In former times it was employed largely as a medicine, and applied externally for the healing of wounds. When mixed with flour, and spread on linen, or leather, it has long been a simple remedy for bringing boils to maturity. In coughs and colds it makes a serviceable adjunct to expectorant medicines, whilst acting at the same time as sufficiently laxative. For sore throats it may be used in gargles with remarkable benefit; and [260] when mixed with vinegar it forms the old-fashioned oxymel, always popular against colds of the chest and throat.
"Honeywater" distilled from Honey, incorporated with sand, is an excellent wash for promoting the growth of the hair, either by itself, or when mixed with spirit of rosemary. Rose Honey (rhodomel) made from the expressed juice of rose petals with Honey, was formerly held in high esteem for the sick.
Bee propolis, or the glutinous resin manufactured by bees for fixing the foundations of their combs, will afford relief to the asthmatic by its fumes when burnt. It consists largely of resin, and yields benzoic acid.
Basilicon, kingly ointment, or resin ointment, is composed of bees wax, olive oil, resin, Burgundy pitch, and turpentine. This is said to be identical with the famous "Holloway's Ointment," and is highly useful when the stimulation of indolent sores is desired.
A medicinal tincture of superlative worth is prepared by Homoeopathic practitioners from the sting of the Honey bee. This makes a most valuable and approved medicine for obviating erysipelas, especially of the head and face; likewise, for a puffy sore throat with much swelling about the tonsils; also for dropsy of the limbs which has followed a chill, or is connected with passive inactivity of the kidneys. Ten drops of the diluted tincture, first decimal strength, should be given three or four times in the day, with a tablespoonful of cold water. This remedy is known as the tincture of Apis mellifica. For making it the bees are seized when emerging from the hive, and they thus become irritated, being ready to sting. They are put to death with a few drops of chloroform, and then have their Honey-bags severed. These are bruised in a mortar [261] with glycerine, and bottled in spirit of wine, shaking them for several days, and lastly filtering the tincture.
Boiling water poured on bees (workers) when newly killed makes bee-tea, which may be taken to relieve strangury, and a difficult passage of urine, as likewise for dropsy of the heart and kidneys. Also of such bees when dried and powdered, thirty grains will act as a dose to promote a free flow of the urine.
Honey, especially if old, will cause indigestion when eaten by some persons, through an excessive production of lactic acid in the stomach; and a superficial ulceration of the mouth and tongue, resembling thrush, will ensue; it being at the same time a known popular fact, that Honey by itself, or when mixed with powdered borax (which is alkaline) will speedily cure a similar sore state within the mouth arising through deranged health.
As long ago as when Soranus lived, the contemporary of Galen (160 A.D.) Honey was declared to be "an easy remedy for the thrush of children," but he gravely attributed its virtues in this respect to the circumstance that bees collected the Honey from flowers growing over the tomb of Hippocrates, in the vale of Tempe.
The sting venom of bees has been found helpful for relieving rheumatic gout in the hands, and elsewhere through toxicating the tender and swollen limbs by means of lively bees placed over the parts in an inverted tumbler, and then irritating the insects so as to make them sting. A custom prevails in Malta of inoculation by frequent bee stinging, so as to impart at length a protective immunity against rheumatism, this being confirmatory of the fact known to beekeepers elsewhere, that after exposure to attacks from bees, often repeated [262] throughout a length of time, most persons will acquire a convenient freedom from all future disagreeable effects. An Austrian physician has based on these methods an infallible cure for acute rheumatism.
In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Sir Toby Belch asks to have a "song for sixpence," the third verse of which has been thought to run thus:—