accounted for. In Hooper's "Medical Dictionary" it is plausibly guessed that the name may have been orginally applied to Ethiops Mineral, and got transferred to the white product; and Paris quotes from Mr. Gray the opinion that a mixture of calomel and scammony which was called the calomel of Rivierus may have been the first application of the term, meaning a mixture of a white and dark substance.
Beguin (1608) is generally credited with having been the first European writer to describe calomel. He gave it the name of "Draco mitigatus" (corrosive sublimate being the dragon). But Berthelot, in his "Chemistry of the Middle Ages," has shown that the protochloride of mercury was prepared as far back as Democritus, and that it is described in certain Arab chemical writings. It is also alleged to have been prepared in China, Thibet, and India many centuries before it became known in Europe.
Quicksilver Girdles,
made by applying to a cotton girdle mercury which had been beaten up with the white of egg, were used in the treatment of itch before the true character of that complaint was understood.
Basilic Powder
was the old Earl of Warwick's powder or Cornachino's powder (equal parts of scammony, diaphoretic antimony, and cream of tartar), to which calomel, equal in weight to each of the other ingredients, was added. But I have not succeeded in tracing why or when the name of basilic (royal) was given to the compound.
