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Special Medicines - Osteocolla
by
Adam Tate, 2015
Adam Tate, 2015
Osteocolla (lit. 'Bone' + 'Glue') is an unusual Medicine. It took a great deal of time for me to identify what the traditional texts were referring to when they listed this medicine. Its chief indication is for Fractures, which numerous Physicians claimed it was specific for, and held it in high repute as an effective medicine to rapidly heal broken bones. Despite this, it appeared in no commonly used formulas, but rather was given as a simple, often combined with Comfrey root.
It is a type of calcification of the roots of trees which grows in sand. Eventually, the roots are fully transformed into a white or off-white stony, coral-like shape which is hard, sandy, usually with a hollow center where the tree root has rotted away. The signature of them strongly resembles a bone due to the hard, white nature, hollow center, and is often found in diamater to resemble a bone.
Logic would suggest it is composed of calcium and silica, along with other traces.
The following article supplies information on Osteocolla from various sources.
It is a type of calcification of the roots of trees which grows in sand. Eventually, the roots are fully transformed into a white or off-white stony, coral-like shape which is hard, sandy, usually with a hollow center where the tree root has rotted away. The signature of them strongly resembles a bone due to the hard, white nature, hollow center, and is often found in diamater to resemble a bone.
Logic would suggest it is composed of calcium and silica, along with other traces.
The following article supplies information on Osteocolla from various sources.
Seplasim, Salmon’s English Physician, 1600:
Ostiocolla, The Bone-Binder
I. It is called in Latin Ostiocolla, Ostrites, Osteolithos, Holossues, Morochtus, and Sabulosis; in Greek, , Osteolithos; in English, Bone-Binder.
It is found in the Palatinate, in Saxony, and Silesia, and grows on the sand like Coral.
III. Schroder says it is glutinous, and speedily glues together broken bones, presently breeding matter for a Callus, thereby hastening the Conglutination. Dose in subtle powder in any fit vehicle, and outwardly to be applied to the place in a Cataplasm or Emplaster.
IV. Aldrovandus says, that broken bones being put into their places, and tied up, it heals them, using outwardly the Ointment made of Cranesbill, and taken inwardly with red Wine. It dries and binds without acrimony, and is good against poison and the Plague.
The chemical works of Caspar Neumann ... By Caspar Neumann, William Lewis, London, 1773:
OSTEOCOLLA,
OSTEOCOLLA is a fossil substance, found in sandy grounds, in several parts of Germany; spreading from near the surface, to the depth of four, six, ten and more feet, like the roots of a tree; some of the ramifications are as large as a child's arm; others no thicker than a quill. Whilst under the earth, it is soft, almost like slaked Lime tempered with Sand, so as scarce to be got up entire: in colour it is sometimes yellowish or brownish, but most commonly greyish or whitish. Dried it becomes whiter and harder, and sometimes exhibits reddish or yellowish specks or veins. Most of the pieces are internally hollow: some have a core of a corrupted woody matter.
The origin of this concrete has been greatly controverted, and greatly misunderstood. Most of the ancients imagined it to be petrified Bones, though it has no resemblance in figure to any kind of Bone: some have supposed it a true mineral substance, proceeding from the finer parts of the Sand, among which it is always found, conglutinated together by subterraneous vapours; whence it has been named Lapis Sabulosus. Ferrantus Imperatus, in his Istoria Naturale, first published in 1599, gives a copper-plate of three pieces of Osteocolla, under this title: “Osteocolla is a petrified root, composed of a soft cement root and a sandy substance, employed by the German physicians for consolidating broken bones.” That this is its true original, I have been convinced from ocular observation: After many fruitless searches, I found at last, near the village of Tschernow or Tscharno, the remains of the trunk of a tree with a living branch upon it, and its roots changed wholly into Osteocolla. The tree was the common black poplar, Populus nigra, C. B.
Diluted Spirit of Vitriol poured upon Osteocolla, by Acids, totally dissolved it, with considerable effervescence: some crystalline concretions separated from the liquor, but on adding more of the Acid they were taken up again: the Solution being inspissated, the dry mass was found to weigh one sixth more than the Osteocolla at first. The concentrated vitriolic Acid, on the other hand, dissolved only eight grains out of sixty; though more and more of the Acid was added to the Powder, so long as it occasioned any effervescence: the colour of the Solution was a Gold yellow. Spirit of Nitre, Spirit of Sea-Salt, and Aqua Regis, dissolved each twenty-four or twenty-five grains out of sixty; nor would a fresh addition of either of these Acids take up any more: Aqua Regis seemed to act the most difficultly of the three, and when added in an over-proportion, after the Solution had been saturated, precipitated a part of what had been before dissolved. Distilled Vinegar took up but ten grains, or one sixth of the Osteocolla.
Distilled Water, long boiled with an ounce of Osteocolla, appeared, after repeated filtrations, turbid and milky. On standing for a length of time, it deposited a scruple of an extremely fine Powder, and became clear: the liquor being now examined by Alcalies, Acids, and Syrup of Violets, gave no marks of its having received any Saline impregnation from the Osteocolla. Alcaline Lixivia boiled with this concrete, appeared upon most trials to be still merely Alcaline, but on adding to the inspissated liquor some oil of Vitriol, vapours arose like those of Spirit of Sea-Salt, and on standing for a length of time, a little slippery curdly matter separated.
Forty-eight ounces of fresh Osteocolla, distilled in a glass retort, gave first eight ounces of an almost insipid and inodorous phlegm; then three ounces of a bituminous liquor, and at last one ounce of a stronger spirit, which smelt considerably of Petroleum, effervesced with Oil of Vitriol, and changed Syrup of Violets green. Fresh soft Osteocolla, distilled with Oil of Vitriol, in a tubulated retort, yielded an Acid Spirit, the same with that of Sea-Salt: by saturating the Spirit with Salt of Tartar, I obtained a true regenerated Sea-Salt: and by distilling this Salt again with Oil of Vitriol, a concentrated Spirit of Salt. Fresh Osteocolla, which had been boiled in water, still yielded with the Vitriolic Acid a Marine Spirit.
Osteocolla calcined in an open fire, lost in weight four scruples upon half an ounce, and became somewhat duller in colour: Water boiled on the calx, made no effervescence on the admixture of Alcalies, and deposited no Precipitate; but Oil of Vitriol mixed with it extricated vapours of Marine Acid. Equal parts of powdered Osteocolla and fixt Alcaline Salt, urged in a crucible with a strong fire, melted into an untransparent vitreous matter, moderately hard, and of a grey colour: Water extracted from this mass a part of the Alcali, as appeared from the liquor changing Syrup of Violets green.
An experimental history of the materia medica: or of the natural and Artificial Substances made use of in Medicine: By William Lewis, John Aikin, 1784:
OSTEOCOLLA.
OSTEOCOLLA Pharm. Edinb. (a) Osteocolla, aliis ossifragus, osteites, ammosteus, osteolithos, holosteus, stelochites, Worm. mus. OSTEOCOLLA or BONE-BINDER: a fossil substance, found in some parts of Germany, particularly in the marche of Brandenburgh, and in other countries. It is met with in loose sandy grounds, spreading, from near the surface to a considerable depth, into a number of ramifications like the roots of a tree: it is of a whitish colour, soft while under the earth, friable when dry, rough on the surface, for the most part either hollow within, or filled with solid wood, or with a powdery woody matter.
This earth has been celebrated for promoting the coalition of fractured bones and the formation of a callus; a virtue to which it does not seem to have any claim. It is found to be composed of two different earthy substances, which are nearly in equal proportions, and which may be separated from one another, by washing the powdered osteocolla with water: the finer matter, which washes over, appears from its burning into quicklime, and its properties in other experiments, to be mere calcareous earth, not different in quality from chalk: the grosser matter that remains is no other than sand.
From ‘Annual Register’, Volume 10, St. John’s Church (Lafayette Square, Washington D.C.), 1800:
An extract from Ambrose Beurer's Dissertation on the Osteocolla.
T H E stone osteocolla has several names given it, but the most common is osteocolla from the Greek word oesto, bone, and colla, glue; it is also called lapis ostites, ollosteus, ossina, ossisana, ossifraga, lapis Asiaticus, pierre de monti, lapis Morochius, stores arenæ, fossile arborescens, lapis sabilis, lapis arenosus, [to which the author subjoins ten German names.]
The ancients were unacquainted with the nature of this stone: some supposing it to be petrified bones, others a species of gypsum or plaster.
The osteocolla grows in the dutchy of Crossen, in Silesia, Pomerania, Hesse, Saxony, Poland, at Darmstadt, Heidelberg, Spire, Pena in Mecklenburgh, in the marquisate of Brandenburg, near Beskau, Sonneberg, and Drossen. The soil in which it grows is always sandy and barren, and the only trees under which it is found are poplars.
Kreuterman met with one representing the figure of a house or castle, but it seems rather to have been a tophus than an osteocolla. And Mercatus was certainly mistaken, when he gave that name to petrefactions and calcareous tophuses, Hermanus pronouncing these last to be rather bolaria. or cisti.
As to its production, it grows, as has been said, in sandy ground, some feet deep, and has the figure of a root. The largest can hardly be grasped with both hands, but they vary in size, like other roots.
The osteocolla, while it remains under ground, is always soft like clay, and when rubbed with the hand, grows quite tallowish; but, when exposed to the air, it hardens like chalk, and assumes the same colour. In its original state it appears like a mixture of grey, yellow, and white clay, and sand sticks plentifully to its outside; and it is with infinite labour and care that it can be taken up entire; for at first, a small part only must be uncovered, cleansed, and exposed to the action of the air to harden; and then the part so managed must be again carefully covered with boards, to prevent the rain or moisture coming to it, which will effectually defeat all endeavours to preserve it; and this method of uncovering, cleansing, and covering again, must be repeated till the whole is cleared and dried; which in variable seasons will take up several months.
Authors differ in classing the osteocolla among the vegetable or mineral substances. Most of the ancients, as has been already observed, have mistaken it for bones that have undergone some accidental change; which others again deny, as no traces of animal parts have ever been discovered in it by chemical processes; nor any fragments of bones been found near where it grows. Erasmus has written the best upon it.
Those who will not admit the osteocolla among the animal, have ranged it among the mineral substances; in which they are certainly right. Professor Teichmeyer indeed calls it a marle; but M. Henckel of the board of mines, classes it among the minerals, yet says nothing of its production. Professor Junoker says, it is generated in the sand, but he likewise leaves the manner undecided. My opinion is, that it is a root, to which the sand adheres, and by degrees produces the osteocolla; and I am the more confirmed in this opinion, as upon enquiry, I found near Terne, in the marquisate of Brandenburg, a withered twig, and a green shoot from a rotten stump, the uppermost part of which was wood still, but the root or lowermost part was wholly transformed into pure osteocolla; and this stump I had reason to believe was the remains of a tree which the people of the country call a species of poplar.
Its origin, therefore, is to be sought for in the remains of the black poplar, the timber of which being first cut down, and the stem or stump rot ted, the osteocolla grows by degrees from the remaining root; for in all the parts of the osteocolla, something of woodiness is discoverable, which, when thoroughly rotted, crumbles away and leaves those innumerable perforations which give it the appearance of bone; and that it is peculiar to this tree may be presumed from this, that though osteocolla has been diligently sought for in the roots of other trees growing on the same ground with the poplar in which it is found, yet nothing like it has ever been discovered. From all which, these conclusions, I think, may be fairly deduced.
I. That the soil in which it is found is not the efficient cause of its growth.
II. That wherever osteocolla is found, there is or has been poplar.
III. That whoever finds osteocolla will plainly perceive it has been a root. And,
IV. That wherever osteocolla abounds, there will be seen a bony-like substance, projecting from the ground, which has given rise to the vulgar notion that it grows and blossoms.
Be this however as it may, wherever these bony-like excrescences appear, by digging a span deeper, osteocolla will certainly be found; and though the parts that are above ground be hard, those underneath are always soft.
M. Beurer tried the osteocolla in various menstruums, to discover the quantity dissolvable in each, and for this purpose infused half a dram of the osteocolla in half an ounce of each menstruum: The oil of vitriol dissolved four grains of it; the solution was yellow; and the sediment a cream colour. The spirit of vitriol reduced the whole to a salt. The spirit of nitre dissolved one scruple and four grains of it; and the acid of common salt, one scruple and six grains; aqua fortis dissolved one scruple and four grains, and distilled vinegar one scruple and a half.
By distillation on an open fire, the osteocolla yields a urinous spirit; a fixed alkali being poured upon it, produces an immediate effervescence; the sediment converted to a lixivium with pure water is quite tasteless, though oil of vitriol poured upon the osteocolla in a retort over a gentle fire, will separate from it an acid of common salt.
M. Beurer endeavoured to reduce part of the sediment to a calx; but without effect.
Its use in medicine is absorbent; and it is by some applied in the cure of the fluor albus [leukorrhea].
ENCYCLOPAEDIA PERTHENSIS, or, Universal dictionary of the Arts, Sciences, Literature, &c. … in Twenty-Three Volumes, Printed by John Brown, 1816:
(1) OSTEOCOLLA. Osteocolla is frequent in Germany, and has long been famous for bringing on a callus in fractured bones. Hill’s Mat.—Osteocolla is a spar, generally coarse, concreted with earthy or stony matter, precipitated by water, and incrusted upon sticks, stones, and other like bodies. Woodward.
(2) Osteocolla, in natural history, a white or ash-coloured sparry substance, in shape like a bone, and by some supposed to have the quality of uniting broken bones, on which account it is ordered in some plasters; a supposition we fear, which is not warranted by experience, is found in long, thick, and irregularly cylindric pieces; which are in general hollow, but are sometimes filled up with a marly earth, and sometimes contain within them the remains of a stick, round which the osteocolla had been formed; but though it is plain from thence that many pieces of osteocolla have been formed by incrustations round sticks, yet the greater number are not so, but are irregularly tubular, and appear to be formed of a flat cake, rolled up in a cylindric shape. The crusts of which these are composed do not form regular concentric circles round the internal cavity, as must have been.the case had they been formed by incrustation. On the other hand, they plainly show that they were once so many thin strata, composing a flat surface, which has afterwards been rolled up, as one might do a paper three or four times doubled, into two, three, or more spiral lines; in which case, each single edge of the paper would be everywhere a regular point of a continued spiral line drawn from a given point; but they would by no means be so many detached concentric circles. The osteocolla is found of different sizes, from that of a crow-quill to the thickness of a man’s arm. It is composed of sand and earth, which may be separated by washing the powdered osteocolla with water, and is found, both in digging and in several brooks, in many parts of Germany and elsewhere. It is called hammosteus in many parts of Germany. It has this name in these places from its always growing in sand, never in clay, or any solid soil, nor even in gravel. Where a piece of it any where appears on the surface, they dig down for it, and find the branches run ten or twelve feet deep. They usually run straight down, but sometimes they are found spreading into many parts near the surface, as if it were a subterraneous tree, whose main stem began at 12 feet depth, and thence grew up in a branched manner till met by the open air. The main trunk is usually as thick as a man's leg, and the branches that grow out from it are thickest near the trunk, and thinner as they separate from it. The thinnest are about the size of a man’s finger. The people employed to collect it, when they cannot find any mark of it on the surface, search after the specks of white, or little lumps of whitish soft matter, which they find lying in various parts on the top of the sand. These always lead them, either to a bed of perfect osteocolla, or to some in the formation. If they miss of it, they still find a substance like rotten wood; which, when traced in its course, is found to proceed from a main trunk, at the depth of that of the osteocolla, and to spread itself into branches in the fame manner. The diggers call this substance the flower of osteocolla or hammosteus. The osteocolla found in the earth is at first soft and ductile; but in half an hour, if exposed to the air, it becomes as hard as we find it in the shops. The method to take up a perfect piece for a specimen is to open the ground, clear away and leave it so for an hour or thereabouts; in this time it will harden, and may be taken out whole. It is certain, that the osteocolla is produced at this time; for if a pit be cleared of it, there will more grow there in a year or two, only it will be softer, and will not harden so easily in the air as the other. What the rotten substance resembling the decayed branches of trees is, we cannot determine, unless it really be such; but the opinion of the common people, that it is the root of something, is absurd; because its thickest part always lies at the greatest depth, and the branches all run upwards. The osteocolla is a marly spar, which concretes round this matter; but what it is that determines it to concrete nowhere on the fame ground but about these branches, it is difficult to fay. The rottenness of this substance, which forms the basis of the osteocolla, renders it very liable to moulder and fall away; and hence it is that we usually see the osteocolla hollow. Sometimes it is found solid; but in this case there will be found to have been a vegetable matter serving as its basis; and instead of one branch, it will be found in this case to have concreted about a number of fibres, the remains of which will be found in it on a close examination.
Uses
A compleat body of chirurgical operations, By de La Vauguion, 1702
For Fractures:
‘… The Lapis Ostcocolla in Comfrey Water is a good Specific, but it is not convenient to continue the use of it too long a time, for fear it breed too large a Callus. Hildanus’s Powder is very good. Osteocolla prepared, Choice Cinnamon, Sugar. Mix these and make a Powder, and give for a Dose, or mix Osteocolla in a Decoction of Periwinkle in Wine, and drink several Draughts of it.’
Pharmacopoeia Radcliffeana, 1716
For Fractures:
‘Take Osteocolla, 1 dram; Syrup of Comfrey 2 ounces, mix; in Want of a Callus’.
Materia medica or A new description of the virtues and effects of all drugs … By Edward Strother, 1727
For Leukorrhea:
‘This medicine which follows, I have found successful in the Whites. Take Osteocolla half a dram, Pomegranate bark one scruple, Syrup of Quinces what suffices, make a Bolus to be given, as occasion requires’.
Ostiocolla, The Bone-Binder
I. It is called in Latin Ostiocolla, Ostrites, Osteolithos, Holossues, Morochtus, and Sabulosis; in Greek, , Osteolithos; in English, Bone-Binder.
It is found in the Palatinate, in Saxony, and Silesia, and grows on the sand like Coral.
III. Schroder says it is glutinous, and speedily glues together broken bones, presently breeding matter for a Callus, thereby hastening the Conglutination. Dose in subtle powder in any fit vehicle, and outwardly to be applied to the place in a Cataplasm or Emplaster.
IV. Aldrovandus says, that broken bones being put into their places, and tied up, it heals them, using outwardly the Ointment made of Cranesbill, and taken inwardly with red Wine. It dries and binds without acrimony, and is good against poison and the Plague.
The chemical works of Caspar Neumann ... By Caspar Neumann, William Lewis, London, 1773:
OSTEOCOLLA,
OSTEOCOLLA is a fossil substance, found in sandy grounds, in several parts of Germany; spreading from near the surface, to the depth of four, six, ten and more feet, like the roots of a tree; some of the ramifications are as large as a child's arm; others no thicker than a quill. Whilst under the earth, it is soft, almost like slaked Lime tempered with Sand, so as scarce to be got up entire: in colour it is sometimes yellowish or brownish, but most commonly greyish or whitish. Dried it becomes whiter and harder, and sometimes exhibits reddish or yellowish specks or veins. Most of the pieces are internally hollow: some have a core of a corrupted woody matter.
The origin of this concrete has been greatly controverted, and greatly misunderstood. Most of the ancients imagined it to be petrified Bones, though it has no resemblance in figure to any kind of Bone: some have supposed it a true mineral substance, proceeding from the finer parts of the Sand, among which it is always found, conglutinated together by subterraneous vapours; whence it has been named Lapis Sabulosus. Ferrantus Imperatus, in his Istoria Naturale, first published in 1599, gives a copper-plate of three pieces of Osteocolla, under this title: “Osteocolla is a petrified root, composed of a soft cement root and a sandy substance, employed by the German physicians for consolidating broken bones.” That this is its true original, I have been convinced from ocular observation: After many fruitless searches, I found at last, near the village of Tschernow or Tscharno, the remains of the trunk of a tree with a living branch upon it, and its roots changed wholly into Osteocolla. The tree was the common black poplar, Populus nigra, C. B.
Diluted Spirit of Vitriol poured upon Osteocolla, by Acids, totally dissolved it, with considerable effervescence: some crystalline concretions separated from the liquor, but on adding more of the Acid they were taken up again: the Solution being inspissated, the dry mass was found to weigh one sixth more than the Osteocolla at first. The concentrated vitriolic Acid, on the other hand, dissolved only eight grains out of sixty; though more and more of the Acid was added to the Powder, so long as it occasioned any effervescence: the colour of the Solution was a Gold yellow. Spirit of Nitre, Spirit of Sea-Salt, and Aqua Regis, dissolved each twenty-four or twenty-five grains out of sixty; nor would a fresh addition of either of these Acids take up any more: Aqua Regis seemed to act the most difficultly of the three, and when added in an over-proportion, after the Solution had been saturated, precipitated a part of what had been before dissolved. Distilled Vinegar took up but ten grains, or one sixth of the Osteocolla.
Distilled Water, long boiled with an ounce of Osteocolla, appeared, after repeated filtrations, turbid and milky. On standing for a length of time, it deposited a scruple of an extremely fine Powder, and became clear: the liquor being now examined by Alcalies, Acids, and Syrup of Violets, gave no marks of its having received any Saline impregnation from the Osteocolla. Alcaline Lixivia boiled with this concrete, appeared upon most trials to be still merely Alcaline, but on adding to the inspissated liquor some oil of Vitriol, vapours arose like those of Spirit of Sea-Salt, and on standing for a length of time, a little slippery curdly matter separated.
Forty-eight ounces of fresh Osteocolla, distilled in a glass retort, gave first eight ounces of an almost insipid and inodorous phlegm; then three ounces of a bituminous liquor, and at last one ounce of a stronger spirit, which smelt considerably of Petroleum, effervesced with Oil of Vitriol, and changed Syrup of Violets green. Fresh soft Osteocolla, distilled with Oil of Vitriol, in a tubulated retort, yielded an Acid Spirit, the same with that of Sea-Salt: by saturating the Spirit with Salt of Tartar, I obtained a true regenerated Sea-Salt: and by distilling this Salt again with Oil of Vitriol, a concentrated Spirit of Salt. Fresh Osteocolla, which had been boiled in water, still yielded with the Vitriolic Acid a Marine Spirit.
Osteocolla calcined in an open fire, lost in weight four scruples upon half an ounce, and became somewhat duller in colour: Water boiled on the calx, made no effervescence on the admixture of Alcalies, and deposited no Precipitate; but Oil of Vitriol mixed with it extricated vapours of Marine Acid. Equal parts of powdered Osteocolla and fixt Alcaline Salt, urged in a crucible with a strong fire, melted into an untransparent vitreous matter, moderately hard, and of a grey colour: Water extracted from this mass a part of the Alcali, as appeared from the liquor changing Syrup of Violets green.
An experimental history of the materia medica: or of the natural and Artificial Substances made use of in Medicine: By William Lewis, John Aikin, 1784:
OSTEOCOLLA.
OSTEOCOLLA Pharm. Edinb. (a) Osteocolla, aliis ossifragus, osteites, ammosteus, osteolithos, holosteus, stelochites, Worm. mus. OSTEOCOLLA or BONE-BINDER: a fossil substance, found in some parts of Germany, particularly in the marche of Brandenburgh, and in other countries. It is met with in loose sandy grounds, spreading, from near the surface to a considerable depth, into a number of ramifications like the roots of a tree: it is of a whitish colour, soft while under the earth, friable when dry, rough on the surface, for the most part either hollow within, or filled with solid wood, or with a powdery woody matter.
This earth has been celebrated for promoting the coalition of fractured bones and the formation of a callus; a virtue to which it does not seem to have any claim. It is found to be composed of two different earthy substances, which are nearly in equal proportions, and which may be separated from one another, by washing the powdered osteocolla with water: the finer matter, which washes over, appears from its burning into quicklime, and its properties in other experiments, to be mere calcareous earth, not different in quality from chalk: the grosser matter that remains is no other than sand.
From ‘Annual Register’, Volume 10, St. John’s Church (Lafayette Square, Washington D.C.), 1800:
An extract from Ambrose Beurer's Dissertation on the Osteocolla.
T H E stone osteocolla has several names given it, but the most common is osteocolla from the Greek word oesto, bone, and colla, glue; it is also called lapis ostites, ollosteus, ossina, ossisana, ossifraga, lapis Asiaticus, pierre de monti, lapis Morochius, stores arenæ, fossile arborescens, lapis sabilis, lapis arenosus, [to which the author subjoins ten German names.]
The ancients were unacquainted with the nature of this stone: some supposing it to be petrified bones, others a species of gypsum or plaster.
The osteocolla grows in the dutchy of Crossen, in Silesia, Pomerania, Hesse, Saxony, Poland, at Darmstadt, Heidelberg, Spire, Pena in Mecklenburgh, in the marquisate of Brandenburg, near Beskau, Sonneberg, and Drossen. The soil in which it grows is always sandy and barren, and the only trees under which it is found are poplars.
Kreuterman met with one representing the figure of a house or castle, but it seems rather to have been a tophus than an osteocolla. And Mercatus was certainly mistaken, when he gave that name to petrefactions and calcareous tophuses, Hermanus pronouncing these last to be rather bolaria. or cisti.
As to its production, it grows, as has been said, in sandy ground, some feet deep, and has the figure of a root. The largest can hardly be grasped with both hands, but they vary in size, like other roots.
The osteocolla, while it remains under ground, is always soft like clay, and when rubbed with the hand, grows quite tallowish; but, when exposed to the air, it hardens like chalk, and assumes the same colour. In its original state it appears like a mixture of grey, yellow, and white clay, and sand sticks plentifully to its outside; and it is with infinite labour and care that it can be taken up entire; for at first, a small part only must be uncovered, cleansed, and exposed to the action of the air to harden; and then the part so managed must be again carefully covered with boards, to prevent the rain or moisture coming to it, which will effectually defeat all endeavours to preserve it; and this method of uncovering, cleansing, and covering again, must be repeated till the whole is cleared and dried; which in variable seasons will take up several months.
Authors differ in classing the osteocolla among the vegetable or mineral substances. Most of the ancients, as has been already observed, have mistaken it for bones that have undergone some accidental change; which others again deny, as no traces of animal parts have ever been discovered in it by chemical processes; nor any fragments of bones been found near where it grows. Erasmus has written the best upon it.
Those who will not admit the osteocolla among the animal, have ranged it among the mineral substances; in which they are certainly right. Professor Teichmeyer indeed calls it a marle; but M. Henckel of the board of mines, classes it among the minerals, yet says nothing of its production. Professor Junoker says, it is generated in the sand, but he likewise leaves the manner undecided. My opinion is, that it is a root, to which the sand adheres, and by degrees produces the osteocolla; and I am the more confirmed in this opinion, as upon enquiry, I found near Terne, in the marquisate of Brandenburg, a withered twig, and a green shoot from a rotten stump, the uppermost part of which was wood still, but the root or lowermost part was wholly transformed into pure osteocolla; and this stump I had reason to believe was the remains of a tree which the people of the country call a species of poplar.
Its origin, therefore, is to be sought for in the remains of the black poplar, the timber of which being first cut down, and the stem or stump rot ted, the osteocolla grows by degrees from the remaining root; for in all the parts of the osteocolla, something of woodiness is discoverable, which, when thoroughly rotted, crumbles away and leaves those innumerable perforations which give it the appearance of bone; and that it is peculiar to this tree may be presumed from this, that though osteocolla has been diligently sought for in the roots of other trees growing on the same ground with the poplar in which it is found, yet nothing like it has ever been discovered. From all which, these conclusions, I think, may be fairly deduced.
I. That the soil in which it is found is not the efficient cause of its growth.
II. That wherever osteocolla is found, there is or has been poplar.
III. That whoever finds osteocolla will plainly perceive it has been a root. And,
IV. That wherever osteocolla abounds, there will be seen a bony-like substance, projecting from the ground, which has given rise to the vulgar notion that it grows and blossoms.
Be this however as it may, wherever these bony-like excrescences appear, by digging a span deeper, osteocolla will certainly be found; and though the parts that are above ground be hard, those underneath are always soft.
M. Beurer tried the osteocolla in various menstruums, to discover the quantity dissolvable in each, and for this purpose infused half a dram of the osteocolla in half an ounce of each menstruum: The oil of vitriol dissolved four grains of it; the solution was yellow; and the sediment a cream colour. The spirit of vitriol reduced the whole to a salt. The spirit of nitre dissolved one scruple and four grains of it; and the acid of common salt, one scruple and six grains; aqua fortis dissolved one scruple and four grains, and distilled vinegar one scruple and a half.
By distillation on an open fire, the osteocolla yields a urinous spirit; a fixed alkali being poured upon it, produces an immediate effervescence; the sediment converted to a lixivium with pure water is quite tasteless, though oil of vitriol poured upon the osteocolla in a retort over a gentle fire, will separate from it an acid of common salt.
M. Beurer endeavoured to reduce part of the sediment to a calx; but without effect.
Its use in medicine is absorbent; and it is by some applied in the cure of the fluor albus [leukorrhea].
ENCYCLOPAEDIA PERTHENSIS, or, Universal dictionary of the Arts, Sciences, Literature, &c. … in Twenty-Three Volumes, Printed by John Brown, 1816:
(1) OSTEOCOLLA. Osteocolla is frequent in Germany, and has long been famous for bringing on a callus in fractured bones. Hill’s Mat.—Osteocolla is a spar, generally coarse, concreted with earthy or stony matter, precipitated by water, and incrusted upon sticks, stones, and other like bodies. Woodward.
(2) Osteocolla, in natural history, a white or ash-coloured sparry substance, in shape like a bone, and by some supposed to have the quality of uniting broken bones, on which account it is ordered in some plasters; a supposition we fear, which is not warranted by experience, is found in long, thick, and irregularly cylindric pieces; which are in general hollow, but are sometimes filled up with a marly earth, and sometimes contain within them the remains of a stick, round which the osteocolla had been formed; but though it is plain from thence that many pieces of osteocolla have been formed by incrustations round sticks, yet the greater number are not so, but are irregularly tubular, and appear to be formed of a flat cake, rolled up in a cylindric shape. The crusts of which these are composed do not form regular concentric circles round the internal cavity, as must have been.the case had they been formed by incrustation. On the other hand, they plainly show that they were once so many thin strata, composing a flat surface, which has afterwards been rolled up, as one might do a paper three or four times doubled, into two, three, or more spiral lines; in which case, each single edge of the paper would be everywhere a regular point of a continued spiral line drawn from a given point; but they would by no means be so many detached concentric circles. The osteocolla is found of different sizes, from that of a crow-quill to the thickness of a man’s arm. It is composed of sand and earth, which may be separated by washing the powdered osteocolla with water, and is found, both in digging and in several brooks, in many parts of Germany and elsewhere. It is called hammosteus in many parts of Germany. It has this name in these places from its always growing in sand, never in clay, or any solid soil, nor even in gravel. Where a piece of it any where appears on the surface, they dig down for it, and find the branches run ten or twelve feet deep. They usually run straight down, but sometimes they are found spreading into many parts near the surface, as if it were a subterraneous tree, whose main stem began at 12 feet depth, and thence grew up in a branched manner till met by the open air. The main trunk is usually as thick as a man's leg, and the branches that grow out from it are thickest near the trunk, and thinner as they separate from it. The thinnest are about the size of a man’s finger. The people employed to collect it, when they cannot find any mark of it on the surface, search after the specks of white, or little lumps of whitish soft matter, which they find lying in various parts on the top of the sand. These always lead them, either to a bed of perfect osteocolla, or to some in the formation. If they miss of it, they still find a substance like rotten wood; which, when traced in its course, is found to proceed from a main trunk, at the depth of that of the osteocolla, and to spread itself into branches in the fame manner. The diggers call this substance the flower of osteocolla or hammosteus. The osteocolla found in the earth is at first soft and ductile; but in half an hour, if exposed to the air, it becomes as hard as we find it in the shops. The method to take up a perfect piece for a specimen is to open the ground, clear away and leave it so for an hour or thereabouts; in this time it will harden, and may be taken out whole. It is certain, that the osteocolla is produced at this time; for if a pit be cleared of it, there will more grow there in a year or two, only it will be softer, and will not harden so easily in the air as the other. What the rotten substance resembling the decayed branches of trees is, we cannot determine, unless it really be such; but the opinion of the common people, that it is the root of something, is absurd; because its thickest part always lies at the greatest depth, and the branches all run upwards. The osteocolla is a marly spar, which concretes round this matter; but what it is that determines it to concrete nowhere on the fame ground but about these branches, it is difficult to fay. The rottenness of this substance, which forms the basis of the osteocolla, renders it very liable to moulder and fall away; and hence it is that we usually see the osteocolla hollow. Sometimes it is found solid; but in this case there will be found to have been a vegetable matter serving as its basis; and instead of one branch, it will be found in this case to have concreted about a number of fibres, the remains of which will be found in it on a close examination.
Uses
A compleat body of chirurgical operations, By de La Vauguion, 1702
For Fractures:
‘… The Lapis Ostcocolla in Comfrey Water is a good Specific, but it is not convenient to continue the use of it too long a time, for fear it breed too large a Callus. Hildanus’s Powder is very good. Osteocolla prepared, Choice Cinnamon, Sugar. Mix these and make a Powder, and give for a Dose, or mix Osteocolla in a Decoction of Periwinkle in Wine, and drink several Draughts of it.’
Pharmacopoeia Radcliffeana, 1716
For Fractures:
‘Take Osteocolla, 1 dram; Syrup of Comfrey 2 ounces, mix; in Want of a Callus’.
Materia medica or A new description of the virtues and effects of all drugs … By Edward Strother, 1727
For Leukorrhea:
‘This medicine which follows, I have found successful in the Whites. Take Osteocolla half a dram, Pomegranate bark one scruple, Syrup of Quinces what suffices, make a Bolus to be given, as occasion requires’.