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Decline of the Old Medical Regime in Stuart London, p. 134; Sarah Bakewell, “Cooking with Mummy,” Fortean Times 124 (July 1999): 34–8. The whole notion that real “mummy” was made of human flesh was, incidentally, a mistake. The original “mummy” was a black, bituminous substance called mumia, which was thought to have healing properties and was popular in ancient Persia. The Greeks thought it was used by the Egyptians for embalming and slowly, over the centuries, the original meaning of the word was forgotten. Embalmed Egyptian bodies became known as “mummies” and were associated with the alleged healing properties of mumia.

Theriac Gilbert Watson, Theriac and Mithridatium: A Study in Therapeutics (London: The Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1966), pp. 4–5, 98, 102–4; Charles LeWall, Four Thousand Years of Pharmacy: An Outline History of Pharmacy and the Allied Sciences (Philadelphia: JB Lippincott, 1927), pp. 215–8; Brockliss and Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France, p. 160. Analysis of surviving recipes suggest that theriac would have possessed mild antiseptic qualities, thanks to its balsemic ingredients, which may account for its great popularity.

John Evelyn, the noted diarist, records witnessing the preparation of Venice treacle in 1646. The medicine, he wrote, was mixed annually in an event that had “all the character of a great proprietary ceremony and public festival. All the public squares and the courtyards of hospitals and monasteries in Venice were transformed for the occasion into great open-air theatres, adorned with rich damasks, with busts of Hippocrates and Galen, and with the great majolica jars destined to receive the precious medicament. Grave and important personages, sumptuously robed, moved to the applause of the crowds in an atmosphere of rejoicing and expectation.

“In some cities the preparation was preceded by exhibiting the ingredients to the public for three consecutive days so that anybody could examine them. On the fourth day the actual making of the theriac was preceded by a benediction given by the highest ecclesiastical authority and by a panegyric delivered by the leading physician of the city. Only the leading pharmacists, who were vested with the office of Triacanti (theriac-makers), were allowed to make the theriac, and always under the eye of the chief physicians.”

Sale of groceries and poisons Wittop Koning, Compendium voor de Geschiedenis van de Pharmacie van Nederland, pp. 90, 172, 206.

Haarlem S. Groenveld, E. K. Grootes, J. J. Temminick et al., Deugd Boven Geweld. Een Geschiedenis van Haarlem 1245–1995 (Hilversum: Verloren 1995), pp. 144, 172–4, 177.

Cornelisz’s house on the Grote Houtstraat ONAH 130, fol. 219v. For gapers, see Witlop Koning, Compendium voor de Geschiedenis van de Pharmacie van Nederland, pp. 97–8. Cornelisz does not appear among contemporary lists of Haarlem property owners, hence the supposition that the building was rented.

Cornelisz’s popularity His neighbors were prepared to testify to his character and honesty before solicitors, which, as we will see, was certainly not true for every citizen of Haarlem.

Cornelisz’s citizenship of Haarlem ONAH 129, fol. 78v. The Haarlem poorterboecken, which would have contained additional details concerning Jeronimus’s life in the city, have not survived.

Belijtgen Jacobsdr, her pregnancy, her illness, and her maidservant Ibid.; ONAH 99, fol. 131 ONAH 130, fol. 159, 198. For her age, see ONAH 130, fol. 219v, where she is obliquely referred to as a “young mother”; this would hardly have applied in this period had she been Cornelisz’s age, 29 or 30. For the appearance of Dutch women, see Van Deursen, op. cit., pp. 81–2. For the contemporary incidence of death in childbirth, see Brockliss and Jones, op. cit., p. 62.

Cathalijntgen van Wijmen ONAH 131, fol. 12. The remains of the afterbirth were finally removed by a “wise woman” who was the mother of Belijtgen’s maidservant five days after the birth. ONAH 99, fol. 134v.

Belijtgen as an assistant in the apothecary shop See ONAH 130, fol. 159, where Jacobsdr