Anaesthesia, hospitalism, hermaphroditism, and a proposal to stamp out small-pox and other contagious diseases / Ed. by Sir W.G. Simpson, bart.

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anaesthesia, hospitalism, hermaphroditism, and a proposal to stamp out small-pox and other contagious diseases / Ed. by Sir W.G. Simpson, bart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    by hemp that we may conclude it was of this substance they made use. He tells us that the Jove-descended Helen planned other things, and that she straightway cast a drug into the wine, from whence they were drinking, that frees men from grief and from anger, and causes oblivion of all ills. Whoever should drink down this, when it is mixed in a cup, would not shed a tear down his cheeks for a whole day, not even if both his mother and father should die, nor if they should slay with the steel a brother or a beloved son before him, and he should behold it with his eyes. Such cunning and excellent drugs the daughter of Jove possessed, which Polydamnia, the wife of Thon, gave her, an Egyptian. 1 Pliny also mentions this drug (Indian hemp) in his Natural History? but he does not speak of its inhalation, but merely remarks that it was used for making ropes. Mandragora.—This plant was most extensively used by Hugo of Lucca in the twelfth century, and the preparation employed by him is described to us by his son and successor, Theodoric, who died in 1298, under the name of the Spongia somnifera, that is the somniferous ball, or sponge, or apple. In his Chirurgial, which he published on entering the church, and in which he made known most of the chemical preparations and rules of the art of surgery which had been followed by Hugo, who had, however, kept them all secret, we find that this somniferous sponge was prepared according to the following prescription :— Take of opium, of the juice of the unripe mulberry, of hyoscyamus, of the juice of hem- lock, of the juice of the leaves of mandragora, of the juice of the woody ivy, of the juice of the forest mulberry, of the seeds of lettuce, of the seeds of the dock which has large round apples, and of the water-hemlock—each an ounce ; mix all these in a brazen vessel, and then place in it a new sponge; let the whole boil, as long as the sun lasts on the dog-days, until the sponge consumes it all, and it has boiled away in it.J He then goes on to describe the way in which this sponge is to be used— As oft as there shall be need of it, place this sponge in hot water for an hour, and let it be applied to the nostrils of him who is to be operated on, until he has fallen asleep, and so let the surgery be performed. He then tells us how to rouse the patient after the operation is over. This being finished, in order to awaken him, apply another 1 Homer by Buckley, Odyssey, iv. 219. s Hist. Nat. xix. 36. a Chirurgial, iv. 6.