Abstract: In around 1670 purging mineral waters were discovered on the western slopes of Shooter’s Hill near Woolwich, to the east of London. They were promoted through an anonymous broadsheet, a single copy of which is held by the British Library. The probable author of this has been identified as Nathaniel Hodges, a physician who remained in London treating the sick during the plague year of 1665. Epsom Salts were produced at Shooter’s Hill around 1700 and undercut in price those from Epsom and Acton to the west of London. The waters continued to be used by local people for the following 200 years but never achieved national fame, and the source had disappeared by the 1920s. The waters were derived from thin sandy horizons within the London Clay Formation and were characterized by high concentrations of Mg and SO 4 . The mineralogy of the clays suggests that pyrite oxidation in the weathered zone forms acid solutions leading to the dissolution of carbonates, particularly dolomite. Varying concentrations of dolomite account for variations in the Mg content of London Clay groundwaters and for the distribution of a number of historic purging waters around London.

Abstract: Lapidaries, or books on stones, formed a historical literary genre which compiled information on the nature and properties of various stones together with their therapeutic applications. One of the mythical stones described in these lapidaries is the Cock Stone or Alectorius. For the most part, authors agree upon both its origins inside the body and its therapeutic uses, although opinion differs as to the exact organ from which it was obtained. It may represent a biliary calculus. The healing properties cited for the Cock Stone are, at first sight, unrelated. However, when viewed in the light of modern physiological understanding, the pharmacological properties ascribed to Alectorius may be related to the effects of parasympathomimetic substances.

Abstract: Ctesias (fifth century BC) recounted contemporary Persian beliefs of white Indian animals which had a white horn, black in the centre and flaming red at the pointed tip, projecting from their forehead. Reinforced by classical and medieval writers, travellers, biblical warrant and trade in narwhal tusk, the unicorn became firmly established in European mythology. Increasing popularity as an alexipharmic, prophylactic and counter-poison through the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries led to rising demand and rapidly inflating prices. Debate raged as to which was the ‘true unicorn’ ( Unicornum Verum ), narwhal tusks or mammoth ivory ( Unicornu Fossile ); shavings and powders of both were incorporated into a bewildering array of medicinal mixtures while fraudulent alternatives flooding the markets required the employment of discriminatory tests. Further alternatives with supposedly similar properties included the (probably smectite) clays of Terra Sigillata Strigoniensis or Terra Silesiaca ( Unicornu Minerale ), and an alchemical preparation ( Unicornu Solare ). The supposed therapeutic application and wide range of delivery systems of all types of unicorn horn medicines are reviewed in detail for the first time. Particularly popular as an antidote in plague medicines, the use of alicorn (unicorn horn) simples declined to extinction with the increasingly empirical approach to pharmacy of the mid-eighteenth century.

Abstract Fossil chondrichthyan teeth played an important part in the establishment of a scientific understanding of ‘formed stones’. Following a slowly emerging taxonomy, Louis Agassiz presented the first comprehensive guide to Palaeozoic chondrichthyans in the 1830s. The next contribution of any substance was Arthur Smith Woodward’s Catalogue of Fossil Fishes in the British Museum (Natural History) with a historical, descriptive and systematic review of the chondrichthyans, a group on which he already had an impressively large publication record. Initially stimulated by his observations on an articulated petalodont dentition ( Climaxodus ), Smith Woodward erected the Bradyodonti in 1921. Defined on the possession of dentitions with very slow growth rates, only seven or eight successional teeth produced throughout the lifetime of the fish, and retention rather than shedding of earlier teeth, primarily by fusion to later ones, the bradyodonts embraced petalodonts, psammodonts, copodonts and cochliodonts. The establishment and subsequent demise of the bradyodonts is briefly reviewed here.

Abstract Geopharmaceuticals have a recorded history of use by a wide range of cultures for over 3000 years. The history of geological simples is written in the leaves of a diversity of literary sources, an overview of which is attempted for the first time. Egyptian medical papyri, Assyrian and Babylonian clay tablets, Indian Puranas , plus ancient Chinese, classical Greek and Roman writings all preserve a folk tradition of therapeutic earths, rocks, minerals and fossils. Anglo-Saxon Laeceboc , medieval Islamic writings, and Western medieval bestiaries all contain scattered references to geological simples. A surge of appreciation for geopharmaceuticals took place with the onset of the Western medieval lapidary tradition, which influenced the writings of the early encyclopaedists and writers of herbals. With the advent of printing, many classical and newly translated Islamic texts were made more readily available, stimulating a burst of scholarship by early modern scientists of the Renaissance. Increasingly detailed illustrations were used to embellish the catalogues of Renaissance Wunderkammern . By the late eighteenth century, the use of geological materials was declining, and being replaced by a more empirical approach to pharmacology.

Abstract The gem electuary was reputedly the brainchild of Maswijah al-Marindi or Mesuë the Younger, who died in AD 1015, but the recipe was first published in the 1470s. Combining finely comminuted sapphires, chalcedony emeralds, garnets and amber together with pearls, red coral, ivory and musk along with a range of herbal ingredients, an exotic and highly expensive paste, usually bound together with sugar or honey, was produced. The list of ingredients evolved slightly, especially in light of the availability of some of the herbal materials. The electuary was used, both as an individual medicine and in combination with additional preparations, right through to the mid-eighteenth century. Most popular during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was prescribed for the treatment of melancholia, nightmares, plague, syphilis, palsy, cramp, breast cancer, headache, erysipelas, fevers, tuberculous adenitis (scrofula) and a range of gynaecological conditions, as well as being employed as an alexipharmic and cardiac tonic. Usually taken internally, it was also applied topically with the apparent added benefit of being a rubefacient and fragrant cosmetic.

Abstract Pumice has been used as an abrasive with medical applications for over 2000 years. Introduced into traditional Chinese medicine in the mid-eighteenth century, it has been employed as part of a decoction (tea) in combination with a range of herbs and other geopharmaceuticals (including amber, cinnabar, mica and the bones of fossil vertebrates) in the treatment of gall bladder cancer, urinary conditions, dry and hacking coughs, and anxiety disorders. Pumice has had a relatively stable literary history in Western medicine. ‘Spuma maris’ (sea foam) has been a source of some confusion in classical literature, a situation exacerbated by some medieval revisionist texts. In a medical context, the term most commonly refers to pumice. Pumice has been employed since classical times in preparations acting as dentifrices, cleansers for ulcers (particularly of the skin and cornea), cicatrizing agents to help wounds scar efficiently, an active ingredient in eye ointments and powders in both farriery and human medicine, sneeze-inducing powders, and abrasives for removing body hair and assisting in the production of fine powders of resistant pharmaceutical ingredients.

Abstract The transition from the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth century represented an interesting time in the development of the Materia Medica, with the traditional ‘Galenical’ approach being progressively replaced by the ‘Chymical’ approach, a necessary precursor to modern pharmacology. Four surviving complete and partial Materia Medica cabinets belonging to Sir Hans Sloane, John Vigani, John Addenbrooke and William Heberden form the focus for a consideration of changing practices in the medicinal use of geological materials over this period. The working and teaching cabinets contain both processed and unprocessed specimens of geological simples. Of these, some were waning in popularity (e.g. nephrite jade, Irish slate, pyrite and garnets, jet and cannel coal), others were hardly ever used (e.g. belemnites, echinoid spines, Goa Stone, hematite and aetites), whilst others still continued to be popular, either in raw or processed form (e.g. amber, cinnabar, selenite and Terra Sigillata ). The collections, considered in the context of contemporary literature, provide a unique insight into this dynamic period in the history of pharmacy.