or new. Galen said the virtue of the opium was mitigated by keeping; Juncker said it fermented, and by fermentation the power of the opium was exalted three or fourfold.
A Pharmaceutical Pope.
Peter of Spain, a native of Lisbon, was a physician who became Pope under the title of John XXI. He died in 1277. He wrote a treatise on medicine, or rather made a collection of formulas, including most of the absurd ones then current and adding a few of his own. One was to carry about a parchment on which were written the names of Gaspard, Balthasar, and Melchior, the three wise men of the East, as a sure preservative from epilepsy. Another was a method of curing a diarrhœa by filling a human bone with the excrements of a patient, and throwing it into a river. The diarrhœa would cease when the bone was emptied of its contents.
Henry VIII (of England)
was fond of dabbling with medicine. In Brewer's history of his reign, referring to the years 1516-18, we are told:—
"The amusements of court were diversified by hunting and out-door sports in the morning; in the afternoon by Memo's music, by the consecration and distribution of cramp rings, or the invention of plasters and compounding of medicines, an occupation in which the King took unusual pleasure."
In the British Museum among the Sloane MSS. there is one numbered 1047, entitled Dr. Butt's Diary, which
