is first alluded to in Greek writings by Theophrastus, about 315B.C., but it was certainly known and used medicinally by the Chinese and in India long before. Apparently, too, it was known by the Egyptians. Dioscorides invented the name hydrargyrum, or fluid silver, for it. Pliny treats it as a dangerous poison. Galen adopted the opinion that the metal is poisonous, but states that he had no personal knowledge of its effects. With these authors argentum vivum was the term generally used to mean the native quicksilver, while hydrargyrum was more usually employed to describe the quicksilver obtained from the sulphide, cinnabar. Ancient writers appear to have regarded the two substances as distinct. Dioscorides points out that cinnabar was often confused with minium (red lead). The name Mercury, and the association of the metal (or demi-metal, as it was often regarded) with the planet and with its sign, formerly associated with tin, dates from the middle ages. It is mentioned first in this connection in a list of metals by Stephanus of Alexandria, in the seventh century.
The Arabs, who inherited the medical lore of the Greeks, and probably added to this in the case of mercury knowledge acquired from India, were much interested in mercury. In the chemical works attributed to Geber not only the metal itself, but its compounds, red precipitate and corrosive sublimate, are described. Much use of mercury was made by the Arabs in the form of ointments for skin diseases, for which Mesuë recommended it, and Avicenna was probably the first physician to express doubt in regard to the poisonous nature of the metal. He observed that many persons had swallowed it without any bad effect, and he noted that it passed through the body unchanged.
Fallopius (1523–1562) remarks that in his time shepherds gave quicksilver to sheep and cattle to kill worms, and Brassavolus (1500–1554) states that he had given it to children in doses of from 2 to 20 grains, and had expelled worms by that means. Matthiolus (died 1577) relates that he had known women take a pound of it at a dose with the object of procuring abortion, and says it had not produced any bad result.
Sprengel fixes the year 1497 as that in which mercury was first employed externally for the cure of syphilis. Frictions, fumigations, and plasters were the earliest forms in which it was employed. Berenger de Carpi, a famous surgeon and anatomist of Bologna, who practised in the early part of the sixteenth century, is saidto have made an immense fortune by inventing and prescribing frictions with mercurial ointment for syphilis. John de Vigo was a strong partisan of fumigations in obstinate cases. His fumigations were made from cinnabar and storax. It is not quite clear whether this physician gave red precipitate internally in syphilis. He expressly indicates its internal use in plague.
Peter Andrew Matthiolus, born at Sienna in 1500, died at Trent in 1577, latterly the first physician to the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, a botanist and author of “Commentaries on Dioscorides,” was, according to Sprengel, the first who is known for certain to have administered mercury internally. Paracelsus, however, was without doubt the practitioner who popularised its use. He gave red precipitate, corrosive sublimate, and nitrate of mercury, and describes how each of these was made. Sprengel credits him also with acquaintance with calomel, but other authors do not recognise this in any of his writings.
The Emplastrum Vigonium was a highly complicated compound, which was held in great veneration and is the subject of innumerable comments in the pharmaceutical writings of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Charas, Lemery, Baumé, and others modified and simplified it. John de Vigo was a native of Naples, where he was born about 1460, and he became the first physician of Pope Julius II. His plaster still figures in the French Codex, and contains 600 parts of mercury by weight in 3,550 parts. Thismade into a liquid with olive oil and spread on calico makes the sparadrap of Vigo, in which form it is most frequently used, as an application to syphilitic eruptions.
Ambrose Paré gives the earliest formula for Vigo’s plaster, which was then called Emplastrum Vigonium seu de Ranis. It was looked upon as a masterpiece of combination. First 3½ oz. of earthworms were washed in water, and afterwards in wine. Then they and twenty-six live frogs were macerated in 2 lb. of odoriferous wine, and the whole was boiled down to two-thirds of its volume. A decoction of camel’s hay (andropogon schœnanthus), French lavender, and matricaria (chamomilla) was then mixed with this wine. Meanwhile 1 lb. of golden litharge had been “nourished” for twelve hours with oils of chamomile, dill, lilies, and saffron; these were melted down with 1 lb. each of the fat of the pig, calf, and viper. Human fat might be used instead of that of vipers. Juices of elder root and of elecampane with euphorbium, frankincense, and oil of spike were then worked in and the whole melted with white wax. Lastly, quicksilver extinguished by turpentine, styrax, oil of bitter almonds, and oil of bay, were added. In Lemery’s time the minimum proportion of mercury was 1 drachm to 1 oz. of the plaster. There was also a simple Vigo’s plaster made without mercury. In the Codex formula the worms, the frogs, the fats, the herbs, roots, and oils have all gone, but some more aromatic resins are added.
The first formula for mercurial pills was one which Barbarossa II, a famous pirate and king of Algiers, andadmiral of the Turkish Fleet under Soliman, Sultan of Turkey, sent to Francis I, king of France, some time in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. The recipe was published (says Dr. Etienne Michelon, of Tours, in his “Histoire Pharmacotechnique de Mercure”) in 1537 by Petrus de Bayro, physician to the Duke of Savoy. He does not give the exact formula, but Lemery quotes it as follows:—
“Best aloes, and quicksilver extinguished by rose juice, aa 6 drachms;
“Trochises of agaric, ½ oz.; selected rhubarb, 2 drachms;
“Canella, myrrh, mastic, aa 1 drachm; musk, amber, aa 1 scruple;
“Make a mass with Venice turpentine.”
Lemery says you cannot kill the mercury with rose juice, but must use some of the Venice turpentine.
These pills were largely used in syphilis, but they were practically superseded later by the pills of Belloste, which are still official in the French Codex. These were very similar. Belloste was a French Army surgeon, and his formula was devised about the year 1700. A formula for them was published in the Pharmacopœia of Renaudot during Belloste’s lifetime, but after the death of Belloste in 1730 his son tried to make a mystery of the pills and sold them as a proprietary product, which probably had the effect of making them popular. The formula of Renaudot, which is also that of the Codex, was: Mercury, 24 (killed with honey); aloes, 24; rhubarb, 12; scammony, 8; black pepper, 4. Made into pills, each of which should contain 5 centigrams of mercury.
It was at the close of the fifteenth century that syphilis began to spread through Europe. There are doubtful evidences of its existence in both Europe and Asia long previously, but the theory is generally accepted that it was brought from America by the sailors of the earliest expeditions, while its rapid spread throughout the old world in the decade from 1490 to 1500 has often been attributed to the Spanish Jews in the first place, and also particularly to the siege of Naples by the French in 1495. That large numbers of the French soldiers then engaged contracted it in the course of that war is undoubted, and as they were largely instrumental in spreading the contagion the disease soon came to be known as the French disease, or morbus Gallicus, though it has been questioned whether the adjective was not originally a reference to the skin diseases known under the name of “gale” or “itch.” The opinion that syphilis came from the west is not universally adopted. It has been pointed out that Columbus only reached Lisbon on March 6, 1493, on his return from his first voyage of discovery; and there are several more or less authentic allusions to the French disease before that date.
The rapidity with which this epidemic seized on all the countries of Europe, and the virulence of its symptoms, alarmed all classes and staggered the medical men of the day. Special hospitals were opened and Parliamentary edicts were promulgated in some of the French and German cities, ordering all persons contaminated to at once leave the neighbourhoods. Mercury was one of the first remedies to suggest itself to practitioners. It had been employed by the Arabsin the form of ointments and fumigations for skin diseases, and quacks and alchemists had long experimented with it in the hope of extracting a panacea from it. Before Paracelsus had begun to administer it, Torrella, physician to the Borgias, had prescribed mercurial lotions made from corrosive sublimate, and Jean de Vigo, of Naples, had compounded his mercurial plaster, and mercurial ointment, and had even given red precipitate in pills.
At the time when syphilis was causing excitement through Europe sarsaparilla and guaiacum were much praised as sudorifics, and wonderful cures of syphilis by them were reported. The poet and reformer Ulrich von Hutten wrote a book, De Morbo Gallico, in which he related his own years of suffering from the disease, and his complete cure by means of guaiacum in 30 days. “You may swallow these woods up to the tomb,” said Paracelsus. He had not much more respect for fumigations with cinnabar, which he regarded as a quack treatment by which it was impossible to measure the dose of the mercury, though he recognised that it cured sometimes. Red precipitate with theriacum made into pills with cherry juice was his favourite remedy, and was one of his laudanums. His Catholicon, or universal panacea, was a preparation of gold and corrosive sublimate, which was largely used by his followers under the name of Aurum Vitæ.
Corrosive sublimate was the great quack remedy for syphilis for more than a century, and the so-called vegetable remedies, syrups and decoctions of guaiacum, sarsaparilla, and sassafras, maintained their reputation largely in consequence of the perchloride of mercury, which was so often added to them. Aqua Phagadænica, 1 drachm of corrosive sublimate in 1 pint of lime water,was a very noted lotion for venereal ulcers. It began from a formula by Jean Fernel, a Paris medical professor and Galenist (1497–1558), who dissolved 6 grains of sublimate in 3 oz. of plaintain water. This was known as the Eau Divine de Fernel. By the time when Moses Charas published his Pharmacopœia this lotion had acquired the name by which it was so long known, and was made from ½ oz. of sublimate in 3 lb. of lime water, and ½ lb. of spirit of wine. It yielded a precipitate which varied in colour from yellow to red.
A curious controversy prevailed for a long time among the chemical and medical authorities in France in regard to a popular proprietary remedy for syphilis known as Rob Boyveau-Laffecteur. It was sold as a non-mercurial compound. It was first prepared or advertised in 1780 by a war office official named Laffecteur, whose position enabled him to get it largely used in the army. Subsequently a Paris doctor named Boyveau bought a share in the business, but in time the partners separated, and both sold the Rob. Boyveau wrote a bulky volume on the treatment of syphilis, and in that he strongly praised the Rob. After the deaths of Laffecteur and Boyveau the business came into the hands of a Dr. Giraudeau, of St. Gervais. This was about the year 1829. In 1780 the Academie de Medicine had examined this preparation, and had apparently, though not formally, tolerated its sale. Their chemist, Bucquet, had been instructed specially to examine the syrup for sublimate. He reported that he could not find any, but he was by no means sure that there was none there, for he stated that he had himself added 2 grains to a bottle, and could not afterwards detect its presence. Between that time and 1829 several chemists studied the subject, and came to theconclusion that if corrosive sublimate had been added to the syrup the vegetable extractive or the molasses with which it was made so concealed it or decomposed it into calomel that it could not be detected. In 1829 Giraudeau was prosecuted for selling secret medicines, and for this offence was fined 600 francs. But the interesting feature of this trial was the testimony of Pelletier, Chevallier, and Orfila that the Rob contained no mercurial. They reported that the formula given by the maker might be the correct one, but that in that case the mixture would contain too small a quantity of active substances to possess the energetic properties claimed for it. Guaiacum and sarsaparilla were the principal ingredients, but there were also lobelia, astragalus root, several other herbs, and a little opium. The history of this discussion is related at some length in Dr. Michelon’s “Histoire Pharmacotechnique et Pharmacologique du Mercure” (1908).
Red precipitate was one of the first preparations of mercury known. It is traced to Geber, but when the works attributed to that chemist were written is doubtful. Avicenna in the tenth century was acquainted with it. In his writings he says of the metal mercury that “warmed in a closed vessel it loses its humidity, that is to say its liquid state, and is changed into the nature of fire and becomes vermilion.” Being obtained direct from mercury acted on by the air, it became known to the early chemical experimenters as “precipitatus per se.” Paracelsus obtained it by acting on mercury with aqua regia and heating the solution until he got the red precipitate. Then he reduced it to the necessarymildness for medicinal purposes by distilling spirit of wine from it six or seven times. Charas described a method of obtaining the precipitate by nitric acid but by a complicated process, and to the product he gave the name of arcana corallina. Boyle obtained the red oxide by boiling mercury in a bottle fitted with a stopper which was provided with a narrow tube by which air was admitted. The product was called Boyle’s Hell, because it was believed that it caused the metal to suffer extreme agonies.
The multitude of experiments with mercury yielded many products, and often the same product by a different process which acquired a distinct name.
Turbith mineral was a secret preparation with Oswald Crollius who gave it this name, probably, it is supposed, on account of its resemblance in colour to the Turbethum (Convolvulus) roots which were in his time much used in medicine. It is a subsulphate, made by treating mercury with oil of vitriol and precipitating with water.
The precipitation of mercury by sal ammoniac was first described by Beguin in 1632. For a time it was given as a purgative and in venereal diseases. A double chloride of mercury and ammonium was also made by the alchemists and was highly esteemed by them, especially as it was soluble. It was called Sal Alembroth and also Sal Sapientiæ. The origin of the first name is unknown, but it has been alleged to be of Chaldean birth and to signify the key of knowledge.
A green precipitate was obtained by dissolvingmercury and copper in nitric acid, and precipitating by vinegar. This was also used in syphilis.
Homberg put a little mercury into a bottle and attached it to the wheel of a mill. The metal was thereby transformed into a black powder (the protoxide.)
By a careful and very gradual precipitation of a solution of nitrate of mercury by ammonia Hahnemann obtained what he called soluble mercury. Soubeiran proved that this precipitate was a mixture in variable proportions of sub-nitrate and ammonio-proto-nitrate of mercury.
Calomel was introduced into practice by Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne about the year 1608. It has been said that he was the inventor of the product, but as it was described and, perhaps, to some extent used by other medical authorities, Crollius among these, who lived and died before Turquet was born, this was evidently impossible. Theodore Turquet de Mayerne had been a favourite physician to Henri IV, but he had been compelled to leave Paris on account of the jealousies of his medical contemporaries. His employment of mineral medicines, antimony and mercury especially, was the occasion of bitter attacks, but his professional heresy was perhaps actually less heinous than his firm Protestantism. Both James I and Charles I accepted his services and placed great confidence in his skill. He was instrumental, as explained in another section, in the independent incorporation of the apothecaries, and was also one of the most active promoters of the publication of the “London Pharmacopœia.”
It appears likely that Turquet invented the name bywhich this milder form of mercurial has come to be most usually known. The alchemical writers of the time called it Aquila Alba or Draco Mitigatus. A notorious Paracelsian of Paris, Joseph Duchesne, but better known by his Latinised surname of Quercetanus, who shared with Turquet the animosity of Gui Patin and his medical confederates, and for similar reasons, also made calomel and administered it, probably sold it, under the designation of the mineral Panchymagogon, purger of all humours. Panacea mercurialis, manna metallorum, and sublimatum dulce, were among the other fanciful names given. It was believed by the old medical chemists that the more frequently it was resublimed the more dulcified it became. In fact, resublimation was likely to decompose it, and thus to produce corrosive sublimate.
What the name “calomel” was derived from has been the subject of much conjecture. “Kalos melas,” beautiful black, is the obvious-looking source, but it does not seem possible to fit any sense to this suggested origin. A fanciful story of a black servant in the employ of de Mayerne manufacturing a beautiful white medicine is told by Pereira with the introduction of “as some say.” A good remedy for black bile is another far-fetched etymology, and another conceives the metal and the sublimate in the crucible as blackish becoming a fair white. Some thirty years ago, in a correspondence published in the “Chemist and Druggist,” Mr. T. B. Groves, of Weymouth, and “W. R.” of Maidstone, both independently broached the idea that “kalos” and “meli” (honey) were the constituents of the word, forming a sort of rough translation of the recognised term, dulcified mercury; a not unreasonable supposition, though this leaves the “kalos” not very wellaccounted for. In Hooper’s “Medical Dictionary” it is plausibly guessed that the name may have been originally applied to Ethiops Mineral, and got transferred to the white product; and Paris quotes from Mr. Gray the opinion that a mixture of calomel and scammony which was called the calomel of Rivierus may have been the first application of the term, meaning a mixture of a white and dark substance.
Beguin (1608) is generally credited with having been the first European writer to describe calomel. He gave it the name of “Draco mitigatus” (corrosive sublimate being the dragon). But Berthelot, in his “Chemistry of the Middle Ages,” has shown that the protochloride of mercury was prepared as far back as Democritus, and that it is described in certain Arab chemical writings. It is also alleged to have been prepared in China, Thibet, and India many centuries before it became known in Europe.
made by applying to a cotton girdle mercury which had been beaten up with the white of egg, were used in the treatment of itch before the true character of that complaint was understood.
was the old Earl of Warwick’s powder or Cornachino’s powder (equal parts of scammony, diaphoretic antimony, and cream of tartar), to which calomel, equal in weight to each of the other ingredients, was added. But I have not succeeded in tracing why or when the name of basilic (royal) was given to the compound.
Van Swieten’s solution of corrosive sublimate was introduced in the middle of the eighteenth century as a remedy for syphilis, and for a long time was highly esteemed. Its author, Baron von Swieten, was of Dutch birth, and was a pupil of Boerhaave. He was invited to Vienna by the Empress Maria Theresa, and exercised an almost despotic authority in medical treatment. His original formula was 24 grains of corrosive sublimate dissolved in two quarts of whisky, a tablespoonful to be taken night and morning, followed by a long draught of barley-water.
Corrosive sublimate was the recognised cure for syphilis, at least in Vienna, at that time. Maximilian Locher, another noted physician of the same school, claimed to have cured 4,880 cases in eight years with the drug. This was in 1762.
The bisulphide of mercury (cinnabar) was also used in many nostrums. Paris says it was the active ingredient in Chamberlain’s restorative pills, “the most certain cure for the scrophula, king’s evil, fistula, scurvy, and all impurities of the blood.”
The art of extinguishing or “killing” mercury has been discussed and experimented on from the fifteenth century until the present day. The modern use of steam machinery in the manufacture of mercurial ointment, mercurial pills, and mercury with chalk has put a check on the ingenuity of patient pharmacists, whowere constantly discovering some new method for accelerating the long labour of triturating, which many operators still living can remember. Venice turpentine, or oil of turpentine, various essential oils, sulphur, the saliva of a person fasting, and rancid fat were among the earlier expedients adopted and subsequently discarded. The turpentines made the ointment irritating, the sulphur formed a compound, and the rancid fat was found to be worse than the turpentines. Nitrate of potash, sulphate of potash, stearic acid, oil of almonds and balsam of Peru, the precipitation of the mercury from its solution in nitric acid, spermaceti, glycerin, and oleate of mercury have been more modern aids.
It would be outside the purpose of this sketch to deal with the questions which the numerous processes suggested have raised. Apparently it is not completely settled now whether the pill, the powder, and the ointment depend for their efficiency on any chemical action such as the oxidation of the metal in the cases of the two former, or on a solution in the fat in the case of the ointment. These theories have been held, and do not seem unlikely; but there also seems good reason to believe that mercury in a state of minute division has definite physiological effects by itself. At any rate, it is well established that the more perfectly the quicksilver is “killed” the more efficient is the resulting compound.
The moon was universally admitted under the theory of the macrocosm and the microcosm to rule the head, and as silver was the recognised representative of Luna among the metals the deduction was obvious that silverwas the suitable remedy for all diseases affecting the brain, as apoplexy, epilepsy, melancholia, vertigo, and failure of memory. Tachenius relates that a certain silversmith had the gift of being able to repeat word for word anything that he heard, and this power he attributed to his absorption of particles of silver in the course of his work. It does not appear, however, that all silversmiths were similarly endowed.
The Greek and Latin doctors make no allusion to silver as a medicine, and the earliest evidence of its actual employment as a remedy is found in the writings of Avicenna, who gave it in the metallic state “in tremore cordis, in fœtore oris.” He is also believed to have introduced the practice of silvering pills with the intention of thereby adding to their efficacy. To John Damascenus, a Christian saint who lived among the Arabs before Avicenna, is attributed the remark concerning silver, “Remedium adhibitum est, et in omnibus itaque capitis morbis, ob Lunæ, Argenti, et Cerebri sympathicam trinitatem.” This association of the moon, silver, and the brain was believed in firmly by the chemical doctors of the sixteenth century, and for a long time a tincture of the moon, tinctura Lunæ, was the most famous remedy in epilepsy and melancholia. A great many high authorities, among them Boyle, Boerhaave, and Hoffmann in the eighteenth century, continued to prescribe this tincture or the lunar pills, but silver gradually dropped out of fashion. A great number of medical investigators since have from time to time recommended the nitrate or the chloride of silver in various diseases, but without succeeding in securing for silver a permanent reputation as an internal medicine.
The Pilulæ Lunares were generally composed ofnitrate of silver combined with opium, musk, and camphor. Nitrate of silver was given in doses varying from a twentieth to a tenth of a grain. The tincture of the moon was a solution of nitrate of silver with some copper, which gave it a blue tint and probably was the active medicinal ingredient. Fused nitrate of silver or lunar caustic seems to have succeeded to the reputation of fused caustic potash as a cautery, and also to have acquired the name of lapis infernalis (sometimes translated “hell-stone” in old books) originally applied to the fused potash.
The only reason assigned for this title is the keen pain caused by the application of the caustic, though probably it was first adopted to contrast it with the lapis divinus, which was a combination of sulphate of copper and alum used as an application to the eyes.
Christopher Glaser, pharmacien at the court of Louis XIV, who subsequently had to leave France on suspicion of being implicated in the Brinvilliers poisonings, was the first to make nitrate of silver in sticks.
Tin came into medical use in the middle ages, and acquired its position particularly as a vermifuge. For this purpose tin had a reputation only second to mercury. Several compounds of this metal were popular as medicines both official and as nostrums in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and tin did not drop out of medicinal employment until early in the nineteenth century.
The beautiful mosaic gold (aurum musivum), a pet product with many alchemists, was probably the firsttin compound to be used in medicine. It was made by first combining tin and mercury into an amalgam, and then distilling this substance with sulphur and sal ammoniac. It is now known to be a bisulphide of tin. The mercury only facilitates the combination of the tin and the sulphur, and the sal ammoniac has the effect of regularising the temperature in the process. The product is a beautiful golden metal of crystalline structure and brilliant lustre. It was given in doses of from 4 to 20 grains; was sudorific and purgative; and was recommended in fevers, hysterical complaints, and venereal disorders. The subsequent preparations of tin which came to be used principally as vermifuges were the Calx Jovis (the binoxide), the sal Jovis (sometimes the nitrate and sometimes the chloride), and the Amalgama Jovis. These, however, were all ultimately superseded by the simple powder of tin given either with chalk, sugar, crabs’ eyes, or combined with honey or some conserve. The dose was very various with different practitioners. Some prescribed only a few grains, others gave up to a drachm, and Dr. Alston, an eminent Edinburgh physician in the eighteenth century, said its success depended on being administered in much larger doses. He recommended an ounce with 4 ounces of treacle to be given on an empty stomach. To be followed next day with ½ oz., and another ½ oz. the day after; the course to be wound up by a cathartic.
The Anti-hecticum Poterii was a combination of tin with iron and antimony, to which nitrate of potash was added. It was sudorific and was thought to be especially useful in the sweats of consumption and blood spitting. Flake’s Anti-hæmorrhoidal Ointment was an amalgam of tin made into an ointment with rose ointment, to which some red precipitate was added. Brugnatelli’s Poudre Vermifuge was a sulphide of tin. Spielman’s Vermifuge Electuary was simply tin filings and honey.
Oxide of tin is the basis of certain applications for the finger nails. As supplied by perfumers the pure oxide is coloured with carmine and perfumed with lavender. Piesse says pure oxide of tin is similarly used to polish tortoiseshell.
The earliest known description of zinc as a metal is found in the treatise on minerals by Paracelsus, and it is he who first designates the metal by the name familiar to us. Paracelsus says:
“There is another metal, zinc, which is in general unknown. It is a distinct metal of a different origin, though adulterated with many other metals. It can be melted, for it consists of three fluid principles, but it is not malleable. In its colour it is unlike all others, and does not grow in the same manner; but with itsultima materiaI am as yet unacquainted, for it is almost as strange in its properties as argentum vivum.”
The alloy of zinc with copper which we call brass was known and much prized by the Roman metal workers, and they also knew the zinc earth, calamine, and used this in the production of brass. Who first separated the metal from the earth is unknown; so too is the original inventor of white vitriol (sulphate of zinc). Beckmann quotes authorities who ascribe this to Julius, Duke of Brunswick, about 1570. Beckmannsays white vitriol was at first known as erzalaum, brass-alum, and later as gallitzenstein, a name which he thinks may have been derived from galls, as the vitriol and galls were for a long time the principal articles used for making ink and for dyeing. Green vitriol, he adds, was called green gallitzenstein. The true nature of several vitriols was not understood until 1728, when Geoffrey studied and explained them.
The ideas entertained of zinc by the chemists who studied it were curious. Albertus Magnus held that it was a compound with iron; Paracelsus leaned to the idea that it was copper in an altered form; Kunckel fancied it was congealed mercury; Schluttn thought it was tin rendered fragile by combination with some sulphur; Lemery supposed it was a form of bismuth; Stahl held that brass was a combination of copper with an earth and phlogiston; Libavius (1597) described zinc as a peculiar kind of tin. The metal he examined came from India.
The white oxide of zinc was originally known as pompholyx, which is Greek for a bubble or blister, nihil album, lana philosophica, and flores zinci. The unguentum diapompholygos, which was found in the pharmacopœias of the eighteenth century, and was a legacy from Myrepsus, was a compound of white lead and oxide of zinc in an ointment which contained also the juice of nightshade berries and frankincense. It was deemed to be a valuable application for malignant ulcers.
Oxide of zinc as an internal medicine was introduced by Gaubius, who was Professor of Medicine at Amsterdam about the middle of the eighteenth century. It had been known and used under the name of flowers of zinc from Glauber's time. A shoemaker atAmsterdam, named Ludemann, sold a medicine for epilepsy which he called Luna fixata, for which he acquired some fame. Gaubius was interested in it and analysed it. He found it to be simply oxide of zinc, and though he did not endorse the particular medical claim put forward on its behalf he found it useful for spasms and to promote digestion.
END OF VOL. I
R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BREAD ST. HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
FOOTNOTES:[1]Schelenz in “Geschichte der Pharmacie,” 1904, has collected a remarkable number of facts and documents illustrative of the development of pharmacy in Germany. He quotes a Nuremberg ordinance of 1350 which forbids physicians to be interested in the business of an apothecary, and requires apothecaries to be satisfied with moderate profits.[2]Dr. Monk gives a copy of the Latin minute in the books of the College referring to this curious recantation. The actual words which Geynes signed were these:—“Ego, Johannes Geynes, fateor Galenum in iis, quae proposui contra eum, non errasse.”[3]“Free Phosphorus in Medicine,” 1874.
[1]Schelenz in “Geschichte der Pharmacie,” 1904, has collected a remarkable number of facts and documents illustrative of the development of pharmacy in Germany. He quotes a Nuremberg ordinance of 1350 which forbids physicians to be interested in the business of an apothecary, and requires apothecaries to be satisfied with moderate profits.
[1]Schelenz in “Geschichte der Pharmacie,” 1904, has collected a remarkable number of facts and documents illustrative of the development of pharmacy in Germany. He quotes a Nuremberg ordinance of 1350 which forbids physicians to be interested in the business of an apothecary, and requires apothecaries to be satisfied with moderate profits.
[2]Dr. Monk gives a copy of the Latin minute in the books of the College referring to this curious recantation. The actual words which Geynes signed were these:—“Ego, Johannes Geynes, fateor Galenum in iis, quae proposui contra eum, non errasse.”
[2]Dr. Monk gives a copy of the Latin minute in the books of the College referring to this curious recantation. The actual words which Geynes signed were these:—“Ego, Johannes Geynes, fateor Galenum in iis, quae proposui contra eum, non errasse.”
[3]“Free Phosphorus in Medicine,” 1874.
[3]“Free Phosphorus in Medicine,” 1874.
Transcriber’s Notes:1. Obvious spelling, punctuation and printers’ errors have been silently corrected.2. Where appropriate, original spelling has been retained.3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated words have been kept as in the original.