Blumer's pills

[ Blumer's pills ] Thomas Wright

Contributors
Contributor Role
Compiler
Contributor Name
Thomas Wright

Date: The notebook is dated by the archive, 1769-1773. | 1769/01/01 to 1773/12/31

Publication Format
Manuscript

Type
Medicine

Ingredients
golden sulphur of antimony
calomel
guyaic gum
guaiacum gum
guaiacum resin
balsam capivi

Source: Diary of Thomas Wright
Institution: Prince Edward Island Public Archives | Source Origin: Thomas Wright Fonds | Sublocation: Diary of Thomas Wright | Reference: CA PCA Accession 3241

Description

A recipe for pills. All uses of this image other than research or private study require written permission from the Public Archives and Records Office of Prince Edward Island.


Images
Transcription

Blumer's pills

Take Golden Sulpher of Antimony and of Calomel unpre- 

-pared of eacher two Drams, the Calomel being reduced into a 

coarse powder is to be levigated adding now & then a little

of the Sulpher of Antimony, grind them well together into a 

very fine powder.  Then take of the aforegoing powder

half an Ounce, of Gum Guaiac, 8 Drams of Resin of 

Guaica one Dram, of balsam Capyvi as much as will

make them into pills; of every Dram make 12 pills.

Annotations
According to examples from 1676-1863, "Mercurous chloride, or ‘protochloride’ of mercury (Hg2 Cl2); a preparation much used in medicine in the form of a white powder with a yellow tinge, becoming grey on exposure to light" (OED).
Levigate (v.) is "To make smooth; to polish" (OED).
A genus of flowering plants native to the subtropical and tropical regions of America, guaiacum was introduced to Europe in the sixteenth century and used to treat a variety of ailments, including syphilis. (Also guajacum)
A Manual of Materia Medica, by John Aikin (1785), defines balsam capivi as "a liquid exudation from the Copaisera officinalis Linn, a tree growing in Brazil (31).