The original Confection of Alkermes contained juice of rennet apples, rose water, silk, kermes, sugar, ambergris, amber, yellow santal, lapis lazuli, pearls, musk, and leaf gold. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries this compound was prepared publicly at Montpellier, and was supplied from that city to all Europe. It was described as good for all maladies proceeding from the melancholic humour, faintings, palpitations, heart weakness, and in slow convalescence. It fortified the stomach, rejoiced the heart, and engendered good spirits. The dose was 1 drachm, or it might be applied externally on a piece of scarlet cloth.
Mel Ægyptiacum
is a very ancient compound used chiefly by veterinarians as an escharotic. Its name suggests Egyptian origin, but it has not been traced further back than to the “Grabadin” of John Mesué, the Arabian author, about the year 800. Scribonius Largus before him gives a similar formula under the name of Hygra. Mesué’s formula was to boil 1 oz. of vinegar with 1 oz. of honey to the consistence of honey and to add 2 drachms of verdigris. This formula was modified in various ways in the different pharmacopœias in which it was adopted; alum was added in some cases, cream of tartar in others. The chemical action varied with the process, but generally the result was to reduce a part of the verdigris to an oxide of copper, metallic copper, and a little basic acetate in different proportions. The compound appeared in the London Pharmacopœia of 1721 as Unguentum Ægyptiacum; in that of 1746 as Mel Ægyptiacum; as Oxymel Æruginis in that of 1788; and as Linimentum Æruginis in the P.L. 1851. In this last edition the formula given was to dissolve 1 oz. of verdigris in 7 oz. of vinegar, and boil this with 14 oz. of honey to a proper consistence. It was not adopted in the British Pharmacopœia. In old veterinary recipes it was often combined with tincture of myrrh to form a detergent liniment, and occasionally in a very diluted form was administered internally as a tonic. On the Continent, where its employment lingered longer than in this country, an Egyptiac of Solleysel, from which the vinegar was omitted, but litharge, sulphate of zinc, and arsenic in small proportions added, was frequently preferred to the original.
An Unguentum Ægyptiacum magis compositum, containing rock alum and sal ammoniac, in addition to the other ingredients mentioned, was included in the London Pharmacopœia 1721. In some foreign pharmacopœias camphor was prescribed as an ingredient, and in one old one theriaca is ordered.
Terra Sigillata.
Various earths were celebrated as medicines in old times, that from the Island of Lemnos especially having been esteemed from the days of Herodotus among the Greeks, and this product retained its reputation in Western Europe down to the seventeenth century. It is still used by the Turks and neighbouring nations. The Lemnian earth is a greasy clay which is dug from a desolate hill in the island and consists of silica, alumina, chalk, and magnesia, with a little oxide of iron which gives it a red tint. It acquired the fame of being an antidote to all poisons, and was given in dysenteries, internal ulcers, and hæmorrhages; also in gonorrhœa, and in pestilential fevers. Externally it was applied to festering wounds. The characteristic of the best Lemnian earth was its greasy feel and freedom from grit.
A sufficient supply of this Lemnian earth is still, and has been certainly from the time of Galen, dug out of the hill only on one day of the year, with considerable ceremony and in the presence of the principal inhabitants of the island. At present the ceremony is largely a religious one, and the day fixed for it is the 6th of August, which in the Greek church calendar is the Fête of the Saviour. Formerly the ceremony was originally associated with the worship of Diana, and the date of the performance was the 6th of May. The particular earth may not be dug by any one on any other day of the year except that formally set apart for the operation. According to Dioscorides the earth was made up into a paste in his time with goats’ blood, but when Galen visited the place 150 years later he could find no evidence of this addition.
Lemnian earth was, and I presume still is, a monopoly of the Sultan of Turkey. Most of the produce of the day’s digging was sent to Constantinople and was made up into round tablets of about half an ounce in weight, which were stamped with designs similar to those shown in the accompanying sketches. At one time it is said the figure of Artemis (Diana) or the goat, which was one of her symbols appeared on the tablets, and it may be from this that the story of the goat’s blood originated.
Many other sealed earths were also more or less used in medicine, and were credited with similar virtues. The Terra Mellitea came from Malta and was alleged to have a special power against the bites of serpents, Malta, vipers, and St. Paul thus associating themselves in the public mind. These cakes bore the effigy of St. Paul, and a popular legend attributed their efficacy to a blessing on the earth of the island when the apostle landed there. There were besides Terra Samia, from the Isle of Samos; Terra Sicula or Fossil Bezoar from Sicily; Terra Portugallica, stamped with the figure of a rose, from Portugal; Terra Strigensis or Germanica from Strigonium in Hungary, stamped with a design, suggesting mountain peaks and cross-keys on them; and Terra Livonica. Naturally the temptation of selling soil at fabulous prices per shovelful appealed to all nations.