Mummy
Mumia
- Known today as
- Powdered embalmed human remains, sold by the apothecaries.
- Kind
- Animal, in 2 older authorities
- Constituents
- bitumen
- Earliest authority here
- Origin
Revised October 3, 2026: Checked against its sources, each read in full, in part, or in its abstract. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.
Mummy: what does modern science say?
Doubts about it grew in the eighteenth century and its use became rarer, though Merck still offered it for sale in 1924.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- bitumenthe mumiya the name began with
- Mechanism
- None known. Paré, who had seen it given many times, found that it did the sick no good and brought on pain in the stomach, foul breath, and heavy vomiting.
- Standing
- The drug was ground human remains, and the trade in it is a chapter in the history of European corpse medicine, which was at its height in early-modern Britain and survived well into the eighteenth century.
- Sugg, R. (2011). Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires. Routledge. Abstract read · the text read
The abstract of each source, beneath its citation. For Club members. About the Club or sign in.
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Mummy: what lore surrounds it?
Taken for bruises, internal bleeding, and falls, it was a remedy that fed on the dead, and Paracelsus made mumia an “intrinsic spirit,” the true drug being the body of a man who had died a violent death in health.
Mummy: what did the older authorities say?
- Origin
- The name first belonged to bitumen, prized as a medicine; because embalmed bodies were blackened like pitch, the flesh itself came to be sold as mumia.
- Ambroise Paré
- His Discourse on Mummy (1582) condemned the trade as useless and disgusting, and told of counterfeits made from the bodies of the executed.
Sources
- Ambroise Paré, Discours de la mumie (1582). Read in part · the text read
- Wikipedia, “Mummia.” Read in full · the text read
- Wikipedia, “Medical cannibalism.” Read in full · the text read
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026, and October 3, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Every source read, in full, in part, or in its abstract, and every sentence checked against what was read (October 3, 2026)
- Sources
- 4 cited: 2 read in full, 1 read in part, 1 abstract read. 1 with the abstract on file.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026 · last revised October 3, 2026
- Chicago
“Mummy.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 3, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mummy.
- MLA
“Mummy.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 3 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mummy. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Mummy. (2026, October 3). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/mummy
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See Also
Also in Ambroise Paré
Unicorn’s horn in Ambroise Paré · Bezoar stone in Ambroise Paré · everything Ambroise Paré names →
Drawing on the same sources: Wikipedia, Sugg
Musk · Mugwort · Nutmeg and clove · Human fat · the bibliography →
Nearby in the alphabet
Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) · Mustard seed (The English follows the 1674 text as “mustard”) · Myrobalans (T) · Motherwort (of the mint family, a tall, prickly-calyxed herb of waste ground) · Myrrh (The resin of Commiphora myrrha) · Morel (hollow spring mushroom)
Historical description, not medical advice.