Corallinum Album Spur, c1745-1807

Description

Glass jar containing specimens of false white coral, Corallium album spurius. From the Burges Collection.

Text on paper labels reads ‘Catal. Mat. Med. p. 113 No. 27’ and ‘CORALLINUM ALBUM SPUR.’

It could be made into a tincture but was most effective as a powder.

Pomet, in his Compleat History of Druggs, says that coral is ‘cooling, drying and binding; strengthens the Heart, Stomach and Liver, absorbs Acidities, purifies the Blood, resists the Plague, and the Force of putrid and malignant Fevers; stops Fluxes of the Belly, and is profitable in the Gonorrhoea and Whites.’