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
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|