Cow-Dung as a Medicine.
A female pharmacist is mentioned in Salmon's "Bate's Dispensatory" (1694), who, he says, made a fortune of £20,000 by selling a tincture made from cow-dung. Her formula was, cow-dung, fresh gathered in the morning, 12 lbs.; spring or rain water, 30 lb. Digest for twenty-four hours, let it settle, and decant the clear brown tincture. Salmon says it is no doubt a good medicine, and has been much used with success. "It has a pretty kind of sweet scent as if it was perfumed with musk or some other odoriferous thing." An essence of cow-dung was an old English household remedy for gout, rheumatism, stone, etc. It was from cow-dung gathered in May; digested with a third of its weight in white wine, and distilled. In another old formula cow-dung and snails with their shells, equal parts, are prescribed. The resulting distillate was known as all-flower water, aqua omnium florum, and aqua arthritica. Dr. Rutherford, of Edinburgh, in the eighteenth century strongly recommended cow-dung poultice in rheumatic fever, and asserted that he had known of many cures from its use. It has been for centuries a popular article in the Hindu materia medica. The phosphate of soda and benzoic acid (which are the medicinal constituents of cow-dung) are better suited to modern fastidious patients in the form of laboratory products.
Excrements as Medicines.
It will be observed from the list of the excrements used in medicine officially recognised in the early London Pharmacopœias already given that those from
