Brian,
Wonderful post.
1) Conjecture. Assunming ancient peoples were awed by the ability of the
Egyptians to mummify bodies, or tht the process seemed magical, it might not
be a big conceptual leap to conclude that the mummy itself (appropraitely
processed) might have magical or medicianal powers. Sympathetic magic right
out of Frazer. Anyone kinow anything about the earliest use for this
purpose?
2) Brian, you seem to know a bit about the history of medicine. I have a
friend working on T. S/ Eliot's Waste Land who's trying to find out what
would have beenused as an abortificant (to induce abortions) in 1922. The
Lil passage, with "them pills she took."
Thanks again for an entertaining and informative post.
pat sloane
>
> Dear all,
> You may be interested to know that Sir Thomas Browne, that snapper-up of
> unconsidered trifles, wrote a little treatise on mummies, which survived
in
> fragmentary form and was published in the 1670s. He says about the medical
> uses of this material:
> "That mummy is medicinal, the Arabian Doctor Haly delivereth and divers
> confirm: but of the particular uses thereof, there is much discrepancy of
> opinion.While Hofmannus prescribes the same to epileptics, Johan de
Muralto
> commends the use thereof to gouty persons; Bacon likewise extols it as a
> stiptic: and Junkenius considers it of efficacy to resolve coagulated
> blood. Meanwhile, we hardly applaud Francis the First, of France, who
> always carried mummies with him as a panacea against all disorders; and
> were the efficacy thereof more clearly made out, scarce conceive the use
> thereof allowable in physic, exceeding the barbarities of Cambyses, and
> turning old heroes unto unworthy potions. Shall Egypt lend out her
ancients
> unto chirurgions and apothecaries, and Cheops and Psammitticus be weighed
> unto us for drugs?"... (and much more to this effect)
>
> Seems like it had a long tradition in medicine, though if my memory serves
> me right, I have heard of its use in painting only from the 19th century.
> Perhaps mummy was the basis for Lily the Pink's original recipe
>
> (We'll drink a drink, a drink,
> To Lily the Pink, the Pink, the Pink,
> The saviour of the human race--
> For she invented medicinal compound,
> Most efficacious in every case)--for those who remember this ditty!
>
> Cheers,
> Brian Donaghey
>
> Brian Donaghey - Dept of English Language & Linguistics - Ext 6291
>
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