# Golden pills

**Pillole auree**

**Known today as.** Pilulae aureae, a standard compound of aloes, scammony, and colocynth.

Kind: Compound  
Poisoning: The drastic resins (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/drastic-resin)  
Toxic: yes

> **Caution.** 

## What did Canale use it for?

Among the commended purges (ch. 4).

## What does modern science say?

Harsh: Culpeper says they work “something harshly,” and before noon when taken in the morning. Aloes, he says, purges with such deliberation that it is given to withstand the violence of other purges, colocynth purges violently, and scammony so violently that it corrodes the bowels. Colocynth pulp extract has killed rabbits at 200 mg per kilogram a day.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **aloin**: 
- **scammonin**: 
- **cucurbitacins**: from the colocynth
- **rose, mastic, aniseed, fennel, saffron**: the correctives

**Mechanism.** *Pilulae aureae*: aloes, scammony, and colocynth with aromatics, “held to purge the head, to quicken the sences, especially the sight,” as Culpeper says.

**Dose.** A drastic purge.

**Standing.** Obsolete.

## What lore surrounds it?

Burton hoped his book would “take like gilded pills, which are so composed as well to tempt the appetite, and deceive the palate, as to help.” Gold leaf is in this book (see [Gold leaf](https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/gold-leaf)).

## What did the older authorities say?

**Nicolaus.** The *Antidotarium Nicolai* gives the *pilule auree*: aloes and scammony with roses, smallage seed, aniseed, fennel, saffron, the inside of colocynth, and mastic. They are called golden, it says, because as gold is the most precious of metals, so these pills are approved above others; they purge the head, sharpen the sight, and expel wind from the stomach and bowels.

**The London Pharmacopoeia.** Gave them in 1653, in Culpeper’s English, as *pilulae aureae*: aloes and diacrydium with red roses, smallage seed, aniseed, fennel, mastic, saffron, and troches of colocynth, “held to purge the head, to quicken the sences, especially the sight.”

## Sources

- *Antidotarium Nicolai*.
- Li, Q. Y., et al. (2021). *Citrullus colocynthis* (L.) Schrad (bitter apple fruit): promising traditional uses, pharmacological effects, aspects, and potential applications. *Frontiers in Pharmacology* 12: 791049.
- Burton, R. (1621). *The Anatomy of Melancholy*.
- Culpeper, N. (1653). *Pharmacopoeia Londinensis*, “Pilulae Aureae.”

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*Golden pills.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/golden-pills

Historical description, not medical advice.