Ambrose Paré, who wrote before Pomet, was even more suspicious. He mentions that it was held by some that the mummies then in use were made and fashioned in France; that they were bodies stolen at night from the gibbets, the brains and entrails removed, and the bodies dried in a furnace, and then dipped in pitch. Paré states that he never prescribes mummy.
Oswald Crollius seems to have had no objection to artificial mummies. In his “Royal Chemist” he gives a process for preparing one. The carcase of a young man (some say a red-haired young man) who had been killed, that is, did not die of disease, and, it is to be presumed, had not been buried, was to lie in cold water in the air for twenty-four hours. The flesh was to be cut in pieces and sprinkled with myrrh and a little aloes. This was then to be soaked in spirit of wine and turpentine for twenty-four hours, hung up for twelve hours, again soaked in the spirit mixture for twenty-four hours, and finally hung up in a dry place to dry.
Mummies were principally recommended for consumption, wasting of flesh, ulcers, and various corruptions.
Nicasius Le Febre, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry to Charles II, in his “Compleat Body of Chymistry,” 1670, says the best mummies for medical use were those of bodies dried up in the hot sands of Lybia, where sometimes whole caravans were overwhelmed by simooms and suffocated. “This sudden suffocation doth concentrate the spirits in all the parts by reason of the fear and sudden surprisal which seizes on the travellers.” Next to these Lybian mummies Le Febre recommends the dried corpse of a young lusty man of about 25 to 30 years of age who has been suffocated or hanged. He gives directions for drying the flesh, smoking it for a philosophical month, and then it is to be given in doses of 1 to 3 grains with some old treacle (theriaca) and vipers’ flesh made into an electuary with spirit of wine. It was specially good against pestilential diseases.
Dippel’s Animal Oil.
Animal oil, oil of harts’ horns, or empyreumatic oil, as it was variously called, or Dippel’s animal oil, which was the original, was highly prized as a medicine in the eighteenth century, and disputed the palm for nastiness with the balsam of sulphur. Dippel made it from harts’ horns, but later formulas directed it to be made from any bones, from blood, or indeed from any animal substance. In distilling the horn some water first came over, and this was rejected. At the end of the operation the distillate consisted of carbonate of ammonia in solution and an empyreumatic oil, very dark and fœtid. The spirit was drawn off by filtration, and the oil which remained in the filter was rectified by as many as twenty distillations, the residue increasing at each operation and the rectified oil becoming paler. As it became brown by exposure to light it was the practice to put it up in 1 drachm bottles, which were buried in sand.
The virtues of this preparation were highly vaunted. Frederick Hoffmann strongly recommended it, especially when fever threatened. Twenty to thirty drops on a lump of sugar, followed by a glass of wine, were said to procure a calm and refreshing sleep, often continuing for twenty hours. It would be almost shorter to enumerate the complaints it was not recommended for than those which its advocates alleged it would cure. Epilepsy, apoplexy, palsy, plague, pleurisy, leprosy, and all skin diseases down to ringworm, fevers, colds, and headaches of all sorts were said to yield to its virtues.
Johann Conrad Dippel, its inventor and medical sponsor, was a strange, shifty, but clever adventurer. Born in 1673, near Darmstadt, his father, a Lutheran minister, hoped to train his son to his own profession. He was sent when quite a youth to Giessen University, where he distinguished himself and soon became an ardent controversialist. At that time the Protestants in Germany were divided into Orthodox and Pietists, the latter seeking to restore the personal spirituality which they considered the orthodox Lutherans were burying in formalities. Young Dippel argued vigorously on the orthodox side, and went to Strasburg to preach his views. There he also practised alchemy and cheiromancy and, besides, got mixed up in broils and disturbances. His inconsistent life compelled him to leave Strasburg, and having spent some time at Landau, Neustadt, and Worms, he returned to Giessen, where he became as ardent a Pietist as he had previously been an Orthodox. He took his degree, and then, having exhausted his father’s funds, took to travelling, and practised medicine and alchemy, occasionally reverting to theology, but now denouncing Protestantism in all its diversities.
Getting to Berlin, and securing the confidence of some wealthy believers, he established a laboratory where he produced this animal oil and, more important still, in trying to imitate a Florentine lake from cochineal, accidentally produced Prussian blue, but did not realise the value of this discovery. He claimed to have succeeded in making gold, and on the strength of his representations was able to get deeply into debt, purchasing, among other luxuries, a castle and estate for fifty thousand florins. In 1707 he was imprisoned for a short time in Berlin, and when he regained his freedom made his way to Amsterdam. He took a medical degree at Leyden, and was acquiring a good medical practice at Amsterdam when his creditors and religious antagonists compelled him to escape from Holland. He went to Altona and then to Hamburg, but was ordered to leave both these cities. Copenhagen was his next home, and there again he suffered imprisonment. He was sent to the Island of Bornholm, where he practised as a physician until he was freed on the instructions of the Queen of Denmark. His medical reputation must have been both wide and high, for in 1727 the King of Sweden who could not get cured of a malady by his own physicians sent for Dippel, who completely succeeded. His troubled life seemed likely now to be exchanged for peace and prosperity, but this was not to be. The king would willingly have kept Dippel near him, but Sweden was a Protestant nation, and the clergy and people did not forget his scoffing attacks on their cherished faith. They would not have him among them, and Dippel had to return to Germany. After residing for a short time at Lauenburg and Celle, he at last found a refuge at the Castle of Wittgenstein, the owner of which, Count Wittgenstein, was one of his adherents. There he lived from 1729 to 1734. The last event recorded of him was characteristic. It had been announced that he was dead. Dippel published an indignant denial, and declared his assurance that he would not die until the year 1808. The prophecy failed, for the next year, 1734, he was found dead in bed at the castle of Wittgenstein.
The story of his discovery of Prussian blue is curious. When he was in Berlin, an artist, named Diesbach, was preparing some Florentine lake from a combination of alum and cochineal, acted on by sulphate of iron and fixed alkali. He asked Dippel for some of the alkali left over in his retort after he had distilled some of his animal oil. This seemed to spoil the product, for it yielded a blue instead of a crimson lake. Dippel tried it himself and got the same result. But he did not appreciate the value of this product, and it was left for Scheele to trace its chemical history.