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XV

ANIMALS IN PHARMACY

Their next business is, from herbs, minerals, gums, oils, shells, salts, juices, sea-weed, excrements, barks of trees, serpents, toads, frogs, spiders, dead men's flesh and bones, birds, beasts, and fishes, to form a composition for smell and taste the most abominable, nauseous, and detestable they can possibly contrive.—, A Voyage to the Houyhnhms, Chap. VI.

The inclination to find medicinal virtues in parts of animals is not altogether unreasonable in its origin. Savages eat the hearts of lions and tigers to acquire some of the courage and fierceness of those beasts; and a similar instinct would suggest various organs of animals for use in medicine. The employment of foxes' lungs in asthmatic and bronchial complaints, for example, seems a most natural remedy to try, and as the lohoch, in which form these lungs were generally administered, was made up with other demulcents, it is not surprising that it should have been often found efficacious. In this section illustrations of the extravagant extent to which faith in medicines of this character has been carried will be given.