liquid: but being driven upon the shore by force of tempest, and working of the sea, and sticking in the cavityes of the rockes, it concreates into somewhat a harder substance than dryed pitch, as Dioscorides faith. Belonius saith, that Mummie is onely knowne to Aegypt and Greece. Others write that it is mans flesh, taken from the carcases of such as are dead, and covered over in the sandes in the desartes of Arabia; in which Countrey they say the sands are some∣times carried and raysed up with such force and violence of the windes, that they overthrow and suffocate such passingers as they meete withall; the flesh of these dryed by the sand and winde they affirme to be Mummy.
Mathiolus following the more usuall and common opinion, writes that Mummie is nothing else than a liquor flowing from the Aromaticke embalments of dead bo∣dyes, which becomes dry and hard. For understanding whereof you must know from all manner of antiquity, that the Egyptians have beene most studious in bury∣ing and embalming their dead; not for that end that they should become medicines for such as live, for they did not so much as respect or imagine so horride a wicked∣nesse. But either for that they held an opinion of the generall resurrection, or that in these monuments they might have something, whereby they might keepe their dead friends in perpetuall remembrance.
Thevet not much dissenting from his owne opinion, writes that the true Mum∣mie is taken from the monuments and stony tombes of the anciently dead in Egypt, the chinkes of which tombes were closed, and cimented with such diligence; but the enclosed bodyes embalmed with precious spices with such art for eternity, that the linnen vestures which were wrapt about thē presently after their death, may be seene whole even to this day; but the bodies themselves, are so fresh that you would judge them scarce to have been three dayes buryed. And yet in those Sepulchers and Vaultes from whence these bodyes are taken, there have beene some corpes of two thousand yeeres old. The same, or their broken members are brought to Venice from Syria and Egypt, and thence disperst over all Christendom. But according to the dif∣ferent condition of men, the matter of their embalments were divers; for the bodyes of the Nobility or Gentry are embalmed with Myrrhe, Aloes, Saffron, and other precious spices, and Drugs; but the bodyes of the common sort whose poverty and want of meanes could not undergoe such cost, were embalmed with asphaltum or piss asphaltum.
Now Mathiolus saith that all the Mummie which is brought into these parts is of this last kinde and condition. For the Noble men and cheefe of the province so religiously addicted to the monuments of their ancestors, would never suffer the bo∣dyes of their friends, and kindred to be transported hither for filthy gaine, and such detested use, as we shall shew more at large at the end of this worke.
Which thing sometimes mooved certaine of our French Apothecaries, men wonderous audacious, and covetous, to steale by night the bodyes of such as were hanged, and embalming them with salt and Drugges they dryed them in an Oven, so to sell them thus adulterated in steed of true Mummie. Wherefore wee are thus compelled both foolishly and cruelly to devoure the mangied and putride particles of the carcasses of the basest people of Egypt, or of such as are hanged, as though there were no other way to helpe or recover one bruised with a fall from a high place, than to bury man by an horrid insertion in their, that is, in mans guts. Now if this Drugge were any way powerfull for that they require, they might per∣haps have some pretence, for this their more than barbarous inhumanity.
But the case stands thus, that this wieked kinde of Drugge, doth nothing helpe the diseased, in that case, wherefore and wherein it is administred, as I have tryed an hundred times, and as Thevet witnesses, he tryed in himselfe, when as hee tooke some thereof by the advice of a certaine Iewish Physition in Egypt, from whence it is brought; but it also inferres many troublesome symptomes, as the paine of the heart or stomacke, vomiting and stinke of the mouth.
I perswaded by these reasons, doe not onely my selfe prescribe any here∣of to my patients, but also in consultations, endeavour what I may, that it bee not prescribed by others. It is farre better according to Galens opinion