MEDI/EVAL SCIENCE IN THE WEST 



time and energy in attempting to find the "elixir of 

 life." The Arab discovery of alcohol first deluded him 

 into the belief that the " elixir" had at last been found ; 

 but later he discarded it and made extensive experi- 

 ments with brandy, employing it in the treatment of 

 certain diseases the first record of the administration 

 of this liquor as a medicine. Arnald also revived the 

 search for some anaesthetic that would produce insen- 

 sibility to pain in surgical operations. This idea was 

 not original with him, for since very early times physi- 

 cians had attempted to discover such an anaesthetic, 

 and even so early a writer as Herodotus tells how the 

 Scythians, by inhalation of the vapors of some kind of 

 hemp, produced complete insensibility. It may have 

 been these writings that stimulated Arnald to search 

 for such an anaesthetic. In a book usually credited 

 to him, medicines are named and methods of adminis- 

 tration described which will make the patient insensi- 

 ble to pain, so that " he may be cut and feel nothing, 

 as though he were dead." For this purpose a mixture 

 of opium, mandragora, and henbane is to be used. 

 This mixture was held at the patient's nostrils much as 

 ether and chloroform are administered by the modern 

 surgeon. The method was modified by Hugo of Lucca 

 (died in 1252 or 1268), who added certain other nar- 

 cotics, such as hemlock, to the mixture, and boiled a 

 new sponge in this decoction. After boiling for a 

 certain time, this sponge was dried, and when wanted 

 for use was dipped in hot water and applied to the 

 nostrils. 



Just how frequently patients recovered from the ad- 

 ministration of such a combination of powerful poisons 



35 



