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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



table certified the same to the Lord 

 Mayor." 



Ambroise Pare, a great military sur- 

 geon of the 1 6th century, is credited with 

 discontinuing the practice of searing the 

 stumps of amputated limbs with boiling 

 pitch, and instead successfully using liga- 

 tures to tie the bleeding vessels. He did 

 not believe in the virtues of bezoar 

 stones. One day when he was in at- 

 tendance on King Charles IX at Cler- 

 mont, a Spanish nobleman brought a 

 bezoar stone to the King, assuring him 

 that it would protect him against all poi- 

 sons. 



A WISE PHYSICIAN, A CREDULOUS KING, 

 AND AN UNFORTUNATE COOK 



Pare says his monarch sent for him 

 and asked if there was anything which 

 could act as a general poison antidote. 

 Pare replied that, as various poisons dif- 

 fered in their nature, the antidotes would 

 necessarily differ. But the nobleman per- 

 sisted in his statement and aroused the 

 desire of the King to test the virtues of 

 the stone, which he proceeded to do in 

 a ruthlessly conclusive manner. 



The Provost of the Palace was sum- 

 moned and asked if he had in his charge 

 any criminal awaiting the execution of 

 the death sentence. The Provost be- 

 thought himself of a cook who was to be 

 hanged for the theft of two silver dishes. 



The King thereupon sent for the cook 

 and proposed to him that in place of 

 hanging he should be given a poison, to 

 be followed by the universal antidote, 

 and if the antidote proved efficacious he 

 would be given his liberty. The cook 

 gladly consented. 



An apothecary was instructed to pre- 

 pare a draught of deadly poison. This 

 was administered and followed by a dose 

 of the powdered bezoar. The unfortu- 

 nate victim died in horrible agony seven 

 hours later, in spite of all Pare's ef- 

 forts to relieve him. The pharmacist had 

 given him bichloride of mercury. An 

 autopsy was then performed and Pare 

 demonstrated to the King that the bezoar 

 had not the slightest effect in counter- 

 acting the corrosive action of the poison. 



"And the King commended that the 

 stone be thrown in the fire, which was 



done," Pare succinctly concluded. It is 

 not stated whether the Spanish nobleman 

 suffered the same fate, but he must at 

 least have had an uncomfortable hour or 

 two. 



QUEEN EUZABETH THE PATRON OE 

 PATENT MEDICINES 



The patent-medicine business in Eng- 

 land, viewed as a distinct trade monopoly, 

 really took definite form during the reign 

 of Queen Elizabeth. Both Elizabeth and 

 James I abused this assumed arbitrary 

 power of granting monopolies of various 

 sorts, until great discontent was produced 

 amongst the people. The Statute of Mo- 

 nopolies, passed in 1624, regulated all 

 such grants, placing authority in the 

 hands of Parliament. The period of 

 duration was likewise limited to 14 years. 

 In the beginning, specifications of meth- 

 ods or formulas were not required; but 

 during the period of Queen Anne appli- 

 cants began to be required to file these 

 specifications. As secrecy was an impor- 

 tant element in the success of nostrums, 

 this ruling tended to discourage the pat- 

 enting of medicines until in 1800 medici- 

 nal compounds were patented but rarely. 



Of course, the term "patent medicine" 

 nowadays is a misnomer, as few of these 

 preparations are patented. The property 

 right is protected by copyrighting the 

 label or registering it as a "trade-mark," 

 thus preventing competition in the use of 

 the name of the preparation. 



centuries-old favorites stiee soed 



The oldest patent preparation still 

 made in large quantities in Great Britain 

 is probably Anderson Scot's Pills, pat- 

 ented under King James II in 1687. 

 Formulas of these pills appeared in all 

 the manuals on pharmacy published in 

 Europe and America in earlier days. 

 Their activity depends largely on aloes. 

 Duffey's Elixir, invented by a clergyman, 

 the Reverend Thomas Duffey, in Leices- 

 tershire, in 1675, is still advertised and 

 sold, and the old-fashioned advertise- 

 ment in which the bottle is wrapped states 

 that the elixir was "much recommended 

 to the public by Dr. King, physician to 

 King Charles II," an argument some- 

 what belated, to say the least. 



