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.)