of criminals for preference. Pomet (1694) says he had been informed by Moses Charas, who had lived for some time in England, that "The London druggists sell skulls of the dead upon which there has grown a little greenish moss called Usnea, because it resembles the moss which grows on the oak. These skulls mostly come from Ireland, where they frequently let the bodies of criminals hang on the gibbet till they fall to pieces." The market price of skulls at that time varied in London from 8s. to 11s. each, according to size, but those with plenty of moss made fancy prices. They were largely used for compounding the "Sympathetic Ointment," described by Crollius in his "Royal Chemist," and were recommended in epilepsy. Germany was the principal market. The pharmaceutical authorities of that day were very decided about the superior virtue of the skulls of persons who had died violent deaths. Lemery (1738) orders: "To make the Magistry of human skull. Calcine the skull and powder finely." But he adds the useful comment, "This Magistry is only a dead-head of no virtue unless you employ the skull of a young man who died a violent death."
In a paper "On the Deaths of some Eminent Persons," printed by Sir H. Halford in 1835, it is stated that in the last illness of Charles II, when he was suffering from a stroke of apoplexy, one of the prescriptions, signed by four physicians, ordered among other ingredients 25 drops of the spirit drawn from human skulls.
Sir Theodor Mayerne's famous Powder de Gutteta (anti-epileptic powder) contained amber, crystal, and hartshorn vitriolated, various roots and seeds, and flowers, "human skull, both crude and vitriolated, secundine of a woman," gold and silver leaf, ambergris,
