admiral of the Turkish Fleet under Soliman, Sultan of Turkey, sent to Francis I, king of France, some time in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. The recipe was published (says Dr. Etienne Michelon, of Tours, in his "Histoire Pharmacotechnique de Mercure") in 1537 by Petrus de Bayro, physician to the Duke of Savoy. He does not give the exact formula, but Lemery quotes it as follows:—
"Best aloes, and quicksilver extinguished by rose juice, aa 6 drachms;
"Trochises of agaric, 1/2 oz.; selected rhubarb, 2 drachms;
"Canella, myrrh, mastic, aa 1 drachm; musk, amber, aa 1 scruple;
"Make a mass with Venice turpentine."
Lemery says you cannot kill the mercury with rose juice, but must use some of the Venice turpentine.
These pills were largely used in syphilis, but they were practically superseded later by the pills of Belloste, which are still official in the French Codex. These were very similar. Belloste was a French Army surgeon, and his formula was devised about the year 1700. A formula for them was published in the Pharmacopœia of Renaudot during Belloste's lifetime, but after the death of Belloste in 1730 his son tried to make a mystery of the pills and sold them as a proprietary product, which probably had the effect of making them popular. The formula of Renaudot, which is also that of the Codex, was: Mercury, 24 (killed with honey); aloes, 24; rhubarb, 12; scammony, 8; black pepper, 4. Made into pills, each of which should contain 5 centigrams of mercury.
