Editing Opodeldoc

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| title            = Opodeldoc
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| type             = [[Liniment]]
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| available        = Available
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'''Opodeldoc''' is a medical plaster or [[liniment]] invented, or at least named, by the [[German Renaissance]] [[physician]] [[Paracelsus]] in the 1500s.  In modern form opodeldoc is a mixture of [[soap]] in [[ethanol|alcohol]], to which [[camphor]] and sometimes a number of [[herb]]al essences, most notably [[Artemisia (genus)|wormwood]], are added.  

== Origins == 

In his ''Bertheonea Sive Chirurgia Minor'' published in 1603, Paracelsus mentioned "oppodeltoch" twice, but with uncertain ingredients.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Paracelsus|title=Bertheonea Sive Chirurgia Minor|date=1603|publisher=Zacharias Palthenius|location=Frankfurt|pages=80,216|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YEVMAAAAcAAJ|accessdate=23 April 2018}}</ref>  

As to the origin of the name, [[Kurt Peters]] speculated that it was coined by Paracelsus from syllables from the words "''opo''ponax, b''del''lium, and aristol''och''ia." ''[[Opoponax]]'' is a variety of [[myrrh]]; ''[[bdellium]]'' is ''[[Commiphora wightii]]'', which produces a similar resin; and ''[[Aristolochia]]'' is a widely distributed [[genus]] which includes ''A. pfeiferi'', ''A. rugosa'' and ''A.  trilobata'' that are used in folk medicine to cure snakebites. The name suggests that these aromatic plants may have figured in Paracelsus's recipe.<ref name="Pollin">Burton R. Pollin, "Poe’s Literary Use of 'Oppodeldoc' and Other Patent Medicines", Poe Studies, December 1971, vol. IV, no. 2, [http://www.eapoe.org/pstudies/PS1970/p1971205.htm  4:30-32]</ref>  

In his ''Medicina Militaris'' of 1620, German military physician Raymund Minderer ("Mindererus"; 1570-1621) praised the Paracelsus compound as a plaster, good for wounds. Minderer compared it to his own variant, which set more like sealing wax.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Chemist & Druggist (UK)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uKQhAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA196|pages=196–197|accessdate=23 April 2018|publisher=Benn Brothers|date=1 February 1902}}</ref> Opodeldoc and Paracelsus were acknowledged in English no later than 1646, in [[Thomas Browne|Sir Thomas Browne]]'s popular and influential ''[[Pseudodoxia Epidemica]]''.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Browne|first1=Sir Thomas|title=Pseudodoxia Epidemia II:iii on lodestones|url=http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudodoxia/pseudo23.html|website=University of Chicago|accessdate=23 April 2018}}</ref>   

Paracelsus's recipe is completely unrelated to later preparations of the same name.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Chemist & Druggist (UK)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uKQhAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA196|pages=196–197|accessdate=23 April 2018|publisher=Benn Brothers|date=1 February 1902}}</ref> By the second printing of the [[Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia]] in 1722 the name applied to a soap-based liniment. Such a liniment in patent form, sold by [[John Newbery]]'s company in Great Britain "ever since A.D. 1786", was called "Dr. Steer's Opodeldoc".<ref>{{cite news|title=The Intellectual observer: review of natural history, microscopic research, and recreative science, Volume 3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gZQ5AAAAcAAJ&pg=PT41|accessdate=23 April 2018|publisher=Groombridge & Sons London|date=1 February 1863}}</ref> Produced for decades, the "Dr. Steer" preparation had been successfully imported into the U.S., and was common enough there to rank as one of the eight patent medicines to be analyzed (although not condemned) by the [[Philadelphia College of Pharmacy]] in 1824.<ref>{{cite book|last1=James Havey|first1=Young|title=The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America before Federal Regulation|date=8 March 2015|publisher=Princeton University Press|page=67|isbn=9781400869008|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wnJ9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA67|accessdate=23 April 2018}}</ref>  

The name ''Old Opodeldoc'' was formerly used as a standard name for a [[stock character]] who was a physician, especially when played as a [[comedy|comic]] figure. [[Edgar Allan Poe]] used "Oppodeldoc" as a [[pseudonym]] for a character in the [[short story]] "[[s:The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.|The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.]]"<ref name="Pollin"/> 

== Modern usage == 

The [[Pharmacopoeia]] of the [[United States]] (U.S.P.) gives a recipe for opodeldoc that contains:
* Powdered soap, 60 grams;
* Camphor, 45 grams;
* [[Essential oil|Oil]] of [[rosemary]], 10 milliliters;
* Alcohol, 700 milliliters;
* Water, enough to make 1000 milliliters

As late as the early 1990s 'Epideldoc' (sic) was compounded on request by several pharmacists in the Northwest of England.  

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

[[Category:Ointments]]

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