7S 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Africa, where bodies of drowned mariners were sometimes washed 

 ashore, and became dried up and shriveled as they lay unburied on 

 the burning sands. These became so light as scarcely to weigh 

 thirty pounds. They were, however, not considered so desirable as 

 the genuine article from Alexandria, and were, moreover, more ex- 

 pensive. 



The learned doctors of France, Germany, and Italy all made great 

 use of this eccentric drug, and in the seventeenth century grievous 

 complaints arose of its adulteration. Monsieur Pomet, chief apothe- 

 cary to the French king, records that the king's physician went to 

 Alexandria to judge for himself on this matter, and, having made 

 friends with a Jewish dealer in mummies, was admitted to his store- 

 house, where he saw piles of bodies. He asked what kind of bodies 

 were used, and how they were prepared. The Jew informed him that 

 "he took such bodies as he could get, whether they died of some 

 disease or of some contagion ; he embalmed them with the sweepings 

 of various old drugs, myrrh, aloes, pitch, and gums, wound them 

 about with a cere-cloth, and then dried them in an oven, after which 

 he sent them to Europe, and marveled to see the Christians were 

 lovers of such filthiness." 



But even this revelation did not suffice to put mummy-physic out 

 of fashion, and we know that Francis I, of France, always carried 

 with him a well-filled medicine-chest, of which this was the principal 

 ingredient. 



Old Sir Thomas Browne, after enumerating the various diseases 

 for which divers great doctors recommend mummy as an infallible 

 remedy, protests against such unworthy use of the ancient heroes, 

 and declares that to serve up Charanes and Amosis in electuaries and 

 pills, or that Cheops and Psammetichus should be weighed out as 

 drugs, is dismal vampirism, more horrible than the feasts of the 

 ghouls. 



The apothecaries of England were often well content to make use 

 of a cheap substitute which answered quite as well, namely, the bones 

 of ancient Britons. Dr. Toope, of Oxford, writing in 1G85, tells how 

 at the circles on Hakpen Hill, in "Wiltshire, he had discovered a rare 

 lot of human bones skeletons, arranged in circles, with the feet to- 

 ward the center. He says, " The bones were large and nearly rotten, 

 but the teeth extream and wonderfully white." Undisturbed by any 

 questions of reverence for these ancestors of his race, he adds " / 

 dug up many bushells, with which I made a noble medicine. , ' > 



The mummy-trade was supported by various classes of the com- 

 munity, for artists declared that mummy-powder beaten up with oil, 

 gave richer tones of brown than any other substance, and modern 

 perfumers found means of preparing the perfumes and spices found 

 inside the bodies, so as to make them exceedingly attractive to the 

 ladies. Paper-manufacturers found that the wrappings of the mum- 



