Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 2).djvu/201

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much care, preferred a wine made from the corms; and he believed that he had succeeded in removing the deleterious constituents of the medicine by filtering out a deposit which formed after a few days of maceration. Williams and Haden advocated the employment of the seeds. Copland, Bushell, and Frost advised the flowers.

Drying the corms was found to reduce considerably their medicinal and poisonous effects. Prosper Alpin states that the Egyptian women of his time were in the habit of taking as many as ten bulbs of some hermodactyl after roasting them like chestnuts at bed-time. They believed they produced the embonpoint which was regarded as a female attraction.


James's Powder.

Dr. James.

The antimonial preparation which attained the most permanent popularity was Dr. James's Fever Powders. The inventor, Dr. Robert James, was a life-long friend of Dr. Johnson. The two went to school together at Lichfield, in which town James at one time practised. He was also in practice in Sheffield and Birmingham before he came to London. He first settled in Southampton Street, Covent Garden, but removed later to Craven Street, Strand. He was a man of considerable attainments, and is described as cordial, impetuous, improvident, but thoroughly loved by his associates. He was the author of a massive Dictionary of Medicine,