Queer Drugs

_Druggists frequently get requests, occasionally by a doctor's prescription, for such queer, almost forgotten but nonetheless authentic remedies as:

Skunk or beaver secretions, for amenorrhea.

Crab claws or oyster shells, powdered, to clean teeth.

Cuttlefish bones and crabstones, for acid stomachs.

Neat's-foot oil from the unhoofed foot of an ox, or turtle oil from turtle eggs or fat, to cure scurvy.

Musk tincture, a heart remedy.

Ox gall, to overcome constipation or cure snake bites.

Bear grease, for salves.

Spanish flies, an aphrodisiac.

Oil of egg yolks, to treat sore eyes.

News of another strange medicament last week came from White Plains, N. Y. For ten years John M. Hill, warden of the Westchester County Jail at White Plains, kept a white-feathered Japanese silky rooster, a long-tailed fowl with a bluish skin, rare in the U. S. (current value $100). The rooster's name was Murphy. He disliked women, would peck at their legs, would win poultry show prizes.

Last week Warden Hill gave Murphy a bath. Instead of letting the bird dry slowly in the sun, the man decided to try a new method and save time by shaking him first. Explained the warden: "I took him out of the sun and shook him and the water came off in a sprinkle. I shook him some more, rather violently. Then I laid him down in the sunshine on a high window ledge to dry. I think the shaking must have made him dizzy, because he rolled off the ledge and broke his neck!"

Murphy died, was buried, his grave marked with a stone. Warden Hill gloomed. For 1) John Davison Rockefeller had given him the rooster, and 2) eggs from Murphy's family of five Japanese hens brought Warden Hill $5 apiece from poultry fanciers. But there were other buyers of those eggs, at whose stealthy purpose the White Plains prison keeper occasionally hinted, as though he were the purveyor of a witch's stew. With Murphy dead, the master revealed his secret commerce. The revelation raised a great guffaw among those who had any sound knowledge of medicine. For, according to Warden Hill, those sly buyers broke up the eggs, put the yolk & whites in small capsules, and prescribed the encapsulated eggs as an aid to maternity.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.