsy, suppression of the menses, all kinds of fevers, retention of urine, calculus, etc. (p. 85); also in eye troubles, strangury, diabetes, podagra, catarrh, melancholia, phrensy, cardialgia, syncope, dysentery, plague, malignant fevers (p. 86).
The “spirit of urine” was again distilled with vitriol to make an anti-podagric remedy (85).
Salt of urine was made by distilling the urine of a boy and collecting the saline residuum; it was administered in cardiac troubles and to aid in the expulsion of the dead fœtus; from it were made various empirical remedies,—moon salt, the salt of Jove, salt of Mercury, spirit of Orion, mercurius microcosmicus, which were used for all kinds of physical infirmities (p. 87). The quintessence of urine was distilled from the urine of a strong, healthy, chaste man of thirty years, who had drunk heavily of wine for the occasion; by another authority it is recommended that this happen while the sun and Jupiter may be in “Piscibus.” This was used in calculi of the kidneys and bladder and in all ulcerations of those parts; externally, as a lotion in gonorrhæa and external ulcers of the private parts, for wounds and lesions of all sorts, urinary troubles, worms, putrid fevers, and as a preservative against the plague, for hard tumors, etc. (p. 97).
An “anti-epileptic spirit” had the urine of boys as its main component (p. 95); there was an “anti-epileptic extract of the moon” (p. 96); an “anti-podagric medicament” of the same components almost. A “panacea solaris” had for its principal ingredient the urine of a boy who had been drinking freely of wine (p. 97).