112 
Medicinal  Earths. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\      March,  1909. 
to  life  by  the  public  and  also  again  came  in  honor  and  use  by  the 
medical  school.  This  story  of  the  origin  of  a  remedy,  its  death  and 
its  resurrection,  repeats  itself  time  and  time  again.  And  for  this 
reason  the  following  motto  taken  from  Horace : 
Malta  Renascentur,  quae  jam  Cecidere;  Cadentque,  quae  nunc 
sunt  in  Honor  el 
(Many  things  shall  be  brought  to  life  which  have  fallen 
and  many  things  which  now  are  in  honor  shall  fall.) 
was  placed  on  the  front  page  of  that  first  and  most  important  and 
legal  dispensatory  of  Valerius  Cordus. 
I  might  explain  here  that  the  young  German  scholar  Valerius 
Cordus  in  1543,  on  his  way  to  Italy  to  quench  his  thirst  for  more 
knowledge,  stopped  in  the  old  historical  city  of  Nuremberg.  When 
the  Senate  learned  that  Valerius  Cordus,  then  only  26  years  old,  had 
carefully  compiled  a  book  containing  all  old  and  new  medicinal 
preparations  together  with  many  improvements  of  his  own,  then  the 
book  was  ordered  printed  and  was  published  in  September,  1564. 
This  dispensatory  was  so  complete  that  it  created  quite  a  sensation 
and  besides  the  several  Nuremberg  editions  there  were  those  of 
Paris,  Lyons,  Venice  and  Antwerp.  It  was  the  first  work  which 
corresponded  to  the  modern  idea  of  a  pharmacopoeia  and  which 
received  legal  sanction  in  Europe,  and  it  was  a  lasting  monument  to 
the  learned  and  brilliant  youth  Valerius  Cordus. 
In  the  following  historical  sketch  I  shall  endeavor  to  prove  the 
truth  of  Horace's  words  in  regards  to  the  old  Terrse  or  the  argilla- 
ceous earths. 
The  medicinal  properties  of  these  earths  (the  technical  proper- 
ties are  not  considered  in  this  paper)  are  entirely  or  at  least  prin- 
cipally due  to  their  alumina  or  aluminum  silicate  content. 
Dioscorides,  that  most  important  author,  whose  works  on  modern 
materia  medica  and  pharmacology  were  authoritative  down  to  the 
16th  century,  in  V.  122,  teaches  that  alum,  the  "  stypteria,"  possesses 
healing  and  astringent  properties,  that  it  cures  boils  and  carbuncles, 
leprosy,  itching,  frost-bites,  and,  when  mixed  together  with  peameal 
and  tar,  it  cures  scurf  and  scabs. 
He  also  describes  the  different  Terrse  from  Eretria,  Samos, 
Chios,  Kimolos,  Melos  and  Selinus  as  being  used  for  the  same  pur- 
pose. He  states  that  the  Earth  of  Samos  gives  an  excellent  powder 
for  the  absorption  of  perspiration,  as  for  instance  in  the  armpits, 
and  is  also  used  against  snake-bites. 
