HA R D IV I CKE ' S S CIE NCE- G O SSIP. 



J 53 



and liniments, and a pectoral bolus containing the 

 same substance, among the medical preparations 

 likewise to be held in store (Apdx. pp. 36 and 12). 



Nevertheless, at this date, its use was com- 

 paratively restricted. By reference to Bate, we find 

 abundant examples of its wider application formerly ; 

 it occurs in large proportions in his Mixtura anti- 

 colica (p. 554), a mixture to remove stones and open 

 *' the lungs and other bowels." 



Pulvis ad casum (p. 627), "a pouder against 

 inward bruises by falls." 



Unguentum ad foveas (p. 691), an " excellent thing 

 to take away the pittings or marks of the small-pox. 

 It alleviates the pain and takes away the acrimony." 



Emplastrtim mammillate (p. 700), for tumours, etc., 

 in the breast. 



Ceratum album (p. 695), which I am tempted to 

 quote at large, as showing the complicated messes 

 from which the later and simpler compounds were 

 developed. We are bade R "white wax (4 oz.), 

 oil of bitter almonds (5 oz.), the whitest and purest 

 sperma ceti (1 oz.), ceruse washed in rose-water 

 (h oz.), camphire (J oz.). Mix them;" and we are 

 assured we shall have "indeed an excellent cosmetick," 

 possessed of many medicinal qualities. Salmon tells 

 us that it " may be laid upon ladies' foreheads and 

 faces at night, going to bed, and taken off the next 

 •day, to make the skin fair and smooth." 



We also find pure spermaceti regarded as an 

 approved remedy for hoarseness and simple throat 

 ailments : vide Howard, vol. ii. p. 1 148. 



Narwhal. — The narwhal's ivory was held in great 

 esteem by physicians, but human nature is hardly 

 above the suspicion that they must sometimes have 

 •substituted that of other animals for it. Salmon, 

 however, asserts its non-rarity. Commenting on the 

 ■extraordinary "Red Hungarian powder," to which I 

 shall have occasion to refer again, he writes (p. 634) : 

 " In some compositions there is unicorn's horn added, 

 but that which supplies the place thereof, in all 

 apothecaries' and druggists' shops, is the horn of a 

 great fish found in Greenland, which the islanders (?) 

 call Narwall, whose horn is white, hard, heavy, 

 twisted, hollow within for some space, and from one 

 to two ells long, which serves him as a defence 

 against other fish, and to kill great whales. The 

 horns of this great fish were formerly very rare, and 

 the fish itself very little known, but the late constant 

 fishing in those seas have (sic) made them more 

 frequent and common in England, Holland, Denmark, 

 Germany and other places." 



All the same, " Nature Display'd " gives us but a 

 very hazy account of this creature. "The Danes 

 and other northern people," it says (p. 241), "catch 

 a very large fish called a walruis or narval, whose 

 teeth are more esteemed than those of the elephant, 

 because they are an ivory of the purest whiteness and 

 not subject to grow yellow. The left jaw of this 



creature is armed with an ivory horn, extending 

 sometimes to a length of fourteen, fifteen and sixteen 

 feet. These horns are to be met with in the cabinets 

 of the curious, and have been thought to belong to 

 the unicorn, who is an animal entirelv chimerical," 

 &c. 



The teeth above referred to were evidently those 

 —highly valued— of the walrus, which no doubt 

 furnished its quota of "the whitest and purest 

 ivory" to the physician's laboratory. 



Toothless Whales.— Coming now to the Mys- 

 ticete, we find the so-called Bahzna macrocephala 

 (B. mysticetus,) supplying our apothecaries with oil 

 and our surgeons with baleen. Concerning it we may 

 obtain a very immense idea by turning to pp. 242-3 

 of "Nature Display'd," wherein it runs :—" Of all 

 the species of fish who are never brought to our 

 tables, the whale is undoubtedly the most beneficial. 

 It is an animal of stupendous size, an hundred and 

 thirty, an hundred and sixty, and sometimes two 

 hundred feet in length, and extremely profitable to 

 those who engage in that fishery . . . The fat of a 

 small whale, about sixty or seventy feet long, some- 

 times produces an hundred casks of oil ; and a whale 

 of two hundred feet in length generally yields sixteen 

 or twenty tons." After an enumeration of the mani- 

 fold uses of this oil, " it is even employed in painting 

 and physic." 



"Whalebone" is perhaps hardly a legitimate 

 subject, since its utility depended rather on structural 

 form than convertible material. But in the surgical 

 branch of physic its services were various and con- 

 siderable ; if not itself a medicine, it was at least 

 capable of becoming a medical instrument. 



It was extensively used as a probang with a piece 

 of sponge fixed on one end (Hooper, p. 653), for 

 removing obstructions inside the human body ; and 

 its litheness made it invaluable whenever a flexible and 

 infrangible substance was required, that would not 

 be acted upon by the humours of the body and so 

 avoid contamination. 



V. — SlRENIA. 



Manatee. — In a recipe of Bate's (p. 624), Pulvis 

 antipyreticus, we find figuring no less a creature 

 than our old friend the merman. This "powder 

 against fevers " was composed of two ounces of Lapis 

 manati to one of (the herb) Sanguis dr aeon is, mixed 

 and pulverised. Says Bate: "It seldom fails of 

 curing agues in the spring-time. Dose, one dram, an 

 hour before the fit " (!). Salmon adds some accept- 

 able information. " The Lapis manati" he tells us, 

 " is a white hard bone (hard like a stone), taken out 

 of the head of the manatea or sea-cow, sometimes 

 like a tooth* and resembling the whitest ivory, but 



* Query, the walrus tusk in masquerade again ? 



