Chronicles of Pharmacy, Vol. 1 (of 2)

appears to have been an amateur prescriber. Etmuller states that she sent a formula for a “cephalica-cardiac medicine” to the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, himself a dabbler in...

The incense made from the formula just quoted was reserved specially for the service of the tabernacle, and it was forbidden, under the penalty of being cut off from his people,...

A formula for a solution of caustic potash was given in the P.L., 1746, under the title of Lixivium Saponarium. Equal parts of Russian potashes and quicklime were mixed, wetted...

Throughout their history the Jewish people have studied and practised magic as a means of healing. According to the Book of Enoch the daughters of men were instructed in “incant...

Iron was not regarded as of special medicinal value by the ancients. The alleged administration of the rust of iron by Melampus was apparently looked upon as a miracle, and thou...

As Purges:--Mix milk, one part, yeast and honey, two parts each. Boil and strain. A draught of this to be taken every morning for four days. Pills compounded of equal parts of h...

Take of powdered burnt worms, of dried boar’s brain, of red sandal wood, of mummy, of bloodstone, 1 oz. of each. Then collect 1 drachm of the moss from the skull of a man who di...

His lectures were such as had never been heard before at a university. He began his course by burning the works of Galen and Avicenna in a chafing dish, and denouncing the slavi...

These pills were largely used in syphilis, but they were practically superseded later by the pills of Belloste, which are still official in the French Codex.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 sim...

are often described as allegorical figures, Hygeia representing health, and Panacea, medicine. Hygeia especially was widely worshipped by Greeks, and when rich people recovered...

Schultzenberger relates, on the authority of Stas, that some years before the discovery of bromine by Balard, a bottle of nearly pure bromine was sent to Liebig by a German comp...

Pock disease (small-pox) is dealt with, but not very seriously. It is of interest because the classical writers do not mention it. The Arab Rhazes wrote a treatise on it about A...

Sir Theodore de Mayerne, the King’s first physician, and Gideon de Laune, pharmacien or apothecary to the Queen, Anne of Denmark, were the supporters of the apothecaries in resc...

Moses Charas figures between these two. Living between the years 1618 and 1698, Charas attained European celebrity. He was the first French pharmacist to prepare the famous Ther...

The Medical School of Salerno, already mentioned, was the principal link between the later Greek physicians and the teaching institutions which remain with us to this day, as, f...

He had abundant faith in animal remedies. His “Confectio Anti-Epileptica,” formulated by his interpreter, Oswald Crollius, is as follows:--First get three human skulls from men...

The compound was evidently only a slight modification of several to be found in the works of the later Latin authors, Aetius, Alexander of Trailles, and Paul of Egineta. These w...

It was the Caliph Almansor and his immediate successor, Haroun Al-Raschid, who between them made Bagdad a centre of study. Students and professors came thither from all parts of...

No medicine has been more violently attacked or so enthusiastically praised as antimony. The virulent antagonism to it manifested by the Faculty of Physicians of Paris was unque...

was at one time in high esteem, as it was believed that by the process adopted for making it the nitre was specially purified. Purified nitre was melted in an iron pot and a lit...

Hippocrates was considerably interested in pharmacy. Galen makes him say, “We know the nature of medicaments and simples, and make many different preparations with them; some in...

The first use of carbonate of magnesia medicinally was in the form of a secret medicine which must have acquired much popularity in the beginning of the eighteenth century. It w...

The ancient idea that earth, air, fire, and water were the elements of Nature was held by chemists in the 18th century. Empedocles appears to have been the author of this theory...

For several centuries before the era of modern pharmacopœias the Antidotary of Nicolas Myrepsus was the standard formulary, and from this the early dispensatories were largely c...

The earliest really scientific contribution to the study of this disorder may be credited to Thomas Mouffet, of London, who, in a treatise published in 1634, entitled _Insectoru...

Glauber worked at many subjects for manufacturers, and sold his secrets in many cases. His enemies asserted that he sold the same secret several times, and that he not unfrequen...

had not quite passed into the region of fable when Pomet wrote his History of Drugs very early in the 18th century, for though he does not believe in the animal himself, he quot...

All translators agree that dill and not anise was the “anethon” named with mint and cummin in the passage, Matthew, xxiii, 23. Anise was never grown in Palestine. The other herb...

Pharmacy, or the art of selecting, extracting, preparing, and compounding medicines from vegetable, animal, and mineral substances, is an acquirement which must have been almost...

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 coppe...