Part 1

CHRONICLES OF PHARMACY

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

CHRONICLES OF PHARMACY

BY

A. C. WOOTTON

VOL. I

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1910

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,

BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

PREFACE

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 as ancient as man himself on the earth. In experimenting with fruits, seeds, leaves, or roots with a view to the discovery of varieties of food, our remote ancestors would occasionally find some of these, which, though not tempting to the palate, possessed this or that property the value of which would soon come to be recognised. The tradition of these virtues would be handed down from generation to generation, and would ultimately become, by various means, the heritage of the conquering and civilising races. Of the hundreds of drugs yielded by the vegetable kingdom, collected from all parts of the world, and used as remedies, in some cases for thousands of years, I do not know of a single one which can surely be traced to any historic or scientific personage. It is possible in many instances to ascertain the exact or approximate date when a particular substance was introduced to our markets, and sometimes to name the physician, explorer, merchant, or conqueror to whom we are indebted for such an addition to our materia medica; but there is always a history or a tradition behind our acquaintance with the new medicine, going back to an undetermined past.

In modern dispensatories the ever increasing accumulation of chemical, botanical, histological, and therapeutic notes has tended to crowd out the historic paragraphs which brightened the older treatises. Perhaps this result is inevitable, but it is none the less to be regretted on account of both the student and the adept in the art of pharmacy. “I have always thought,” wrote Ferdinand Hoefer in the Introduction to his still valuable “History of Chemistry” (1842), “that the best method of popularising scientific studies, generally so little attractive, consists in presenting, as in a panorama, the different phases a science has passed through from its origin to its present condition.” No science nor, indeed, any single item of knowledge, can be properly appreciated apart from the records of its evolution; and it is as important to be acquainted with the errors and misleading theories which have prevailed in regard to it, as with the steps by which real progress has been made.

The history of drugs, investigations into their cultivation, their commerce, their constitution, and their therapeutic effects, have been dealt with by physicians and pharmacologists of the highest eminence in both past and recent times. In Flückiger and Hanbury’s “Pharmacographia” (Macmillan: 1874), earlier records were studied with the most scrupulous care, and valuable new information acquired by personal observation was presented. No other work of a similar character was so original, so accurate, or so attractive as this. A very important systematic study of drugs, profusely illustrated by reproductions of photographs showing particularly the methods whereby they are produced and brought to our markets, by Professor Tschirch of Berne, is now in course of publication by Tauchnitz of Leipsic. In these humble “Chronicles” it has been impossible to avoid entirely occasional visits to the domain so efficiently occupied by these great authorities; but as a rule the subjects they have made their own have been regarded as outside the scope of this volume.

But the art of the apothecary, of pharmacy, as we should now say, restricted to its narrowest signification, consists particularly of the manipulation of drugs, the conversion of the raw material into the manufactured product. The records of this art and mystery likewise go back to the remotest periods of human history. In the course of ages they become associated with magic, with theology, with alchemy, with crimes and conscious frauds, with the strangest fancies, and dogmas, and delusions, and with the severest science. Deities, kings, and quacks, philosophers, priests, and poisoners, dreamers, seers, and scientific chemists, have all helped to build the fabric of pharmacy, and it is some features of their work which are imperfectly sketched in these “Chronicles.”

My original intention when I began to collect the materials for this book was simply to trace back to their authors the formulas of the most popular of our medicines, and to recall those which have lost their reputation. I thought, and still think, that an explanation of the modification of processes and of the variation of the ingredients of compounds would be useful, but I have not accomplished this design. I have been tempted from it into various by-paths, and probably in them have often erred, and certainly have missed many objects of interest. I shall be grateful to any critic, better informed than myself, who will correct me where I have gone astray, or refer me to information which I ought to have given. I may not have the opportunity of utilising suggestions myself; but all that I receive will be carefully collated, and may assist some future writer.

A. C. WOOTTON.

4, SEYMOUR ROAD, FINCHLEY, LONDON, N.

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

As the author unhappily died while his book was still in the printer’s hands, his friend, Mr. Peter MacEwan, editor of _The Chemist and Druggist_, has been good enough to revise the proofs for press.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. MYTHS OF PHARMACY 1

II. PHARMACY IN THE TIME OF THE PHARAOHS 34

III. PHARMACY IN THE BIBLE 46

IV. THE PHARMACY OF HIPPOCRATES 77

V. FROM HIPPOCRATES TO GALEN 88

VI. ARAB PHARMACY 97

VII. FROM THE ARABS TO THE EUROPEANS 113

VIII. PHARMACY IN GREAT BRITAIN 124

IX. MAGIC AND MEDICINE 157

X. DOGMAS AND DELUSIONS 174

XI. MASTERS IN PHARMACY 206

XII. ROYAL AND NOBLE PHARMACISTS 287

XIII. CHEMICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHARMACY 323

XIV. MEDICINES FROM THE METALS 376

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. I

PAGE

Isis 3

Osiris 3

Apollo 7

Æsculapius 8

Arms of the Society of Apothecaries 10

Chiron the Centaur 15

Achillea Milfoil 16

Centaury 25

Phœnix 26

Unicorn 28

Dragon 31

The Dragon Tree 32

Papyrus Ebers 41

Hippocrates 85

Interior of Mosque, Cordova 99

Avicenna 108

Nuremberg Pharmacy 120

Sir Theodore Mayerne 145

“Lohn” 163

George Ernest Stahl 176

Marquise de Sévigné 192

Sir Kenelm Digby 194

Galen 211

Raymond Lully 222

Basil Valentine 225

Paracelsus 247, 248, 249

Culpepper 252

Culpepper’s House 253

J. B. Van Helmont 258

Glauber 262

Karl Wilhelm Scheele 267

Scheele’s Pharmacy 269

École de Pharmacie, Paris 271

Vauquelin 272

Joseph Pelletier 275

Baron Liebig 283

Sir Humphry Davy 284

Dr. William Heberden 291

Sir Walter Raleigh 311

Berkeley 315

Dr. Nehemiah Grew 343

Joseph Black 357

Johann Kunckel 362

Antimony cup 385

Dr. Thomas Sydenham 400

Thomas Willis, M.D. 401

Quicksilver bottles 408

ERRATA

VOL. I

Page 101. _Tenth line from top, for_ Mesué _read_ Mesuë. „ 211. _Sixth line from bottom, reference should be_: Vol. II., 63. „ 217. _Eighth line from top, reference should be_: Vol. II., 182. „ 224. _Top line, reference should be_: Vol. II., 37. „ 337. _Second line from top, additional reference_: Vol. II., 179. „ 419. _Ninth line from top, for_ Panchymagogum _read_ Panchymagogon.

CHRONICLES OF PHARMACY

MYTHS OF PHARMACY

“Deorum immortalium inventioni consecrata est Ars Medica.”--CICERO, _Tusculan. Quaest._, Lib. 3.

The earliest medical practitioners of any sort and among all peoples would almost certainly be, as we should designate them, herbalists; women in many cases. How they came to acquire knowledge of the healing properties of herbs it is futile to discuss. Old writers often guess that they got hints by watching animals. Their own curiosity, suggesting experiments, would probably be a more fruitful source of their science, and from accidents, both happy and fatal, they would gradually acquire empiric learning.

Very soon these herb experts would begin to prepare their remedies so as to make them easier to take or apply, making infusions, decoctions, and ointments. Thus the Art of Pharmacy would be introduced.

The herbalists and pharmacists among primitive tribes would accumulate facts and experience, and finding that their skill and services had a market value which enabled them to live without so much hard work as their neighbours, they would naturally surround their knowledge with mystery, and keep it to themselves or in particular families. The profession of medicine being thus started, the inevitable theories of supernatural powers causing diseases would be encouraged, because these would promote the mystery already gathering round the practice of medicine, and from them would follow incantations, exorcisms, the association of priestcraft with the healing arts, and the superstitions, credulities, and impostures which have been its constant companions, and which are still too much in evidence.

THE INVENTORS OF MEDICINE

Medicine and Magic consequently became intimately associated, and useful facts, superstitious practices, and conscious and unconscious deceptions, became blended into a mosaic which formed a fixed and reverenced System of Medicine. Again the supernatural powers were called in and the credit of the revelation of this Art, that is its total fabric, was attributed either to a divine being who had brought it from above, or to some gifted and inspired creature, who in consequence had been admitted into the family of the deities.

In Egypt Osiris and Isis, brother and sister, and at the same time husband and wife, were worshipped as the revealers of medical knowledge among most other sciences. Formulas credited to Isis were in existence in the time of Galen, but even that not too critical authority rejected these traditions without hesitation. In ancient Egypt, however, the priests who held in their possession all the secrets of medicine claimed Isis as the founder of their science. Some old legends explained that she acquired her knowledge of medicine from an angel named Amnael, one of the sons of God of whom we read in the book of Genesis. The science thus imparted to her was the price she exacted from him for the surrender of herself to him. The son of Isis, Horus, was identified by the Greeks with their Apollo, and to him also the discovery of medicine is attributed.

The legend which associated “the sons of God” with the daughters of men before the Flood, and the suggestion that they imparted a knowledge of medicine to the inhabitants of the earth, is traceable in the traditions of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Persians, as well as in Jewish literature. In the 6th chapter of Genesis it is said that “they saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose.” From these unions came the race of giants, and the wickedness of man so “great in the earth” that the destruction of the race by the Flood resulted. The apocryphal Book of Enoch, composed, it is agreed, about 100 or 150 years before the birth of Christ, is very definite in regard to this legend, showing that it was current among the Jews at that period. We read in that Book, that “They (the angels) dwelt with them and taught them sorcery, enchantments, the properties of roots and trees, magic signs, and the art of observing the stars.” Alluding to one of these angels particularly it is said “he taught them the use of the bracelets and ornaments, the art of painting, of painting the eyelashes, the uses of precious stones, and all sorts of tinctures, so that the world was corrupted.”

HERMES.

With Osiris and Isis is always associated the Egyptian Thoth whom the Greeks called Hermes, and who is also identified with Mercury. He was described as the friend, or the secretary, of Osiris. Eusebius quotes an earlier author who identified Hermes with Moses; but if Moses was the inventor of medicine and all other sciences it would be hardly exact to speak of him as “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Thoth, who is also claimed as a Phoenician, as Canaan the son of Ham, and as an associate of Saturn, attained perhaps the greatest fame as an inventor of medicine. He was the presumed author of the six sacred books which the Egyptian priests were bound to follow in their treatment of the sick. One of these books was specially devoted to pharmacy.

Thoth, or Hermes, is supposed to have invented alchemy as well as medicine, the art of writing, arithmetic, laws, music, and the cultivation of the olive. According to Jamblicus, who wrote on the mysteries of Egypt in the reign of the Emperor Julian, the Egyptian priests then recognised forty-two books as the genuine works of Hermes. Six of these dealt respectively with anatomy, diseases in general, women’s complaints, eye diseases, surgery, and the preparation of remedies. Jamblicus is not sure of their authenticity, and, as already stated, Galen uncompromisingly declares them to be apocryphal. Other writers are far less modest than Jamblicus in their estimates of the number of the writings of Hermes. Seleucus totals them at 20,000, and Manethon says 38,000.

The legend of Hermes apparently grew up among the Alexandrian writers of the first century. It was from them that his surname Trismegistus (thrice-great) originated. It was pretended that in the old Egyptian temples the works of Hermes were kept on papyri, and that the priests in treating diseases were bound to follow his directions implicitly. If they did, and the patient died, they were exonerated; but if they departed from the written instructions they were liable to be condemned to death, even though the patient recovered.

It is hardly necessary to say that in the preceding paragraph no attempt has been made to discuss modern researches on ancient beliefs. Greek scholars, for example, trace the Greek Hermes to an Indian source, and assume the existence of two gods of the same name.

BACCHUS, AMMON, AND ZOROASTER.

Bacchus, King of Assyria, and subsequently a deity, was claimed by some of the Eastern nations as the discoverer of medicine. He is supposed to have taught the medicinal value of the ivy, but it is more likely that he owes his medical reputation to his supposed invention of wine. Some old writers identify him with Noah. Hammon, or Ammon, or Amen, traced to Ham, the second son of Noah, has been honoured as having originated medicine in Egypt. Some attribute the name of sal ammoniac to the temple of Ammon in the Libyan oasis, on the theory that it was first produced there from the dung of camels. Gum ammoniacum is similarly supposed to have been the gum of a shrub which grew in that locality. Zoroaster, who gave the Persians their religious system, is also counted among the inventors of medicine, perhaps because he was so generally regarded as the discoverer of magic.

APOLLO.

Apollo, the reputed god of medicine among the Greeks, was the son of Jupiter and Latona. His divinity became associated with the sun, and his arrows, which often caused sudden death were, according to modern expounders of ancient myths, only the rays of the sun. Many of his attributes were similar to those which the Egyptians credited to Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, and it is evident that the Egyptian legend was incorporated with that of the early Greeks. Besides being the god of medicine Apollo was the deity of music, poetry, and eloquence, and he was honoured as the inventor of all these arts. He evidently possessed the jealousy of the artist in an abundant degree, for after his musical competition with Pan, Apollo playing the lyre and Pan the flute, when Tmolus, the arbiter, had awarded the victory to the former, Midas ventured to disagree with that opinion, and was thereupon provided with a pair of asses’ ears. Marsyas, another flute player, having challenged Apollo, was burnt alive.

Peon, sometimes identified with Apollo, was the physician of Olympus. He is said to have first practised in Egypt. In the fifth book of the ‘Iliad’ Homer describes how he cured the wound which Diomed had given to Mars:--

--Peon sprinkling heavenly balm around, Assuaged the glowing pangs and closed the wound.

ÆSCULAPIUS.

Æsculapius, son of Apollo and Coronis, had a more immediate connection with medicine than his father. He was taught its mysteries by Chiron the Centaur, another of the legendary inventors of the art, who also taught Achilles and others. Æsculapius became so skilful that Castor and Pollux insisted on his accompanying the expedition of the Argonauts. Ultimately he acquired the power of restoring the dead to life. But this perfection of his art was his ruin.

Pluto, alarmed for the future of his own dominions, complained to Jupiter, and the Olympian ruler slew Æsculapius with a thunderbolt. Apollo was so incensed at this cruel judgment that he killed the Cyclops who had forged the thunderbolt. For this act of rebellion Apollo was banished from Olympia and spent nine years on earth, for some time as a shepherd in the service of the king of Thessaly. It was during this period that the story of his adventure with Daphne, told by Ovid, and from which the quotation on

THE ARMS OF THE SOCIETY OF APOTHECARIES

(italicised below) is taken, occurred. Ovid relates that Apollo, meeting Cupid, jeered at his child’s bows and arrows as mere playthings. In revenge Cupid forged two arrows, one of gold and the other of lead. The golden one he shot at Apollo, to excite desire; the leaden arrow, which repelled desire, was shot at Daphne. The legend ends by the nymph being metamorphosed into a laurel which Apollo thenceforth wore as a wreath. One of the incidents narrated by Ovid represents the god telling the nymph who he is. Dryden’s version makes him say:

Perhaps thou knowest not my superior state And from that ignorance proceeds thy hate.

A somewhat uncouth method of seeking to ingratiate himself with the reluctant lady. Among his attainments Apollo says:

Invention medicina meum est, _Opiferque per orbem Dicor_, et herbam subjecta potentia nobis.

Dryden versifies these lines thus:

Medicine is mine, what herbs and simples grow In fields and forests, all their powers I know, And am the great physician called below.

The arms of the Society of Apothecaries are thus described in Burke’s “Encyclopædia of Heraldry,” 1851:

“In shield, Apollo, the inventor of physic, with his head radiant, holding in his left hand a bow, and in his right a serpent. About the shield a helm, thereupon a mantle, and for the crest, upon a wreath of their colours, a rhinoceros, supported by two unicorns, armed and ungulated. Upon a compartment to make the achievement complete, this motto: ‘Opiferque per orbem dicor.’”

It was William Camden, the famous antiquary and “Clarenceux King at Arms” in James I.’s reign, who hunted out the middle of the above Latin quotation for the newly incorporated Society of Apothecaries.

THE SONS OF ÆSCULAPIUS.

Æsculapius left two sons, who continued their father’s profession, and three or four daughters. It is not possible to be chronologically exact with these semi-mythical personages, but according to the usual reckoning Æsculapius lived about 1250 B.C. He would have been contemporary with Gideon, a judge of Israel, about two centuries after the death of Moses, and two centuries before the reign of King David. His sons Machaon and Podalirus were immortalised in the Iliad among the Greek heroes who fought before Troy, and they exercised their surgical and medical skill on their comrades, as Homer relates. When Menelaus was wounded by an arrow shot by Pandarus, Machaon was sent for, and “sucked the blood, and sovereign balm infused, which Chiron gave, and Æsculapius used.”

After the Trojan war both the brothers continued to exercise their art, and some of their cures are recorded. Their sons after them likewise practised medicine, and the earliest Æsculapian Temple is believed to have been erected in memory of his grandfather by Spyrus, the second son of Machaon, at Argos. Perhaps he only intended it as a home for patients, or it may have been as an advertisement. From then, however, the worship of Æsculapius spread, and we read of temples at Titane in the Peloponnesus, at Tricca in Thessalia, at Trithorea, at Corinth, at Epidaurus, at Cos, at Megalopolis in Arcadia, at Lar in Laconia, at Drepher, at Drope, at Corona on the Gulf of Messina, at Egrum, at Delos, at Cyllene, at Smyrna, and at Pergamos in Asia Minor. The Temple of Epidaurus was for a long time the most important, but before the time of Hippocrates that of Cos seems to have taken the lead.

THE DAUGHTERS OF ÆSCULAPIUS