Corallium Rubrum, c1745-1807
Description
Glass specie jar containing a specimen of red coral, Corallium rubrum. From the Burges Collection.
Text on paper contents label reads ‘Catal. mat. med. p. 113. No. 25. Corallium Rubrum.’
Coral was used to treat bleeding. It could be made into a tincture but was most effective as a powder.
Pomet, in his Compleat History of Druggs, says that coral (of which the red variety was the most effective) 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.’