Among the strangest things ever used as medicine must be placed human skulls. In 1854, Mr. T. A. Trollope gave a short account in Notes and Queries of a book by Dr. Cammillo Brunoni, published at Fabriano in 1726. It was entitled Il Medico Poeta (the Physician a Poet), and gives an account “of the medical uses of human skulls.” Dr. Brunoni informs us, says Mr. Trollope, that “all skulls are not of equal value. Indeed, those of persons who have died a natural death, are good for little or nothing. The reason of this is, that the disease of which they died has consumed or dissipated the essential spirit! The skulls of murderers and bandits are particularly efficacious. And this is clearly because not only is the essential spirit of the cranium concentrated therein by the nature of their violent death, but also the force of it is increased by the long exposure to the atmosphere, occasioned by the heads of such persons being ordinarily placed on spikes over the gates of cities! Such skulls are used in various manners. Preparations of volatile salt, spirit, gelatine, essence, etc., are made from them, and are very useful in epilepsy and hœmorrhage. The notion soldiers have, that drinking out of a skull renders them invulnerable in battle, is a mere superstition, though respectable writers do maintain that such a practice is a proved preventive against scrofula.”
This very curious book consists of a “poem in twelve cantos, or ‘Capitoli,’ as from the fifteenth century downwards it was the Italian fashion to call them, on the physical poet—a sort of medical ars poetica; and followed by a hundred and seventy-two sonnets on all diseases, drugs, parts of the body, functions of them, and curative means. Each sonnet is printed on one page, while that opposite is occupied by a compendious account in prose of the subject in hand. We have a sonnet on the stomach-ache, a sonnet on apoplexy, a sonnet on purges, another on blisters, and many others on far less mentionable subjects. The author’s poetical view of the action of a black-dose compares it to that of a tidy and active housemaid, who, having swept together all the dirt in the room, throws it out of the window. Mystic virtues are attributed to a variety of substances, animal, vegetable, and mineral.”
That delightful work, The Memoirs of the Verney Family, by Lady Verney, affords some very striking examples of the medical treatment of poor suffering humanity in the 17th century. Our selections are from the third volume.
One of the most extraordinary medicines of this, or of any age, was without doubt that known as Venice Treacle. In 1651, Sir Ralph Verney was in Venice, and the Memoirs furnish the following graphic account of this terrible drug, which was a concoction of the most disgusting materials. Sir Ralph sends it to Mrs. Isham, for her family medicine chest, and says “hee that is most famous for Treacle is called Sigr Antonio Sgobis, and keepes shopp at the Strazzo, or Ostridge, sopra il ponte de’Baretteri, on the right hand going towards St. Mark’s. His price is 19 livres (Venize money) a pound, and hee gives leaden Potts with the Ostridge signe uppon them, and Papers both in Italian and Lattin to show its virtue.” “This celebrated and incredibly nasty compound,” adds Lady Verney, “traditionally composed by Nero’s physician, was made of vipers, white wine, and opium, ‘spices from both the Indies,’ liquorice, red roses, tops of germander, juice of rough aloes, seeds of treacle mustard, tops of St. John’s wort, and some twenty other herbs, to be mixed with honey ‘triple the weight of all the dry species’ into an electuary.” The recipe is given as late as 1739, in Dr. Quincey’s “English Dispensatory,” published by Thomas Longman, at the Ship in Paternoster Row. “Vipers are essential, and to get the full benefit of them ‘a dozen vipers should be put alive into white wine.’ The English doctor, anxious for the credit of British vipers, proves that Venice treacle may be made as well in England, ‘though their country is hotter, and so may the more rarify the viperime juices’; yet the bites of our vipers at the proper time of year, which is the hottest, are as efficacious and deadly as them. But he complains that the name of Venice goes so far, that English people ‘please themselves much with buying a Tin Pot at a low price of a dirty sailor ... with directions in the Italian tongue, printed in London,’ and that some base druggists ‘make this wretched stuff of little else than the sweepings of their shops.’ Sir Ralph could pride himself that his leaden pots contained the genuine horror. It was used as ‘an opiate when some stimulus is required at the same time’; an overdose was confessedly dangerous, and even its advocates allowed that Venice treacle did not suit everyone, because, forsooth, ‘honey disagrees with some particular constitutions.’” For centuries this medical “horror” was taken by our drastically treated forefathers.
The treatment was indeed drastic, and we might truly add cruel. Tom Verney had “a tertian ague and a feaver,” and for this he had “only a vomit, glister, a cordiall, and breathed a vane”—that is, was bled. Another patient, Sir George Wheler, who had caught a chill after dancing, had all sorts of “Applications of Blisters and Laudanums,” so that his Christmas dinner at Dr. Denton’s cost him “the best part of 100 pounds.” For an eruption in the leg, Sir Ralph Verney was advised to apply a lotion “so virulent, a drop would fech of the skin when it touched.”
Young Edmund Verney was ill in 1657, and writes to his father, “Truly I might compare my afflictions to Job’s. I have taken purges and vomits, pills and potions, I have been blooded, and I doe not know what I have not had, I have had so many things.” In 1657-58 the epidemic known as “The New Disease,” proved very fatal, and created quite a panic. The treatment adopted by the doctors may be gathered from a prescription of Dr. Denton’s, one of the most famous physicians of the time. He writes to Sir Ralph Verney, “I see noe danger of Wm. R., and if he had followed your advice by taking of a vomit, and if that had not done it, then to have beene blooded, I beleeved he had beene well ere this.” Then he adds “It is the best thinge and the surest and the quickest he can yet doe, therefore I pray lett him have one yett. 3 full spoonfulls of the vomitage liquor in possitt drinke will doe well, and he may abide 4 the same night when he goes to rest; let him take the weight of vids of diascordium the next day or the next but one; he may be blooded in the arm about 20 ounces.”
Some of the ladies of the time did not, however, approve of this kind of treatment, and preferred their own remedies, or their own notions of remedies, to the doctor’s prescriptions. We select two examples. Lady Fanshawe described the disease as “a very ill kind of fever, of which many died, and it ran generally through all families.” While she suffered from it she ate “neither flesh, nor fish, nor bread, but sage possett drink, a pancake or eggs, or now and then a turnip or carrott.” But Lady Hobart ventured to prescribe. She writes, “If you have a new dises in your town pray have a car of yourself, and goo to non of them; but drink good ale for the gretis cordall that is: I live by the strength of your malt.” Few, we anticipate, would object to her ladyship’s advice, and most would prefer her “good ale” to Dr. Denton’s “vomitts,” and the loss of 20 ounces of blood.
Our illustrations might be indefinitely multiplied, but those given will amply suffice to show the way in which our fathers were physicked.