Filthy pharmacy
Under dirt pharmacy refers to the use of human and animal excrement and secretions, as well as of components of their bodies (Animalia) as a medicament. In addition to feces and urine, internal organs, saliva, nasal mucus, sweat, semen, ear wax, menstrual blood, cobwebs and roundworms have also been used as components of medicines. The ingredients were used both internally and externally.
Concept of the dirty pharmacy and ingredients used
The use of the often disgusting and repulsive ingredients and recipes in the dirty pharmacy are based on various basic historical healing principles. Even if the recommendations seem abstruse and sometimes amusing from today's perspective, a well thought-out concept can be seen behind them, which contains both magical-religious and empirical-rational elements.
The analogy principle similia similibus curentur (similar can be treated with similar) can be found in traditional medicine in many cultures. Thereafter, one falls back on substances that are similar in certain properties to the disease to be treated or have a similarity in their names. It was assumed that similar things have effects on one another and thus influence one another. On the principle of analogy, for example, the treatment of broken bones with ostrich eggshells, known from ancient Egypt, or the use of a boiled gray mouse against graying hair, was based.
Another basic healing principle, however, led to the use of antisymphatic drugs, which in their nature were contrary to the ailment that was to be treated and to which a kind of counter-effect was ascribed. Afterwards, it was believed, for example, that the blood of a black-haired animal could give you the black color of your own hair. The principle of singularity magic also played an important role, according to which particularly unusual, strange, rare or expensive ingredients are particularly effective, which contributed significantly to the widespread use of funds from the dirty pharmacy.
The Dominican doctor and doctor Nikolaus von Polen, who rejected medieval conventional medicine ( i.e. Galen's doctrine of humoral pathology and scholasticism) in his work Anthippocras in his work around 1275 , propagated an alternative medicine and natural history concept, already recommended instead of expensive medicines, better abhorred animals like To use snakes, toads, snails or moles for the preparation of (therotherapeutic) remedies, since God also loves the low more than the sublime.
In the popular belief of many cultures, the idea was anchored that a part of the life force remains in a corpse, which can then be transferred to a living person through the application of parts of the dead body, whereby this is cured of suffering. In principle, humans were counted among the animals in the materia medica , so that medicinal products obtained from humans belonged to the animalia . However, the remedies of human origin were ascribed a special healing effect, since humans were regarded as the most perfect of animals and as the image of God. For medicinal products of human origin, people who were executed, killed in the war or died in accidents were mainly used, as it was believed that those who died in the full presence of their life force contained more of this than in the bodies of the elderly or after a longer period of time Infirmity of the deceased.
In his 1663 Parnassus medicinalis illustratus, the German scholar Johann Joachim Becher lists in a verse 24 different parts of the human body that are suitable for use in medicine:
- Man, the image, what God is pleasant,
- has twenty-four convenient to the Artzeney,
- Bein, Marck, the scarf too, sampling your Mos is good,
- the flesh and fat, the skin, hair, urine, brain, heart and blood,
- the gall, the milk, the feces, the sweat, and also the stone,
- the yellow Schmaltz, which is so in the ears,
- the nails, saliva, the afterbirth is good too,
-
the helmet, the semen and the menstrual blood.
- Johann Joachim Becher: Parnassus medicinalis illustratus , 1663, p. 5
The hands were considered to be particularly effective, as they were seen as a symbol of a still existing ability to act. As a dead hand , they were therefore a sought-after commodity among pharmacists. The head, as the most distinguished part of the body, was also assigned a special healing effect, which is why the medicinal product Cranium humanum described in many pharmacopoeias from the 16th to 18th centuries was made from human heads .
Often the ingredients to be assigned to the dirty pharmacy were mixed together according to certain recipes. By adding wine, honey, vegetable oil, various herbs, spices and fruits, on the one hand the therapeutic effect was to be improved, on the other hand these ingredients probably also served to improve the taste of the mixtures.
Historical development
The use of medicines that can be assigned to the dirty pharmacy can be traced back to ancient times. For example, urine, stool, sperm, blood, bones, eggshells, snake skin, frog liver and lizard droppings are already found in the Mesopotamian pharmacopoeia as recipe components. In the healing arts of ancient Egypt there are numerous elements of the dirty pharmacy. Recipes with ingredients such as the hair of a murdered person, sperm, blood or grain from the grave of someone who was violently killed have been handed down. Feces and urine in particular were widely used. Urine washes were used to heal wounds; it was also used internally for internal diseases. Dried feces were administered to heal wounds, and eye injuries were treated with the feces of babies (so-called child peckers ). In addition to human excrement, animal excrement was also used; For example, formulations with fly droppings against inflammatory tumors and breast infections, hippopotamus droppings against superficial inflammation and the droppings of a hangover, a crocodile or a swallow are known as incense against disorders of the hearing. Linen fibers coated with crocodile formation and used as a kind of diaphragm were recommended for contraception .
The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder compiled the collective knowledge of his epoch in the encyclopedia Naturalis historia . In Volume V, Book 28 of this work, he goes into detail on remedies from living beings , and under the heading "Ex homine remedia" he also explicitly devotes himself to medicines of human origin, the use of which, however, he rigorously rejects as bad practices, since humans thereby would become a wild animal himself. In the following books he describes preparations using the blood, intestines and feces of donkeys, pigs, goats and pigeons.
The medieval Materia Medica of Europe also contains numerous recipes that can be assigned to the dirty pharmacy. The early medieval Lorsch pharmacopoeia lists a whole range of traditional animalia and organotherapeutic remedies. Ashes from beetroot and cattle blood are recommended for dislocated ankles, and for headaches, coating with dissolved swallow nests. The most important drug list of the High Middle Ages, the Alphita , which was created in the school of Salerno in the 13th century , lists not only minerals, chemicals and drugs of plant origin but also numerous animal organs and human body parts.
From the 17th century, the medical use of feces and body parts became increasingly important in Europe. In 1641 the Frankfurt city doctor Johann Schröder published the Artzney treasure , in 1663 another pharmacopoeia appeared in German with the Parnassus medicinalis illustratus by the scholar Johann Joachim Becher . Both books recommend, in addition to other ingredients in the dirty pharmacy, the use of human fat against aching limbs, muscle wasting and gout. The Dresden pharmacist's tax of 1652, an official price list for medicines, listed almost 50 different fats of animal origin, including fish, monkey and human fat. In addition, rabbit and chicken brains were also listed.
An even wider attention was the dirt pharmacy finally by 1696 from the Eisenacher scholar and physician Christian Franz Paullini published book
- Holy filthy pharmacy, like almost all of them with feces and urine, yes even the most severe, most toxic diseases and bewitched injuries, from head to toe, inside and out, happily curled, thoroughly curious with all kinds of curiosities, so useful - Proven and explained as delightful histories and comments, also other fine memorabilia.
grant, which was reprinted several times well into the 21st century. While the previous medical works were mainly aimed at readers who belonged to the healing professions, Paullini wanted to use his collection of simple remedies to give the poorer sections of the population a guide on how they could supply themselves with inexpensive medicines through self-help. The publication was heavily criticized by contemporary doctors and pharmacists because Paulini gave insights into the art of medical treatment.
In some concepts of complementary medicine , borrowings from the dirty pharmacy can still be found today. For example, urine treatment , in which one's own urine is used internally or externally to treat various diseases, received a relatively large amount of attention in Germany at the beginning of the 1990s. In the fresh cell therapy developed in 1931 and widespread until the 1980s , injections of cell suspensions from fetal calves were made. From the late 19th century onwards, human fat was sold in sterile preparation for injection purposes under the trade name "Humanol" and was used in surgery from 1909 to 1920 for scar treatment and wound disinfection. Anti-wrinkle creams from various manufacturers (e.g. Placentubex C and Placenta-Serol) contained human fat that was obtained from placentas until the 1980s . The argument in favor of the use of these ingredients was that human fats penetrated the skin particularly well and also contained hormones and vitamins that were believed to have a rejuvenating effect. The use of these substances was openly advertised and it was also understandable from the name of the products.
Assessment by modern conventional medicine
From today's perspective, a large proportion of the successes observed by doctors with drugs in the dirty pharmacy is attributed to the placebo effect . The overcoming of disgust and aversion, which is usually necessary for the application, could have contributed to an intensification of this effect.
However, with today's medical knowledge, the effectiveness of some of the formulations can be at least partially explained biologically and / or pharmacologically. Chicken eggs, nasal secretions and breast milk contain the antibacterial lysozyme . The treatment of ulcers recommended in several works with a layer of sheep dung, cheese mold and honey for twenty days can, from today's point of view, be explained by the antibiotic effect of the mold, whereby the long treatment duration could counteract the development of resistant bacterial strains.
In some cases, the dirty pharmacy indirectly produced active pharmaceutical ingredients that are still used in medicine today. In 1773, for example, urea was isolated from urine, which was first synthesized in 1828. Urea is still used today as a component of ointments for dry dermatoses such as B. atopic dermatitis or psoriasis applied. In 1928, the hormone HCG was detected in the urine of pregnant women , which is now used to treat amenorrhea .
The physiologist and neurologist Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard (* 1817, † 1894) injected himself with an extract obtained from guinea pig testicles , the so-called liquid orchitique . He reported feeling significantly rejuvenated afterwards, which, however, mainly earned him ridicule in scientific circles. From today's perspective, the experiment can be seen as an early use of hormone replacement therapy with testosterone.
Historical literature (selection)
- J. Ruland: Pharmacopoea nova in qua reposita sunt stercora et urinae. Nuremberg 1644.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Brigitte Goede: The "dirty pharmacy" of the Egyptians - the awakening of the healing art in ancient Egypt. In: Ancient World. (6) 1996, pp. 9-14
- ↑ Gundolf Keil: The anatomei-term in the Paracelsus pathology. With a historical perspective on Samuel Hahnemann. In: Hartmut Boockmann, Bernd Moeller , Karl Stackmann (eds.): Life lessons and world designs in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age. Politics - Education - Natural History - Theology. Report on colloquia of the commission to research the culture of the late Middle Ages 1983 to 1987 (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen: philological-historical class. Volume III, No. 179). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1989, ISBN 3-525-82463-7 , pp. 336–351, here: pp. 337–342.
- ↑ Adolf Wutke: The German people's superstition of the present. Rauhen Haus agency, Hamburg 1860, p. 101 f.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Dirty pharmacy. In: Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil, Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 322–323
- ↑ a b c Gisela Stiehler-Alegría: Did the zootherapy of Egyptian and Babylonian pharmacopoeias influence the "dirty pharmacy" of the 17th century? In: Isimu, (10) 2007, pp. 183-201
- ↑ Alejandro García Gonzáles (Ed.): Alphita. Florence 2007.
- ↑ People who drink urine. Spiegel-online from October 16, 2013, accessed on September 21, 2018
- ↑ Reinhard Wylegalla: "Medicines from the Middle Ages." In: Deutsche Apotheker-Zeitung. (8) 2010, p. 88