154 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [jUNE 6, 



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 prescrip- 

 tions. 



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 (1663) gives amongst 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. (Traitd 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), describe tedious processes 

 for making preparations of gold. These processes were carefully 

 repeated about the beginning of this century by Chevallier, a French 

 pharmacist, who declares the products contain no gold at all. 



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

 years (1725-1780), consisted of a solution of ferric chloride in alco- 

 hol; this possessed a yellow color, and was universally regarded as 

 a preparation of gold until the secret was bought and made public 

 by the Russian government. (Kopp's Geschichte.) 



Frederic Hoffmann, a famous German physician (1783), recom- 

 mends gold for rheumatic fever. 



Johann Rudolph Glauber, the German physician whose name is 

 indelibly attached to certain "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 dissolved (or 

 the Aurum Potabile made 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 Yitse 

 or Cordiall Water. In like manner if three drops be administered 

 once a week in generous wine or aqua vita3, or other fit vehicle, it 

 renovateth a man, makes him youthful, changeth gray hairs, pro- 

 duceth new nails and skin, preserveth from various and diverse 

 symptoms of diseases, and preserveth the body in such a state even 

 to the prefixed hour of the Divine appointment." This is quoted by 

 Glauber from Coni'ad Khunrath, in his "Medulla Distillatoria:" 

 ... "I some time since administered this oil of gold for eight or 

 ten days successively to an infant for the freeing his body from 

 mercury." . . . (Glauber's Works, Packe's transL, London, 1869.) 



Robert Boyle, in his Usefulness of Natural Experimental Philoso- 

 phy (1663), expresses doubts as to the "strange excellency" of 

 auruni potabile, remarking that "learned physicians and chymists 

 have pronounced the preparation of potable gold as itself unfeasi- 

 ble." And he adds: " I should much doubt whether such a potable 

 gold would have the prodigious vertues its encomiasts ascribe to it 



