The elder had a great reputation as an amulet. An old writer states, “if one ride with two little sticks of elder in his pockets he shall not fret nor pant let the horse go never so hard”.
According to the Anatomie of the Elder (1655), “The common people keep as a great secret in curing wounds the leaves of the elder, which they have gathered the last day of April, which, to disappoint the charms of witches, they had applied to their doors and windows”.
A piece cut out between two knots was worn as an amulet against erysipelas.
Lupton says: “Make powder of the flowers of elder gathered on Midsummer Day, being before well dryed, and use a spoonful thereof in a good draught of Borage water, morning and evening, first and last, for the space of a month, and it will make you seem young a great while”.
The elder is still believed in the south of Germany to drive away evil spirits, and in Denmark and Norway it is held in the same veneration. It is customary in the Tyrol to plant an elder bush in the form of a cross on a new grave, and if it blossoms, the soul of the body interred beneath is supposed to be in Paradise.
CHAPTER XVII.
MUMMIES AND THEIR USE IN MEDICINE—THE UNICORN.
Who first introduced mummies as medicinal agents is not known, but there is something particularly weird and gruesome in the idea of the ancient physician dosing a sick patient, with the remains of a predeceased fellowman, in order to restore him to health. The art of embalming was practised thousands of years before the Christian era, and was regarded as the greatest token of esteem that could be paid by the living to the dead. Pomet says there were two kinds of embalming practised by the ancient Egyptians. The first and most costly was used to none but persons of the highest class, and was valued at a talent of silver, or about £500. Three people were employed in the operation; one was a kind of designer or overseer, who marked out such parts of the body as were to be opened. The next was a dissector, who with a knife of Ethiopian stone cut the flesh as much as necessary, and as the law would permit, and immediately afterwards fled away with all the expedition possible, because it was the custom of the relatives and domestics to pursue the dissector with stones and do him all the injuries they could, treating him as an impious wretch and the worst of men.
After this operation the embalmers, who were accounted holy men, entered to perform their offices, which consisted in removing the internal organs, cleansing with palm wine and other aromatical liquor, and during the space of thirty days they filled the cavity with powdered myrrh, aloes, Indian spikenard, bitumen, and other aromatics. In the process of embalming used by the middle class, which cost about £250, the body was syringed with a decoction of herbs and oil of cedar, then put into salt for seventy days, after which it was enveloped in bandages of fine linen, which had been dipped in myrrh and asphaltum, and the designer, who was called the scribe, covered the wrapping with a painted cloth, on which were represented the rites of their religion in hieroglyphics, and the animals which the dead loved most. There was a third process of embalming used by the poorer people, in which a mixture of pitch and bitumen was used. The bodies were first dried with lime, and then coated with a mixture of nitre, salt, honey, and wax to protect them from the air. Mummies of deceased persons were held in the greatest reverence by their relatives. The faces were sometimes gilded and painted and adorned with head-cloths, they were then placed in elaborate cases according to the position and rank of the person, and deposited in the highest part of their houses. An old writer states: “They reckoned their deceased as such a valuable token and pledge of their faith, that if any of them happened to want money he could not give a better security than the embalmed body of his relation; and that which made it esteemed so was, that they would spare no pains to pay the money again; for if by mischance the debtor could not redeem this pledge, he was reckoned unworthy of civil society, which engaged him indispensably to find out ways to recover his kinsman in the time limited, otherwise he was blamed by all the world”.
Some 300 years ago a large trade was carried on, mostly by Jews, who imported mummies for medicinal purposes, as they were much used by the ancient physicians; but there is little doubt that a great deal of fraud was practised by the mummy merchants, and that many were specially manufactured for the purpose. Pomet, alluding to this in his History of Druggs, writes: “We may daily see the Jews carrying on their rogueries as to these mummies, and after them the Christians; for the mummies that were brought from Alexandria, Egypt, Venice, and Lyons are nothing else but the bodies of people that die several ways. Those from Africa called white mummies, are nothing else but bodies that have been drowned at sea, which, being cast upon the African coast, are buried and dried in the sands, which are very hot.” When the ancient physician prescribed mummy for a bad headache, he rarely got what he imagined. “For,” the writer continues: “I am not able to stop the abuses committed by those who use this commodity. I shall only advise such as buy to choose what is of a fine shining black, not full of bones and dirt, of a good smell, and which being burnt does not stink of pitch. Such is reckoned proper for contusions, and to hinder blood from coagulating in the body. It is also given in epilepsies, vertigoes, and palsies. The dose is two drachms in powder, or the same made into a bolus. It also stops mortifications, heals wounds, and is an ingredient in many compositions.” In a price list, dated 1685, mummy is quoted at 5s. 4d. per lb.