EXTRACTS FROM ANCIENT PHARMACY. 
475 
touclimg in any wise the said drugs put in it, and in heatiug it agaiu you may 
put in it a little myrrh and a little cinnamon ; and thus shall you make it very 
good, as well for the health of the head, and eyesight, as for to beautify and 
make the hair fair.” 
2. Pomet’s book is interesting, as it formed one of Pereira’s allusions in his 
lectures on Materia Medica. The following are the passages to which he used 
to refer:— 
I shall here decline treating of the great lights—knowledge and understand¬ 
ing—which the Creator has bestowed on man, and confine myself wholly to the 
matter of the body, and to the things which may be found in it, living or dead, 
proper for the relief of others in their sicknesses, and for the prolonging or pre¬ 
serving their days in health ; and to keep myself within the bounds of my in¬ 
tended work, and follow the design I have here, of treating of only such things 
as the animal, vegetable, and mineral world furnish us with, under the name 
and office of drugs, I judge nothing can be more proper than to begin this part 
of the work with treating of mummies, which contain in them nearly all the 
parts of the human body. 
Of Mummies. —Amongst all the testimonies of respect which antiquity paid to 
the bodies of the deceased, that of a decent burial was always in the most esteem; 
by which last and pious acknowledgment they were willing to honour and pre¬ 
serve the memory of those whose actions had recommended them in their life¬ 
time, and performed a work of charity, tending to the consolation of the living, 
and the peace and repose of the dead. 
The first and most costly kind of embalming was valued at a talent of silver, 
which may be computed at about eight hundred and fifty livres at that time of 
day, but reckoned now, would amount to eight thousand livres, or five hundred 
pounds sterling, and upwards. The second sort of embalming was reckoned at 
half a talent, which was used to the middle sort of people. The third sort of 
embalming w^as for the poorer people, which was made with a mixture of pitch 
and bitumen of Judaea ; or the bodies were dried with lime, or other drugs of 
little value; and sometimes they used Egyptian natrum, salt, honey, and wax. 
[Pomet relates the extreme care that was sometimes taken, and that the house¬ 
hold mummy] was reckoned such a valuable pledge and token of their faith, that 
if any of them happened to want money, he could not give a better security 
than the embalmed body of his relation in its case. 
[The Jews practised great frauds in the manufacture and importation of this 
strange article of commerce ; but Pomet observes,] This is very different from 
what^the ancient physicians imagined when they prescribed mummy. But as 
I am not able to stop the abuses committed by those who sell this commodity, I 
shall only advise such as buy, to choose what is of a fine shining black, not full 
of bones or dirt, of a good smell, and which, being burnt, does not stink of pitch. 
This is reckoned proper for contusions, and to hinder blood from coagulating in 
the body; it is also given in epilepsies, vertigoes, and palsies ; the dose is two 
drachms in powder, or made into a bolus. It also stops mortifications, heals 
wounds, and is an ingredient in many compositions. 
Besides the mummy that is met with in the shops, w^e sell human fat or 
grease, which is brought us from several parts; but, as everybody knows, in 
Paris, the public executioner sells it to those that want it, the druggists and 
apothecaries sell very little. Nevertheless, they vend a sort of it that is pre¬ 
pared with aromatical herbs, and which is'without comparison much better than 
that which comes from the hands of the hangman. This adeps, or axungia, is 
reckoned very good for rheumatisms, and other diseases proceeding from a cold 
cause. Many other preparations are to be found in Mr. Charas’s Koyal Phar¬ 
macopoeia. As to the choice of all these, the only rule is to buy them of honest 
people, for otherwise the best judges may be deceived in them. 
2 I 2 
