Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1611

JEAN GASPARD D' AILHAUD (d. 1800) Traité de la vraie cause des maladies, et manière la plus sûre de les guérir par le moyen d'un seul reméde. Chez Dominique-Gaspard Quenin 1776 xxviii, 764 pp. 16.5 cm.

Ailhaud's father, Jean (1674-1756), developed a purgative medicine called the "single remedy" or Ailhaud's powders which he used for all illnesses. In the present work, his son remarks that he feels compelled to keep the availability of this efficacious medicine before the public. His theory is that all diseases are the same but differ only in that symptoms occur in different parts of the body. The cure lies in purgation of the bowels, thus allowing free circulation of the blood and the natural spirits. Not only does he explain the success he had in administering it to his wife and seven children, but he provides case histories of cures for abscesses, epilepsy, hemorrhoids, leprosy, impotence, pleurisy, tumors, and worms. He does not provide the formula for his medicine. The Ailhaud family profited greatly from their remedy and Garrison comments that the "powders are said to have destroyed as many people as Napoleon's campaigns, though he was put out of business by Tissot in his Avis au peuple (1803)" (Fielding H. Garrison, An introduction to the history of medicine. 4th ed. Philadelphia, 1929. p. 388).

Gift of John Martin, M.D.