Sanguis Hirci, c1745-1807

Description

Glass jar containing specimens of goat blood. From the Burges Collection.

Text on paper labels reads ‘Catal. Mat. Med. p. 130, no. 105’ and ‘SANGUIS HIRCI’.

Pomet, in his Compleat History of Druggs, says that the blood of a goat that has fed on aromatic herbs was primarily used ‘to break the Stone’. He also notes that Van Helmont ‘asserts, that one Dram of this taken will infallibly ease and cure the Pleurisy without Blood-letting.’