THE NEW YORK JOURNAL OF FHARVIACY 



THE FRENCH FOLK MEDICINE.* 



Bv T- F- Llewellyn, Mexico 



THE Druids wore crowns of ver- 

 vain, and shot arrows to allay 

 storms. A seventh century en- 

 graving shows St. Roche curing the 

 plague ; this Saint was also a veter- 

 inarian, and cakes from his altar (1649) 

 cured hydrophobia. Many were cured 

 (507) by sleeping in churches. 



In the thirteenth century they used 

 tincture of flints, oil of bricks, spirit of 

 paper, volatile salts of frogs, staghorn, 

 ivory, blood, skulls, human hair and 

 nails, oil of \iper, and draughts of 

 urine. 



A fomentation was used of sage, 

 rosemary, thyme, lavender, chamomile, 

 and red roses, boiled in white wine, 

 and a local application of oil of lilies, 

 puppies newly born, and' earth worms, 

 prepared with venice turpentine. Un- 

 der the pharmacy of 1608 druggists 

 were to keep in stock millipedes, rain 

 worms, ants, vipers, scorpions, frogs, 

 crabs, leeches, skulls of persons never 

 l)uried, goat's liver, wolf guts, intes- 

 tines, and many similar goods, includ- 

 ing nanny tea. A druggist advertised 

 a better grade of human fat than that 

 furnished by the hangman. 



(1679) Persons were wrapped in red 

 cloth to cure smallpox, and a sheep was 

 skinned alive in the anteroom of a royal 

 lady, to apply the warm skin to her 

 body. 



Letters patent were granted to 

 George Hul^ert by the king to cure 

 canine madness by imposition of hands. 



Powered mummy administered in 

 treacle raised the question as to its use 



•Proceedings of the Missouri Pliarm. Ass'n through Merck's 

 Report. 



in Lent. Treacle then meant Theriac 

 Orvietan, Venice Treacle, sixty to 

 seventy drugs piilverized and made 

 into an electuary with honey. The 

 Montpelier formula had eighty-five in- 

 gredients. 



In Normandy charlatans practiced il- 

 legally as water judges, diagnosing 

 and treating patients by inspection of 

 their urine. 



The Prince of Conde was given a 

 syrup of rice and marshmallow root, 

 with a blister night and morning, and 

 a preparation of hyacinth to fortify his 

 heart, followed by poppy water, syrup 

 of stagshorn, ipecac, licorice and mistle- 

 toe root; he lived six months after this. 



"Liquor cranis humanis"was a distil- 

 late from water and a newly dead un- 

 burned human skull, used for epilepsy, 

 gout, somnolence, and an antidote to 

 poison. 



Powdered human l^ines and red wine 

 cured dysentery; oil distilled from 

 bones was used for rheumatism; moss 

 from a human skull as an haemostatic. 

 ]Mummy and coagulated blood were 

 used for cough and pain in the spleen ; 

 a belt of human skin to facilitate labor 

 and mitigate pain. 



Water distilled from human hair and 

 mixed with honey was a hair restorer. 



A French philosopher (1658) ex- 

 plained to a solemn assembly how to 

 make a powder that cured wounds dis- 

 tant one or more thousand miles. 



Montaigne mentions the medical use 

 of left foot of tortoise, urine of lizard, 

 liver of mole, dung of elephant, blood 

 from under the wing of white pigeon, 

 excrement of rat powdered for stone; 

 and a pill with one hundred ingredients. 



(1698) Dr. Martin Lister, of London, 

 visited Paris; he found that a monk 



