Mummified Human Jaw Bone with Teeth (Burges Collection of Materia Medica, late 1700s)

Description

Human mummies became so popular for use in medicine that bodies would be covered in bitumen and passed off as genuine mummies. Although their healing powers were clearly valued, some writers were sceptical. French apothecary Pierre Pomet, whose Compleat History of Druggs was translated into English in 1712, says of human mummy that ‘its greatest use is for catching Fish’.