Bark of the Witch Hazle Two handfulls.
Lumbrici [Earth-worms] A score.
Dried Man's Brain [ounce] v.
Bruisewort }
Egyptian Onions } aa lbss.

Mix the ingredients together and digest in my _Spiritus
Universalis_, with a warm digestion, from the change of the
moon to the full, and pass through a fine strainer. This
Elixer is temperately hot and moist, Digestive, Lenitive,
Dissolutive, Aperative, Strengthening and Glutinative; it
opens obstructions, proves Hypnotick and Styptick, is
Cardiack, and may become Alexpharmick. It is not specially
great for any one Single Distemper, but of much use and
benefit in most cases wherein there is difficulty and
embarrassment, or that which might be done, doth not so
clearly appear manifest and Open to the Eye.

The above elixir is a fine specimen of the product of a shrewd
charlatan's fertile brain, and doubtless found a ready sale at an
exorbitant price. The fact that one, at least, of its ingredients is
mythical, probably enhanced its curative properties, in the minds of a
gullible public. The horn of the unicorn was popularly regarded as the
most marvellous of remedies. In reality, it was the tusk of a cetaceous
animal inhabiting the northern ocean, and known as the sea-unicorn or
narwhal. In the popular mind it was of value as an effective antidote
against all kinds of poisons, the bites of serpents, various fevers,
and the plague.

In describing a scene in the Arctic regions, Josephine Diebitsch Peary
wrote as follows in her volume, "The Snow Baby" (1901):

Glossy, mottled seals swim in the water, and schools of
narwhal, which used to be called unicorns, dart from place to
place, faster than the fastest steam yacht; with their long,
white ivory horns, longer than a man is tall, like spears, in
and out of the water.

One of the teeth of the narwhal is developed into a straight, spirally
fluted tusk, from six to ten feet long, like a horn projecting from the
forehead. This horn is sometimes as long as the creature's body, and
furnishes a valuable ivory. The narwhal also yields a superior quality
of oil.[162:1]

Sir Thomas Browne in his "Pseudo-doxia Epidemica"[162:2] remarked that
many specimens of alleged unicorn's horn, preserved in England, were in
fact portions of teeth of the Arctic