Examination of Officinal Medicines

It will be possible to easily reject those discarded "priapic" remedies original: "rejectorum priaporum"; a reference to medicines derived from male genitalia or used for virility, provided we are willing to use the roots of Satyrion a type of orchid historically believed to be an aphrodisiac, tragacanth, and the other seeds praised in section 6, along with roots and other mucilaginous and milky substances. Rather, I wonder why pharmacists are so sparing in their collection of testicles, being content only with the testicles of the wild boar, when it is well known to everyone that the testicles of the horse, stag, hare, and rooster are wonderfully extolled by many. Meanwhile, Castoreum a secretion from the scent glands of the beaver is preserved under the erroneous name of "beaver testicles": I would certainly not deny this to women who dislike sweet scents, provided that more refined physicians are not so delighted by such filth. Granted, it stinks remarkably, kills worms, expels all kinds of skin eruptions, and possesses powers for the nerves and the uterus—but what of it? Other things are not lacking, even if the pharmacies were without Castoreum. What do you think of Galbanum, Asafoetida, and Sagapenum? These are all pungent medicinal resins derived from plants. And those things prepared from soot, amber, and the like are no less noble: not to mention volatile salts with empyreumatic oils oils produced by heating organic matter, specifically camphor and petroleum, which can stand in for all of them.

Now indeed I shall stir up the hornets—or at least the beetles—if I should wish for dungs, rashly introduced, to be banished and forever excluded from the Medical Pharmacies. Who could endure without indignation dog dung original: "stercus canis"; often called "Album Graecum" in old pharmacopoeias, which at other times one is annoyed to scrape from shoes on the pavement or to have stepped on by mistake. But, you say, the white kind is chosen, namely from a dog gnawing on bones. For shame! Are there not already at hand bones prepared in various ways, which we use with the best success in the cure of fevers, even for the wounded, in Dysentery, Colic, etc.? Do those bony excrements differ at all from burnt hartshorn original: "CC. usto" (Cornu Cervi usto) or, if you prefer, philosophically calcined bone, unless you happen to miss the stinking smell? Yet he who extracts the "vulnerability water of the Strehlensians" a local medicinal water from Strehlen from it through distillation undoubtedly desires this smell. Who would not prefer native cinnabar, amber, and many other things to peacock dung when vertigo or Epilepsy demands a cure? Why is the swallow's nest, thoroughly fouled, accepted for Quinsy original: "Angina"; a severe throat infection, when the mud...