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Medicinal earths are an important and yet, so far, little scientifically explored archaeological resource. They are almost always identified by their source locality. Our work over the last few years has focused on their chemical and mineralogical characterization and their testing as anti-bacterials. This paper presents the results of the mineralogical analysis and antibacterial testing of six medicinal earths, bole or Terra Sigillata (stamped earth) of unknown date and provenance in the Pharmacy Museum of the University of Basel. Only one of them, a red (Armenian?) &lsquo, bole&rsquo, was found to be antibacterial against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. A yellow powder of Terra Tripolitania was mildly antibacterial and against one pathogen only. We argue that medicinal earths are in a pivotal place to bridge the gap between currently dispersed pieces of information. This information relates to: (a) their nature, attributes, and applications as described in the texts of different periods, (b) the source of their clays and how best to locate them in the field today, and (c) the methods employed for their beneficiation, if known. We propose that work should be focused primarily onto those medicinal earths whose clay sources can be re-discovered, sampled and assessed. From then on, a parallel investigation should be initiated involving both earths and their natural clays (mineralogy at bulk and nano-sized levels, bio-geochemistry, microbiological testing). We argue that the combined study can shed light into the parameters driving antibacterial action in clays and assist in the elucidation of the mechanisms involved.

The image of Our Lady of Copacabana, a gilded polychrome sculpture carved in maguey wood in 1583, is one of the most important devotions in the Americas. In former research, we have identified the use of gypsum, Armenian bole, cerussite and atacamite in its polychromy. In this study, a red sample taken from the Virgin's tunic and a blue sample extracted from the cloak have been analysed with the aim to identify both pigments and offer insights into the painting technique. Analysis by micro-Raman spectroscopy complemented with scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography allowed the identification of carmine lake in the red sample. Analysis by micro-Raman spectroscopy of the surface of the blue sample and its cross section showed the presence of smalt-The blue-glass pigment-over a cerussite layer, bathed by a very thin ultramarine layer-from a probable native origin-following a pictorial tradition that would last even until the eighteenth century. This is the first time that lapis lazuli has been scientifically identified in a Spanish American colonial painted layer. This article is part of the themed issue 'Raman spectroscopy in art and archaeology'. Fil: Tomasini, Eugenia Paula. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad de Microanálisis y Métodos Físicos en Química Orgánica. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Unidad de Microanálisis y Métodos Físicos en Química Orgánica; Argentina Fil: Marte, Fernando. Instituto de Investigaciones sobre el Patrimonio Cultural; Argentina Fil: Careaga Quiroga, Valeria Pilar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad de Microanálisis y Métodos Físicos en Química Orgánica. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Unidad de Microanálisis y Métodos Físicos en Química Orgánica; Argentina Fil: Landa, Carlos Rúa. Ministerio de Culturas y Turismo; Bolivia Fil: Siracusano, Gabriela Silvana. Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Maier, Marta Silvia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad de Microanálisis y Métodos Físicos en Química Orgánica. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Unidad de Microanálisis y Métodos Físicos en Química Orgánica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero; Argentina

If there is a flow of foamy red blood from lung or chest, open a vein lest phthisis follow: nor should one gasp, but breathe gently, keep silent, feast little and drink syrup of barberry, rose, myrrh or red currant, or the purple juice of pomegranate seeds. If the prime cause of this disorder is downward flow of catarrh, cleanse the brain with pills and potions, and then apply the skullcap as described above. Apply cold to the liver, it will withdraw poison from afar: and rub the limbs and bind them firmly. Coral, haematite, Lemnian earth, mummy, stag’s horn, gleaming pearl, and myrrh, incense, spodium, amber, tragacanth, dragon’s blood and Armenian bole and the three sandalwoods: all serve to close the gaping vessels and can be prepared in various ways: made into a powder to be mixed with milk or yolk of egg, or compressed into a tablet. The corn- poppy freezes and condenses a fierce humour and should be given when a vessel has been eroded.

When diabetes dries up the kidneys, there is oppressive panting thirst: for the water drunk but rarely is retained since the ingested fluid is quickly passed. Therefore, the fire that causes thirst must be extinguished, and the humour thickened: so administer whatever cures and cools and tempers. Sorrel is helpful here, and lettuce separately or cooked with fowl, veal or kid: and coddled eggs cooked in water. Milk known to be chalybeate is excellent, and cream of barley, and the juice of sweet almonds, and the cold seed of the corn-poppy. And make a nectar of those seeds called cold, or preserve of red currant and famed quince jelly. The juice of henbane, plantain and nightshade: the mucilage extracted from seeds that moistens the kidneys; and oil of myrtle or poplar, better with a little camphor: all these are of good effect. Make a poultice of barley, if you wish, and flour and oxy-rhodium, and the juice of white poppy mixed with lettuce: or take Armenian bole and white of egg: and if the liver is suffering from adjacent fire, foment with juices of endive, rose and plantain, and powdered sandalwood diluted with vinegar.

When discharge soils the genitalia without itching, often involuntarily and without the woman feeling it, prescribe rhubarb and cassia together, or with lettuce, sorrel, hemp and rue, lenitive and chicory or senna: and if the body abounds in perverse humours, give often pink pomegranate syrup, water-lily, myrtle: and quince before meals is costive in these cases. Take oil of water-lily, oxyrhodium and Armenian bole and make a liniment for the loins, midbelly and hairy pubes: and of powdered Cyreniac carab beetle, mastic and rose apply the vapour to the genitals. Let the diet be delicate and meagre, and pink sugar-water should be drunk: and consult those places where I have dealt with the treatment of gonorrhoea and satyriasis, the one oppressive to women, the other to men.

If there is a flow of semen that is undesired and involuntary and nothing to do with sexual frenzy, it must be suppressed as soon as possible so that the body should not slowly waste. Sorrel and melon and gourd, spinach-beet, purslane, lettuce, the down of roses and especially the saffron flower: of these prepare a water and converse: and collect together poppy, staghorn fern, the three sandalwoods, coral, camphor, plantain and cool water-lily, to suppress the semen with their cold: and dry rue, hemp, calamint and mint resolve and dissipate what great heat has engendered. Take seeds of hemp and lettuce, rue, powder of coral and stag’s horn, and make into tablets with ten times as much sugar, with a little rose water or juice of mint, that weighs a dram, to be taken before meals. And smear the region of the loins with ointment of red sandalwood, Armenian bole, wax and oil of green myrtle: and bind round with leaves of rue or agnus castus or with lead sheets if the condition is severe, to draw the heat away from the kidneys.

Whether bleeding from the nose is habitual, or comes in episodes, it may be that bleeding from periods or piles has ceased and that the epistaxis is protective: but arrest the flow of blood, if it is a symptom, by opening a vein in the elbow on the side that is bleeding, and the cephalic vein as well if the strength allows. Attach cups to shoulders and buttocks: apply a poultice to the forehead made up of many astringents, such as the Armenian bole, clay and volatile white flour, with juice of roses and sticky white of egg. The plaster used for hernia is a good defence or red desiccant or spider’s web. Let the patient gradually smell the stink of ass’s dung: nettles, leeks and camphor draw fluid from the nose: it is useful to apply oxycrat to liver and pudenda, and worth keeping this in the mouth. Best not to lie on a featherbed but on firm straw, nor prone, which allows blood exit from the nose, but supine: and apply ligatures to the limbs with frequent downward massage. Syrup of myrtle, rose and pomegranate, and oxycrat in julep, are good to drink: also conserve of comfrey and roses can be used, with added powder of red coral, sugar and quince juice.

Every kind of ill and every kind of poison, and the plague, attack the heart, damage and may destroy it unless it be defended with the powerful weapons known as cardiacs. Powdered Indian ivory, horn of unicorn and bezoar of repute: red Lemnian earth and Armenian bole, green emerald, pearl, sparkling sapphire and the stone called hyacinth, camphor, coral, that Venetian juice for which all thirst, and silver and metallic gold: all these work well. Water restrains the unbridled rages of the heart, and cuckoo’s bread which is the wood sorrel we call oxytriphillum, borage, bugloss, flowers of violet and rose, juice of limes or yellow lemons and pomegranate: all of golden reputation, redolent with fragrance. And a juice that is particularly useful is that expressed from quince, and juice and seeds of sorrel that counter the lethal bite of scorpion.

For troublesome excess of menstrual flow, open the basilic vein widely, and cup beneath both breasts using much flame: and tightly bind and warm the hands and often massage: and, for fluids, prescribe a draught of cool plantain water with pomegranate and syrup of myrtle. And give pastilles of powdered amber and spodium and Lemnian earth with Armenian bole: or powdered coral, jasper, dragon’s blood and haematite. And you may add conserve of roses, water-lily and cassidony, compound with myrtle liquor and sugar, taking a portion of chestnut size before meals daily. A longish pessary of wool and silk-cotton, soaked in fluid of willow and plantain, is used to fit the genitals: and the parts around are rubbed with oxyrhodium. Philonium is an antidote, and rest, and inspissate and suppress the flow when other measures fail. The woman with excessive menses should lie quietly and let her diet be meagre: the juice of a roast is laudable, with red currant and pomegranate juice or the fruit of thorny barberry.

This consumption is called phthisis in Greek, and is associated with wasting and slow fever and severe ulceration of the lung: a disorder not to be overcome, for the cough required to cleanse the ulcer also lacerates the lung, which never eases moving and is barely susceptible to medication. The cause of the disorder is often in the head: therefore the way to act is to purge and support the brain, as already stated in connection with catarrh. Make sweet emulsions to be sipped with syrup of horehound, violet and maidenhair and whatever is needed to shift the sputum. Raisins are good to eat, and pine kernels, pistachio, fig, dates, the white juice of almonds preserved in sugar, and cream of barley. Express the juice of veal and use the jellied juices of various meats, the distillate of slow-footed turtles and of crayfish, with a brace of partridges or chickens, a capon, conserve of borage mixed with that of roses, irises and violets, with powder of herb margaret, Armenian bole, tragacanth and coral. Woman’s milk has pride of place, sucked from the breast as does a child: ass’s milk has value here, goat’s milk takes third place and cow’s comes last: all nourish rapidly, cleanse out the pus, alleviate the fierce humour and close the lesion.