472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Croll then says he has tried almost one hundred different 

 preparations of aurum potabile, and condemns most of them to 

 recommend his own, fulminating gold, called by him " Calx of 

 Sol." His process embraces nauseous ingredients, and the prod- 

 uct is, as usual, free from gold. 



Paracelsus, the physician who did so much to improve materia 

 medica by introducing chemical medicines, does not neglect gold. 

 Thurneisser, his disciple (both as respects his teachings and his 

 charlatanism), made his royal dupes pay enormous sums for the 

 "tincture of gold" which entered into his extraordinary pre- 

 scriptions. To the use of royal touch pieces (gold coins) in the 

 reigns of Charles II, James II, and Queen Anne, mere allusion 

 should be made. Christopher Glaser (1G63) gives among other 

 preparations a " diaphoretic powder of gold " and prescribes it for 

 continuous or intermittent fevers, the dose being four to twelve 

 grains in wine, or in a spoonful of bouillon. (Traite* de la chymie, 

 Paris, 1663.) 



Antoine Lecoq (or Gallus), a physician of Paris (1540), seems 

 to have been the first to recommend gold for syphilis. He and 

 his follower Fallopius (of Modena, 1565) described tedious pro- 

 cesses for making preparations of gold. These processes were 

 carefully repeated, about the beginning of this century, by Che- 

 vallier, a French pharmacist, who declares the products contain no 

 gold at all. 



Lamotte's "gold-drops," celebrated throughout Europe for 

 over half a century (1725 to 1780), consisted of a solution of ferric 

 chloride in alcohol ; this possessed a yellow color, and was uni- 

 versally regarded as a tincture of gold, until the secret was 

 bought and made public by the Russian Government. (Kopp's 

 Geschichte.) 



Frederic Hoffman, a famous German physician (1733), recom- 

 mends gold for rheumatic fever. 



Johann Rudolph Glauber, the German physician whose name 

 is indelibly attached to " Glauber's salts," thought to improve the 

 latter by adding gold. " In all diseases and infirmities, of what 

 name soever, the Spirit or Oil of Salt in which gold is rightly dis- 

 solved (or the Aurum Potabile with it), giveth present help, and 

 in all dejections of the vital spirit ... it giveth such relief that 

 life and vigor may be somewhat farther protracted if two, three 

 or four drops be administered as occasion shall serve in good 

 Aqua vita? or Cordiall Water. In like manner if three drops be 

 administered once a week in generous wine or aqua vitse, or other 

 fit vehicle, it renovateth a man, makes him youthful, changeth 

 gray hairs, produceth new nails and skin, preserveth from various 

 and divers symptoms of diseases, and preserveth the body in such 

 a state even to the prefixed hour of the Divine appointment." 



