Of course it is self-evident that when old Pare eulogized 'sack medicine' and ordered his patients to carry pulverized medicaments in a little sack whose form varied according to the organ to be healed, assuming the form of a cap for the head, of a bagpipe for the stomach, of an ox tongue for the spleen, he probably did not obtain very signal results.

His claim to have cured gastralgia by appositions of powder of red rose, coral and mastic, wormwood and mint, aniseed and nutmeg, is certainly not to be borne out, but he also had other systems, and often he cured, because he possessed the science of simples, which is now lost.
"The present-day physicians shrug their shoulders when the name of Ambrose Pare is mentioned.

They used to pooh-pooh the idea of the alchemists that gold had medicinal virtue.

Their fine scorn does not now prevent them from using alternate doses of the salts and of the filings of this metal.

They use concentrated arseniate of gold against anemia, muriate against syphilis, cyanide against amenorrhea and scrofula, and chloride of sodium and gold against old ulcers.