THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



71 



don druggist under the name of "hiera- 

 picra." 



The greatest names in medicine in- 

 vented hieras. Scribonius Largus, physi- 

 cian to the Emperor Tiberius, had a 

 "hiera" so wonderful that when he died 

 diligent search was made and a reward 

 offered for the discovery of the formula. 

 Back in the obscurity of mythology it 

 took its origin, being used in the rites of 

 iEsculapius, the god of medicine, by the 

 Greek priests. 



Greek doctors, Roman doctors, Ara- 

 bian doctors, monkish doctors of the 

 middle ages, and even modern doctors, 

 had "improvements" on this eternal 

 medicine, and all of these secret improve- 

 ments were imitated by the quack doc- 

 tors in every country and every period 

 in the history of the world. Think of 

 it — the dried juice of a common oriental 

 plant marching down the musty centuries 

 and enduring, while 



"Kings and realms 

 Passed into darkness and were lost !" 



Ptah Hotep, of Memphis, who lived 

 and wrote his proverbs 6,000 years ago, 

 and over 2,500 years before King Solo- 

 mon, probably knew of and used aloes 

 in some form. Beside antiquity like this 

 the house of Hapsburg is infantile and 

 the Hohenzollerns simply pre-embryonic. 



THE ANCIENT LINEAGE OE COLD-CREAM 



Most people at some time or another 

 use cold-cream. It seems quite a modern 

 luxury, indispensable alike to peer and 

 peri, and adapted to many and varied 

 uses. In fact, one traveler tells recently 

 of having some of his cold-cream eaten 

 by a fat-hungry valet in Germany. So 

 we are inclined to regard it as a fairly 

 modern product. And yet "Unguentum 

 Refrigerans," cold-cream, has come 

 down to us from Roman days. The first 

 formula is attributed to Galen, who lived 

 and wrote in the second century. What 

 we use today is practically the same, 

 though "Doctor" Galen's original for- 

 mula was imitated and "improved" hun- 

 dreds of times. 



In the mellow days of the Renaissance, 

 to be a monarch was even more exciting 

 than it is now. New poisons were bought 

 as eagerly by "liberal" citizens of that 



Photograph from C. E. Aab 



A FAMOUS CURE-AEE OE THE DARK AGES 



The medieval medicine man, upon securing 

 such an Egyptian "antique," would (to trans- 

 late his announcement into the modern ver- 

 nacular) have advertised to his patients the re- 

 ceipt of another large consignment of dried 

 mummy, imported in its original mummy case, 

 direct from the tombs of the ancients on the 

 banks of the Nile — a sure panacea for all the 

 ills that flesh is heir to. 



