Dr. Macreight notices one of St. John Long’s recommendations to apply a cabbage leaf to the skin when the discharge had been obtained, and remarks “this in many respects is superior to a common cataplasm, which is clumsy and dries up rapidly; but of course no regular practitioner would employ cabbage leaves while the simple and elegant contrivance, lint covered with oiled silk, was within his reach.” Perhaps if a medical man had constructed the cabbage leaf, it might have been also regarded as “a simple and elegant contrivance.”
Seignette’s Salts.
(Soda Tartarata, Sodii potassio-tartras, Rochelle salts, Sel de Seignette, Sal polychrestum Seignette.)
Peter Seignette was an apothecary at Rochelle in the later half of the seventeenth century. He had at least a local scientific reputation, and a paper of his describing certain remarkable natural products of his locality was printed in the “Transactions” of the Academy of Sciences of Paris. A little before 1672 Seignette was making some soluble tartar (tartrate of potash), and inadvertently used carbonate of soda with the cream of tartar instead of carbonate of potash. At that time the distinction between the fixed alkalies had not been discovered. The product was a salt different from that which he had expected, and Seignette was ready to believe that he had made a valuable discovery. He ascertained that his new salt had laxative properties, he called it Sal Polychrestum, and advertised it by means of prospectuses, or handbills. From one of these it appears that he sold it at “20 sols la prise,” say 10d. for a dose. Each dose was sold in an envelope on which appeared the design of a goose. One of the prospectuses states that Seignette’s salt was sold in Paris by Lemery, but another refers customers to the “Messieurs Seignette, at present at Paris, lodging on the Quay de le Megisserie.”
Peter Seignette died in 1716, and his son continued to sell the powder. Many attempts to analyse it were made by pharmacists, but it remained a secret until 1731 in which year both Boulduc and Geoffroi, both noted pharmaciens of Paris, solved the problem. Boulduc’s paper on the subject was published in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, Paris, and Geoffroi sent his account to Sir Hans Sloane of London and it was published in the “Philosophical Transactions,” (436, p. 37).
Sal Polychrestum (salt of many virtues) was a name which had been adopted a few years before Seignette made his, by Christopher Glaser, apothecary to Louis XIV. and the Duke of Orleans. Seignette’s salt pushed Glaser’s out of popularity to some extent, so that the latter is generally designated Sal Polychrestum Glaseri in the old books. Glaser made his preparation by mixing nitre and sulphur in equal proportions, then putting the mixture, a spoonful at a time, into a red-hot crucible. The powder would deflagrate, and the next spoonful was not to be added until the flame of the first had gone out. The mixture was kept in fusion for four or five hours, and after cooling was dissolved, the solution filtered and evaporated to dryness. Sulphate of potash with perhaps a little free sulphur was produced, and this has long represented Glaser’s Sal Polychrestum or Sal de Duobus, as it was also called.
Seignette’s salt was first admitted into the London Pharmacopœia of 1788 under the name of Natron Tartarizatum which was altered in 1809 to Soda Tartarizata.
Singleton’s Golden Eye Ointment.
An allusion to this renowned proprietary preparation will be found under Citrine Ointment, this Vol., page [126], in connection with the several discordant guesses as to its composition which have been published by eminent authorities. The ointment is mentioned in this section also because of its long history. According to the statement published by its present proprietor it is the oldest proprietary remedy still sold in this country. The present proprietor, Mr. Stephen Green, inherited it from his grandfather of the same name who died in 1874. He acquired the property by marrying (in 1825) Selina Folgham, who brought to him one-fifth share in the rights as a part of her marriage settlement, and after her death in 1831 the elder Stephen Green bought up the shares of other relatives. This Selina Folgham was a daughter of another Selina Folgham, née Singleton, granddaughter of Thomas Singleton who died in 1779, and whose tomb, I understand, may still be seen in Lambeth churchyard. This Thomas Singleton was the first of the Singletons. Before his time the ointment appears to have been known as “Dr. Johnson’s Golden Ointment,” and the present owners claim that it was first made by a “Dr. Johnson” in 1596, and that it was left by him to a certain George Hind whose great-granddaughter married the Thomas Singleton already mentioned.