The root of the male fern, a nostrum for the cure of the tape worm, was
secretly retailed by Madame Noufleur. This secret was purchased by Louis
XV. for a considerable sum of money. It was not until this event that
the physicans discovered, that the same remedy had been administered in
the same complaint by Galen. The history of popular remedies in the cure
of gout, is equally illustrative of this subject. The Duke of Portland's
celebrated powder was nothing less than the _deacintaureon_ of Caelius
Aurelianus, or the _antidotus et duobus centaurae generibus_ of Aetius,
the receipt for which, a friend of his grace brought with him from
Switzerland, into which country, in all likelihood, it had been
introduced by the early medical writers, who had transcribed it from the
Greek volumes, soon after their arrival into the western part of
Europe.[134]
The active ingredient of a no less celebrated preparation for the same
complaint, the _Eau medicinale_ de Husson, a medicine brought into
fashion by M. de Husson, a military officer in the service of Louis XVI
has been discovered to be the meadow saffron.
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