Dr. William Salmon, a London practitioner, published in the year 1693 "A Short Manual of Physick, designed for the general use of Her Majestie's subjects, accommodated to mean capacities, in order to the Restauration of their Healths."
In this little volume we find a prescription for "an Elixer Universall, not particular for any distemper," as follows:
| ℞ | |||
| Rex Metallorum [gold] | [℥] ss. | ||
| Pouder of a Lyon's heart | [℥] iv. | ||
| Filings of a Unicorn's Horn | [℥] ss. | ||
| Ashes of the whole Chameleon | [℥] iss. | ||
| Bark of the Witch Hazle | Two handfulls. | ||
| Lumbrici [Earth-worms] | A score. | ||
| Dried Man's Brain | [℥] v. | ||
| Bruisewort Egyptian Onions |
| aa lbss. | |
Mix the ingredients together and digest in my Spiritus Universalis, with a warm digestion, from the change of the moon to the full, and pass through a fine strainer. This Elixer is temperately hot and moist, Digestive, Lenitive, Dissolutive, Aperative, Strengthening and Glutinative; it opens obstructions, proves Hypnotick and Styptick, is Cardiack, and may become Alexpharmick. It is not specially great for any one Single Distemper, but of much use and benefit in most cases wherein there is difficulty and embarrassment, or that which might be done, doth not so clearly appear manifest and Open to the Eye.
The above elixir is a fine specimen of the product of a shrewd charlatan's fertile brain, and doubtless found a ready sale at an exorbitant price. The fact that one, at least, of its ingredients is mythical, probably enhanced its curative properties, in the minds of a gullible public. The horn of the unicorn was popularly regarded as the most marvellous of remedies. In reality, it was the tusk of a cetaceous animal inhabiting the northern ocean, and known as the sea-unicorn or narwhal. In the popular mind it was of value as an effective antidote against all kinds of poisons, the bites of serpents, various fevers, and the plague.
In describing a scene in the Arctic regions, Josephine Diebitsch Peary wrote as follows in her volume, "The Snow Baby" (1901):
Glossy, mottled seals swim in the water, and schools of narwhal, which used to be called unicorns, dart from place to place, faster than the fastest steam yacht; with their long, white ivory horns, longer than a man is tall, like spears, in and out of the water.
One of the teeth of the narwhal is developed into a straight, spirally fluted tusk, from six to ten feet long, like a horn projecting from the forehead. This horn is sometimes as long as the creature's body, and furnishes a valuable ivory. The narwhal also yields a superior quality of oil.[162:1]
Sir Thomas Browne in his "Pseudo-doxia Epidemica"[162:2] remarked that many specimens of alleged unicorn's horn, preserved in England, were in fact portions of teeth of the Arctic walrus, known as the morse or sea-horse. In northern latitudes these teeth are used as material wherewith to fashion knife-handles or the hilts of swords. The long horns, preserved as precious rarities in many places, are narwhal-tusks.