74 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



A MEDICINE-SHOW MAN 01? THE MIDDLE AGES 



Testimonials and public demonstrations of the curative powers of nostrums were the 

 methods employed by quacks of the middle ages, as chronicled in this painting. As it is true 

 that human nature is much the same from generation to generation, so the practices of 

 charlatans vary little through the centuries. Refinements of humbuggery are adopted only as 

 the intelligence of the clientele rises. 



period as spring medicines used to be by 

 us, and to a king a meal in those days 

 was as perilous an undertaking as a 

 yachting cruise in a mine field would be 

 today. It is not surprising, therefore, 

 that many nostrums were invented with 

 the avowed purpose of neutralizing any 

 poison that might be taken internally. 



Mithradatium was the name of the 

 great antidote of Roman pharmacy. It 

 had from 40 to 50 vegetable ingredients, 

 few of which had any real medicinal 

 value except opium, and these drugs were 

 blended with honey. 



It remained for Nero's physician, An- 

 dromachus, to put the finishing touches 

 to this wonderful compound. Androm- 

 achus added viper's flesh to the formula 



and called his new compound Theriaca. 

 He wrote some verses dedicated to Nero, 

 describing this medicine and claiming 

 virtues for it which in our day would 

 subject him to prosecution under the 

 Anti-trust Act. Evidently he believed he 

 had created in this one compound a veri- 

 table pharmaceutical monopoly. 



A MEDICINE WITH A MONOPOLY ON 

 DISEASES 



Galen, one of the fathers of medicine, 

 went even further. He recommended it 

 as a cure for all poisons, bites, headaches, 

 vertigo, deafness, epilepsy, apoplexy, 

 dimness of sight, loss of voice, asthma, 

 coughs, spitting of blood, tightness of 

 breath, colic, the iliac passion (appendi- 



