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 
‘‘diaphoretie 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. (Traité de la chymie, Paris, 1663.) 
Antoine Lecog (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 (1733), 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. ... “Inall 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 Vitee 
or Cordiall Water. In like manner if three drops be administered 
once a week in generous wine or aqua vitw, 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 Conrad Khunrath, in his ‘“‘Medulla Distillatoria :” 
- “T 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 Boy le, in his Usefulness of Natural E xperimental Philoso- 
phy (1663), expresses doubts as to the “strange excellency” of 
aurum 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 
ee ee ee eae a 
—— 
