INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 613 
on the organism may be dissimilar to that we are desirous of 
producing, or even quite the opposite. 
This is a subject that was dwelt upon by me in a previous 
introductory address, tc On the advantages Medicine has 
■derived from an application of Chemistry to it therefore I 
need not enlarge. Those must have been palmy days for 
medicine when the barber bled and drew teeth, and the 
cowleech and the farrier fearlessly administered their 
nostrums for diseases of which they knew not sometimes the 
names, much less their nature. The mind was not then 
bewildered by learning, nor trammelled with science ; while 
principles w 7 ere unheeded, because unknown. A good 
receipt was all that was asked or cared for , and when ob- 
tained, it was kept by its fortunate possessor as a secret not 
to be divulged ; so that when he died, “ wisdom died with 
him.” Alas! for the progress of science. This awakened 
no solicitude in such characters as these. As they entered 
upon the practice of their calling, so they left it ; without the 
addition of a single principle, or perhaps one new fact. But 
a brighter day has dawned on us. Strange, passing strange, 
too, were the substances once employed as medicinal agents. 
Again I have to ask your forbearance in referring to such 
matters. I shall, however, select a few only, yet these will 
be quite enough to prove my position. 
From a portion of Egyptian mummy three different kinds 
of medicine were prepared. A human bone yielded four 
kinds ; a skull seven kinds ; and a variety of moss found 
growing on a human skull was believed to render the part 
to which it was applied invulnerable. Lady-birds were 
recommended for measles ; earwigs for nervous affections; 
cockchafers for the bites of mad dogs ; ticks for erysipelas; 
and wood-lice were given as aperients. The spittle of a 
fasting man was held to be good against the bites of serpents. 
His nails, bound to the navel, would help to remove dropsy, 
and the filth of his ears was a remedy for colic. Nor were 
the faeces unemployed ; nor the urine. That of a husband, 
when drank by the wife, was said to assist in difficult partu- 
rition. That of a boy was good for ulcerations of the eyes, 
and as a gargle. for relaxations of the uvula; whilst the salt 
obtained from it was excellent against the stone ; it being 
taken in any convenient fluid. 
According to Albertus Magnus, a very ancient writer, the 
right eye of a hedgehog fried in oil, and kept in a brass 
vessel, and used as an ointment to the eyes, will enable a 
person to see as well by night as by day. Pliny states that 
the gall of a hedgehog, mixed with the brain of a bat, is an 
