APIS. ^^^^ 



sight, for being taken a good while, they waste the Humour, and restore 

 health. So their ashes, both made into an Oyntment with Oyl of Roses 

 and Rats' dung, cause hair to grow speedily in bald places. 



Dale, 1739, restricts Apis to alopecia and as a diuretic. 



Bees, dried and powdered, as an ointment in alopecia, restore the hair. 

 Taken internally, they increase the flow of urine.— Dale's Pharmacologia, 1739. 



Quincy, in his Qompleat Bnglish Dispensatory, London, I749> 

 confines himself as follows to "prepared bees," zscrihrng no therapeutic 

 qualities thereto. 



Apes Praeparatae — Prepared Bees. — "Put the Bees into a convenient 

 Vessel, and dry them by a very slow Fire." 



Lewis' Materia Medica, 1768I gives Apis scant attention, but in 

 one particular, anticipates, roughly, its most important present use. 

 He also refers to the calcined bee : 



Apes Pharm. Edinb. — Bees. This insect, dried and powdered, has been 

 given internally as a diuretic, and applied externally (ground with honey 

 or other like substances) for promoting the growth of hair. Some have 

 sfightly calcined the bee, in a closed vessel, to blackness, and esteemed 

 it, when thus prepared, to be a medicine, in some cases, of more virtue; 

 a saline matter being now in good matter generated by the fire though not 

 as yet extricated from the other principles. — For my own part, I have had 

 no experience of the bee itself prepared or unprepared, nor is it used in 

 practice; the valuable products, which this insect affords, honey and wax, 

 will be treated of in their places." 



Motherby, 1775, gives even less care to Apis, passing the entire 

 subject as follows: 



If they are dried and powdered they are somewhat diuretic; but their 

 chief use is for the preparing of honey and wax. — Motherby's Medical Dic- 

 tionary, London, 1775. 



In the foregoing articles Apis is seen to have become decreas- 

 ingly important as time passed, until at the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century the bee had practically dropped from sight as a remedy. Neg- 

 lected was it by Coxe's American Dispensatory, 183 1, as well as by the 

 first editions of the United States Dispensatory, 1833, and the Eclectic 

 (King and Newton) Dispensatory, 1852. The early works on Ameri- 

 can medicine that we have consulted, omit the bee as a remedy, the 

 early Eclectic authors, such as Jones, Newton, etc., do not mention 

 it. Even the work of the man to whom is due its resuscitation, and 

 to whom is due the present conspicuity of Apis, Dr. John M. Scudder, 

 with whom it was an increasing favorite, gives to Apis no place in 

 his work. The American Eclectic Materia Medica (Jones, and Scud- 

 der), 1866. In 1874, Dr. Scudder, in Specific Medication, commends 

 Apis as follows : 



The honey bee possesses marked medicinal properties, but from a pre- 

 judice against such remedies, has been but little employed. 



