14 LABORATORY MOUSE 



The reputed parthenogenetic reproduction of the mouse 

 was held up by the clergy as an example of the natural- 

 ness of human parthenogenesis demanded by Christian the- 

 ology. 



Before the advent of the Persian cat into northern Europe 

 during the time of Charlemagne, mice and rats frequently 

 multiplied in such numbers that they could not be kept in 

 check by the weasels maintained by the more fortunate 

 families. These conditions gave rise to such stories as that 

 of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. 



The early Greek and Roman physicians employed mice 

 in their medicinal formulae. Hippocrates (300? B.C.) says that 

 he did not test the virtue of mouse blood as a cure for warts, 

 prescribed by his colleagues, because he had a magic stone 

 with lumps upon it which had proved an efficient remedy. 

 Galen (a.d. 130?- c 200?) advocates equal parts of mouse 

 blood, cock's gall, and woman's milk mixed and dried as a 

 cure for cataract. Villanova uses dog's urine and mouse 

 blood for warts. 



During the Dark Ages the formulae became increasingly 

 occult and complicated, and mice figured even more in the 

 pharmacopoeia. 1 St. Hildegarde of Bingen (1098-1179) re- 

 counts that mice are a cure for epilepsy. The manuscript 

 known under the name of Picatrix (l l 2o6) endorses fumigation 

 with fourteen bats and twenty -four mice. Peter of Albano 

 employs mouse dung as a cure for poisons, probably in- 

 fluenced by Pliny's freshly killed mouse poultice for serpent 

 bites. 2 



1 The mouse seems to disappear from medical formula? during the latter part of 

 the seventeenth century, although crab claws and millipeds persist even in the 

 literature of the last century. The London Pharmacopoeia {161/) of 1667 instructs 

 as follows: "A flead mouse dried and beaten to powder, and given at a time, helps 

 such as cannot hold their water or have Diabetes, if you do the like three daies 

 together." The influence of this dictum was felt at Boston, Massachusetts, as late 

 as 1890, when a family of English extraction fed mouse stew to their children to 

 prevent bed-wetting. 



2 In Europe mice used to be eaten as a remedy for toothache. New-born mice 

 dissolved in olive oil are a popular panacea for human ills in Turkey and Greece 

 today. 



