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.”)